Part 16 (1/2)

In the department of Vienne the bonfire was kindled by the oldest man, and before the dance round the flames began it was the custom to pa.s.s across them a great bunch of mullein (_bouillon blanc_) and a branch of walnut, which next morning before sunrise were fastened over the door of the chief cattle-shed.[481] A similar custom prevailed in the neighbouring department of Deux-Sevres; but here it was the priest who kindled the bonfire, and old men used to put embers of the fire in their wooden shoes as a preservative against many evils.[482] In some towns and villages of Saintonge and Aunis, provinces of Western France now mostly comprised in the department of Charente Inferieure, the fires of St. John are still kindled on Midsummer Eve, but the custom is neither so common nor carried out with so much pomp and ceremony as formerly.

Great quant.i.ties of wood used to be piled on an open s.p.a.ce round about a huge post or a tree stripped of its leaves and branches. Every one took care to contribute a f.a.ggot to the pile, and the whole population marched to the spot in procession with the crucifix at their head and the priest bringing up the rear. The squire, or other person of high degree, put the torch to the pyre, and the priest blessed it. In the southern and eastern parts of Saintonge children and cattle were pa.s.sed through the smoke of the bonfires to preserve them from contagious diseases, and when the fire had gone out the people scuffled for the charred fragments of the great post, which they regarded as talismans against thunder. Next morning, on Midsummer Day, every shepherdess in the neighbourhood was up very early, for the first to drive her sheep over the blackened cinders and ashes of the great bonfire was sure to have the best flock all that year. Where the shepherds shrunk from driving their flocks through the smoke and flames of the bonfire they contented themselves with marking the hinder-quarters of the animals with a broom which had been blackened in the ashes.[483]

[The Midsummer fires in Southern France; Midsummer festival of fire and water in Provence; bathing in the sea at Midsummer; temporary Midsummer kings at Aix and Ma.r.s.eilles.]

In the mountainous part of Comminges, a province of Southern France, now comprised in the department of Haute Garonne, the midsummer fire is made by splitting open the trunk of a tall tree, stuffing the crevice with shavings, and igniting the whole. A garland of flowers is fastened to the top of the tree, and at the moment when the fire is lighted the man who was last married has to climb up a ladder and bring the flowers down. In the flat parts of the same district the materials of the midsummer bonfires consist of fuel piled in the usual way; but they must be put together by men who have been married since the last midsummer festival, and each of these benedicts is obliged to lay a wreath of flowers on the top of the pile.[484] At the entrance of the valley of Aran young people set up on the banks of the Garonne a tree covered with ribbons and garlands; at the end of a year the withered tree and faded flowers furnish excellent fuel. So on the Eve of St. John the villagers a.s.semble, and an old man or a child kindles the fire which is to consume tree and garlands together. While the blaze lasts the people sing and dance; and the burnt tree is then replaced by another which will suffer the same fate after the lapse of a year.[485] In some districts of the French Pyrenees it is deemed necessary to leap nine times over the midsummer fire if you would be a.s.sured of prosperity.[486] A traveller in Southern France at the beginning of the nineteenth century tells us that ”the Eve of St. John is also a day of joy for the Provencals. They light great fires and the young folk leap over them. At Aix they shower squibs and crackers on the pa.s.sers-by, which has often had disagreeable consequences. At Ma.r.s.eilles they drench each other with scented water, which is poured from the windows or squirted from little syringes; the roughest jest is to souse pa.s.sers-by with clean water, which gives rise to loud bursts of laughter.”[487] At Draguignan, in the department of Var, fires used to be lit in every street on the Eve of St. John, and the people roasted pods of garlic at them; the pods were afterwards distributed to every family. Another diversion of the evening was to pour cans of water from the houses on the heads of people in the streets.[488] In Provence the midsummer fires are still popular.

Children go from door to door begging for fuel, and they are seldom sent empty away. Formerly the priest, the mayor, and the aldermen used to walk in procession to the bonfire, and even deigned to light it; after which the a.s.sembly marched thrice round the burning pile, while the church bells pealed and rockets fizzed and sputtered in the air. Dancing began later, and the bystanders threw water on each other. At Ciotat, while the fire was blazing, the young people plunged into the sea and splashed each other vigorously. At Vitrolles they bathed in a pond in order that they might not suffer from fever during the year, and at Saintes-Maries they watered the horses to protect them from the itch.[489] At Aix a nominal king, chosen from among the youth for his skill in shooting at a popinjay, presided over the festival. He selected his own officers, and escorted by a brilliant train marched to the bonfire, kindled it, and was the first to dance round it. Next day he distributed largesse to his followers. His reign lasted a year, during which he enjoyed certain privileges. He was allowed to attend the ma.s.s celebrated by the commander of the Knights of St. John on St. John's Day: the right of hunting was accorded to him; and soldiers might not be quartered in his house. At Ma.r.s.eilles also on this day one of the guilds chose a king of the _badache_ or double axe; but it does not appear that he kindled the bonfire, which is said to have been lighted with great ceremony by the prefet and other authorities.[490]

[The Midsummer fires in Belgium; bonfires on St. Peter's Day in Brabant; the King and Queen of the Roses; effigies burnt in the Midsummer fires.]

In Belgium the custom of kindling the midsummer bonfires has long disappeared from the great cities, but it is still kept up in rural districts and small towns of Brabant, Flanders, and Limburg. People leap across the fires to protect themselves against fever, and in eastern Flanders women perform similar leaps for the purpose of ensuring an easy delivery. At Termonde young people go from door to door collecting fuel for the fires and reciting verses, in which they beg the inmates to give them ”wood of St. John” and to keep some wood for St. Peter's Day (the twenty-ninth of June); for in Belgium the Eve of St. Peter's Day is celebrated by bonfires and dances exactly like those which commemorate St. John's Eve. The ashes of the St. John's fires are deemed by Belgian peasants an excellent remedy for consumption, if you take a spoonful or two of them, moistened with water, day by day. People also burn vervain in the fires, and they say that in the ashes of the plant you may find, if you look for it, the ”Fool's Stone.”[491] In many parts of Brabant St. Peter's bonfire used to be much larger than that of his rival St.

John. When it had burned out, both s.e.xes engaged in a game of ball, and the winner became the King of Summer or of the Ball and had the right to choose his Queen. Sometimes the winner was a woman, and it was then her privilege to select her royal mate. This pastime was well known at Louvain and it continued to be practised at Grammont and Mespelaer down to the second half of the nineteenth century. At Mespelaer, which is a village near Termonde, a huge pile of eglantine, reeds, and straw was collected in a marshy meadow for the bonfire; and next evening after vespers the young folk who had lit it a.s.sembled at the ”Good Life”

tavern to play the game. The winner was crowned with a wreath of roses, and the rest danced and sang in a ring about him. At Grammont, while the bonfire was lit and the dances round it took place on St. Peter's Eve, the festival of the ”Crown of Roses” was deferred till the following Sunday. The young folk arranged among themselves beforehand who should be King and Queen of the Roses: the rosy wreaths were hung on cords across the street: the dancers danced below them, and at a given moment the wreaths fell on the heads of the chosen King and Queen, who had to entertain their fellows at a feast. According to some people the fires of St. Peter, like those of St. John, were lighted in order to drive away dragons.[492] In French Flanders down to 1789 a straw figure representing a man was always burned in the midsummer bonfire, and the figure of a woman was burned on St. Peter's Day.[493] In Belgium people jump over the midsummer bonfires as a preventive of colic, and they keep the ashes at home to hinder fire from breaking out.[494]

[The Midsummer fires in England; Stow's description of the Midsummer fires in London; the Midsummer fires at Eton.]

The custom of lighting bonfires at midsummer has been observed in many parts of our own country. ”On the Vigil of Saint John the Baptist, commonly called Midsummer Eve, it was usual in most country places, and also in towns and cities, for the inhabitants, both old and young, and of both s.e.xes, to meet together, and make merry by the side of a large fire made in the middle of the street, or in some open and convenient place, over which the young men frequently leaped by way of frolic, and also exercised themselves with various sports and pastimes, more especially with running, wrestling, and dancing. These diversions they continued till midnight, and sometimes till c.o.c.k-crowing.”[495] In the streets of London the midsummer fires were lighted in the time of Queen Elizabeth down to the end of the sixteenth century, as we learn from Stow's description, which runs thus: ”In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors near to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils furnished with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with meats and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours and pa.s.sengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity, praising G.o.d for His benefits bestowed on them. These were called bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at controversy, were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great fire hath to purge the infection of the air. On the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and on St. Peter and Paul the Apostles, every man's door being shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St John's wort, orpin, white lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had also lamps of gla.s.s, with oil burning in them all the night; some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought, containing hundreds of lamps alight at once, which made a goodly show, namely, in New Fish Street, Thames Street, etc.”[496] In the sixteenth century the Eton boys used to kindle a bonfire on the east side of the church both on St John's Day and on St. Peter's Day.[497] Writing in the second half of the seventeenth century, the antiquary John Aubrey tells us that bonfires were still kindled in many places on St. John's Night, but that the civil wars had thrown many of these old customs out of fas.h.i.+on. Wars, he adds, extinguish superst.i.tion as well as religion and laws, and there is nothing like gunpowder for putting phantoms to flight.[498]

[The Midsummer fires in the north of England; the Midsummer fires in Northumberland.]

In the north of England these fires used to be lit in the open streets.

Young and old gathered round them, and while the young leaped over the fires and engaged in games, their elders looked on and probably remembered with regret the days when they used to foot it as nimbly.

Sometimes the fires were kindled on the tops of high hills. The people also carried firebrands about the fields.[499] The custom of kindling bonfires on Midsummer Eve prevailed all over c.u.mberland down to the second half of the eighteenth century.[500] In Northumberland the custom seems to have lasted into the first quarter of the nineteenth century; the fires were lit in the villages and on the tops of high hills, and the people sported and danced round them.[501] Moreover, the villagers used to run with burning brands round their fields and to s.n.a.t.c.h ashes from a neighbour's fire, saying as they did so, ”We have the flower (or flour) of the wake.”[502] At Sandhill bonfires were kindled on the Eve of St. Peter as well as on Midsummer Eve; the custom is attested for the year 1575, when it was described as ancient.[503] We are told that ”on Midsummer's eve, reckoned according to the old style, it was formerly the custom of the inhabitants, young and old, not only of Whalton, but of most of the adjacent villages, to collect a large cartload of whins and other combustible materials, which was dragged by them with great rejoicing (a fiddler being seated on the top of the cart) into the village and erected into a pile. The people from the surrounding country a.s.sembled towards evening, when it was set on fire; and whilst the young danced around it, the elders looked on smoking their pipes and drinking their beer, until it was consumed. There can be little doubt that this curious old custom dates from a very remote antiquity.” In a law-suit, which was tried in 1878, the rector of Whalton gave evidence of the constant use of the village green for the ceremony since 1843. ”The bonfire,” he said, ”was lighted a little to the north-east of the well at Whalton, and partly on the footpath, and people danced round it and jumped through it. That was never interrupted.” The Rev. G.R. Hall, writing in 1879, says that ”the fire festivals or bonfires of the summer solstice at the Old Midsummer until recently were commemorated on Christenburg Crags and elsewhere by leaping through and dancing round the fires, as those who have been present have told me.”[504] Down to the early part of the nineteenth century bonfires called Beal-fires used to be lit on Midsummer Eve all over the wolds in the East Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re.[505]

[The Midsummer fires in Herefords.h.i.+re, Somersets.h.i.+re, Devons.h.i.+re, and Cornwall; the Cornish fires on Midsummer Eve and St. Peter's Eve.]

In Herefords.h.i.+re and Somersets.h.i.+re the peasants used to make fires in the fields on Midsummer Eve ”to bless the apples.”[506] In Devons.h.i.+re the custom of leaping over the midsummer fires was also observed.[507]

”In Cornwall, the festival fires, called bonfires, are kindled on the Eves of St. John Baptist and St. Peter's day; and Midsummer is thence, in the Cornish tongue, called _Goluan_, which signifies both light and rejoicing. At these fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and make their perambulations round their fires, going from village to village and carrying their torches before them; this is certainly the remains of Druid superst.i.tion; for, _Faces praeferre_, to carry lighted torches was reckoned a kind of gentilism, and as such particularly prohibited by the Gallick Councils.”[508] At Penzance and elsewhere in the county the people danced and sang about the bonfires on Midsummer Eve. On Whiteborough, a large tumulus near Launceston, a huge bonfire used to be kindled on Midsummer Eve; a tall summer pole with a large bush at the top was fixed in the centre of the bonfire.[509] The Cornish fires at this season appear to have been commonly lit on high and conspicuous hills, such as Tregonan, G.o.dolphin, Carnwarth, and Cam Brea. When it grew dusk on Midsummer Eve, old men would hobble away to some height whence they counted the fires and drew a presage from their number.[510] ”It is the immemorial usage in Penzance, and the neighbouring towns and villages, to kindle bonfires and torches on Midsummer-eve; and on Midsummer-day to hold a fair on Penzance quay, where the country folks a.s.semble from the adjoining parishes in great numbers to make excursions on the water. St. Peter's Eve (the twenty-eighth of June) is distinguished by a similar display of bonfires and torches, although the 'quay-fair' on St. Peter's-day (the twenty-ninth of June), has been discontinued upwards of forty years. On these eves a line of tar-barrels, relieved occasionally by large bonfires, is seen in the centre of each of the princ.i.p.al streets in Penzance. On either side of this line young men and women pa.s.s up and down, swinging round their heads heavy torches made of large pieces of folded canvas steeped in tar, and nailed to the ends of sticks between three and four feet long; the flames of some of these almost equal those of the tar-barrels. Rows of lighted candles, also, when the air is calm, are fixed outside the windows or along the sides of the streets. In St.

Just, and other mining parishes, the young miners, mimicking their fathers' employments, bore rows of holes in the rocks, load them with gunpowder, and explode them in rapid succession by trains of the same substance. As the holes are not deep enough to split the rocks, the same little batteries serve for many years. On these nights, Mount's Bay has a most animating appearance, although not equal to what was annually witnessed at the beginning of the present century, when the whole coast, from the Land's End to the Lizard, wherever a town or a village existed, was lighted up with these stationary or moving fires. In the early part of the evening, children may be seen wearing wreaths of flowers--a custom in all probability originating from the ancient use of these ornaments when they danced around the fires. At the close of the fireworks in Penzance, a great number of persons of both s.e.xes, chiefly from the neighbourhood of the quay, used always, until within the last few years, to join hand in hand, forming a long string, and run through the streets, playing 'thread the needle,' heedless of the fireworks showered upon them, and oftentimes leaping over the yet glowing embers.

I have on these occasions seen boys following one another, jumping through flames higher than themselves.”[511]

[The Midsummer fires in Wales and the Isle of Man; burning wheel rolled down hill.]

In Wales the midsummer fires were kindled on St. John's Eve and on St.

John's Day. Three or nine different kinds of wood and charred f.a.ggots carefully preserved from the last midsummer were deemed necessary to build the bonfire, which was generally done on rising ground. Various herbs were thrown into the blaze; and girls with bunches of three or nine different kinds of flowers would take the hands of boys, who wore flowers in their b.u.t.tonholes and hats, and together the young couples would leap over the fires. On the same two midsummer days roses and wreaths of flowers were hung over the doors and windows. ”Describing a midsummer fire, an old inhabitant, born in 1809, remembered being taken to different hills in the Vale of Glamorgan to see festivities in which people from all parts of the district partic.i.p.ated. She was at that time about fourteen, and old enough to retain a vivid recollection of the circ.u.mstances. People conveyed trusses of straw to the top of the hill, where men and youths waited for the contributions. Women and girls were stationed at the bottom of the hill. Then a large cart-wheel was thickly swathed with straw, and not an inch of wood was left in sight. A pole was inserted through the centre of the wheel, so that long ends extended about a yard on each side. If any straw remained, it was made up into torches at the top of tall sticks. At a given signal the wheel was lighted, and sent rolling downhill. If this fire-wheel went out before it reached the bottom of the hill, a very poor harvest was promised. If it kept lighted all the way down, and continued blazing for a long time, the harvest would be exceptionally abundant. Loud cheers and shouts accompanied the progress of the wheel.”[512] At Darowen in Wales small bonfires were kindled on Midsummer Eve.[513] On the same day people in the Isle of Man were wont to light fires to the windward of every field, so that the smoke might pa.s.s over the corn; and they folded their cattle and carried blazing furze or gorse round them several times.[514]

[The Midsummer fires in Ireland; pa.s.sage of people and cattle through the fires; cattle driven through the fire; ashes used to fertilize the fields; the White Horse at the Midsummer fire.]

A writer of the last quarter of the seventeenth century tells us that in Ireland, ”on the Eves of St. John Baptist and St. Peter, they always have in every town a bonfire, late in the evenings, and carry about bundles of reeds fast tied and fired; these being dry, will last long, and flame better than a torch, and be a pleasing divertive prospect to the distant beholder; a stranger would go near to imagine the whole country was on fire.”[515] Another writer says of the South of Ireland: ”On Midsummer's Eve, every eminence, near which is a habitation, blazes with bonfires; and round these they carry numerous torches, shouting and dancing, which affords a beautiful sight.”[516] An author who described Ireland in the first quarter of the eighteenth century says: ”On the vigil of St. John the Baptist's Nativity, they make bonfires, and run along the streets and fields with wisps of straw blazing on long poles to purify the air, which they think infectious, by believing all the devils, spirits, ghosts, and hobgoblins fly abroad this night to hurt mankind.”[517] Another writer states that he witnessed the festival in Ireland in 1782: ”At the house where I was entertained, it was told me, that we should see, at midnight, the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of fires in honour of the sun. Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear; and taking the advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires burning on every eminence which the country afforded. I had a farther satisfaction in learning, from undoubted authority, that the people danced round the fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pa.s.s through the fire; and the whole was conducted with religious solemnity.”[518] That the custom prevailed in full force as late as 1867 appears from a notice in a newspaper of that date, which runs thus: ”The old pagan fire-wors.h.i.+p still survives in Ireland, though nominally in honour of St. John. On Sunday night bonfires were observed throughout nearly every county in the province of Leinster. In Kilkenny, fires blazed on every hillside at intervals of about a mile. There were very many in the Queen's County, also in Kildare and Wexford. The effect in the rich sunset appeared to travellers very grand. The people a.s.semble, and dance round the fires, the children jump through the flames, and in former times live coals were carried into the corn-fields to prevent blight.”[519] In County Leitrim on St. John's Eve, which is called Bonfire Day, fires are still lighted after dusk on the hills and along the sides of the roads.[520]

All over Kerry the same thing continues to be done, though not so commonly as of old. Small fires were made across the road, and to drive through them brought luck for the year. Cattle were also driven through the fires. On Lettermore Island, in South Connemara, some of the ashes from the midsummer bonfire are thrown on the fields to fertilize them.[521] One writer informs us that in Munster and Connaught a bone must always be burned in the fire; for otherwise the people believe that the fire will bring no luck. He adds that in many places sterile beasts and human beings are pa.s.sed through the fire, and that as a boy he himself jumped through the fire ”for luck.”[522] An eye-witness has described as follows a remarkable ceremony observed in Ireland on Midsummer Eve: ”When the fire burned for some hours, and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry pa.s.sed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden frame, of some eight feet long, with a horse's head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts of 'The white horse!' and having been safely carried by the skill of its bearer several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming and laughing in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told that it represented 'all cattle.'”[523]

[Lady Wilde's account of the Midsummer fires in Ireland.]

Lady Wilde's account of the midsummer festival in Ireland is picturesque and probably correct in substance, although she does not cite her authorities. As it contains some interesting features which are not noticed by the other writers on Ireland whom I have consulted, I will quote the greater part of it in full. ”In ancient times,” she says, ”the sacred fire was lighted with great ceremony on Midsummer Eve; and on that night all the people of the adjacent country kept fixed watch on the western promontory of Howth, and the moment the first flash was seen from that spot the fact of ignition was announced with wild cries and cheers repeated from village to village, when all the local fires began to blaze, and Ireland was circled by a cordon of flame rising up from every hill. Then the dance and song began round every fire, and the wild hurrahs filled the air with the most frantic revelry. Many of these ancient customs are still continued, and the fires are still lighted on St. John's Eve on every hill in Ireland. When the fire has burned down to a red glow the young men strip to the waist and leap over or through the flames; this is done backwards and forwards several times, and he who braves the greatest blaze is considered the victor over the powers of evil, and is greeted with tremendous applause. When the fire burns still lower, the young girls leap the flame, and those who leap clean over three times back and forward will be certain of a speedy marriage and good luck in after-life, with many children. The married women then walk through the lines of the burning embers; and when the fire is nearly burnt and trampled down, the yearling cattle are driven through the hot ashes, and their back is singed with a lighted hazel twig. These rods are kept safely afterwards, being considered of immense power to drive the cattle to and from the watering places. As the fire diminishes the shouting grows fainter, and the song and the dance commence; while professional story-tellers narrate tales of fairy-land, or of the good old times long ago, when the kings and princes of Ireland dwelt amongst their own people, and there was food to eat and wine to drink for all comers to the feast at the king's house. When the crowd at length separate, every one carries home a brand from the fire, and great virtue is attached to the lighted _brone_ which is safely carried to the house without breaking or falling to the ground. Many contests also arise amongst the young men; for whoever enters his house first with the sacred fire brings the good luck of the year with him.”[524]

[Holy water resorted to on Midsummer Eve in Ireland.]

In Ireland, as elsewhere, water was also apparently thought to acquire a certain mystical virtue at midsummer. ”At Stoole, near Downpatrick, there is a ceremony commencing at twelve o'clock at night on Midsummer Eve. Its sacred mount is consecrated to St. Patrick; the plain contains three wells, to which the most extraordinary virtues are attributed.

Here and there are heaps of stones, around some of which appear great numbers of people, running with as much speed as possible; around others crowds of wors.h.i.+ppers kneel with bare legs and feet as an indispensable part of the penance. The men, without coats, with handkerchiefs on their heads instead of hats, having gone seven times round each heap, kiss the ground, cross themselves, and proceed to the hill; here they ascend, on their bare knees, by a path so steep and rugged that it would be difficult to walk up. Many hold their hands clasped at the back of their necks, and several carry large stones on their heads. Having repeated this ceremony seven times, they go to what is called St. Patrick's Chair, which are two great flat stones fixed upright in the hill; here they cross and bless themselves as they step in between these stones, and, while repeating prayers, an old man, seated for the purpose, turns them round on their feet three times, for which he is paid; the devotee then goes to conclude his penance at a pile of stones, named the Altar.

While this busy scene is continued by the mult.i.tude, the wells and streams issuing from them are thronged by crowds of halt, maimed, and blind, pressing to wash away their infirmities with water consecrated by their patron saint, and so powerful is the impression of its efficacy on their minds, that many of those who go to be healed, and who are not totally blind, or altogether crippled, really believe for a time that they are by means of its miraculous virtues perfectly restored.”[525]