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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and
+Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 10 of 12) by James George Frazer
+
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no
+restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under
+the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or
+online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+
+Title: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol.
+       10 of 12)
+
+Author: James George Frazer
+
+Release Date: June 27, 2013 [Ebook #43049]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN BOUGH: A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION (THIRD EDITION, VOL. 10 OF 12)***
+
+
+
+
+
+                             The Golden Bough
+
+                      A Study in Magic and Religion
+
+                                    By
+
+               James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.
+
+                   Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
+
+     Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool
+
+                             Vol. X. of XII.
+
+                     Part VII: Balder the Beautiful.
+
+   The Fire-Festivals of Europe and the Doctrine of the External Soul.
+
+                               Vol. 1 of 2.
+
+                           New York and London
+
+                            MacMillan and Co.
+
+                                   1919
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+Preface.
+Chapter I. Between Heaven And Earth.
+   § 1. Not to touch the Earth.
+   § 2. Not to see the Sun.
+Chapter II. The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty.
+   § 1. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Africa.
+   § 2. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in New Ireland, New Guinea, and
+   Indonesia.
+   § 3. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in the Torres Straits Islands and
+   Northern Australia.
+   § 4. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of North America.
+   § 5. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of South America.
+   § 6. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in India and Cambodia.
+   § 7. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Folk-tales.
+   § 8. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty.
+Chapter III. The Myth of Balder.
+Chapter IV. The Fire-Festivals of Europe.
+   § 1. The Lenten Fires.
+   § 2. The Easter Fires.
+   § 3. The Beltane Fires.
+   § 4. The Midsummer Fires.
+   § 5. The Autumn Fires.
+   § 6. The Hallowe'en Fires.
+   § 7. The Midwinter Fires.
+   § 8. The Need-fire.
+   § 9. The Sacrifice of an Animal to stay a Cattle-Plague.
+Chapter V. The Interpretation of the Fire-Festivals.
+   § 1. On the Fire-festivals in general.
+   § 2. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals.
+   § 3. The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals.
+Footnotes
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               [Cover Art]
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
+at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+In this concluding part of _The Golden Bough_ I have discussed the problem
+which gives its title to the whole work. If I am right, the Golden Bough
+over which the King of the Wood, Diana's priest at Aricia, kept watch and
+ward was no other than a branch of mistletoe growing on an oak within the
+sacred grove; and as the plucking of the bough was a necessary prelude to
+the slaughter of the priest, I have been led to institute a parallel
+between the King of the Wood at Nemi and the Norse god Balder, who was
+worshipped in a sacred grove beside the beautiful Sogne fiord of Norway
+and was said to have perished by a stroke of mistletoe, which alone of all
+things on earth or in heaven could wound him. On the theory here suggested
+both Balder and the King of the Wood personified in a sense the sacred oak
+of our Aryan forefathers, and both had deposited their lives or souls for
+safety in the parasite which sometimes, though rarely, is found growing on
+an oak and by the very rarity of its appearance excites the wonder and
+stimulates the devotion of ignorant men. Though I am now less than ever
+disposed to lay weight on the analogy between the Italian priest and the
+Norse god, I have allowed it to stand because it furnishes me with a
+pretext for discussing not only the general question of the external soul
+in popular superstition, but also the fire-festivals of Europe, since fire
+played a part both in the myth of Balder and in the ritual of the Arician
+grove. Thus Balder the Beautiful in my hands is little more than a
+stalking-horse to carry two heavy pack-loads of facts. And what is true of
+Balder applies equally to the priest of Nemi himself, the nominal hero of
+the long tragedy of human folly and suffering which has unrolled itself
+before the readers of these volumes, and on which the curtain is now about
+to fall. He, too, for all the quaint garb he wears and the gravity with
+which he stalks across the stage, is merely a puppet, and it is time to
+unmask him before laying him up in the box.
+
+To drop metaphor, while nominally investigating a particular problem of
+ancient mythology, I have really been discussing questions of more general
+interest which concern the gradual evolution of human thought from
+savagery to civilization. The enquiry is beset with difficulties of many
+kinds, for the record of man's mental development is even more imperfect
+than the record of his physical development, and it is harder to read, not
+only by reason of the incomparably more subtle and complex nature of the
+subject, but because the reader's eyes are apt to be dimmed by thick mists
+of passion and prejudice, which cloud in a far less degree the fields of
+comparative anatomy and geology. My contribution to the history of the
+human mind consists of little more than a rough and purely provisional
+classification of facts gathered almost entirely from printed sources. If
+there is one general conclusion which seems to emerge from the mass of
+particulars, I venture to think that it is the essential similarity in the
+working of the less developed human mind among all races, which
+corresponds to the essential similarity in their bodily frame revealed by
+comparative anatomy. But while this general mental similarity may, I
+believe, be taken as established, we must always be on our guard against
+tracing to it a multitude of particular resemblances which may be and
+often are due to simple diffusion, since nothing is more certain than that
+the various races of men have borrowed from each other many of their arts
+and crafts, their ideas, customs, and institutions. To sift out the
+elements of culture which a race has independently evolved and to
+distinguish them accurately from those which it has derived from other
+races is a task of extreme difficulty and delicacy, which promises to
+occupy students of man for a long time to come; indeed so complex are the
+facts and so imperfect in most cases is the historical record that it may
+be doubted whether in regard to many of the lower races we shall ever
+arrive at more than probable conjectures.
+
+Since the last edition of _The Golden Bough_ was published some thirteen
+years ago, I have seen reason to change my views on several matters
+discussed in this concluding part of the work, and though I have called
+attention to these changes in the text, it may be well for the sake of
+clearness to recapitulate them here.
+
+In the first place, the arguments of Dr. Edward Westermarck have satisfied
+me that the solar theory of the European fire-festivals, which I accepted
+from W. Mannhardt, is very slightly, if at all, supported by the evidence
+and is probably erroneous. The true explanation of the festivals I now
+believe to be the one advocated by Dr. Westermarck himself, namely that
+they are purificatory in intention, the fire being designed not, as I
+formerly held, to reinforce the sun's light and heat by sympathetic magic,
+but merely to burn or repel the noxious things, whether conceived as
+material or spiritual, which threaten the life of man, of animals, and of
+plants. This aspect of the fire-festivals had not wholly escaped me in
+former editions; I pointed it out explicitly, but, biassed perhaps by the
+great authority of Mannhardt, I treated it as secondary and subordinate
+instead of primary and dominant. Out of deference to Mannhardt, for whose
+work I entertain the highest respect, and because the evidence for the
+purificatory theory of the fires is perhaps not quite conclusive, I have
+in this edition repeated and even reinforced the arguments for the solar
+theory of the festivals, so that the reader may see for himself what can
+be said on both sides of the question and may draw his own conclusion; but
+for my part I cannot but think that the arguments for the purificatory
+theory far outweigh the arguments for the solar theory. Dr. Westermarck
+based his criticisms largely on his own observations of the Mohammedan
+fire-festivals of Morocco, which present a remarkable resemblance to those
+of Christian Europe, though there seems no reason to assume that herein
+Africa has borrowed from Europe or Europe from Africa. So far as Europe is
+concerned, the evidence tends strongly to shew that the grand evil which
+the festivals aimed at combating was witchcraft, and that they were
+conceived to attain their end by actually burning the witches, whether
+visible or invisible, in the flames. If that was so, the wide prevalence
+and the immense popularity of the fire-festivals provides us with a
+measure for estimating the extent of the hold which the belief in
+witchcraft had on the European mind before the rise of Christianity or
+rather of rationalism; for Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant,
+accepted the old belief and enforced it in the old way by the faggot and
+the stake. It was not until human reason at last awoke after the long
+slumber of the Middle Ages that this dreadful obsession gradually passed
+away like a dark cloud from the intellectual horizon of Europe.
+
+Yet we should deceive ourselves if we imagined that the belief in
+witchcraft is even now dead in the mass of the people; on the contrary
+there is ample evidence to shew that it only hibernates under the chilling
+influence of rationalism, and that it would start into active life if that
+influence were ever seriously relaxed. The truth seems to be that to this
+day the peasant remains a pagan and savage at heart; his civilization is
+merely a thin veneer which the hard knocks of life soon abrade, exposing
+the solid core of paganism and savagery below. The danger created by a
+bottomless layer of ignorance and superstition under the crust of
+civilized society is lessened, not only by the natural torpidity and
+inertia of the bucolic mind, but also by the progressive decrease of the
+rural as compared with the urban population in modern states; for I
+believe it will be found that the artisans who congregate in towns are far
+less retentive of primitive modes of thought than their rustic brethren.
+In every age cities have been the centres and as it were the lighthouses
+from which ideas radiate into the surrounding darkness, kindled by the
+friction of mind with mind in the crowded haunts of men; and it is natural
+that at these beacons of intellectual light all should partake in some
+measure of the general illumination. No doubt the mental ferment and
+unrest of great cities have their dark as well as their bright side; but
+among the evils to be apprehended from them the chances of a pagan revival
+need hardly be reckoned.
+
+Another point on which I have changed my mind is the nature of the great
+Aryan god whom the Romans called Jupiter and the Greeks Zeus. Whereas I
+formerly argued that he was primarily a personification of the sacred oak
+and only in the second place a personification of the thundering sky, I
+now invert the order of his divine functions and believe that he was a
+sky-god before he came to be associated with the oak. In fact, I revert to
+the traditional view of Jupiter, recant my heresy, and am gathered like a
+lost sheep into the fold of mythological orthodoxy. The good shepherd who
+has brought me back is my friend Mr. W. Warde Fowler. He has removed the
+stone over which I stumbled in the wilderness by explaining in a simple
+and natural way how a god of the thundering sky might easily come to be
+afterwards associated with the oak. The explanation turns on the great
+frequency with which, as statistics prove, the oak is struck by lightning
+beyond any other tree of the wood in Europe. To our rude forefathers, who
+dwelt in the gloomy depths of the primaeval forest, it might well seem
+that the riven and blackened oaks must indeed be favourites of the
+sky-god, who so often descended on them from the murky cloud in a flash of
+lightning and a crash of thunder.
+
+This change of view as to the great Aryan god necessarily affects my
+interpretation of the King of the Wood, the priest of Diana at Aricia, if
+I may take that discarded puppet out of the box again for a moment. On my
+theory the priest represented Jupiter in the flesh, and accordingly, if
+Jupiter was primarily a sky-god, his priest cannot have been a mere
+incarnation of the sacred oak, but must, like the deity whose commission
+he bore, have been invested in the imagination of his worshippers with the
+power of overcasting the heaven with clouds and eliciting storms of
+thunder and rain from the celestial vault. The attribution of
+weather-making powers to kings or priests is very common in primitive
+society, and is indeed one of the principal levers by which such
+personages raise themselves to a position of superiority above their
+fellows. There is therefore no improbability in the supposition that as a
+representative of Jupiter the priest of Diana enjoyed this reputation,
+though positive evidence of it appears to be lacking.
+
+Lastly, in the present edition I have shewn some grounds for thinking that
+the Golden Bough itself, or in common parlance the mistletoe on the oak,
+was supposed to have dropped from the sky upon the tree in a flash of
+lightning and therefore to contain within itself the seed of celestial
+fire, a sort of smouldering thunderbolt. This view of the priest and of
+the bough which he guarded at the peril of his life has the advantage of
+accounting for the importance which the sanctuary at Nemi acquired and the
+treasure which it amassed through the offerings of the faithful; for the
+shrine would seem to have been to ancient what Loreto has been to modern
+Italy, a place of pilgrimage, where princes and nobles as well as
+commoners poured wealth into the coffers of Diana in her green recess
+among the Alban hills, just as in modern times kings and queens vied with
+each other in enriching the black Virgin who from her Holy House on the
+hillside at Loreto looks out on the blue Adriatic and the purple
+Apennines. Such pious prodigality becomes more intelligible if the
+greatest of the gods was indeed believed to dwell in human shape with his
+wife among the woods of Nemi.
+
+These are the principal points on which I have altered my opinion since
+the last edition of my book was published. The mere admission of such
+changes may suffice to indicate the doubt and uncertainty which attend
+enquiries of this nature. The whole fabric of ancient mythology is so
+foreign to our modern ways of thought, and the evidence concerning it is
+for the most part so fragmentary, obscure, and conflicting that in our
+attempts to piece together and interpret it we can hardly hope to reach
+conclusions that will completely satisfy either ourselves or others. In
+this as in other branches of study it is the fate of theories to be washed
+away like children's castles of sand by the rising tide of knowledge, and
+I am not so presumptuous as to expect or desire for mine an exemption from
+the common lot. I hold them all very lightly and have used them chiefly as
+convenient pegs on which to hang my collections of facts. For I believe
+that, while theories are transitory, a record of facts has a permanent
+value, and that as a chronicle of ancient customs and beliefs my book may
+retain its utility when my theories are as obsolete as the customs and
+beliefs themselves deserve to be.
+
+I cannot dismiss without some natural regret a task which has occupied and
+amused me at intervals for many years. But the regret is tempered by
+thankfulness and hope. I am thankful that I have been able to conclude at
+least one chapter of the work I projected a long time ago. I am hopeful
+that I may not now be taking a final leave of my indulgent readers, but
+that, as I am sensible of little abatement in my bodily strength and of
+none in my ardour for study, they will bear with me yet a while if I
+should attempt to entertain them with fresh subjects of laughter and tears
+drawn from the comedy and the tragedy of man's endless quest after
+happiness and truth.
+
+J. G. FRAZER.
+
+CAMBRIDGE, _17th October 1913_.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH.
+
+
+
+
+§ 1. Not to touch the Earth.
+
+
+(M1) We have travelled far since we turned our backs on Nemi and set forth
+in quest of the secret of the Golden Bough. With the present volume we
+enter on the last stage of our long journey. The reader who has had the
+patience to follow the enquiry thus far may remember that at the outset
+two questions were proposed for answer: Why had the priest of Aricia to
+slay his predecessor? And why, before doing so, had he to pluck the Golden
+Bough?(1) Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The
+priest of Aricia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human
+divinities on whose life the welfare of the community and even the course
+of nature in general are believed to be intimately dependent. It does not
+appear that the subjects or worshippers of such a spiritual potentate form
+to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship in which
+they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and
+fluctuating, and we should err if we attempted to define the relationship
+with logical precision. All that the people know, or rather imagine, is
+that somehow they themselves, their cattle, and their crops are
+mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is
+well or ill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds
+thrive or languish with disease, and the fields yield an abundant or a
+scanty harvest. The worst evil which they can conceive of is the natural
+death of their ruler, whether he succumb to sickness or old age, for in
+the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrous
+consequences on themselves and their possessions; fatal epidemics would
+sweep away man and beast, the earth would refuse her increase, nay the
+very frame of nature itself might be dissolved. To guard against these
+catastrophes it is necessary to put the king to death while he is still in
+the full bloom of his divine manhood, in order that his sacred life,
+transmitted in unabated force to his successor, may renew its youth, and
+thus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous
+incarnations may remain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security
+that men and animals shall in like manner renew their youth by a perpetual
+succession of generations, and that seedtime and harvest, and summer and
+winter, and rain and sunshine shall never fail. That, if my conjecture is
+right, was why the priest of Aricia, the King of the Wood at Nemi, had
+regularly to perish by the sword of his successor.
+
+(M2) But we have still to ask, What was the Golden Bough? and why had each
+candidate for the Arician priesthood to pluck it before he could slay the
+priest? These questions I will now try to answer.
+
+(M3) It will be well to begin by noticing two of those rules or taboos by
+which, as we have seen, the life of divine kings or priests is regulated.
+The first of the rules to which I desire to call the reader's attention is
+that the divine personage may not touch the ground with his foot. This
+rule was observed by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico; he
+profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his
+foot.(2) Montezuma, emperor of Mexico, never set foot on the ground; he
+was always carried on the shoulders of noblemen, and if he lighted
+anywhere they laid rich tapestry for him to walk upon.(3) For the Mikado
+of Japan to touch the ground with his foot was a shameful degradation;
+indeed, in the sixteenth century, it was enough to deprive him of his
+office. Outside his palace he was carried on men's shoulders; within it he
+walked on exquisitely wrought mats.(4) The king and queen of Tahiti might
+not touch the ground anywhere but within their hereditary domains; for the
+ground on which they trod became sacred. In travelling from place to place
+they were carried on the shoulders of sacred men. They were always
+accompanied by several pairs of these sanctified attendants; and when it
+became necessary to change their bearers, the king and queen vaulted on to
+the shoulders of their new bearers without letting their feet touch the
+ground.(5) It was an evil omen if the king of Dosuma touched the ground,
+and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony.(6) Within his palace the king
+of Persia walked on carpets on which no one else might tread; outside of
+it he was never seen on foot but only in a chariot or on horseback.(7) In
+old days the king of Siam never set foot upon the earth, but was carried
+on a throne of gold from place to place.(8) Formerly neither the kings of
+Uganda, nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on foot outside of
+the spacious enclosures in which they lived. Whenever they went forth they
+were carried on the shoulders of men of the Buffalo clan, several of whom
+accompanied any of these royal personages on a journey and took it in turn
+to bear the burden. The king sat astride the bearer's neck with a leg over
+each shoulder and his feet tucked under the bearer's arms. When one of
+these royal carriers grew tired he shot the king on to the shoulders of a
+second man without allowing the royal feet to touch the ground. In this
+way they went at a great pace and travelled long distances in a day, when
+the king was on a journey. The bearers had a special hut in the king's
+enclosure in order to be at hand the moment they were wanted.(9) Among the
+Bakuba or rather Bushongo, a nation in the southern region of the Congo,
+down to a few years ago persons of the royal blood were forbidden to touch
+the ground; they must sit on a hide, a chair, or the back of a slave, who
+crouched on hands and feet; their feet rested on the feet of others. When
+they travelled they were carried on the backs of men; but the king
+journeyed in a litter supported on shafts.(10) Among the Ibo people about
+Awka, in Southern Nigeria, the priest of the Earth has to observe many
+taboos; for example, he may not see a corpse, and if he meets one on the
+road he must hide his eyes with his wristlet. He must abstain from many
+foods, such as eggs, birds of all sorts, mutton, dog, bush-buck, and so
+forth. He may neither wear nor touch a mask, and no masked man may enter
+his house. If a dog enters his house, it is killed and thrown out. As
+priest of the Earth he may not sit on the bare ground, nor eat things that
+have fallen on the ground, nor may earth be thrown at him.(11) According
+to ancient Brahmanic ritual a king at his inauguration trod on a tiger's
+skin and a golden plate; he was shod with shoes of boar's skin, and so
+long as he lived thereafter he might not stand on the earth with his bare
+feet.(12)
+
+(M4) But besides persons who are permanently sacred or tabooed and are
+therefore permanently forbidden to touch the ground with their feet, there
+are others who enjoy the character of sanctity or taboo only on certain
+occasions, and to whom accordingly the prohibition in question only
+applies at the definite seasons during which they exhale the odour of
+sanctity. Thus among the Kayans or Bahaus of Central Borneo, while the
+priestesses are engaged in the performance of certain rites they may not
+step on the ground, and boards are laid for them to tread on.(13) At a
+funeral ceremony observed by night among the Michemis, a Tibetan tribe
+near the northern frontier of Assam, a priest fantastically bedecked with
+tiger's teeth, many-coloured plumes, bells, and shells, executed a wild
+dance for the purpose of exorcising the evil spirits; then all fires were
+extinguished and a new light was struck by a man suspended by his feet
+from a beam in the ceiling; "he did not touch the ground," we are told,
+"in order to indicate that the light came from heaven."(14) Again, newly
+born infants are strongly tabooed; accordingly in Loango they are not
+allowed to touch the earth.(15) Among the Iluvans of Malabar the
+bridegroom on his wedding-day is bathed by seven young men and then
+carried or walks on planks from the bathing-place to the marriage booth;
+he may not touch the ground with his feet.(16) With the Dyaks of Landak
+and Tajan, two districts of Dutch Borneo, it is a custom that for a
+certain time after marriage neither bride nor bridegroom may tread on the
+earth.(17) Warriors, again, on the war-path are surrounded, so to say, by
+an atmosphere of taboo; hence some Indians of North America might not sit
+on the bare ground the whole time they were out on a warlike
+expedition.(18) In Laos the hunting of elephants gives rise to many
+taboos; one of them is that the chief hunter may not touch the earth with
+his foot. Accordingly, when he alights from his elephant, the others
+spread a carpet of leaves for him to step upon.(19) German wiseacres
+recommended that when witches were led to the block or the stake, they
+should not be allowed to touch the bare earth, and a reason suggested for
+the rule was that if they touched the earth they might make themselves
+invisible and so escape. The sagacious author of _The Striped-petticoat
+Philosophy_ in the eighteenth century ridicules the idea as mere silly
+talk. He admits, indeed, that the women were conveyed to the place of
+execution in carts; but he denies that there is any deep significance in
+the cart, and he is prepared to maintain this view by a chemical analysis
+of the timber of which the cart was built. To clinch his argument he
+appeals to plain matter of fact and his own personal experience. Not a
+single instance, he assures us with apparent satisfaction, can be produced
+of a witch who escaped the axe or the fire in this fashion. "I have
+myself," says he, "in my youth seen divers witches burned, some at
+Arnstadt, some at Ilmenau, some at Schwenda, a noble village between
+Arnstadt and Ilmenau, and some of them were pardoned and beheaded before
+being burned. They were laid on the earth in the place of execution and
+beheaded like any other poor sinner; whereas if they could have escaped by
+touching the earth, not one of them would have failed to do so."(20)
+
+(M5) Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call
+that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed
+persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance
+or fluid, with which the sacred man is charged just as a Leyden jar is
+charged with electricity; and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be
+discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical
+virtue in the man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the
+earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the
+magical fluid. Hence in order to preserve the charge from running to
+waste, the sacred or tabooed personage must be carefully prevented from
+touching the ground; in electrical language he must be insulated, if he is
+not to be emptied of the precious substance or fluid with which he, as a
+vial, is filled to the brim. And in many cases apparently the insulation
+of the tabooed person is recommended as a precaution not merely for his
+own sake but for the sake of others; for since the virtue of holiness or
+taboo is, so to say, a powerful explosive which the smallest touch may
+detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general safety to keep it
+within narrow bounds, lest breaking out it should blast, blight, and
+destroy whatever it comes into contact with.
+
+(M6) But things as well as persons are often charged with the mysterious
+quality of holiness or taboo; hence it frequently becomes necessary for
+similar reasons to guard them also from coming into contact with the
+ground, lest they should in like manner be drained of their valuable
+properties and be reduced to mere commonplace material objects, empty
+husks from which the good grain has been eliminated. Thus, for example,
+the most sacred object of the Arunta tribe in Central Australia is, or
+rather used to be, a pole about twenty feet high, which is completely
+smeared with human blood, crowned with an imitation of a human head, and
+set up on the ground where the final initiatory ceremonies of young men
+are performed. A young gum-tree is chosen to form the pole, and it must be
+cut down and transported in such a way that it does not touch the earth
+till it is erected in its place on the holy ground. Apparently the pole
+represents some famous ancestor of the olden time.(21)
+
+(M7) Again, at a great dancing festival celebrated by the natives of
+Bartle Bay, in British New Guinea, a wild mango tree plays a prominent
+part. The tree must be self-sown, that is, really wild and so young that
+it has never flowered. It is chosen in the jungle some five or six weeks
+before the festival, and a circle is cleared round its trunk. From that
+time the master of the ceremonies and some eight to twenty other men, who
+have aided him in choosing the tree and in clearing the jungle, become
+strictly holy or tabooed. They sleep by themselves in a house into which
+no one else may intrude: they may not wash or drink water, nor even allow
+it accidentally to touch their bodies: they are forbidden to eat boiled
+food and the fruit of mango trees: they may drink only the milk of a young
+coco-nut which has been baked, and they may eat certain fruits and
+vegetables, such as paw-paws (_Carica papaya_) and sugar-cane, but only on
+condition that they have been baked. All refuse of their food is kept in
+baskets in their sleeping-house and may not be removed from it till the
+festival is over. At the time when the men begin to observe these rules of
+abstinence, some six to ten women, members of the same clan as the master
+of the ceremonies, enter on a like period of mortification, avoiding the
+company of the other sex, and refraining from water, all boiled food, and
+the fruit of the mango tree. These fasting men and women are the principal
+dancers at the festival. The dancing takes place on a special platform in
+a temporary village which has been erected for the purpose. When the
+platform is about to be set up, the fasting men rub the stepping posts and
+then suck their hands for the purpose of extracting the ghost of any dead
+man that might chance to be in the post and might be injured by the weight
+of the platform pressing down on him. Having carefully extracted these
+poor souls, the men carry them away tenderly and set them free in the
+forest or the long grass.
+
+(M8) On the day before the festival one of the fasting men cuts down the
+chosen mango tree in the jungle with a stone adze, which is never
+afterwards put to any other use; an iron tool may not be used for the
+purpose, though iron tools are now common enough in the district. In
+cutting down the mango they place nets on the ground to catch any leaves
+or twigs that might fall from the tree as it is being felled, and they
+surround the trunk with new mats to receive the chips which fly out under
+the adze of the woodman; for the chips may not drop on the earth. Once the
+tree is down, it is carried to the centre of the temporary village, the
+greatest care being taken to prevent it from coming into contact with the
+ground. But when it is brought into the village, the houses are connected
+with the top of the mango by means of long vines decorated with streamers.
+In the afternoon the fasting men and women begin to dance, the men
+bedizened with gay feathers, armlets, streamers, and anklets, the women
+flaunting in parti-coloured petticoats and sprigs of croton leaves, which
+wave from their waistbands as they dance. The dancing stops at sundown,
+and when the full moon rises over the shoulder of the eastern hill (for
+the date of the festival seems to be determined with reference to the time
+of the moon), two chiefs mount the gables of two houses on the eastern
+side of the square, and, their dusky figures standing sharply out against
+the moonlight, pray to the evil spirits to go away and not to hurt the
+people. Next morning pigs are killed by being speared as slowly as
+possible in order that they may squeal loud and long; for the people
+believe that the mango trees hear the squealing, and are pleased at the
+sound, and bear plenty of fruit, whereas if they heard no squeals they
+would bear no fruit. However, the trees have to content themselves with
+the squeals; the flesh of the pigs is eaten by the people. This ends the
+festival.
+
+(M9) Next day the mango is taken down from the platform, wrapt in new
+mats, and carried by the fasting men to their sleeping house, where it is
+hung from the roof. But after an interval, it may be of many months, the
+tree is brought forth again. As to the reason for its reappearance in
+public opinions are divided; but some say that the tree itself orders the
+master of the ceremonies to bring it forth, appearing to him in his dreams
+and saying, "Let me smell the smoking fat of pigs. So will your pigs be
+healthy and your crops will grow." Be that as it may, out it comes,
+conducted by the fasting men in their dancing costume; and with it come in
+the solemn procession all the pots, spoons, cups and so forth used by the
+fasting men during their period of holiness or taboo, also all the refuse
+of their food which has been collected for months, and all the fallen
+leaves and chips of the mango in their bundles of mats. These holy relics
+are carried in front and the mango tree itself brings up the rear of the
+procession. While these sacred objects are being handed out of the house,
+the men who are present rush up, wipe off the hallowed dust which has
+accumulated on them, and smear it over their own bodies, no doubt in order
+to steep themselves in their blessed influence. Thus the tree is carried
+as before to the centre of the temporary village, care being again taken
+not to let it touch the ground. Then one of the fasting men takes from a
+basket a number of young green mangoes, cuts them in pieces, and places
+them with his own hands in the mouths of his fellows, the other fasting
+men, who chew the pieces small and turning round spit the morsels in the
+direction of the setting sun, in order that "the sun should carry the
+mango bits over the whole country and everyone should know." A portion of
+the mango tree is then broken off and in the evening it is burnt along
+with the bundles of leaves, chips, and refuse of food, which have been
+stored up. What remains of the tree is taken to the house of the master of
+the ceremonies and hung over the fire-place; it will be brought out again
+at intervals and burned bit by bit, till all is consumed, whereupon a new
+mango will be cut down and treated in like manner. The ashes of the holy
+fire on each occasion are gathered by the people and preserved in the
+house of the master of the ceremonies.(22)
+
+(M10) The meaning of these ceremonies is not explained by the authorities
+who describe them; but we may conjecture that they are intended to
+fertilize the mango trees and cause them to bear a good crop of fruit. The
+central feature of the whole ritual is a wild mango tree, so young that it
+has never flowered: the men who cut it down, carry it into the village,
+and dance at the festival, are forbidden to eat mangoes: pigs are killed
+in order that their dying squeals may move the mango trees to bear fruit:
+at the end of the ceremonies pieces of young green mangoes are solemnly
+placed in the mouths of the fasting men and are by them spurted out
+towards the setting sun in order that the luminary may carry the fragments
+to every part of the country; and finally when after a longer or shorter
+interval the tree is wholly consumed, its place is supplied by another.
+All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally by the
+supposition that the young mango tree is taken as a representative of
+mangoes generally, that the dances are intended to quicken it, and that it
+is preserved, like a May-pole of old in England, as a sort of general fund
+of vegetable life, till the fund being exhausted by the destruction of the
+tree it is renewed by the importation of a fresh young tree from the
+forest. We can therefore understand why, as a storehouse of vital energy,
+the tree should be carefully kept from contact with the ground, lest the
+pent-up and concentrated energy should escape and dribbling away into the
+earth be dissipated to no purpose.
+
+(M11) To take other instances of what we may call the conservation of
+energy in magic or religion by insulating sacred bodies from the ground,
+the natives of New Britain have a secret society called the Duk-duk, the
+members of which masquerade in petticoats of leaves and tall headdresses
+of wickerwork shaped like candle extinguishers, which descend to the
+shoulders of the wearers, completely concealing their faces. Thus
+disguised they dance about to the awe and terror, real or assumed, of the
+women and uninitiated, who take, or pretend to take, them for spirits.
+When lads are being initiated into the secrets of this august society, the
+adepts cut down some very large and heavy bamboos, one for each lad, and
+the novices carry them, carefully wrapt up in leaves, to the sacred
+ground, where they arrive very tired and weary, for they may not let the
+bamboos touch the ground nor the sun shine on them. Outside the fence of
+the enclosure every lad deposits his bamboo on a couple of forked sticks
+and covers it up with nut leaves.(23) Among the Carrier Indians of
+North-Western America, who burned their dead, the ashes of a chief used to
+be placed in a box and set on the top of a pole beside his hut: the box
+was never allowed to touch the ground.(24) In the Omaha tribe of North
+American Indians the sacred clam shell of the Elk clan was wrapt up from
+sight in a mat, placed on a stand, and never suffered to come in contact
+with the earth.(25) The Cherokees and kindred Indian tribes of the United
+States used to have certain sacred boxes or arks, which they regularly
+took with them to war. Such a holy ark consisted of a square wooden box,
+which contained "certain consecrated vessels made by beloved superannuated
+women, and of such various antiquated forms, as would have puzzled Adam to
+have given significant names to each." The leader of a war party and his
+attendant bore the ark by turns, but they never set it on the ground nor
+would they themselves sit on the bare earth while they were carrying it
+against the enemy. Where stones were plentiful they rested the ark on
+them; but where no stones were to be found, they deposited it on short
+logs. "The Indian ark is deemed so sacred and dangerous to be touched,
+either by their own sanctified warriors, or the spoiling enemy, that they
+durst not touch it upon any account. It is not to be meddled with by any,
+except the war chieftain and his waiter, under the penalty of incurring
+great evil. Nor would the most inveterate enemy touch it in the woods, for
+the very same reason." After their return home they used to hang the ark
+on the leader's red-painted war pole.(26) At Sipi, near Simla, in Northern
+India, an annual fair is held, at which men purchase wives. A square box
+with a domed top figures prominently at the fair. It is fixed on two poles
+to be carried on men's shoulders, and long heavily-plaited petticoats hang
+from it nearly to the ground. Three sides of the box are adorned with the
+head and shoulders of a female figure and the fourth side with a black
+yak's tail. Four men bear the poles, each carrying an axe in his right
+hand. They dance round, with a swinging rhythmical step, to the music of
+drums and a pipe. The dance goes on for hours and is thought to avert
+ill-luck from the fair. It is said that the box is brought to Simla from a
+place sixty miles off by relays of men, who may not stop nor set the box
+on the ground the whole way.(27) In Scotland, when water was carried from
+sacred wells to sick people, the water-vessel might not touch the
+earth.(28) In some parts of Aberdeenshire the last bunch of standing corn,
+which is commonly viewed as very sacred, being the last refuge of the
+corn-spirit retreating before the reapers, is not suffered to touch the
+ground; the master or "gueedman" sits down and receives each handful of
+corn as it is cut on his lap.(29)
+
+(M12) Again, sacred food may not under certain circumstances be brought
+into contact with the earth. Some of the aborigines of Victoria used to
+regard the fat of the emu as sacred, believing that it had once been the
+fat of the black man. In taking it from the bird or giving it to another
+they handled it reverently. Any one who threw away the fat or flesh of the
+emu was held accursed. "The late Mr. Thomas observed on one occasion, at
+Nerrenerre-Warreen, a remarkable exhibition of the effects of this
+superstition. An aboriginal child--one attending the school--having eaten
+some part of the flesh of an emu, threw away the skin. The skin fell to
+the ground, and this being observed by his parents, they showed by their
+gestures every token of horror. They looked upon their child as one
+utterly lost. His desecration of the bird was regarded as a sin for which
+there was no atonement."(30) The Roumanians of Transylvania believe that
+"every fresh-baked loaf of wheaten bread is sacred, and should a piece
+inadvertently fall to the ground, it is hastily picked up, carefully wiped
+and kissed, and if soiled, thrown into the fire--partly as an offering to
+the dead, and partly because it were a heavy sin to throw away or tread
+upon any particle of it."(31) At certain festivals in south-eastern Borneo
+the food which is consumed in the common house may not touch the ground;
+hence, a little before the festivals take place, foot-bridges made of thin
+poles are constructed from the private dwellings to the common house.(32)
+When Hall was living with the Esquimaux and grew tired of eating walrus,
+one of the women brought the head and neck of a reindeer for him to eat.
+This venison had to be completely wrapt up before it was brought into the
+house, and once in the house it could only be placed on the platform which
+served as a bed. "To have placed it on the floor or on the platform behind
+the fire-lamp, among the walrus, musk-ox, and polar-bear meat which occupy
+a goodly portion of both of these places, would have horrified the whole
+town, as, according to the actual belief of the Innuits, not another
+walrus could be secured this year, and there would ever be trouble in
+catching any more."(33) But in this case the real scruple appears to have
+been felt not so much at placing the venison on the ground as at bringing
+it into contact with walrus meat.(34)
+
+(M13) Sometimes magical implements and remedies are supposed to lose their
+virtue by contact with the ground, the volatile essence with which they
+are impregnated being no doubt drained off into the earth. Thus in the
+Boulia district of Queensland the magical bone, which the native sorcerer
+points at his victim as a means of killing him, is never by any chance
+allowed to touch the earth.(35) The wives of rajahs in Macassar, a
+district of southern Celebes, pride themselves on their luxuriant tresses
+and are at great pains to oil and preserve them. Should the hair begin to
+grow thin, the lady resorts to many devices to stay the ravages of time;
+among other things she applies to her locks a fat extracted from
+crocodiles and venomous snakes. The unguent is believed to be very
+efficacious, but during its application the woman's feet may not come into
+contact with the ground, or all the benefit of the nostrum would be
+lost.(36) Some people in antiquity believed that a woman in hard labour
+would be delivered if a spear, which had been wrenched from a man's body
+without touching the ground, were thrown over the house where the sufferer
+lay. Again, according to certain ancient writers, arrows which had been
+extracted from a body without coming into contact with the earth and laid
+under sleepers, acted as a love-charm.(37) Among the peasantry of the
+north-east of Scotland the prehistoric weapons called celts went by the
+name of "thunderbolts" and were coveted as the sure bringers of success,
+always provided that they were not allowed to fall to the ground.(38)
+
+(M14) In ancient Gaul certain glass or paste beads attained great
+celebrity as amulets under the name of serpents' eggs; it was believed
+that serpents, coiling together in a wriggling, writhing mass, generated
+them from their slaver and shot them into the air from their hissing jaws.
+If a man was bold and dexterous enough to catch one of these eggs in his
+cloak before it touched the ground, he rode off on horseback with it at
+full speed, pursued by the whole pack of serpents, till he was saved by
+the interposition of a river, which the snakes could not pass. The proof
+of the egg being genuine was that if it were thrown into a stream it would
+float up against the current, even though it were hooped in gold. The
+Druids held these beads in high esteem; according to them, the precious
+objects could only be obtained on a certain day of the moon, and the
+peculiar virtue that resided in them was to secure success in law suits
+and free access to kings. Pliny knew of a Gaulish knight who was executed
+by the emperor Claudius for wearing one of these amulets.(39) Under the
+name of Snake Stones (_glain neidr_) or Adder Stones the beads are still
+known in those parts of our own country where the Celtic population has
+lingered, with its immemorial superstitions, down to the present or recent
+times; and the old story of the origin of the beads from the slaver of
+serpents was believed by the modern peasantry of Cornwall, Wales, and
+Scotland as by the Druids of ancient Gaul. In Cornwall the time when the
+serpents united to fashion the beads was commonly said to be at or about
+Midsummer Eve; in Wales it was usually thought to be spring, especially
+the Eve of May Day, and even within recent years persons in the
+Principality have affirmed that they witnessed the great vernal congress
+of the snakes and saw the magic stone in the midst of the froth. The Welsh
+peasants believe the beads to possess medicinal virtues of many sorts and
+to be particularly efficacious for all maladies of the eyes. In Wales and
+Ireland the beads sometimes went by the name of the Magician's or Druid's
+Glass (_Gleini na Droedh_ and _Glaine nan Druidhe_). Specimens of them may
+be seen in museums; some have been found in British barrows. They are of
+glass of various colours, green, blue, pink, red, brown, and so forth,
+some plain and some ribbed. Some are streaked with brilliant hues. The
+beads are perforated, and in the Highlands of Scotland the hole is
+explained by saying that when the bead has just been conflated by the
+serpents jointly, one of the reptiles sticks his tail through the still
+viscous glass. An Englishman who visited Scotland in 1699 found many of
+these beads in use throughout the country. They were hung from children's
+necks to protect them from whooping cough and other ailments. Snake Stones
+were, moreover, a charm to ensure prosperity in general and to repel evil
+spirits. When one of these priceless treasures was not on active service,
+the owner kept it in an iron box to guard it against fairies, who, as is
+well known, cannot abide iron.(40)
+
+(M15) Pliny mentions several medicinal plants, which, if they were to
+retain their healing virtue, ought not to be allowed to touch the
+earth.(41) The curious medical treatise of Marcellus, a native of Bordeaux
+in the fourth century of our era, abounds with prescriptions of this sort;
+and we can well believe the writer when he assures us that he borrowed
+many of his quaint remedies from the lips of common folk and peasants
+rather than from the books of the learned.(42) Thus he tells us that
+certain white stones found in the stomachs of young swallows assuage the
+most persistent headache, always provided that their virtue be not
+impaired by contact with the ground.(43) Another of his cures for the same
+malady is a wreath of fleabane placed on the head, but it must not touch
+the earth.(44) On the same condition a decoction of the root of elecampane
+in wine kills worms; a fern, found growing on a tree, relieves the
+stomach-ache; and the pastern-bone of a hare is an infallible remedy for
+colic, provided, first, it be found in the dung of a wolf, second, that it
+does not touch the ground, and, third, that it is not touched by a
+woman.(45) Another cure for colic is effected by certain hocus-pocus with
+a scrap of wool from the forehead of a first-born lamb, if only the lamb,
+instead of being allowed to fall to the ground, has been caught by hand as
+it dropped from its dam.(46) In Andjra, a district of Morocco, the people
+attribute many magical virtues to rain-water which has fallen on the
+twenty-seventh day of April, Old Style; accordingly they collect it and
+use it for a variety of purposes. Mixed with tar and sprinkled on the
+door-posts it prevents snakes and scorpions from entering the house:
+sprinkled on heaps of threshed corn it protects them from the evil eye:
+mixed with an egg, henna, and seeds of cress it is an invaluable medicine
+for sick cows: poured over a plate, on which a passage of the Koran has
+been written, it strengthens the memory of schoolboys who drink it; and if
+you mix it with cowdung and red earth and paint rings with the mixture
+round the trunks of your fig-trees at sunset on Midsummer Day, you may
+depend on it that the trees will bear an excellent crop and will not shed
+their fruit untimely on the ground. But in order to preserve these
+remarkable properties it is absolutely essential that the water should on
+no account be allowed to touch the ground; some say too that it should not
+be exposed to the sun nor breathed upon by anybody.(47) Again, the Moors
+ascribe great magical efficacy to what they call "the sultan of the
+oleander," which is a stalk of oleander with a cluster of four pairs of
+leaves springing from it. They think that the magical virtue is greatest
+if the stalk has been cut immediately before midsummer. But when the plant
+is brought into the house, the branches may not touch the ground, lest
+they should lose their marvellous qualities.(48) In the olden days, before
+a Lithuanian or Prussian farmer went forth to plough for the first time in
+spring, he called in a wizard to perform a certain ceremony for the good
+of the crops. The sage seized a mug of beer with his teeth, quaffed the
+liquor, and then tossed the mug over his head. This signified that the
+corn in that year should grow taller than a man. But the mug might not
+fall to the ground; it had to be caught by somebody stationed at the
+wizard's back, for if it fell to the ground the consequence naturally
+would be that the corn also would be laid low on the earth.(49)
+
+
+
+
+§ 2. Not to see the Sun.
+
+
+(M16) The second rule to be here noted is that the sun may not shine upon
+the divine person. This rule was observed both by the Mikado and by the
+pontiff of the Zapotecs. The latter "was looked upon as a god whom the
+earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon."(50) The Japanese
+would not allow that the Mikado should expose his sacred person to the
+open air, and the sun was not thought worthy to shine on his head.(51) The
+Indians of Granada, in South America, "kept those who were to be rulers or
+commanders, whether men or women, locked up for several years when they
+were children, some of them seven years, and this so close that they were
+not to see the sun, for if they should happen to see it they forfeited
+their lordship, eating certain sorts of food appointed; and those who were
+their keepers at certain times went into their retreat or prison and
+scourged them severely."(52) Thus, for example, the heir to the throne of
+Bogota, who was not the son but the sister's son of the king, had to
+undergo a rigorous training from his infancy: he lived in complete
+retirement in a temple, where he might not see the sun nor eat salt nor
+converse with a woman: he was surrounded by guards who observed his
+conduct and noted all his actions: if he broke a single one of the rules
+laid down for him, he was deemed infamous and forfeited all his rights to
+the throne.(53) So, too, the heir to the kingdom of Sogamoso, before
+succeeding to the crown, had to fast for seven years in the temple, being
+shut up in the dark and not allowed to see the sun or light.(54) The
+prince who was to become Inca of Peru had to fast for a month without
+seeing light.(55) On the day when a Brahman student of the Veda took a
+bath, to signify that the time of his studentship was at an end, he
+entered a cow-shed before sunrise, hung over the door a skin with the hair
+inside, and sat there; on that day the sun should not shine upon him.(56)
+
+(M17) Again, women after childbirth and their offspring are more or less
+tabooed all the world over; hence in Corea the rays of the sun are rigidly
+excluded from both mother and child for a period of twenty-one or a
+hundred days, according to their rank, after the birth has taken
+place.(57) Among some of the tribes on the north-west coast of New Guinea
+a woman may not leave the house for months after childbirth. When she does
+go out, she must cover her head with a hood or mat; for if the sun were to
+shine upon her, it is thought that one of her male relations would
+die.(58) Again, mourners are everywhere taboo; accordingly in mourning the
+Ainos of Japan wear peculiar caps in order that the sun may not shine upon
+their heads.(59) During a solemn fast of three days the Indians of Costa
+Rica eat no salt, speak as little as possible, light no fires, and stay
+strictly indoors, or if they go out during the day they carefully cover
+themselves from the light of the sun, believing that exposure to the sun's
+rays would turn them black.(60) On Yule Night it has been customary in
+parts of Sweden from time immemorial to go on pilgrimage, whereby people
+learn many secret things and know what is to happen in the coming year. As
+a preparation for this pilgrimage, "some secrete themselves for three days
+previously in a dark cellar, so as to be shut out altogether from the
+light of heaven. Others retire at an early hour of the preceding morning
+to some out-of-the-way place, such as a hay-loft, where they bury
+themselves in the hay, that they may neither see nor hear any living
+creature; and here they remain, in silence and fasting, until after
+sundown; whilst there are those who think it sufficient if they rigidly
+abstain from food on the day before commencing their wanderings. During
+this period of probation a man ought not to see fire, but should this have
+happened, he must strike a light with flint and steel, whereby the evil
+that would otherwise have ensued will be obviated."(61) During the sixteen
+days that a Pima Indian is undergoing purification for killing an Apache
+he may not see a blazing fire.(62)
+
+(M18) Acarnanian peasants tell of a handsome prince called Sunless, who
+would die if he saw the sun. So he lived in an underground palace on the
+site of the ancient Oeniadae, but at night he came forth and crossed the
+river to visit a famous enchantress who dwelt in a castle on the further
+bank. She was loth to part with him every night long before the sun was
+up, and as he turned a deaf ear to all her entreaties to linger, she hit
+upon the device of cutting the throats of all the cocks in the
+neighbourhood. So the prince, whose ear had learned to expect the shrill
+clarion of the birds as the signal of the growing light, tarried too long,
+and hardly had he reached the ford when the sun rose over the Aetolian
+mountains, and its fatal beams fell on him before he could regain his dark
+abode.(63)
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE SECLUSION OF GIRLS AT PUBERTY.
+
+
+
+
+§ 1. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Africa.
+
+
+(M19) Now it is remarkable that the foregoing two rules--not to touch the
+ground and not to see the sun--are observed either separately or conjointly
+by girls at puberty in many parts of the world. Thus amongst the negroes
+of Loango girls at puberty are confined in separate huts, and they may not
+touch the ground with any part of their bare body.(64) Among the Zulus and
+kindred tribes of South Africa, when the first signs of puberty shew
+themselves "while a girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the
+field, she runs to the river and hides herself among the reeds for the
+day, so as not to be seen by men. She covers her head carefully with her
+blanket that the sun may not shine on it and shrivel her up into a
+withered skeleton, as would result from exposure to the sun's beams. After
+dark she returns to her home and is secluded" in a hut for some time.(65)
+During her seclusion, which lasts for about a fortnight, neither she nor
+the girls who wait upon her may drink any milk, lest the cattle should
+die. And should she be overtaken by the first flow while she is in the
+fields, she must, after hiding in the bush, scrupulously avoid all
+pathways in returning home.(66) A reason for this avoidance is assigned by
+the A-Kamba of British East Africa, whose girls under similar
+circumstances observe the same rule. "A girl's first menstruation is a
+very critical period of her life according to A-Kamba beliefs. If this
+condition appears when she is away from the village, say at work in the
+fields, she returns at once to her village, but is careful to walk through
+the grass and not on a path, for if she followed a path and a stranger
+accidentally trod on a spot of blood and then cohabited with a member of
+the opposite sex before the girl was better again, it is believed that she
+would never bear a child." She remains at home till the symptoms have
+ceased, and during this time she may be fed by none but her mother. When
+the flux is over, her father and mother are bound to cohabit with each
+other, else it is believed that the girl would be barren all her life.(67)
+Similarly, among the Baganda, when a girl menstruated for the first time
+she was secluded and not allowed to handle food; and at the end of her
+seclusion the kinsman with whom she was staying (for among the Baganda
+young people did not reside with their parents) was obliged to jump over
+his wife, which with the Baganda is regarded as equivalent to having
+intercourse with her. Should the girl happen to be living near her parents
+at the moment when she attained to puberty, she was expected on her
+recovery to inform them of the fact, whereupon her father jumped over her
+mother. Were this custom omitted, the Baganda, like the A-Kamba, thought
+that the girl would never have children or that they would die in
+infancy.(68) Thus the pretence of sexual intercourse between the parents
+or other relatives of the girl was a magical ceremony to ensure her
+fertility. It is significant that among the Baganda the first menstruation
+was often called a marriage, and the girl was spoken of as a bride.(69)
+These terms so applied point to a belief like that of the Siamese, that a
+girl's first menstruation results from her defloration by one of a host of
+aerial spirits, and that the wound thus inflicted is repeated afterwards
+every month by the same ghostly agency.(70) For a like reason, probably,
+the Baganda imagine that a woman who does not menstruate exerts a malign
+influence on gardens and makes them barren(71) if she works in them. For
+not being herself fertilized by a spirit, how can she fertilize the
+garden?
+
+(M20) Among the Amambwe, Winamwanga, Alungu, and other tribes of the great
+plateau to the west of Lake Tanganyika, "when a young girl knows that she
+has attained puberty, she forthwith leaves her mother's hut, and hides
+herself in the long grass near the village, covering her face with a cloth
+and weeping bitterly. Towards sunset one of the older women--who, as
+directress of the ceremonies, is called _nachimbusa_--follows her, places a
+cooking-pot by the cross-roads, and boils therein a concoction of various
+herbs, with which she anoints the neophyte. At nightfall the girl is
+carried on the old woman's back to her mother's hut. When the customary
+period of a few days has elapsed, she is allowed to cook again, after
+first whitewashing the floor of the hut. But, by the following month, the
+preparations for her initiation are complete. The novice must remain in
+her hut throughout the whole period of initiation, and is carefully
+guarded by the old women, who accompany her whenever she leaves her
+quarters, veiling her head with a native cloth. The ceremonies last for at
+least one month." During this period of seclusion, drumming and songs are
+kept up within the mother's hut by the village women, and no male, except,
+it is said, the father of twins, is allowed to enter. The directress of
+the rites and the older women instruct the young girl as to the elementary
+facts of life, the duties of marriage, and the rules of conduct, decorum,
+and hospitality to be observed by a married woman. Amongst other things
+the damsel must submit to a series of tests such as leaping over fences,
+thrusting her head into a collar made of thorns, and so on. The lessons
+which she receives are illustrated by mud figures of animals and of the
+common objects of domestic life. Moreover, the directress of studies
+embellishes the walls of the hut with rude pictures, each with its special
+significance and song, which must be understood and learned by the
+girl.(72) In the foregoing account the rule that a damsel at puberty may
+neither see the sun nor touch the ground seems implied by the statement
+that on the first discovery of her condition she hides in long grass and
+is carried home after sunset on the back of an old woman.
+
+(M21) Among the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, in British
+Central Africa, when a young girl finds that she has become a woman, she
+stands silent by the pathway leading to the village, her face wrapt in her
+calico. An old woman, finding her there, takes her off to a stream to
+bathe; after that the girl is secluded for six days in the old woman's
+hut. She eats her porridge out of an old basket and her relish, in which
+no salt is put, from a potsherd. The basket is afterwards thrown away. On
+the seventh day the aged matrons gather together, go with the girl to a
+stream, and throw her into the water. In returning they sing songs, and
+the old woman, who directs the proceedings, carries the maiden on her
+back. Then they spread a mat and fetch her husband and set the two down on
+the mat and shave his head. When it is dark, the old women escort the girl
+to her husband's hut. There the _ndiwo_ relish is cooking on the fire.
+During the night the woman rises and puts some salt in the pot. Next
+morning, before dawn, while all is dark and the villagers have not yet
+opened their doors, the young married woman goes off and gives some of the
+relish to her mother and to the old woman who was mistress of the
+ceremony. This relish she sets down at the doors of their houses and goes
+away. And in the morning, when the sun has risen and all is light in the
+village, the two women open their doors, and there they find the relish
+with the salt in it; and they take of it and rub it on their feet and
+under their arm-pits; and if there are little children in the house, they
+eat of it. And if the young wife has a kinsman who is absent from the
+village, some of the relish is put on a splinter of bamboo and kept
+against his return, that when he comes he, too, may rub his feet with it.
+But if the woman finds that her husband is impotent, she does not rise
+betimes and go out in the dark to lay the relish at the doors of her
+mother and the old woman. And in the morning, when the sun is up and all
+the village is light, the old women open their doors, and see no relish
+there, and they know what has happened, and so they go wilily to work. For
+they persuade the husband to consult the diviner that he may discover how
+to cure his impotence; and while he is closeted with the wizard, they
+fetch another man, who finishes the ceremony with the young wife, in order
+that the relish may be given out and that people may rub their feet with
+it. But if it happens that when a girl comes to maturity she is not yet
+betrothed to any man, and therefore has no husband to go to, the matrons
+tell her that she must go to a lover instead. And this is the custom which
+they call _chigango_. So in the evening she takes her cooking pot and
+relish and hies away to the quarters of the young bachelors, and they very
+civilly sleep somewhere else that night. And in the morning the girl goes
+back to the _kuka_ hut.(73)
+
+(M22) From the foregoing account it appears that among these tribes no
+sooner has a girl attained to womanhood than she is expected and indeed
+required to give proof of her newly acquired powers by cohabiting with a
+man, whether her husband or another. And the abstinence from salt during
+the girl's seclusion is all the more remarkable because as soon as the
+seclusion is over she has to use salt for a particular purpose, to which
+the people evidently attach very great importance, since in the event of
+her husband proving impotent she is even compelled, apparently, to commit
+adultery in order that the salted relish may be given out as usual. In
+this connexion it deserves to be noted that among the Wagogo of German
+East Africa women at their monthly periods may not sleep with their
+husbands and may not put salt in food.(74) A similar rule is observed by
+the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, with whose puberty
+customs we are here concerned. Among them, we are told, "some superstition
+exists with regard to the use of salt. A woman during her monthly sickness
+must on no account put salt into any food she is cooking, lest she give
+her husband or children a disease called _tsempo_ (_chitsoko soko_), but
+calls a child to put it in, or, as the song goes, '_Natira mchere ni bondo
+chifukwa n'kupanda mwana_,' and pours in the salt by placing it on her
+knee, because there is no child handy. Should a party of villagers have
+gone to make salt, all sexual intercourse is forbidden among the people of
+the village, until the people who have gone to make the salt (from grass)
+return. When they do come back, they must make their entry into the
+village at night, and no one must see them. Then one of the elders of the
+village sleeps with his wife. She then cooks some relish, into which she
+puts some of the salt. This relish is handed round to the people who went
+to make the salt, who rub it on their feet and under their armpits."(75)
+Hence it would seem that in the mind of these people abstinence from salt
+is somehow associated with the idea of chastity. The same association
+meets us in the customs of many peoples in various parts of the world. For
+example, ancient Hindoo ritual prescribed that for three nights after a
+husband had brought his bride home, the two should sleep on the ground,
+remain chaste, and eat no salt.(76) Among the Baganda, when a man was
+making a net, he had to refrain from eating salt and meat and from living
+with his wife; these restrictions he observed until the net took its first
+catch of fish. Similarly, so long as a fisherman's nets or traps were in
+the water, he must live apart from his wife, and neither he nor she nor
+their children might eat salt or meat.(77) Evidence of the same sort could
+be multiplied,(78) but without going into it further we may say that for
+some reason which is not obvious to us primitive man connects salt with
+the intercourse of the sexes and therefore forbids the use of that
+condiment in a variety of circumstances in which he deems continence
+necessary or desirable. As there is nothing which the savage regards as a
+greater bar between the sexes than the state of menstruation, he naturally
+prohibits the use of salt to women and girls at their monthly periods.
+
+(M23) With the Awa-nkonde, a tribe at the northern end of Lake Nyassa, it
+is a rule that after her first menstruation a girl must be kept apart,
+with a few companions of her own sex, in a darkened house. The floor is
+covered with dry banana leaves, but no fire may be lit in the house, which
+is called "the house of the Awasungu," that is, "of maidens who have no
+hearts."(79) When a girl reaches puberty, the Wafiomi of Eastern Africa
+hold a festival at which they make a noise with a peculiar kind of rattle.
+After that the girl remains for a year in the large common hut (_tembe_),
+where she occupies a special compartment screened off from the men's
+quarters. She may not cut her hair or touch food, but is fed by other
+women. At night, however, she quits the hut and dances with young men.(80)
+Among the Barotse or Marotse of the upper Zambesi, "when a girl arrives at
+the age of puberty she is sent into the fields, where a hut is constructed
+far from the village. There, with two or three companions, she spends a
+month, returning home late and starting before dawn in order not to be
+seen by the men. The women of the village visit her, bringing food and
+honey, and singing and dancing to amuse her. At the end of a month her
+husband comes and fetches her. It is only after this ceremony that women
+have the right to smear themselves with ochre."(81) We may suspect that
+the chief reason why the girl during her seclusion may visit her home only
+by night is a fear, not so much lest she should be seen by men, as that
+she might be seen by the sun. Among the Wafiomi, as we have just learned,
+the young woman in similar circumstances is even free to dance with men,
+provided always that the dance is danced at night. The ceremonies among
+the Barotse or Marotse are somewhat more elaborate for a girl of the royal
+family. She is shut up for three months in a place which is kept secret
+from the public; only the women of her family know where it is. There she
+sits alone in the darkness of the hut, waited on by female slaves, who are
+strictly forbidden to speak and may communicate with her and with each
+other only by signs. During all this time, though she does nothing, she
+eats much, and when at last she comes forth, her appearance is quite
+changed, so fat has she grown. She is then led by night to the river and
+bathed in presence of all the women of the village. Next day she flaunts
+before the public in her gayest attire, her head bedecked with ornaments
+and her face mottled with red paint. So everybody knows what has
+happened.(82)
+
+(M24) Among the northern clans of the Thonga tribe, in South-Eastern
+Africa, about Delagoa Bay, when a girl thinks that the time of her
+nubility is near, she chooses an adoptive mother, perhaps in a
+neighbouring village. When the symptoms appear, she flies away from her
+own village and repairs to that of her adopted mother "to weep near her."
+After that she is secluded with several other girls in the same condition
+for a month. They are shut up in a hut, and whenever they come outside
+they must wear a dirty greasy cloth over their faces as a veil. Every
+morning they are led to a pool and plunged in the water up to their necks.
+Initiated girls or women accompany them, singing obscene songs and driving
+away with sticks any man who meets them; for no man may see a girl during
+this time of seclusion. If he saw her, it is said that he would be struck
+blind. On their return from the river, the girls are again imprisoned in
+the hut, where they remain wet and shivering, for they may not go near the
+fire to warm themselves. During their seclusion they listen to lascivious
+songs sung by grown women and are instructed in sexual matters. At the end
+of the month the adoptive mother brings the girl home to her true mother
+and presents her with a pot of beer.(83)
+
+(M25) Among the Caffre tribes of South Africa the period of a girl's
+seclusion at puberty varies with the rank of her father. If he is a rich
+man, it may last twelve days; if he is a chief, it may last twenty-four
+days.(84) And when it is over, the girl rubs herself over with red earth,
+and strews finely powdered red earth on the ground, before she leaves the
+hut where she has been shut up. Finally, though she was forbidden to drink
+milk all the days of her separation, she washes out her mouth with milk,
+and is from that moment regarded as a full-grown woman.(85) Afterwards, in
+the dusk of the evening, she carries away all the objects with which she
+came into contact in the hut during her seclusion and buries them secretly
+in a sequestered spot.(86) When the girl is a chief's daughter the
+ceremonies at her liberation from the hut are more elaborate than usual.
+She is led forth from the hut by a son of her father's councillor, who,
+wearing the wings of a blue crane, the badge of bravery, on his head,
+escorts her to the cattle kraal, where cows are slaughtered and dancing
+takes place. Large skins full of milk are sent to the spot from
+neighbouring villages; and after the dances are over the girl drinks milk
+for the first time since the day she entered into retreat. But the first
+mouthful is drunk by the girl's aunt or other female relative who had
+charge of her during her seclusion; and a little of it is poured on the
+fire-place.(87) Amongst the Zulus, when the girl was a princess royal, the
+end of her time of separation was celebrated by a sort of saturnalia: law
+and order were for the time being in abeyance: every man, woman, and child
+might appropriate any article of property: the king abstained from
+interfering; and if during this reign of misrule he was robbed of anything
+he valued he could only recover it by paying a fine.(88) Among the
+Basutos, when girls at puberty are bathed as usual by the matrons in a
+river, they are hidden separately in the turns and bends of the stream,
+and told to cover their heads, as they will be visited by a large serpent.
+Their limbs are then plastered with clay, little masks of straw are put on
+their faces, and thus arrayed they daily follow each other in procession,
+singing melancholy airs, to the fields, there to learn the labours of
+husbandry in which a great part of their adult life will be passed.(89) We
+may suppose, though we are not told, that the straw masks which they wear
+in these processions are intended to hide their faces from the gaze of men
+and the rays of the sun.
+
+(M26) Among the tribes in the lower valley of the Congo, such as the
+Bavili, when a girl arrives at puberty, she has to pass two or three
+months in seclusion in a small hut built for the purpose. The hair of her
+head is shaved off, and every day the whole of her body is smeared with a
+red paint (_takulla_) made from a powdered wood mixed with water. Some of
+her companions reside in the hut with her and prepare the paint for her
+use. A woman is appointed to take charge of the hut and to keep off
+intruders. At the end of her confinement she is taken to water by the
+women of her family and bathed; the paint is rubbed off her body, her arms
+and legs are loaded with brass rings, and she is led in solemn procession
+under an umbrella to her husband's house. If these ceremonies were not
+performed, the people believe that the girl would be barren or would give
+birth to monsters, that the rain would cease to fall, the earth to bear
+fruit, and the fishing to be successful.(90) Such serious importance do
+these savages ascribe to the performance of rites which to us seem so
+childish.
+
+
+
+
+§ 2. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in New Ireland, New Guinea, and
+Indonesia.
+
+
+(M27) In New Ireland girls are confined for four or five years in small
+cages, being kept in the dark and not allowed to set foot on the ground.
+The custom has been thus described by an eye-witness. "I heard from a
+teacher about some strange custom connected with some of the young girls
+here, so I asked the chief to take me to the house where they were. The
+house was about twenty-five feet in length, and stood in a reed and bamboo
+enclosure, across the entrance to which a bundle of dried grass was
+suspended to show that it was strictly '_tabu_.' Inside the house were
+three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height, and about
+ten or twelve feet in circumference at the bottom, and for about four feet
+from the ground, at which point they tapered off to a point at the top.
+These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus-tree, sewn quite
+close together so that no light and little or no air could enter. On one
+side of each is an opening which is closed by a double door of plaited
+cocoa-nut tree and pandanus-tree leaves. About three feet from the ground
+there is a stage of bamboos which forms the floor. In each of these cages
+we were told there was a young woman confined, each of whom had to remain
+for at least four or five years, without ever being allowed to go outside
+the house. I could scarcely credit the story when I heard it; the whole
+thing seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke to the chief, and told him
+that I wished to see the inside of the cages, and also to see the girls
+that I might make them a present of a few beads. He told me that it was
+'_tabu_,' forbidden for any men but their own relations to look at them;
+but I suppose the promised beads acted as an inducement, and so he sent
+away for some old lady who had charge, and who alone is allowed to open
+the doors. While we were waiting we could hear the girls talking to the
+chief in a querulous way as if objecting to something or expressing their
+fears. The old woman came at length and certainly she did not seem a very
+pleasant jailor or guardian; nor did she seem to favour the request of the
+chief to allow us to see the girls, as she regarded us with anything but
+pleasant looks. However, she had to undo the door when the chief told her
+to do so, and then the girls peeped out at us, and, when told to do so,
+they held out their hands for the beads. I, however, purposely sat at some
+distance away and merely held out the beads to them, as I wished to draw
+them quite outside, that I might inspect the inside of the cages. This
+desire of mine gave rise to another difficulty, as these girls were not
+allowed to put their feet to the ground all the time they were confined in
+these places. However, they wished to get the beads, and so the old lady
+had to go outside and collect a lot of pieces of wood and bamboo, which
+she placed on the ground, and then going to one of the girls, she helped
+her down and held her hand as she stepped from one piece of wood to
+another until she came near enough to get the beads I held out to her. I
+then went to inspect the inside of the cage out of which she had come, but
+could scarcely put my head inside of it, the atmosphere was so hot and
+stifling. It was clean and contained nothing but a few short lengths of
+bamboo for holding water. There was only room for the girl to sit or lie
+down in a crouched position on the bamboo platform, and when the doors are
+shut it must be nearly or quite dark inside. The girls are never allowed
+to come out except once a day to bathe in a dish or wooden bowl placed
+close to each cage. They say that they perspire profusely. They are placed
+in these stifling cages when quite young, and must remain there until they
+are young women, when they are taken out and have each a great marriage
+feast provided for them. One of them was about fourteen or fifteen years
+old, and the chief told us that she had been there for five years, but
+would soon be taken out now. The other two were about eight and ten years
+old, and they have to stay there for several years longer."(91) A more
+recent observer has described the custom as it is observed on the western
+coast of New Ireland. He says: "A _buck_ is the name of a little house,
+not larger than an ordinary hen-coop, in which a little girl is shut up,
+sometimes for weeks only, and at other times for months.... Briefly
+stated, the custom is this. Girls, on attaining puberty or betrothal, are
+enclosed in one of these little coops for a considerable time. They must
+remain there night and day. We saw two of these girls in two coops; the
+girls were not more than ten years old, still they were lying in a
+doubled-up position, as their little houses would not admit of them lying
+in any other way. These two coops were inside a large house; but the
+chief, in consideration of a present of a couple of tomahawks, ordered the
+ends to be torn out of the house to admit the light, so that we might
+photograph the _buck_. The occupant was allowed to put her face through an
+opening to be photographed, in consideration of another present."(92) As a
+consequence of their long enforced idleness in the shade the girls grow
+fat and their dusky complexion bleaches to a more pallid hue. Both their
+corpulence and their pallor are regarded as beauties.(93)
+
+(M28) In Kabadi, a district of British New Guinea, "daughters of chiefs,
+when they are about twelve or thirteen years of age, are kept indoors for
+two or three years, never being allowed, under any pretence, to descend
+from the house, and the house is so shaded that the sun cannot shine on
+them."(94) Among the Yabim and Bukaua, two neighbouring and kindred tribes
+on the coast of German New Guinea, a girl at puberty is secluded for some
+five or six weeks in an inner part of the house; but she may not sit on
+the floor, lest her uncleanness should cleave to it, so a log of wood is
+placed for her to squat on. Moreover, she may not touch the ground with
+her feet; hence if she is obliged to quit the house for a short time, she
+is muffled up in mats and walks on two halves of a coco-nut shell, which
+are fastened like sandals to her feet by creeping plants. During her
+seclusion she is in charge of her aunts or other female relatives. At the
+end of the time she bathes, her person is loaded with ornaments, her face
+is grotesquely painted with red stripes on a white ground, and thus
+adorned she is brought forth in public to be admired by everybody. She is
+now marriageable.(95) Among the Ot Danoms of Borneo girls at the age of
+eight or ten years are shut up in a little room or cell of the house, and
+cut off from all intercourse with the world for a long time. The cell,
+like the rest of the house, is raised on piles above the ground, and is
+lit by a single small window opening on a lonely place, so that the girl
+is in almost total darkness. She may not leave the room on any pretext
+whatever, not even for the most necessary purposes. None of her family may
+see her all the time she is shut up, but a single slave woman is appointed
+to wait on her. During her lonely confinement, which often lasts seven
+years, the girl occupies herself in weaving mats or with other handiwork.
+Her bodily growth is stunted by the long want of exercise, and when, on
+attaining womanhood, she is brought out, her complexion is pale and
+wax-like. She is now shewn the sun, the earth, the water, the trees, and
+the flowers, as if she were newly born. Then a great feast is made, a
+slave is killed, and the girl is smeared with his blood.(96) In Ceram
+girls at puberty were formerly shut up by themselves in a hut which was
+kept dark.(97) In Yap, one of the Caroline Islands, should a girl be
+overtaken by her first menstruation on the public road, she may not sit
+down on the earth, but must beg for a coco-nut shell to put under her. She
+is shut up for several days in a small hut at a distance from her parents'
+house, and afterwards she is bound to sleep for a hundred days in one of
+the special houses which are provided for the use of menstruous women.(98)
+
+
+
+
+§ 3. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in the Torres Straits Islands and
+Northern Australia.
+
+
+(M29) In the island of Mabuiag, Torres Straits, when the signs of puberty
+appear on a girl, a circle of bushes is made in a dark corner of the
+house. Here, decked with shoulder-belts, armlets, leglets just below the
+knees, and anklets, wearing a chaplet on her head, and shell ornaments in
+her ears, on her chest, and on her back, she squats in the midst of the
+bushes, which are piled so high round about her that only her head is
+visible. In this state of seclusion she must remain for three months. All
+this time the sun may not shine upon her, but at night she is allowed to
+slip out of the hut, and the bushes that hedge her in are then changed.
+She may not feed herself or handle food, but is fed by one or two old
+women, her maternal aunts, who are especially appointed to look after her.
+One of these women cooks food for her at a special fire in the forest. The
+girl is forbidden to eat turtle or turtle eggs during the season when the
+turtles are breeding; but no vegetable food is refused her. No man, not
+even her own father, may come into the house while her seclusion lasts;
+for if her father saw her at this time he would certainly have bad luck in
+his fishing, and would probably smash his canoe the very next time he went
+out in it. At the end of the three months she is carried down to a
+fresh-water creek by her attendants, hanging on to their shoulders in such
+a way that her feet do not touch the ground, while the women of the tribe
+form a ring round her, and thus escort her to the beach. Arrived at the
+shore, she is stripped of her ornaments, and the bearers stagger with her
+into the creek, where they immerse her, and all the other women join in
+splashing water over both the girl and her bearers. When they come out of
+the water one of the two attendants makes a heap of grass for her charge
+to squat upon. The other runs to the reef, catches a small crab, tears off
+its claws, and hastens back with them to the creek. Here in the meantime a
+fire has been kindled, and the claws are roasted at it. The girl is then
+fed by her attendants with the roasted claws. After that she is freshly
+decorated, and the whole party marches back to the village in a single
+rank, the girl walking in the centre between her two old aunts, who hold
+her by the wrists. The husbands of her aunts now receive her and lead her
+into the house of one of them, where all partake of food, and the girl is
+allowed once more to feed herself in the usual manner. A dance follows, in
+which the girl takes a prominent part, dancing between the husbands of the
+two aunts who had charge of her in her retirement.(99)
+
+(M30) Among the Yaraikanna tribe of Cape York Peninsula, in Northern
+Queensland, a girl at puberty is said to live by herself for a month or
+six weeks; no man may see her, though any woman may. She stays in a hut or
+shelter specially made for her, on the floor of which she lies supine. She
+may not see the sun, and towards sunset she must keep her eyes shut until
+the sun has gone down, otherwise it is thought that her nose will be
+diseased. During her seclusion she may eat nothing that lives in salt
+water, or a snake would kill her. An old woman waits upon her and supplies
+her with roots, yams, and water.(100) Some tribes are wont to bury their
+girls at such seasons more or less deeply in the ground, perhaps in order
+to hide them from the light of the sun. Thus the Larrakeeyah tribe in the
+northern territory of South Australia used to cover a girl up with dirt
+for three days at her first monthly period.(101) In similar circumstances
+the Otati tribe, on the east coast of the Cape York Peninsula, make an
+excavation in the ground, where the girl squats. A bower is then built
+over the hole, and sand is thrown on the young woman till she is covered
+up to the hips. In this condition she remains for the first day, but comes
+out at night. So long as the period lasts, she stays in the bower during
+the day-time, but is not again covered with sand. Afterwards her body is
+painted red and white from the head to the hips, and she returns to the
+camp, where she squats first on the right side, then on the left side, and
+then on the lap of her future husband, who has been previously selected
+for her.(102) Among the natives of the Pennefather River, in the Cape York
+Peninsula, Queensland, when a girl menstruates for the first time, her
+mother takes her away from the camp to some secluded spot, where she digs
+a circular hole in the sandy soil under the shade of a tree. In this hole
+the girl squats with crossed legs and is covered with sand from the waist
+downwards. A digging-stick is planted firmly in the sand on each side of
+her, and the place is surrounded by a fence of bushes except in front,
+where her mother kindles a fire. Here the girl stays all day, sitting with
+her arms crossed and the palms of her hands resting on the sand. She may
+not move her arms except to take food from her mother or to scratch
+herself; and in scratching herself she may not touch herself with her own
+hands, but must use for the purpose a splinter of wood, which, when it is
+not in use, is stuck in her hair. She may speak to nobody but her mother;
+indeed nobody else would think of coming near her. At evening she lays
+hold of the two digging-sticks and by their help frees herself from the
+superincumbent weight of sand and returns to the camp. Next morning she is
+again buried in the sand under the shade of the tree and remains there
+again till evening. This she does daily for five days. On her return at
+evening on the fifth day her mother decorates her with a waist-band, a
+forehead-band, and a necklet of pearl-shell, ties green parrot feathers
+round her arms and wrists and across her chest, and smears her body, back
+and front, from the waist upwards with blotches of red, white, and yellow
+paint. She has in like manner to be buried in the sand at her second and
+third menstruations, but at the fourth she is allowed to remain in camp,
+only signifying her condition by wearing a basket of empty shells on her
+back.(103) Among the Kia blacks of the Prosperine River, on the east coast
+of Queensland, a girl at puberty has to sit or lie down in a shallow pit
+away from the camp; a rough hut of bushes is erected over her to protect
+her from the inclemency of the weather. There she stays for about a week,
+waited on by her mother and sister, the only persons to whom she may
+speak. She is allowed to drink water, but may not touch it with her hands;
+and she may scratch herself a little with a mussel-shell. This seclusion
+is repeated at her second and third monthly periods, but when the third is
+over she is brought to her husband bedecked with savage finery. Eagle-hawk
+or cockatoo feathers are stuck in her hair: a shell hangs over her
+forehead: grass bugles encircle her neck and an apron of opossum skin her
+waist: strings are tied to her arms and wrists; and her whole body is
+mottled with patterns drawn in red, white, and yellow pigments and
+charcoal.(104)
+
+(M31) Among the Uiyumkwi tribe in Red Island the girl lies at full length
+in a shallow trench dug in the foreshore, and sand is lightly thrown over
+her legs and body up to the breasts, which appear not to be covered. A
+rough shelter of boughs is then built over her, and thus she remains lying
+for a few hours. Then she and her attendant go into the bush and look for
+food, which they cook at a fire close to the shelter. They sleep under the
+boughs, the girl remaining secluded from the camp but apparently not being
+again buried. At the end of the symptoms she stands over hot stones and
+water is poured over her, till, trickling from her body on the stones, it
+is converted into steam and envelops her in a cloud of vapour. Then she is
+painted with red and white stripes and returns to the camp. If her future
+husband has already been chosen, she goes to him and they eat some food
+together, which the girl has previously brought from the bush.(105) In
+Prince of Wales Island, Torres Strait, the treatment of the patient is
+similar, but lasts for about two months. During the day she lies covered
+up with sand in a shallow hole on the beach, over which a hut is built. At
+night she may get out of the hole, but she may not leave the hut. Her
+paternal aunt looks after her, and both of them must abstain from eating
+turtle, dugong, and the heads of fish. Were they to eat the heads of fish
+no more fish would be caught. During the time of the girl's seclusion, the
+aunt who waits upon her has the right to enter any house and take from it
+anything she likes without payment, provided she does so before the sun
+rises. When the time of her retirement has come to an end, the girl bathes
+in the sea while the morning star is rising, and after performing various
+other ceremonies is readmitted to society.(106) In Saibai, another island
+of Torres Straits, at her first monthly sickness a girl lives secluded in
+the forest for about a fortnight, during which no man may see her; even
+the women who have spoken to her in the forest must wash in salt water
+before they speak to a man. Two girls wait upon and feed the damsel,
+putting the food into her mouth, for she is not allowed to touch it with
+her own hands. Nor may she eat dugong and turtle. At the end of a
+fortnight the girl and her attendants bathe in salt water while the tide
+is running out. Afterwards they are clean, may again speak to men without
+ceremony, and move freely about the village. In Yam and Tutu a girl at
+puberty retires for a month to the forest, where no man nor even her own
+mother may look upon her. She is waited on by women who stand to her in a
+certain relationship (_mowai_), apparently her paternal aunts. She is
+blackened all over with charcoal and wears a long petticoat reaching below
+her knees. During her seclusion the married women of the village often
+assemble in the forest and dance, and the girl's aunts relieve the tedium
+of the proceedings by thrashing her from time to time as a useful
+preparation for matrimony. At the end of a month the whole party go into
+the sea, and the charcoal is washed off the girl. After that she is
+decorated, her body blackened again, her hair reddened with ochre, and in
+the evening she is brought back to her father's house, where she is
+received with weeping and lamentation because she has been so long
+away.(107)
+
+
+
+
+§ 4. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of North America.
+
+
+(M32) Among the Indians of California a girl at her first menstruation
+"was thought to be possessed of a particular degree of supernatural power,
+and this was not always regarded as entirely defiling or malevolent.
+Often, however, there was a strong feeling of the power of evil inherent
+in her condition. Not only was she secluded from her family and the
+community, but an attempt was made to seclude the world from her. One of
+the injunctions most strongly laid upon her was not to look about her. She
+kept her head bowed and was forbidden to see the world and the sun. Some
+tribes covered her with a blanket. Many of the customs in this connection
+resembled those of the North Pacific Coast most strongly, such as the
+prohibition to the girl to touch or scratch her head with her hand, a
+special implement being furnished her for the purpose. Sometimes she could
+eat only when fed and in other cases fasted altogether. Some form of
+public ceremony, often accompanied by a dance and sometimes by a form of
+ordeal for the girl, was practised nearly everywhere. Such ceremonies were
+well developed in Southern California, where a number of actions
+symbolical of the girl's maturity and subsequent life were
+performed."(108) Thus among the Maidu Indians of California a girl at
+puberty remained shut up in a small separate hut. For five days she might
+not eat flesh or fish nor feed herself, but was fed by her mother or other
+old woman. She had a basket, plate, and cup for her own use, and a stick
+with which to scratch her head, for she might not scratch it with her
+fingers. At the end of five days she took a warm bath and, while she still
+remained in the hut and plied the scratching-stick on her head, was
+privileged to feed herself with her own hands. After five days more she
+bathed in the river, after which her parents gave a great feast in her
+honour. At the feast the girl was dressed in her best, and anybody might
+ask her parents for anything he pleased, and they had to give it, even if
+it was the hand of their daughter in marriage. During the period of her
+seclusion in the hut the girl was allowed to go by night to her parents'
+house and listen to songs sung by her friends and relations, who assembled
+for the purpose. Among the songs were some that related to the different
+roots and seeds which in these tribes it is the business of women to
+gather for food. While the singers sang, she sat by herself in a corner of
+the house muffled up completely in mats and skins; no man or boy might
+come near her.(109) Among the Hupa, another Indian tribe of California,
+when a girl had reached maturity her male relatives danced all night for
+nine successive nights, while the girl remained apart, eating no meat and
+blindfolded. But on the tenth night she entered the house and took part in
+the last dance.(110) Among the Wintun, another Californian tribe, a girl
+at puberty was banished from the camp and lived alone in a distant booth,
+fasting rigidly from animal food; it was death to any person to touch or
+even approach her.(111)
+
+(M33) In the interior of Washington State, about Colville, "the customs of
+the Indians, in relation to the treatment of females, are singular. On the
+first appearance of the menses, they are furnished with provisions, and
+sent into the woods, to remain concealed for two days; for they have a
+superstition, that if a man should be seen or met with during that time,
+death will be the consequence. At the end of the second day, the woman is
+permitted to return to the lodge, when she is placed in a hut just large
+enough for her to lie in at full length, in which she is compelled to
+remain for twenty days, cut off from all communication with her friends,
+and is obliged to hide her face at the appearance of a man. Provisions are
+supplied her daily. After this, she is required to perform repeated
+ablutions, before she can resume her place in the family. At every return,
+the women go into seclusion for two or more days."(112) Among the Chinook
+Indians who inhabited the coast of Washington State, from Shoalwater Bay
+as far as Grey's Harbour, when a chief's daughter attained to puberty, she
+was hidden for five days from the view of the people; she might not look
+at them nor at the sky, nor might she pick berries. It was believed that
+if she were to look at the sky, the weather would be bad; that if she
+picked berries, it would rain; and that when she hung her towel of
+cedar-bark on a spruce-tree, the tree withered up at once. She went out of
+the house by a separate door and bathed in a creek far from the village.
+She fasted for some days, and for many days more she might not eat fresh
+food.(113)
+
+(M34) Amongst the Aht or Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island, when girls
+reach puberty they are placed in a sort of gallery in the house "and are
+there surrounded completely with mats, so that neither the sun nor any
+fire can be seen. In this cage they remain for several days. Water is
+given them, but no food. The longer a girl remains in this retirement the
+greater honour is it to the parents; but she is disgraced for life if it
+is known that she has seen fire or the sun during this initiatory
+ordeal."(114) Pictures of the mythical thunder-bird are painted on the
+screens behind which she hides. During her seclusion she may neither move
+nor lie down, but must always sit in a squatting posture. She may not
+touch her hair with her hands, but is allowed to scratch her head with a
+comb or a piece of bone provided for the purpose. To scratch her body is
+also forbidden, as it is believed that every scratch would leave a scar.
+For eight months after reaching maturity she may not eat any fresh food,
+particularly salmon; moreover, she must eat by herself, and use a cup and
+dish of her own.(115)
+
+(M35) Among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands girls at
+puberty were secluded behind screens in the house for about twenty days.
+In some parts of the islands separate fires were provided for the girls,
+and they went out and in by a separate door at the back of the house. If a
+girl at such a time was obliged to go out by the front door, all the
+weapons, gambling-sticks, medicine, and other articles had to be removed
+from the house till her return, for otherwise it was thought that they
+would be unlucky; and if there was a good hunter in the house, he also had
+to go out at the same time on pain of losing his good luck if he remained.
+During several months or even half a year the girl was bound to wear a
+peculiar cloak or hood made of cedar-bark, nearly conical in shape and
+reaching down below the breast, but open before the face. After the twenty
+days were over the girl took a bath; none of the water might be spilled,
+it had all to be taken back to the woods, else the girl would not live
+long. On the west coast of the islands the damsel might eat nothing but
+black cod for four years; for the people believed that other kinds of fish
+would become scarce if she partook of them. At Kloo the young woman at
+such times was forbidden to look at the sea, and for forty days she might
+not gaze at the fire; for a whole year she might not walk on the beach
+below high-water mark, because then the tide would come in, covering part
+of the food supply, and there would be bad weather. For five years she
+might not eat salmon, or the fish would be scarce; and when her family
+went to a salmon-creek, she landed from the canoe at the mouth of the
+creek and came to the smoke-house from behind; for were she to see a
+salmon leap, all the salmon might leave the creek. Among the Haidas of
+Masset it was believed that if the girl looked at the sky, the weather
+would be bad, and that if she stepped over a salmon-creek, all the salmon
+would disappear.(116)
+
+(M36) Amongst the Tlingit (Thlinkeet) or Kolosh Indians of Alaska, when a
+girl shewed signs of womanhood she used to be confined to a little hut or
+cage, which was completely blocked up with the exception of a small
+air-hole. In this dark and filthy abode she had to remain a year, without
+fire, exercise, or associates. Only her mother and a female slave might
+supply her with nourishment. Her food was put in at the little window; she
+had to drink out of the wing-bone of a white-headed eagle. The time of her
+seclusion was afterwards reduced in some places to six or three months or
+even less. She had to wear a sort of hat with long flaps, that her gaze
+might not pollute the sky; for she was thought unfit for the sun to shine
+upon, and it was imagined that her look would destroy the luck of a
+hunter, fisher, or gambler, turn things to stone, and do other mischief.
+At the end of her confinement her old clothes were burnt, new ones were
+made, and a feast was given, at which a slit was cut in her under lip
+parallel to the mouth, and a piece of wood or shell was inserted to keep
+the aperture open.(117)
+
+(M37) In the Tsetsaut tribe of British Columbia a girl at puberty wears a
+large hat of skin which comes down over her face and screens it from the
+sun. It is believed that if she were to expose her face to the sun or to
+the sky, rain would fall. The hat protects her face also against the fire,
+which ought not to strike her skin; to shield her hands she wears mittens.
+In her mouth she carries the tooth of an animal to prevent her own teeth
+from becoming hollow. For a whole year she may not see blood unless her
+face is blackened; otherwise she would grow blind. For two years she wears
+the hat and lives in a hut by herself, although she is allowed to see
+other people. At the end of two years a man takes the hat from her head
+and throws it away.(118) In the Bilqula or Bella Coola tribe of British
+Columbia, when a girl attains puberty she must stay in the shed which
+serves as her bedroom, where she has a separate fireplace. She is not
+allowed to descend to the main part of the house, and may not sit by the
+fire of the family. For four days she is bound to remain motionless in a
+sitting posture. She fasts during the day, but is allowed a little food
+and drink very early in the morning. After the four days' seclusion she
+may leave her room, but only through a separate opening cut in the floor,
+for the houses are raised on piles. She may not yet come into the chief
+room. In leaving the house she wears a large hat which protects her face
+against the rays of the sun. It is believed that if the sun were to shine
+on her face her eyes would suffer. She may pick berries on the hills, but
+may not come near the river or sea for a whole year. Were she to eat fresh
+salmon she would lose her senses, or her mouth would be changed into a
+long beak.(119)
+
+(M38) Among the Tinneh Indians about Stuart Lake, Babine Lake, and Fraser
+Lake in British Columbia "girls verging on maturity, that is when their
+breasts begin to form, take swans' feathers mixed with human hair and
+plait bands, which they tie round their wrists and ankles to secure long
+life. At this time they are careful that the dishes out of which they eat,
+are used by no other person, and wholly devoted to their own use; during
+this period they eat nothing but dog fish, and starvation _only_ will
+drive them to eat either fresh fish or meat. When their first periodical
+sickness comes on, they are fed by their mothers or nearest female
+relation by _themselves_, and on no account will they touch their food
+with their own hands. They are at this time also careful not to touch
+their heads with their hands, and keep a small stick to scratch their
+heads with. They remain outside the lodge, all the time they are in this
+state, in a hut made for the purpose. During all this period they wear a
+skull-cap made of skin to fit very tight; this is never taken off until
+their first monthly sickness ceases; they also wear a strip of black paint
+about one inch wide across their eyes, and wear a fringe of shells, bones,
+etc., hanging down from their foreheads to below their eyes; and this is
+never taken off till the second monthly period arrives and ceases, when
+the nearest male relative makes a feast; after which she is considered a
+fully matured woman; but she has to refrain from eating anything fresh for
+one year after her first monthly sickness; she may however eat partridge,
+but it must be cooked in the crop of the bird to render it harmless. I
+would have thought it impossible to perform this feat had I not seen it
+done. The crop is blown out, and a small bent willow put round the mouth;
+it is then filled with water, and the meat being first minced up, put in
+also, then put on the fire and boiled till cooked. Their reason for
+hanging fringes before their eyes, is to hinder any bad medicine man from
+harming them during this critical period: they are very careful not to
+drink whilst facing a medicine man, and do so only when their backs are
+turned to him. All these habits are left off when the girl is a recognised
+woman, with the exception of their going out of the lodge and remaining in
+a hut, every time their periodical sickness comes on. This is a rigidly
+observed law with both single and married women."(120)
+
+(M39) Among the Hareskin Tinneh a girl at puberty was secluded for five
+days in a hut made specially for the purpose; she might only drink out of
+a tube made from a swan's bone, and for a month she might not break a
+hare's bones, nor taste blood, nor eat the heart or fat of animals, nor
+birds' eggs.(121) Among the Tinneh Indians of the middle Yukon valley, in
+Alaska, the period of the girl's seclusion lasts exactly a lunar month;
+for the day of the moon on which the symptoms first occur is noted, and
+she is sequestered until the same day of the next moon. If the season is
+winter, a corner of the house is curtained off for her use by a blanket or
+a sheet of canvas; if it is summer, a small tent is erected for her near
+the common one. Here she lives and sleeps. She wears a long robe and a
+large hood, which she must pull down over her eyes whenever she leaves the
+hut, and she must keep it down till she returns. She may not speak to a
+man nor see his face, much less touch his clothes or anything that belongs
+to him; for if she did so, though no harm would come to her, he would grow
+unmanly. She has her own dishes for eating out of and may use no other; at
+Kaltag she must suck the water through a swan's bone without applying her
+lips to the cup. She may eat no fresh meat or fish except the flesh of the
+porcupine. She may not undress, but sleeps with all her clothes on, even
+her mittens. In her socks she wears, next to the skin, the horny soles cut
+from the feet of a porcupine, in order that for the rest of her life her
+shoes may never wear out. Round her waist she wears a cord to which are
+tied the heads of femurs of a porcupine; because of all animals known to
+the Tinneh the porcupine suffers least in parturition, it simply drops its
+young and continues to walk or skip about as if nothing had happened.
+Hence it is easy to see that a girl who wears these portions of a
+porcupine about her waist, will be delivered just as easily as the animal.
+To make quite sure of this, if anybody happens to kill a porcupine big
+with young while the girl is undergoing her period of separation, the
+foetus is given to her, and she lets it slide down between her shirt and
+her body so as to fall on the ground like an infant.(122) Here the
+imitation of childbirth is a piece of homoeopathic or imitative magic
+designed to facilitate the effect which it simulates.(123)
+
+(M40) Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia, when a girl attained
+puberty, she was at once separated from all the people. A conical hut of
+fir branches and bark was erected at some little distance from the other
+houses, and in it the girl had to squat on her heels during the day. Often
+a deep circular hole was dug in the hut and the girl squatted in the hole,
+with her head projecting above the surface of the ground. She might quit
+the hut for various purposes in the early morning, but had always to be
+back at sunrise. On the first appearance of the symptoms her face was
+painted red all over, and the paint was renewed every morning during her
+term of seclusion. A heavy blanket swathed her body from top to toe, and
+during the first four days she wore a conical cap made of small fir
+branches, which reached below the breast but left an opening for the face.
+In her hair was fastened an implement made of deer-bone with which she
+scratched herself. For the first four days she might neither wash nor eat,
+but a little water was given her in a birch-bark cup painted red, and she
+sucked up the liquid through a tube made out of the leg of a crane, a
+swan, or a goose, for her lips might not touch the surface of the water.
+After the four days she was allowed, during the rest of the period of
+isolation, to eat, to wash, to lie down, to comb her hair, and to drink of
+streams and springs. But in drinking at these sources she had still to use
+her tube, otherwise the spring would dry up. While her seclusion lasted
+she performed by night various ceremonies, which were supposed to exert a
+beneficial influence on her future life. For example, she ran as fast as
+she could, praying at the same time to the Earth or Nature that she might
+be fleet of foot and tireless of limb. She dug trenches, in order that in
+after life she might be able to dig well and to work hard. These and other
+ceremonies she repeated for four nights or mornings in succession, four
+times each morning, and each time she supplicated the Dawn of the Day.
+Among the Lower Thompson Indians she carried a staff for one night; and
+when the day was breaking she leaned the staff against the stump of a tree
+and prayed to the Dawn that she might be blessed with a good husband, who
+was symbolized by the staff. She also wandered some nights to lonely parts
+of the mountains, where she would dance, imploring the spirits to pity and
+protect her during her future life; then, the dance and prayer over, she
+would lie down on the spot and fall asleep. Again, she carried four stones
+in her bosom to a spring, where she spat upon the stones and threw them
+one after the other into the water, praying that all disease might leave
+her, as these stones did. Also she ran four times in the early morning
+with two small stones in her bosom; and as she ran the stones slipped down
+between her bare body and her clothes and fell to the ground. At the same
+time she prayed to the Dawn that when she should be with child, she might
+be delivered as easily as she was delivered of these stones. But whatever
+exercises she performed or prayers she offered on the lonely mountains
+during the hours of darkness or while the morning light was growing in the
+east, she must always be back in her little hut before the sun rose. There
+she often passed the tedious hours away picking the needles, one by one,
+from the cones on two large branches of fir, which hung from the roof of
+her hut on purpose to provide her with occupation. And as she picked she
+prayed to the fir-branch that she might never be lazy, but always quick
+and active at work. During her seclusion, too, she had to make miniatures
+of all the articles that Indian women make, or used to make, such as
+baskets, mats, ropes, and thread. This she did in order that afterwards
+she might be able to make the real things properly. Four large
+fir-branches also were placed in front of the hut, so that when she went
+out or in, she had to step over them. The branches were renewed every
+morning and the old ones thrown away into the water, while the girl
+prayed, "May I never bewitch any man, nor my fellow-women! May it never
+happen!" The first four times that she went out and in, she prayed to the
+fir-branches, saying, "If ever I step into trouble or difficulties or step
+unknowingly inside the magical spell of some person, may you help me, O
+Fir-branches, with your power!" Every day she painted her face afresh, and
+she wore strings of parts of deer-hoofs round her ankles and knees, and
+tied to her waistband on either side, which rattled when she walked or
+ran. Even the shape of the hut in which she lived was adapted to her
+future rather than to her present needs and wishes. If she wished to be
+tall, the hut was tall; if she wished to be short, it was low, sometimes
+so low that there was not room in it for her to stand erect, and she would
+lay the palm of her hand on the top of her head and pray to the Dawn that
+she might grow no taller. Her seclusion lasted four months. The Indians
+say that long ago it extended over a year, and that fourteen days elapsed
+before the girl was permitted to wash for the first time. The dress which
+she wore during her time of separation was afterwards taken to the top of
+a hill and burned, and the rest of her clothes were hung up on trees.(124)
+
+(M41) Among the Lillooet Indians of British Columbia, neighbours of the
+Thompsons, the customs observed by girls at puberty were similar. The
+damsels were secluded for a period of not less than one year nor more than
+four years, according to their own inclination and the wishes of their
+parents. Among the Upper Lillooets the hut in which the girl lodged was
+made of bushy fir-trees set up like a conical tent, the inner branches
+being lopped off, while the outer branches were closely interwoven and
+padded to form a roof. Every month or half-month the hut was shifted to
+another site or a new one erected. By day the girl sat in the hut; for the
+first month she squatted in a hole dug in the middle of it; and she passed
+the time making miniature baskets of birch-bark and other things, praying
+that she might be able to make the real things well in after years. At the
+dusk of the evening she left the hut and wandered about all night, but she
+returned before the sun rose. Before she quitted the hut at nightfall to
+roam abroad, she painted her face red and put on a mask of fir-branches,
+and in her hand, as she walked, she carried a basket-rattle to frighten
+ghosts and guard herself from evil. Among the Lower Lillooets, the girl's
+mask was often made of goat-skin, covering her head, neck, shoulders and
+breast, and leaving only a narrow opening from the brow to the chin.
+During the nocturnal hours she performed many ceremonies. Thus she put two
+smooth stones in her bosom and ran, and as they fell down between her body
+and her clothes, she prayed, saying, "May I always have easy
+child-births!" Now one of these stones represented her future child and
+the other represented the afterbirth. Also she dug trenches, praying that
+in the years to come she might be strong and tireless in digging roots;
+she picked leaves and needles from the fir-trees, praying that her fingers
+might be nimble in picking berries; and she tore sheets of birch-bark into
+shreds, dropping the shreds as she walked and asking that her hands might
+never tire and that she might make neat and fine work of birch-bark.
+Moreover, she ran and walked much that she might be light of foot. And
+every evening, when the shadows were falling, and every morning, when the
+day was breaking, she prayed to the Dusk of the Evening or to the Dawn of
+Day, saying, "O Dawn of Day!" or "O Dusk," as it might be, "may I be able
+to dig roots fast and easily, and may I always find plenty!" All her
+prayers were addressed to the Dusk of the Evening or the Dawn of Day. She
+supplicated both, asking for long life, health, wealth, and
+happiness.(125)
+
+(M42) Among the Shuswap Indians of British Columbia, who are neighbours of
+the Thompsons and Lillooets, "a girl on reaching maturity has to go
+through a great number of ceremonies. She must leave the village and live
+alone in a small hut on the mountains. She cooks her own food, and must
+not eat anything that bleeds. She is forbidden to touch her head, for
+which purpose she uses a comb with three points. Neither is she allowed to
+scratch her body, except with a painted deer-bone. She wears the bone and
+the comb suspended from her belt. She drinks out of a painted cup of
+birch-bark, and neither more nor less than the quantity it holds. Every
+night she walks about her hut, and plants willow twigs, which she has
+painted, and to the ends of which she has attached pieces of cloth, into
+the ground. It is believed that thus she will become rich in later life.
+In order to become strong she should climb trees and try to break off
+their points. She plays with _lehal_ sticks that her future husbands might
+have good luck when gambling."(126) During the day the girl stays in her
+hut and occupies herself in making miniature bags, mats, and baskets, in
+sewing and embroidery, in manufacturing thread, twine, and so forth; in
+short she makes a beginning of all kinds of woman's work, in order that
+she may be a good housewife in after life. By night she roams the
+mountains and practises running, climbing, carrying burdens, and digging
+trenches, so that she may be expert at digging roots. If she has wandered
+far and daylight overtakes her, she hides herself behind a veil of fir
+branches; for no one, except her instructor or nearest relatives, should
+see her face during her period of seclusion. She wore a large robe painted
+red on the breast and sides, and her hair was done up in a knot at each
+ear.(127)
+
+(M43) Ceremonies of the same general type were probably observed by girls
+at puberty among all the Indian tribes of North America. But the record of
+them is far less full for the Central and Eastern tribes, perhaps because
+the settlers who first came into contact with the Red Man in these regions
+were too busy fighting him to find leisure, even if they had the desire,
+to study his manners and customs. However, among the Delaware Indians, a
+tribe in the extreme east of the continent, we read that "when a Delaware
+girl has her first monthly period, she must withdraw into a hut at some
+distance from the village. Her head is wrapped up for twelve days, so that
+she can see nobody, and she must submit to frequent vomits and fasting,
+and abstain from all labor. After this she is washed and new clothed, but
+confined to a solitary life for two months, at the close of which she is
+declared marriageable."(128) Again, among the Cheyennes, an Indian tribe
+of the Missouri valley, a girl at her first menstruation is painted red
+all over her body and secluded in a special little lodge for four days.
+However, she may remain in her father's lodge provided that there are no
+charms ("medicine"), no sacred bundle, and no shield in it, or that these
+and all other objects invested with a sacred character have been removed.
+For four days she may not eat boiled meat; the flesh of which she partakes
+must be roasted over coals. Young men will not eat from the dish nor drink
+from the pot, which has been used by her; because they believe that were
+they to do so they would be wounded in the next fight. She may not handle
+nor even touch any weapon of war or any sacred object. If the camp moves,
+she may not ride a horse, but is mounted on a mare.(129)
+
+(M44) Among the Esquimaux also, in the extreme north of the continent, who
+belong to an entirely different race from the Indians, the attainment of
+puberty in the female sex is, or used to be, the occasion of similar
+observances. Thus among the Koniags, an Esquimau people of Alaska, a girl
+at puberty was placed in a small hut in which she had to remain on her
+hands and knees for six months; then the hut was enlarged a little so as
+to allow her to straighten her back, but in this posture she had to remain
+for six months more. All this time she was regarded as an unclean being
+with whom no one might hold intercourse. At the end of the year she was
+received back by her parents and a great feast held.(130) Again, among the
+Malemut, and southward from the lower Yukon and adjacent districts, when a
+girl reaches the age of puberty she is considered unclean for forty days
+and must therefore live by herself in a corner of the house with her face
+to the wall, always keeping her hood over her head and her hair hanging
+dishevelled over her eyes. But if it is summer, she commonly lives in a
+rough shelter outside the house. She may not go out by day, and only once
+at night, when every one else is asleep. At the end of the period she
+bathes and is clothed in new garments, whereupon she may be taken in
+marriage. During her seclusion she is supposed to be enveloped in a
+peculiar atmosphere of such a sort that were a young man to come near
+enough for it to touch him, it would render him visible to every animal he
+might hunt, so that his luck as a hunter would be gone.(131)
+
+
+
+
+§ 5. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty among the Indians of South America.
+
+
+(M45) When symptoms of puberty appeared on a girl for the first time, the
+Guaranis of Southern Brazil, on the borders of Paraguay, used to sew her
+up in her hammock, leaving only a small opening in it to allow her to
+breathe. In this condition, wrapt up and shrouded like a corpse, she was
+kept for two or three days or so long as the symptoms lasted, and during
+this time she had to observe a most rigorous fast. After that she was
+entrusted to a matron, who cut the girl's hair and enjoined her to abstain
+most strictly from eating flesh of any kind until her hair should be grown
+long enough to hide her ears. Meanwhile the diviners drew omens of her
+future character from the various birds or animals that flew past or
+crossed her path. If they saw a parrot, they would say she was a
+chatterbox; if an owl, she was lazy and useless for domestic labours, and
+so on.(132) In similar circumstances the Chiriguanos of south-eastern
+Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where she stayed for
+a month: the second month the hammock was let half-way down from the roof;
+and in the third month old women, armed with sticks, entered the hut and
+ran about striking everything they met, saying they were hunting the snake
+that had wounded the girl.(133) The Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan Chaco
+under similar circumstances hang the girl in her hammock from the roof of
+the house, but they leave her there only three days and nights, during
+which they give her nothing to eat but a little Paraguay tea or boiled
+maize. Only her mother or grandmother has access to her; nobody else
+approaches or speaks to her. If she is obliged to leave the hammock for a
+little, her friends take great care to prevent her from touching the
+_Boyrusu_, which is an imaginary serpent that would swallow her up. She
+must also be very careful not to set foot on the droppings of fowls or
+animals, else she would suffer from sores on the throat and breast. On the
+third day they let her down from the hammock, cut her hair, and make her
+sit in a corner of the room with her face turned to the wall. She may
+speak to nobody, and must abstain from flesh and fish. These rigorous
+observances she must practise for nearly a year. Many girls die or are
+injured for life in consequence of the hardships they endure at this time.
+Their only occupations during their seclusion are spinning and
+weaving.(134)
+
+(M46) Among the Yuracares, an Indian tribe of Bolivia, at the eastern foot
+of the Andes, when a girl perceives the signs of puberty, she informs her
+parents. The mother weeps and the father constructs a little hut of palm
+leaves near the house. In this cabin he shuts up his daughter so that she
+cannot see the light, and there she remains fasting rigorously for four
+days. Meantime the mother, assisted by the women of the neighbourhood, has
+brewed a large quantity of the native intoxicant called _chicha_, and
+poured it into wooden troughs and palm leaves. On the morning of the
+fourth day, three hours before the dawn, the girl's father, having arrayed
+himself in his savage finery, summons all his neighbours with loud cries.
+The damsel is seated on a stone, and every guest in turn cuts off a lock
+of her hair, and running away hides it in the hollow trunk of a tree in
+the depths of the forest. When they have all done so and seated themselves
+again gravely in the circle, the girl offers to each of them a calabash
+full of very strong _chicha_. Before the wassailing begins, the various
+fathers perform a curious operation on the arms of their sons, who are
+seated beside them. The operator takes a very sharp bone of an ape, rubs
+it with a pungent spice, and then pinching up the skin of his son's arm he
+pierces it with the bone through and through, as a surgeon might introduce
+a seton. This operation he repeats till the young man's arm is riddled
+with holes at regular intervals from the shoulder to the wrist. Almost all
+who take part in the festival are covered with these wounds, which the
+Indians call _culucute_. Having thus prepared themselves to spend a happy
+day, they drink, play on flutes, sing and dance till evening. Rain,
+thunder, and lightning, should they befall, have no effect in damping the
+general enjoyment or preventing its continuance till after the sun has
+set. The motive for perforating the arms of the young men is to make them
+skilful hunters; at each perforation the sufferer is cheered by the
+promise of another sort of game or fish which the surgical operation will
+infallibly procure for him. The same operation is performed on the arms
+and legs of the girls, in order that they may be brave and strong; even
+the dogs are operated on with the intention of making them run down the
+game better. For five or six months afterwards the damsel must cover her
+head with bark and refrain from speaking to men. The Yuracares think that
+if they did not submit a young girl to this severe ordeal, her children
+would afterwards perish by accidents of various kinds, such as the sting
+of a serpent, the bite of a jaguar, the fall of a tree, the wound of an
+arrow, or what not.(135)
+
+(M47) Among the Matacos or Mataguayos, an Indian tribe of the Gran Chaco,
+a girl at puberty has to remain in seclusion for some time. She lies
+covered up with branches or other things in a corner of the hut, seeing no
+one and speaking to no one, and during this time she may eat neither flesh
+nor fish. Meantime a man beats a drum in front of the house.(136)
+Similarly among the Tobas, another Indian tribe of the same region, when a
+chief's daughter has just attained to womanhood, she is shut up for two or
+three days in the house, all the men of the tribe scour the country to
+bring in game and fish for a feast, and a Mataco Indian is engaged to
+drum, sing, and dance in front of the house without cessation, day and
+night, till the festival is over. As the merrymaking lasts for two or
+three weeks, the exhaustion of the musician at the end of it may be
+readily conceived. Meat and drink are supplied to him on the spot where he
+pays his laborious court to the Muses. The proceedings wind up with a
+saturnalia and a drunken debauch.(137) Among the Yaguas, an Indian tribe
+of the Upper Amazon, a girl at puberty is shut up for three months in a
+lonely hut in the forest, where her mother brings her food daily.(138)
+When a girl of the Peguenches tribe perceives in herself the first signs
+of womanhood, she is secluded by her mother in a corner of the hut
+screened off with blankets, and is warned not to lift up her eyes on any
+man. Next day, very early in the morning and again after sunset, she is
+taken out by two women and made to run till she is tired; in the interval
+she is again secluded in her corner. On the following day she lays three
+packets of wool beside the path near the house to signify that she is now
+a woman.(139) Among the Passes, Mauhes, and other tribes of Brazil the
+young woman in similar circumstances is hung in her hammock from the roof
+and has to fast there for a month or as long as she can hold out.(140) One
+of the early settlers in Brazil, about the middle of the sixteenth
+century, has described the severe ordeal which damsels at puberty had to
+undergo among the Indians on the south-east coast of that country, near
+what is now Rio de Janeiro. When a girl had reached this critical period
+of life, her hair was burned or shaved off close to the head. Then she was
+placed on a flat stone and cut with the tooth of an animal from the
+shoulders all down the back, till she ran with blood. Next the ashes of a
+wild gourd were rubbed into the wounds; the girl was bound hand and foot,
+and hung in a hammock, being enveloped in it so closely that no one could
+see her. Here she had to stay for three days without eating or drinking.
+When the three days were over, she stepped out of the hammock upon the
+flat stone, for her feet might not touch the ground. If she had a call of
+nature, a female relation took the girl on her back and carried her out,
+taking with her a live coal to prevent evil influences from entering the
+girl's body. Being replaced in her hammock, she was now allowed to get
+some flour, boiled roots, and water, but might not taste salt or flesh.
+Thus she continued to the end of the first monthly period, at the expiry
+of which she was gashed on the breast and belly as well as all down the
+back. During the second month she still stayed in her hammock, but her
+rule of abstinence was less rigid, and she was allowed to spin. The third
+month she was blackened with a certain pigment and began to go about as
+usual.(141)
+
+(M48) Amongst the Macusis of British Guiana, when a girl shews the first
+signs of puberty, she is hung in a hammock at the highest point of the
+hut. For the first few days she may not leave the hammock by day, but at
+night she must come down, light a fire, and spend the night beside it,
+else she would break out in sores on her neck, throat, and other parts of
+her body. So long as the symptoms are at their height, she must fast
+rigorously. When they have abated, she may come down and take up her abode
+in a little compartment that is made for her in the darkest corner of the
+hut. In the morning she may cook her food, but it must be at a separate
+fire and in a vessel of her own. After about ten days the magician comes
+and undoes the spell by muttering charms and breathing on her and on the
+more valuable of the things with which she has come in contact. The pots
+and drinking-vessels which she used are broken and the fragments buried.
+After her first bath, the girl must submit to be beaten by her mother with
+thin rods without uttering a cry. At the end of the second period she is
+again beaten, but not afterwards. She is now "clean," and can mix again
+with people.(142) Other Indians of Guiana, after keeping the girl in her
+hammock at the top of the hut for a month, expose her to certain large
+ants, whose bite is very painful.(143) Sometimes, in addition to being
+stung with ants, the sufferer has to fast day and night so long as she
+remains slung up on high in her hammock, so that when she comes down she
+is reduced to a skeleton. The intention of stinging her with ants is said
+to be to make her strong to bear the burden of maternity.(144) Amongst the
+Uaupes of Brazil a girl at puberty is secluded in the house for a month,
+and allowed only a small quantity of bread and water. Then she is taken
+out into the midst of her relations and friends, each of whom gives her
+four or five blows with pieces of _sipo_ (an elastic climber), till she
+falls senseless or dead. If she recovers, the operation is repeated four
+times at intervals of six hours, and it is considered an offence to the
+parents not to strike hard. Meantime, pots of meats and fish have been
+made ready; the _sipos_ are dipped into them and then given to the girl to
+lick, who is now considered a marriageable woman.(145)
+
+(M49) The custom of stinging the girl at such times with ants or beating
+her with rods is intended, we may be sure, not as a punishment or a test
+of endurance, but as a purification, the object being to drive away the
+malignant influences with which a girl in this condition is believed to be
+beset and enveloped. Examples of purification, by beating, by incisions in
+the flesh, and by stinging with ants, have already come before us.(146) In
+some Indian tribes of Brazil and Guiana young men do not rank as warriors
+and may not marry till they have passed through a terrible ordeal, which
+consists in being stung by swarms of venomous ants whose bite is like
+fire. Thus among the Mauhes on the Tapajos river, a southern tributary of
+the Amazon, boys of eight to ten years are obliged to thrust their arms
+into sleeves stuffed with great ferocious ants, which the Indians call
+_tocandeira_ (_Cryptocerus atratus_, F.). When the young victim shrieks
+with pain, an excited mob of men dances round him, shouting and
+encouraging him till he falls exhausted to the ground. He is then
+committed to the care of old women, who treat his fearfully swollen arms
+with fresh juice of the manioc; and on his recovery he has to shew his
+strength and skill in bending a bow. This cruel ordeal is commonly
+repeated again and again, till the lad has reached his fourteenth year and
+can bear the agony without betraying any sign of emotion. Then he is a man
+and can marry. A lad's age is reckoned by the number of times he has
+passed through the ordeal.(147) An eye-witness has described how a young
+Mauhe hero bore the torture with an endurance more than Spartan, dancing
+and singing, with his arms cased in the terrible mittens, before every
+cabin of the great common house, till pallid, staggering, and with
+chattering teeth he triumphantly laid the gloves before the old chief and
+received the congratulations of the men and the caresses of the women;
+then breaking away from his friends and admirers he threw himself into the
+river and remained in its cool soothing water till nightfall.(148)
+Similarly among the Ticunas of the Upper Amazon, on the border of Peru,
+the young man who would take his place among the warriors must plunge his
+arm into a sort of basket full of venomous ants and keep it there for
+several minutes without uttering a cry. He generally falls backwards and
+sometimes succumbs to the fever which ensues; hence as soon as the ordeal
+is over the women are prodigal of their attentions to him, and rub the
+swollen arm with a particular kind of herb.(149) Ordeals of this sort
+appear to be in vogue among the Indians of the Rio Negro as well as of the
+Amazon.(150) Among the Rucuyennes, a tribe of Indians in the north of
+Brazil, on the borders of Guiana, young men who are candidates for
+marriage must submit to be stung all over their persons not only with ants
+but with wasps, which are applied to their naked bodies in curious
+instruments of trellis-work shaped like fantastic quadrupeds or birds. The
+patient invariably falls down in a swoon and is carried like dead to his
+hammock, where he is tightly lashed with cords. As they come to
+themselves, they writhe in agony, so that their hammocks rock violently to
+and fro, causing the hut to shake as if it were about to collapse. This
+dreadful ordeal is called by the Indians a _marake_.(151)
+
+(M50) The same ordeal, under the same name, is also practised by the
+Wayanas, an Indian tribe of French Guiana, but with them, we are told, it
+is no longer deemed an indispensable preliminary to marriage; "it is
+rather a sort of national medicine administered chiefly to the youth of
+both sexes." Applied to men, the _marake_, as it is called, "sharpens
+them, prevents them from being heavy and lazy, makes them active, brisk,
+industrious, imparts strength, and helps them to shoot well with the bow;
+without it the Indians would always be slack and rather sickly, would
+always have a little fever, and would lie perpetually in their hammocks.
+As for the women, the _marake_ keeps them from going to sleep, renders
+them active, alert, brisk, gives them strength and a liking for work,
+makes them good housekeepers, good workers at the stockade, good makers of
+_cachiri_. Every one undergoes the _marake_ at least twice in his life,
+sometimes thrice, and oftener if he likes. It may be had from the age of
+about eight years and upward, and no one thinks it odd that a man of forty
+should voluntarily submit to it."(152) Similarly the Indians of St. Juan
+Capistrano in California used to be branded on some part of their bodies,
+generally on the right arm, but sometimes on the leg also, not as a proof
+of manly fortitude, but because they believed that the custom "added
+greater strength to the nerves, and gave a better pulse for the management
+of the bow." Afterwards "they were whipped with nettles, and covered with
+ants, that they might become robust, and the infliction was always
+performed in summer, during the months of July and August, when the nettle
+was in its most fiery state. They gathered small bunches, which they
+fastened together, and the poor deluded Indian was chastised, by
+inflicting blows with them upon his naked limbs, until unable to walk; and
+then he was carried to the nest of the nearest and most furious species of
+ants, and laid down among them, while some of his friends, with sticks,
+kept annoying the insects to make them still more violent. What torments
+did they not undergo! What pain! What hellish inflictions! Yet their faith
+gave them power to endure all without a murmur, and they remained as if
+dead. Having undergone these dreadful ordeals, they were considered as
+invulnerable, and believed that the arrows of their enemies could no
+longer harm them."(153) Among the Alur, a tribe inhabiting the
+south-western region of the upper Nile, to bury a man in an ant-hill and
+leave him there for a while is the regular treatment for insanity.(154)
+
+(M51) In like manner it is probable that beating or scourging as a
+religious or ceremonial rite was originally a mode of purification. It was
+meant to wipe off and drive away a dangerous contagion, whether
+personified as demoniacal or not, which was supposed to be adhering
+physically, though invisibly, to the body of the sufferer.(155) The pain
+inflicted on the person beaten was no more the object of the beating than
+it is of a surgical operation with us; it was a necessary accident, that
+was all. In later times such customs were interpreted otherwise, and the
+pain, from being an accident, became the prime object of the ceremony,
+which was now regarded either as a test of endurance imposed upon persons
+at critical epochs of life, or as a mortification of the flesh well
+pleasing to the god. But asceticism, under any shape or form, is never
+primitive. The savage, it is true, in certain circumstances will
+voluntarily subject himself to pains and privations which appear to us
+wholly needless; but he never acts thus unless he believes that some solid
+temporal advantage is to be gained by so doing. Pain for the sake of pain,
+whether as a moral discipline in this life or as a means of winning a
+glorious immortality hereafter, is not an object which he sets himself
+deliberately to pursue.
+
+(M52) If this view is correct, we can understand why so many Indian tribes
+of South America compel the youth of both sexes to submit to these painful
+and sometimes fatal ordeals. They imagine that in this way they rid the
+young folk of certain evils inherent in youth, especially at the critical
+age of puberty; and when they picture to themselves the evils in a
+personal form as dangerous spirits or demons, the ceremony of their
+expulsion may in the strict sense be termed an exorcism. This certainly
+appears to be the interpretation which the Banivas of the Orinoco put upon
+the cruel scourgings which they inflict on girls at puberty. At her first
+menstruation a Baniva girl must pass several days and nights in her
+hammock, almost motionless and getting nothing to eat and drink but water
+and a little manioc. While she lies there, the suitors for her hand apply
+to her father, and he who can afford to give most for her or can prove
+himself the best man, is promised the damsel in marriage. The fast over,
+some old men enter the hut, bandage the girl's eyes, cover her head with a
+bonnet of which the fringes fall on her shoulders, and then lead her forth
+and tie her to a post set up in an open place. The head of the post is
+carved in the shape of a grotesque face. None but the old men may witness
+what follows. Were a woman caught peeping and prying, it would go ill with
+her; she would be marked out for the vengeance of the demon, who would
+make her expiate her crime at the very next moon by madness or death.
+Every participant in the ceremony comes armed with a scourge of cords or
+of fish skins; some of them reinforce the virtue of the instrument by
+tying little sharp stones to the end of the thongs. Then, to the dismal
+and deafening notes of shell-trumpets blown by two or three
+supernumeraries, the men circle round and round the post, every one
+applying his scourge as he passes to the girl's back, till it streams with
+blood. At last the musicians, winding tremendous blasts on their trumpets
+against the demon, advance and touch the post in which he is supposed to
+be incorporate. Then the blows cease to descend; the girl is untied, often
+in a fainting state, and carried away to have her wounds washed and
+simples applied to them. The youngest of the executioners, or rather of
+the exorcists, hastens to inform her betrothed husband of the happy issue
+of the exorcism. "The spirit," he says, "had cast thy beloved into a sleep
+as deep almost as that of death. But we have rescued her from his attacks,
+and laid her down in such and such a place. Go seek her." Then going from
+house to house through the village he cries to the inmates, "Come, let us
+burn the demon who would have taken possession of such and such a girl,
+our friend." The bridegroom at once carries his wounded and suffering
+bride to his own house; and all the people gather round the post for the
+pleasure of burning it and the demon together. A great pile of firewood
+has meanwhile been heaped up about it, and the women run round the pyre
+cursing in shrill voices the wicked spirit who has wrought all this evil.
+The men join in with hoarser cries and animate themselves for the business
+in hand by deep draughts of an intoxicant which has been provided for the
+occasion by the parents-in-law. Soon the bridegroom, having committed the
+bride to the care of his mother, appears on the scene brandishing a
+lighted torch. He addresses the demon with bitter mockery and reproaches;
+informs him that the fair creature on whom he, the demon, had nefarious
+designs, is now his, the bridegroom's, blooming spouse; and shaking his
+torch at the grinning head on the post, he screams out, "This is how the
+victims of thy persecution take vengeance on thee!" With these words he
+puts a light to the pyre. At once the drums strike up, the trumpets blare,
+and men, women, and children begin to dance. In two long rows they dance,
+the men on one side, the women on the other, advancing till they almost
+touch and then retiring again. After that the two rows join hands, and
+forming a huge circle trip it round and round the blaze, till the post
+with its grotesque face is consumed in the flames and nothing of the pyre
+remains but a heap of red and glowing embers. "The evil spirit has been
+destroyed. Thus delivered from her persecutor, the young wife will be free
+from sickness, will not die in childbed, and will bear many children to
+her husband."(156) From this account it appears that the Banivas attribute
+the symptoms of puberty in girls to the wounds inflicted on them by an
+amorous devil, who, however, can be not only exorcised but burnt to ashes
+at the stake.
+
+
+
+
+§ 6. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in India and Cambodia.
+
+
+(M53) When a Hindoo maiden reaches maturity she is kept in a dark room for
+four days, and is forbidden to see the sun. She is regarded as unclean; no
+one may touch her. Her diet is restricted to boiled rice, milk, sugar,
+curd, and tamarind without salt. On the morning of the fifth day she goes
+to a neighbouring tank, accompanied by five women whose husbands are
+alive. Smeared with turmeric water, they all bathe and return home,
+throwing away the mat and other things that were in the room.(157) The
+Rarhi Brahmans of Bengal compel a girl at puberty to live alone, and do
+not allow her to see the face of any male. For three days she remains shut
+up in a dark room, and has to undergo certain penances. Fish, flesh, and
+sweetmeats are forbidden her; she must live upon rice and ghee.(158) Among
+the Tiyans of Malabar a girl is thought to be polluted for four days from
+the beginning of her first menstruation. During this time she must keep to
+the north side of the house, where she sleeps on a grass mat of a
+particular kind, in a room festooned with garlands of young coco-nut
+leaves. Another girl keeps her company and sleeps with her, but she may
+not touch any other person, tree or plant. Further, she may not see the
+sky, and woe betide her if she catches sight of a crow or a cat! Her diet
+must be strictly vegetarian, without salt, tamarinds, or chillies. She is
+armed against evil spirits by a knife, which is placed on the mat or
+carried on her person.(159) Among the Kappiliyans of Madura and Tinnevelly
+a girl at her first monthly period remains under pollution for thirteen
+days, either in a corner of the house, which is screened off for her use
+by her maternal uncle, or in a temporary hut, which is erected by the same
+relative on the common land of the village. On the thirteenth day she
+bathes in a tank, and, on entering the house, steps over a pestle and a
+cake. Near the entrance some food is placed and a dog is allowed to
+partake of it; but his enjoyment is marred by suffering, for while he eats
+he receives a sound thrashing, and the louder he howls the better, for the
+larger will be the family to which the young woman will give birth; should
+there be no howls, there will be no children. The temporary hut in which
+the girl passed the days of her seclusion is burnt down, and the pots
+which she used are smashed to shivers.(160) Similarly among the Parivarams
+of Madura, when a girl attains to puberty she is kept for sixteen days in
+a hut, which is guarded at night by her relations; and when her
+sequestration is over the hut is burnt down and the pots she used are
+broken into very small pieces, because they think that if rain-water
+gathered in any of them, the girl would be childless.(161) The Pulayars of
+Travancore build a special hut in the jungle for the use of a girl at
+puberty; there she remains for seven days. No one else may enter the hut,
+not even her mother. Women stand a little way off and lay down food for
+her. At the end of the time she is brought home, clad in a new or clean
+cloth, and friends are treated to betel-nut, toddy, and arack.(162) Among
+the Singhalese a girl at her first menstruation is confined to a room,
+where she may neither see nor be seen by any male. After being thus
+secluded for two weeks she is taken out, with her face covered, and is
+bathed by women at the back of the house. Near the bathing-place are kept
+branches of any milk-bearing tree, usually of the _jak_-tree. In some
+cases, while the time of purification or uncleanness lasts, the maiden
+stays in a separate hut, which is afterwards burnt down.(163)
+
+(M54) In Cambodia a girl at puberty is put to bed under a mosquito
+curtain, where she should stay a hundred days. Usually, however, four,
+five, ten, or twenty days are thought enough; and even this, in a hot
+climate and under the close meshes of the curtain, is sufficiently
+trying.(164) According to another account, a Cambodian maiden at puberty
+is said to "enter into the shade." During her retirement, which, according
+to the rank and position of her family, may last any time from a few days
+to several years, she has to observe a number of rules, such as not to be
+seen by a strange man, not to eat flesh or fish, and so on. She goes
+nowhere, not even to the pagoda. But this state of seclusion is
+discontinued during eclipses; at such times she goes forth and pays her
+devotions to the monster who is supposed to cause eclipses by catching the
+heavenly bodies between his teeth.(165) This permission to break her rule
+of retirement and appear abroad during an eclipse seems to shew how
+literally the injunction is interpreted which forbids maidens entering on
+womanhood to look upon the sun.
+
+
+
+
+§ 7. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Folk-tales.
+
+
+(M55) A superstition so widely diffused as this might be expected to leave
+traces in legends and folk-tales. And it has done so. In a Danish story we
+read of a princess who was fated to be carried off by a warlock if ever
+the sun shone on her before she had passed her thirtieth year; so the king
+her father kept her shut up in the palace, and had all the windows on the
+east, south, and west sides blocked up, lest a sunbeam should fall on his
+darling child, and he should thus lose her for ever. Only at evening, when
+the sun was down, might she walk for a little in the beautiful garden of
+the castle. In time a prince came a-wooing, followed by a train of
+gorgeous knights and squires on horses all ablaze with gold and silver.
+The king said the prince might have his daughter to wife on condition that
+he would not carry her away to his home till she was thirty years old but
+would live with her in the castle, where the windows looked out only to
+the north. The prince agreed, so married they were. The bride was only
+fifteen, and fifteen more long weary years must pass before she might step
+out of the gloomy donjon, breathe the fresh air, and see the sun. But she
+and her gallant young bridegroom loved each other and they were happy.
+Often they sat hand in hand at the window looking out to the north and
+talked of what they would do when they were free. Still it was a little
+dull to look out always at the same window and to see nothing but the
+castle woods, and the distant hills, and the clouds drifting silently over
+them. Well, one day it happened that all the people in the castle had gone
+away to a neighbouring castle to witness a tournament and other gaieties,
+and the two young folks were left as usual all alone at the window looking
+out to the north. They sat silent for a time gazing away to the hills. It
+was a grey sad day, the sky was overcast, and the weather seemed to draw
+to rain. At last the prince said, "There will be no sunshine to-day. What
+if we were to drive over and join the rest at the tournament?" His young
+wife gladly consented, for she longed to see more of the world than those
+eternal green woods and those eternal blue hills, which were all she ever
+saw from the window. So the horses were put into the coach, and it rattled
+up to the door, and in they got and away they drove. At first all went
+well. The clouds hung low over the woods, the wind sighed in the trees, a
+drearier day you could hardly imagine. So they joined the rest at the
+other castle and took their seats to watch the jousting in the lists. So
+intent were they in watching the gay spectacle of the prancing steeds, the
+fluttering pennons, and the glittering armour of the knights, that they
+failed to mark the change, the fatal change, in the weather. For the wind
+was rising and had begun to disperse the clouds, and suddenly the sun
+broke through, and the glory of it fell like an aureole on the young wife,
+and at once she vanished away. No sooner did her husband miss her from his
+side than he, too, mysteriously disappeared. The tournament broke up in
+confusion, the bereft father hastened home, and shut himself up in the
+dark castle from which the light of life had departed. The green woods and
+the blue hills could still be seen from the window that looked to the
+north, but the young faces that had gazed out of it so wistfully were
+gone, as it seemed, for ever.(166)
+
+(M56) A Tyrolese story tells how it was the doom of a lovely maiden with
+golden hair to be transported into the belly of a whale if ever a sunbeam
+fell on her. Hearing of the fame of her beauty the king of the country
+sent for her to be his bride, and her brother drove the fair damsel to the
+palace in a carefully closed coach, himself sitting on the box and
+handling the reins. On the way they overtook two hideous witches, who
+pretended they were weary and begged for a lift in the coach. At first the
+brother refused to take them in, but his tender-hearted sister entreated
+him to have compassion on the two poor footsore women; for you may easily
+imagine that she was not acquainted with their true character. So down he
+got rather surlily from the box, opened the coach door, and in the two
+witches stepped, laughing in their sleeves. But no sooner had the brother
+mounted the box and whipped up the horses, than one of the two wicked
+witches bored a hole in the closed coach. A sunbeam at once shot through
+the hole and fell on the fair damsel. So she vanished from the coach and
+was spirited away into the belly of a whale in the neighbouring sea. You
+can imagine the consternation of the king, when the coach door opened and
+instead of his blooming bride out bounced two hideous hags!(167)
+
+(M57) In a modern Greek folk-tale the Fates predict that in her fifteenth
+year a princess must be careful not to let the sun shine on her, for if
+this were to happen she would be turned into a lizard.(168) In another
+modern Greek tale the Sun bestows a daughter upon a childless woman on
+condition of taking the child back to himself when she is twelve years
+old. So, when the child was twelve, the mother closed the doors and
+windows, and stopped up all the chinks and crannies, to prevent the Sun
+from coming to fetch away her daughter. But she forgot to stop up the
+key-hole, and a sunbeam streamed through it and carried off the girl.(169)
+In a Sicilian story a seer foretells that a king will have a daughter who,
+in her fourteenth year, will conceive a child by the Sun. So, when the
+child was born, the king shut her up in a lonely tower which had no
+window, lest a sunbeam should fall on her. When she was nearly fourteen
+years old, it happened that her parents sent her a piece of roasted kid,
+in which she found a sharp bone. With this bone she scraped a hole in the
+wall, and a sunbeam shot through the hole and got her with child.(170)
+
+(M58) The old Greek story of Danae, who was confined by her father in a
+subterranean chamber or a brazen tower, but impregnated by Zeus, who
+reached her in the shape of a shower of gold,(171) perhaps belongs to the
+same class of tales. It has its counterpart in the legend which the
+Kirghiz of Siberia tell of their ancestry. A certain Khan had a fair
+daughter, whom he kept in a dark iron house, that no man might see her. An
+old woman tended her; and when the girl was grown to maidenhood she asked
+the old woman, "Where do you go so often?" "My child," said the old dame,
+"there is a bright world. In that bright world your father and mother
+live, and all sorts of people live there. That is where I go." The maiden
+said, "Good mother, I will tell nobody, but shew me that bright world." So
+the old woman took the girl out of the iron house. But when she saw the
+bright world, the girl tottered and fainted; and the eye of God fell upon
+her, and she conceived. Her angry father put her in a golden chest and
+sent her floating away (fairy gold can float in fairyland) over the wide
+sea.(172) The shower of gold in the Greek story, and the eye of God in the
+Kirghiz legend, probably stand for sunlight and the sun.
+
+(M59) The idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in
+legends. Thus, for example, among the Indians of Guacheta in Colombia, it
+is said, a report once ran that the sun would impregnate one of their
+maidens, who should bear a child and yet remain a virgin. The chief had
+two daughters, and was very desirous that one of them should conceive in
+this miraculous manner. So every day he made them climb a hill to the east
+of his house in order to be touched by the first beams of the rising sun.
+His wishes were fulfilled, for one of the damsels conceived and after nine
+months gave birth to an emerald. So she wrapped it in cotton and placed it
+in her bosom, and in a few days it turned into a child, who received the
+name of Garanchacha and was universally recognized as a son of the
+sun.(173) Again, the Samoans tell of a woman named Mangamangai, who became
+pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her son grew up and was named
+"Child of the Sun." At his marriage he applied to his mother for a dowry,
+but she bade him apply to his father, the sun, and told him how to go to
+him. So one morning he took a long vine and made a noose in it; then
+climbing up a tree he threw the noose over the sun and caught him fast.
+Thus arrested in his progress, the luminary asked him what he wanted, and
+being told by the young man that he wanted a present for his bride, the
+sun obligingly packed up a store of blessings in a basket, with which the
+youth descended to the earth.(174)
+
+(M60) Even in the marriage customs of various races we may perhaps detect
+traces of this belief that women can be impregnated by the sun. Thus
+amongst the Chaco Indians of South America a newly married couple used to
+sleep the first night on a mare's or bullock's skin with their heads
+towards the west, "for the marriage is not considered ratified till the
+rising sun shines on their feet the succeeding morning."(175) At old
+Hindoo marriages the first ceremony was the "Impregnation-rite"
+(_Garbhadhana_); during the previous day the bride was made to look
+towards the sun or to be in some way exposed to its rays.(176) Amongst the
+Turks of Siberia it was formerly the custom on the morning after the
+marriage to lead the young couple out of the hut to greet the rising sun.
+The same custom is said to be still practised in Iran and Central Asia
+under a belief that the beams of the rising sun are the surest means of
+impregnating the new bride.(177) And as some people think that women may
+be gotten with child by the sun, so others imagine that they can conceive
+by the moon. According to the Greenlanders the moon is a young man, and he
+"now and then comes down to give their wives a visit and caress them; for
+which reason no woman dare sleep lying upon her back, without she first
+spits upon her fingers and rubs her belly with it. For the same reason the
+young maids are afraid to stare long at the moon, imagining they may get a
+child by the bargain."(178) Similarly Breton peasants are reported to
+believe that women or girls who expose their persons to the moonlight may
+be impregnated by it and give birth to monsters.(179)
+
+
+
+
+§ 8. Reasons for the Seclusion of Girls at Puberty.
+
+
+(M61) The motive for the restraints so commonly imposed on girls at
+puberty is the deeply engrained dread which primitive man universally
+entertains of menstruous blood. He fears it at all times but especially on
+its first appearance; hence the restrictions under which women lie at
+their first menstruation are usually more stringent than those which they
+have to observe at any subsequent recurrence of the mysterious flow. Some
+evidence of the fear and of the customs based on it has been cited in an
+earlier part of this work;(180) but as the terror, for it is nothing less,
+which the phenomenon periodically strikes into the mind of the savage has
+deeply influenced his life and institutions, it may be well to illustrate
+the subject with some further examples.
+
+(M62) Thus in the Encounter Bay tribe of South Australia there is, or used
+to be, a "superstition which obliges a woman to separate herself from the
+camp at the time of her monthly illness, when, if a young man or boy
+should approach, she calls out, and he immediately makes a circuit to
+avoid her. If she is neglectful upon this point, she exposes herself to
+scolding, and sometimes to severe beating by her husband or nearest
+relation, because the boys are told from their infancy, that if they see
+the blood they will early become grey-headed, and their strength will fail
+prematurely."(181) And of the South Australian aborigines in general we
+read that there is a "custom requiring all boys and uninitiated young men
+to sleep at some distance from the huts of the adults, and to remove
+altogether away in the morning as soon as daylight dawns, and the natives
+begin to move about. This is to prevent their seeing the women, some of
+whom may be menstruating; and if looked upon by the young males, it is
+supposed that dire results will follow."(182) And amongst these tribes
+women in their courses "are not allowed to eat fish of any kind, or to go
+near the water at all; it being one of their superstitions, that if a
+female, in that state, goes near the water, no success can be expected by
+the men in fishing."(183) Similarly, among the natives of the Murray
+River, menstruous women "were not allowed to go near water for fear of
+frightening the fish. They were also not allowed to eat them, for the same
+reason. A woman during such periods would never cross the river in a
+canoe, or even fetch water for the camp. It was sufficient for her to say
+_Thama_, to ensure her husband getting the water himself."(184) The Dieri
+of Central Australia believe that if women at these times were to eat fish
+or bathe in a river, the fish would all die and the water would dry up. In
+this tribe a mark made with red ochre round a woman's mouth indicates that
+she has her courses; no one would offer fish to such a woman.(185) The
+Arunta of Central Australia forbid menstruous women to gather the
+_irriakura_ bulbs, which form a staple article of diet for both men and
+women. They believe that were a woman to break this rule, the supply of
+bulbs would fail.(186) Among the aborigines of Victoria the wife at her
+monthly periods had to sleep on the opposite side of the fire from her
+husband; she might partake of nobody's food, and nobody would partake of
+hers, for people thought that if they ate or drank anything that had been
+touched by a woman in her courses, it would make them weak or ill.
+Unmarried girls and widows at such times had to paint their heads and the
+upper parts of their bodies red,(187) no doubt as a danger signal.
+
+(M63) In some Australian tribes the seclusion of menstruous women was even
+more rigid, and was enforced by severer penalties than a scolding or a
+beating. Thus with regard to certain tribes of New South Wales and
+Southern Queensland we are told that "during the monthly illness, the
+woman is not allowed to touch anything that men use, or even to walk on a
+path that any man frequents, on pain of death."(188) Again, "there is a
+regulation relating to camps in the Wakelbura tribe which forbids the
+women coming into the encampment by the same path as the men. Any
+violation of this rule would in a large camp be punished with death. The
+reason for this is the dread with which they regard the menstrual period
+of women. During such a time, a woman is kept entirely away from the camp,
+half a mile at least. A woman in such a condition has boughs of some tree
+of her totem tied round her loins, and is constantly watched and guarded,
+for it is thought that should any male be so unfortunate as to see a woman
+in such a condition, he would die. If such a woman were to let herself be
+seen by a man, she would probably be put to death. When the woman has
+recovered, she is painted red and white, her head covered with feathers,
+and returns to the camp."(189)
+
+(M64) In Muralug, one of the Torres Straits Islands, a menstruous woman
+may not eat anything that lives in the sea, else the natives believe that
+the fisheries would fail. Again, in Mabuiag, another of these islands,
+women who have their courses on them may not eat turtle flesh nor turtle
+eggs, probably for a similar reason. And during the season when the
+turtles are pairing the restrictions laid on such a woman are much
+severer. She may not even enter a house in which there is turtle flesh,
+nor approach a fire on which the flesh is cooking; she may not go near the
+sea and she should not walk on the beach below high-water mark. Nay, the
+infection extends to her husband, who may not himself harpoon or otherwise
+take an active part in catching turtle; however, he is permitted to form
+one of the crew on a turtling expedition, provided he takes the precaution
+of rubbing his armpits with certain leaves, to which no doubt a
+disinfectant virtue is ascribed.(190) Among the Kai of German New Guinea
+women at their monthly sickness must live in little huts built for them in
+the forest; they may not enter the cultivated fields, for if they did go
+to them, and the pigs were to taste of the blood, it would inspire the
+animals with an irresistible desire to go likewise into the fields, where
+they would commit great depredations on the growing crops. Hence the issue
+from women at these times is carefully buried to prevent the pigs from
+getting at it. And conversely, if the pigs often break into the fields,
+the blame is laid on the women who by the neglect of these elementary
+precautions have put temptation in the way of the swine.(191) In Galela,
+to the west of New Guinea, women at their monthly periods may not enter a
+tobacco-field, or the plants would be attacked by disease.(192) The
+Minangkabauers of Sumatra are persuaded that if a woman in her unclean
+state were to go near a rice-field, the crop would be spoiled.(193)
+
+(M65) The Bushmen of South Africa think that, by a glance of a girl's eye
+at the time when she ought to be kept in strict retirement, men become
+fixed in whatever position they happen to occupy, with whatever they were
+holding in their hands, and are changed into trees that talk.(194)
+Cattle-rearing tribes of South Africa hold that their cattle would die if
+the milk were drunk by a menstruous woman;(195) and they fear the same
+disaster if a drop of her blood were to fall on the ground and the oxen
+were to pass over it. To prevent such a calamity women in general, not
+menstruous women only, are forbidden to enter the cattle enclosure; and
+more than that, they may not use the ordinary paths in entering the
+village or in passing from one hut to another. They are obliged to make
+circuitous tracks at the back of the huts in order to avoid the ground in
+the middle of the village where the cattle stand or lie down. These
+women's tracks may be seen at every Caffre village.(196) Similarly among
+the Bahima, a cattle-breeding tribe of Ankole, in Central Africa, no
+menstruous woman may drink milk, lest by so doing she should injure the
+cows; and she may not lie on her husband's bed, no doubt lest she should
+injure him. Indeed she is forbidden to lie on a bed at all and must sleep
+on the ground. Her diet is restricted to vegetables and beer.(197) Among
+the Baganda, in like manner, no menstruous woman might drink milk or come
+into contact with any milk-vessel;(198) and she might not touch anything
+that belonged to her husband, nor sit on his mat, nor cook his food. If
+she touched anything of his at such a time it was deemed equivalent to
+wishing him dead or to actually working magic for his destruction.(199)
+Were she to handle any article of his, he would surely fall ill; were she
+to handle his weapons, he would certainly be killed in the next battle.
+Even a woman who did not menstruate was believed by the Baganda to be a
+source of danger to her husband, indeed capable of killing him. Hence,
+before he went to war, he used to wound her slightly with his spear so as
+to draw blood; this was thought to ensure his safe return.(200) Apparently
+the notion was that if the wife did not lose blood in one way or another,
+her husband would be bled in war to make up for her deficiency; so by way
+of guarding against this undesirable event, he took care to relieve her of
+a little superfluous blood before he repaired to the field of honour.
+Further, the Baganda would not suffer a menstruous woman to visit a well;
+if she did so, they feared that the water would dry up, and that she
+herself would fall sick and die, unless she confessed her fault and the
+medicine-man made atonement for her.(201) Among the Akikuyu of British
+East Africa, if a new hut is built in a village and the wife chances to
+menstruate in it on the day she lights the first fire there, the hut must
+be broken down and demolished the very next day. The woman may on no
+account sleep a second night in it; there is a curse (_thahu_) both on her
+and on it.(202) In the Suk tribe of British East Africa warriors may not
+eat anything that has been touched by menstruous women. If they did so, it
+is believed that they would lose their virility; "in the rain they will
+shiver and in the heat they will faint." Suk men and women take their
+meals apart, because the men fear that one or more of the women may be
+menstruating.(203) The Anyanja of British Central Africa, at the southern
+end of Lake Nyassa, think that a man who should sleep with a woman in her
+courses would fall sick and die, unless some remedy were applied in time.
+And with them it is a rule that at such times a woman should not put any
+salt into the food she is cooking, otherwise the people who partook of the
+food salted by her would suffer from a certain disease called _tsempo_;
+hence to obviate the danger she calls a child to put the salt into the
+dish.(204)
+
+(M66) Among the Hos, a tribe of Ewe negroes of Togoland in West Africa, so
+long as a wife has her monthly sickness she may not cook for her husband,
+nor lie on his bed, nor sit on his stool; an infraction of these rules
+would assuredly, it is believed, cause her husband to die. If her husband
+is a priest, or a magician, or a chief, she may not pass the days of her
+uncleanness in the house, but must go elsewhere till she is clean.(205)
+Among the Ewe negroes of this region each village has its huts where women
+who have their courses on them must spend their time secluded from
+intercourse with other people. Sometimes these huts stand by themselves in
+public places; sometimes they are mere shelters built either at the back
+or front of the ordinary dwelling-houses. A woman is punishable if she
+does not pass the time of her monthly sickness in one of these huts or
+shelters provided for her use. Thus, if she shews herself in her own house
+or even in the yard of the house, she may be fined a sheep, which is
+killed, its flesh divided among the people, and its blood poured on the
+image of the chief god as a sin-offering to expiate her offence. She is
+also forbidden to go to the place where the villagers draw water, and if
+she breaks the rule, she must give a goat to be killed; its flesh is
+distributed, and its blood, diluted with water and mixed with herbs, is
+sprinkled on the watering-place and on the paths leading to it. Were any
+woman to disregard these salutary precautions, the chief fetish-man in the
+village would fall sick and die, which would be an irreparable loss to
+society.(206)
+
+(M67) The miraculous virtue ascribed to menstruous blood is well
+illustrated in a story told by the Arab chronicler Tabari. He relates how
+Sapor, king of Persia, besieged the strong city of Atrae, in the desert of
+Mesopotamia, for several years without being able to take it. But the king
+of the city, whose name was Daizan, had a daughter, and when it was with
+her after the manner of women she went forth from the city and dwelt for a
+time in the suburb, for such was the custom of the place. Now it fell out
+that, while she tarried there, Sapor saw her and loved her, and she loved
+him; for he was a handsome man and she a lovely maid. And she said to him,
+"What will you give me if I shew you how you may destroy the walls of this
+city and slay my father?" And he said to her, "I will give you what you
+will, and I will exalt you above my other wives, and will set you nearer
+to me than them all." Then she said to him, "Take a greenish dove with a
+ring about its neck, and write something on its foot with the menstruous
+blood of a blue-eyed maid; then let the bird loose, and it will perch on
+the walls of the city, and they will fall down." For that, says the Arab
+historian, was the talisman of the city, which could not be destroyed in
+any other way. And Sapor did as she bade him, and the city fell down in a
+heap, and he stormed it and slew Daizan on the spot.(207)
+
+(M68) According to the Talmud, if a woman at the beginning of her period
+passes between two men, she thereby kills one of them; if she passes
+between them towards the end of her period, she only causes them to
+quarrel violently.(208) Maimonides tells us that down to his time it was a
+common custom in the East to keep women at their periods in a separate
+house and to burn everything on which they had trodden; a man who spoke
+with such a woman or who was merely exposed to the same wind that blew
+over her, became thereby unclean.(209) Peasants of the Lebanon think that
+menstruous women are the cause of many misfortunes; their shadow causes
+flowers to wither and trees to perish, it even arrests the movements of
+serpents; if one of them mounts a horse, the animal might die or at least
+be disabled for a long time.(210) In Syria to this day a woman who has her
+courses on her may neither salt nor pickle, for the people think that
+whatever she pickled or salted would not keep.(211) The Toaripi of New
+Guinea, doubtless for a similar reason, will not allow women at such times
+to cook.(212) The Bhuiyars, a Dravidian tribe of South Mirzapur, are said
+to feel an intense dread of menstrual pollution. Every house has two
+doors, one of which is used only by women in this condition. During her
+impurity the wife is fed by her husband apart from the rest of the family,
+and whenever she has to quit the house she is obliged to creep out on her
+hands and knees in order not to defile the thatch by her touch.(213) The
+Kharwars, another aboriginal tribe of the same district, keep their women
+at such seasons in the outer verandah of the house for eight days, and
+will not let them enter the kitchen or the cow-house; during this time the
+unclean woman may not cook nor even touch the cooking vessels. When the
+eight days are over, she bathes, washes her clothes, and returns to family
+life.(214) Hindoo women seclude themselves at their monthly periods and
+observe a number of rules, such as not to drink milk, not to milk cows,
+not to touch fire, not to lie on a high bed, not to walk on common paths,
+not to cross the track of animals, not to walk by the side of flowering
+plants, and not to observe the heavenly bodies.(215) The motive for these
+restrictions is not mentioned, but probably it is a dread of the baleful
+influence which is supposed to emanate from women at these times. The
+Parsees, who reverence fire, will not suffer menstruous women to see it or
+even to look on a lighted taper;(216) during their infirmity the women
+retire from their houses to little lodges in the country, whither victuals
+are brought to them daily; at the end of their seclusion they bathe and
+send a kid, a fowl, or a pigeon to the priest as an offering.(217) In
+Annam a woman at her monthly periods is deemed a centre of impurity, and
+contact with her is avoided. She is subject to all sorts of restrictions
+which she must observe herself and which others must observe towards her.
+She may not touch any food which is to be preserved by salting, whether it
+be fish, flesh, or vegetables; for were she to touch it the food would
+putrefy. She may not enter any sacred place, she may not be present at any
+religious ceremony. The linen which she wears at such times must be washed
+by herself at sunrise, never at night. On reaching puberty girls may not
+touch flowers or the fruits of certain trees, for touched by them the
+flowers would fade and the fruits fall to the ground. "It is on account of
+their reputation for impurity that the women generally live isolated. In
+every house they have an apartment reserved for them, and they never eat
+at the same table as the men. For the same reason they are excluded from
+all religious ceremonies. They may only be present at family ceremonies,
+but without ever officiating in them."(218)
+
+(M69) The Guayquiries of the Orinoco think that when a woman has her
+courses, everything upon which she steps will die, and that if a man
+treads on the place where she has passed, his legs will immediately swell
+up.(219) Among the Guaraunos of the same great river, women at their
+periods are regarded as unclean and kept apart in special huts, where all
+that they need is brought to them.(220) In like manner among the Piapocos,
+an Indian tribe on the Guayabero, a tributary of the Orinoco, a menstruous
+woman is secluded from her family every month for four or five days. She
+passes the time in a special hut, whither her husband brings her food; and
+at the end of the time she takes a bath and resumes her usual
+occupations.(221) So among the Indians of the Mosquito territory in
+Central America, when a woman is in her courses, she must quit the village
+for seven or eight days. A small hut is built for her in the wood, and at
+night some of the village girls go and sleep with her to keep her company.
+Or if the nights are dark and jaguars are known to be prowling in the
+neighbourhood, her husband will take his gun or bow and sleep in a hammock
+near her. She may neither handle nor cook food; all is prepared and
+carried to her. When the sickness is over, she bathes in the river, puts
+on clean clothes, and returns to her household duties.(222) Among the
+Bri-bri Indians of Costa Rica a girl at her first menstruation retires to
+a hut built for the purpose in the forest, and there she must stay till
+she has been purified by a medicine-man, who breathes on her and places
+various objects, such as feathers, the beaks of birds, the teeth of
+beasts, and so forth, upon her body. A married woman at her periods
+remains in the house with her husband, but she is reckoned unclean
+(_bukuru_) and must avoid all intimate relations with him. She uses for
+plates only banana leaves, which, when she has done with them, she throws
+away in a sequestered spot; for should a cow find and eat them, the animal
+would waste away and perish. Also she drinks only out of a special vessel,
+because any person who should afterwards drink out of the same vessel
+would infallibly pine away and die.(223)
+
+(M70) Among most tribes of North American Indians the custom was that
+women in their courses retired from the camp or the village and lived
+during the time of their uncleanness in special huts or shelters which
+were appropriated to their use. There they dwelt apart, eating and
+sleeping by themselves, warming themselves at their own fires, and
+strictly abstaining from all communications with men, who shunned them
+just as if they were stricken with the plague. No article of furniture
+used in these menstrual huts might be used in any other, not even the
+flint and steel with which in the old days the fires were kindled. No one
+would borrow a light from a woman in her seclusion. If a white man in his
+ignorance asked to light his pipe at her fire, she would refuse to grant
+the request, telling him that it would make his nose bleed and his head
+ache, and that he would fall sick in consequence. If an Indian's wooden
+pipe cracked, his friends would think that he had either lit it at one of
+these polluted fires or had held some converse with a woman during her
+retirement, which was esteemed a most disgraceful and wicked thing to do.
+Decent men would not approach within a certain distance of a woman at such
+times, and if they had to convey anything to her they would stand some
+forty or fifty paces off and throw it to her. Everything which was touched
+by her hands during this period was deemed ceremonially unclean. Indeed
+her touch was thought to convey such pollution that if she chanced to lay
+a finger on a chief's lodge or his gun or anything else belonging to him,
+it would be instantly destroyed. If she crossed the path of a hunter or a
+warrior, his luck for that day at least would be gone. Were she not thus
+secluded, it was supposed that the men would be attacked by diseases of
+various kinds, which would prove mortal. In some tribes a woman who
+infringed the rules of separation might have to answer with her life for
+any misfortunes that might happen to individuals or to the tribe in
+consequence, as it was supposed, of her criminal negligence. When she
+quitted her tent or hut to go into retirement, the fire in it was
+extinguished and the ashes thrown away outside of the village, and a new
+fire was kindled, as if the old one had been defiled by her presence. At
+the end of their seclusion the women bathed in running streams and
+returned to their usual occupations.(224)
+
+(M71) Thus, to take examples, the Creek and kindred Indians of the United
+States compelled women at menstruation to live in separate huts at some
+distance from the village. There the women had to stay, at the risk of
+being surprised and cut off by enemies. It was thought "a most horrid and
+dangerous pollution" to go near the women at such times; and the danger
+extended to enemies who, if they slew the women, had to cleanse themselves
+from the pollution by means of certain sacred herbs and roots.(225)
+Similarly, the Choctaw women had to quit their huts during their monthly
+periods, and might not return till after they had been purified. While
+their uncleanness lasted they had to prepare their own food. The men
+believed that if they were to approach a menstruous woman, they would fall
+ill, and that some mishap would overtake them when they went to the
+wars.(226) When an Omaha woman has her courses on her, she retires from
+the family to a little shelter of bark or grass, supported by sticks,
+where she kindles a fire and cooks her victuals alone. Her seclusion lasts
+four days. During this time she may not approach or touch a horse, for the
+Indians believe that such contamination would impoverish or weaken the
+animal.(227) Among the Potawatomis the women at their monthly periods "are
+not allowed to associate with the rest of the nation; they are completely
+laid aside, and are not permitted to touch any article of furniture or
+food which the men have occasion to use. If the Indians be stationary at
+the time, the women are placed outside of the camp; if on a march, they
+are not allowed to follow the trail, but must take a different path and
+keep at a distance from the main body."(228) Among the Cheyennes
+menstruous women slept in special lodges; the men believed that if they
+slept with their wives at such times, they would probably be wounded in
+their next battle. A man who owned a shield had very particularly to be on
+his guard against women in their courses. He might not go into a lodge
+where one of them happened to be, nor even into a lodge where one of them
+had been, until a ceremony of purification had been performed. Sweet grass
+and juniper were burnt in the tent, and the pegs were pulled up and the
+covering thrown back, as if the tent were about to be struck. After this
+pretence of decamping from the polluted spot the owner of the shield might
+enter the tent.(229)
+
+(M72) The Stseelis Indians of British Columbia imagined that if a
+menstruous woman were to step over a bundle of arrows, the arrows would
+thereby be rendered useless and might even cause the death of their owner;
+and similarly that if she passed in front of a hunter who carried a gun,
+the weapon would never shoot straight again. Neither her husband nor her
+father would dream of going out to hunt while she was in this state; and
+even if he had wished to do so, the other hunters would not go with him.
+Hence to keep them out of harm's way, the women, both married and
+unmarried, were secluded at these times for four days in shelters.(230)
+Among the Thompson Indians of British Columbia every woman had to isolate
+herself from the rest of the people during every recurring period of
+menstruation, and had to live some little way off in a small brush or bark
+lodge made for the purpose. At these times she was considered unclean,
+must use cooking and eating utensils of her own, and was supplied with
+food by some other woman. If she smoked out of a pipe other than her own,
+that pipe would ever afterwards be hot to smoke. If she crossed in front
+of a gun, that gun would thenceforth be useless for the war or the chase,
+unless indeed the owner promptly washed the weapon in "medecine" or struck
+the woman with it once on each principal part of her body. If a man ate or
+had any intercourse with a menstruous woman, nay if he merely wore clothes
+or mocassins made or patched by her, he would have bad luck in hunting and
+the bears would attack him fiercely. Before being admitted again among the
+people, she had to change all her clothes and wash several times in clear
+water. The clothes worn during her isolation were hung on a tree, to be
+used next time, or to be washed. For one day after coming back among the
+people she did not cook food. Were a man to eat food cooked by a woman at
+such times, he would have incapacitated himself for hunting and exposed
+himself to sickness or death.(231)
+
+(M73) Among the Chippeways and other Indians of the Hudson Bay Territory,
+menstruous women are excluded from the camp, and take up their abode in
+huts of branches. They wear long hoods, which effectually conceal the head
+and breast. They may not touch the household furniture nor any objects
+used by men; for their touch "is supposed to defile them, so that their
+subsequent use would be followed by certain mischief or misfortune," such
+as disease or death. They must drink out of a swan's bone. They may not
+walk on the common paths nor cross the tracks of animals. They "are never
+permitted to walk on the ice of rivers or lakes, or near the part where
+the men are hunting beaver, or where a fishing-net is set, for fear of
+averting their success. They are also prohibited at those times from
+partaking of the head of any animal, and even from walking in or crossing
+the track where the head of a deer, moose, beaver, and many other animals
+have lately been carried, either on a sledge or on the back. To be guilty
+of a violation of this custom is considered as of the greatest importance;
+because they firmly believe that it would be a means of preventing the
+hunter from having an equal success in his future excursions."(232) So the
+Lapps forbid women at menstruation to walk on that part of the shore where
+the fishers are in the habit of setting out their fish;(233) and the
+Esquimaux of Bering Strait believe that if hunters were to come near women
+in their courses they would catch no game.(234)
+
+(M74) But the beliefs and superstitions of this sort that prevail among
+the western tribes of the great Dene or Tinneh stock, to which the
+Chippeways belong, have been so well described by an experienced
+missionary, that I will give his description in his own words. Prominent
+among the ceremonial rites of these Indians, he says, "are the observances
+peculiar to the fair sex, and many of them are remarkably analogous to
+those practised by the Hebrew women, so much so that, were it not
+savouring of profanity, the ordinances of the Dene ritual code might be
+termed a new edition 'revised and considerably augmented' of the Mosaic
+ceremonial law. Among the Carriers,(235) as soon as a girl has experienced
+the first flow of the menses which in the female constitution are a
+natural discharge, her father believed himself under the obligation of
+atoning for her supposedly sinful condition by a small impromptu
+distribution of clothes among the natives. This periodical state of women
+was considered as one of legal impurity fateful both to the man who
+happened to have any intercourse, however indirect, with her, and to the
+woman herself who failed in scrupulously observing all the rites
+prescribed by ancient usage for persons in her condition.
+
+(M75) "Upon entering into that stage of her life, the maiden was
+immediately sequestered from company, even that of her parents, and
+compelled to dwell in a small branch hut by herself away from beaten paths
+and the gaze of passers-by. As she was supposed to exercise malefic
+influence on any man who might inadvertently glance at her, she had to
+wear a sort of head-dress combining in itself the purposes of a veil, a
+bonnet, and a mantlet. It was made of tanned skin, its forepart was shaped
+like a long fringe completely hiding from view the face and breasts; then
+it formed on the head a close-fitting cap or bonnet, and finally fell in a
+broad band almost to the heels. This head-dress was made and publicly
+placed on her head by a paternal aunt, who received at once some present
+from the girl's father. When, three or four years later, the period of
+sequestration ceased, only this same aunt had the right to take off her
+niece's ceremonial head-dress. Furthermore, the girl's fingers, wrists,
+and legs at the ankles and immediately below the knees, were encircled
+with ornamental rings and bracelets of sinew intended as a protection
+against the malign influences she was supposed to be possessed with.(236)
+To a belt girding her waist were suspended two bone implements called
+respectively _Tsoenkuz_ (bone tube) and _Tsiltsoet_ (head scratcher). The
+former was a hollowed swan bone to drink with, any other mode of drinking
+being unlawful to her. The latter was fork-like and was called into
+requisition whenever she wanted to scratch her head--immediate contact of
+the fingers with the head being reputed injurious to her health. While
+thus secluded, she was called _asta_, that is 'interred alive' in Carrier,
+and she had to submit to a rigorous fast and abstinence. Her only allowed
+food consisted of dried fish boiled in a small bark vessel which nobody
+else must touch, and she had to abstain especially from meat of any kind,
+as well as fresh fish. Nor was this all she had to endure; even her
+contact, however remote, with these two articles of diet was so dreaded
+that she could not cross the public paths or trails, or the tracks of
+animals. Whenever absolute necessity constrained her to go beyond such
+spots, she had to be packed or carried over them lest she should
+contaminate the game or meat which had passed that way, or had been
+brought over these paths; and also for the sake of self-preservation
+against tabooed, and consequently to her, deleterious food. In the same
+way she was never allowed to wade in streams or lakes, for fear of causing
+death to the fish.
+
+"It was also a prescription of the ancient ritual code for females during
+this primary condition to eat as little as possible, and to remain lying
+down, especially in course of each monthly flow, not only as a natural
+consequence of the prolonged fast and resulting weakness; but chiefly as
+an exhibition of a becoming penitential spirit which was believed to be
+rewarded by long life and continual good health in after years.
+
+(M76) "These mortifications or seclusion did not last less than three or
+four years. Useless to say that during all that time marriage could not be
+thought of, since the girl could not so much as be seen by men. When
+married, the same sequestration was practised relatively to husband and
+fellow-villagers--without the particular head-dress and rings spoken of--on
+the occasion of every recurring menstruation. Sometimes it was protracted
+as long as ten days at a time, especially during the first years of
+cohabitation. Even when she returned to her mate, she was not permitted to
+sleep with him on the first nor frequently on the second night, but would
+choose a distant corner of the lodge to spread her blanket, as if afraid
+to defile him with her dread uncleanness."(237) Elsewhere the same writer
+tells us that most of the devices to which these Indians used to resort
+for the sake of ensuring success in the chase "were based on their regard
+for continence and their excessive repugnance for, and dread of,
+menstruating women."(238) But the strict observances imposed on Tinneh or
+Dene women at such times were designed at the same time to protect the
+women themselves from the evil consequences of their dangerous condition.
+Thus it was thought that women in their courses could not partake of the
+head, heart, or hind part of an animal that had been caught in a snare
+without exposing themselves to a premature death through a kind of rabies.
+They might not cut or carve salmon, because to do so would seriously
+endanger their health, and especially would enfeeble their arms for life.
+And they had to abstain from cutting up the grebes which are caught by the
+Carriers in great numbers every spring, because otherwise the blood with
+which these fowls abound would occasion haemorrhage or an unnaturally
+prolonged flux in the transgressor.(239) Similarly Indian women of the
+Thompson tribe abstained from venison and the flesh of other large game
+during menstruation, lest the animals should be displeased and the
+menstrual flow increased.(240) For a similar reason, probably, Shuswap
+girls during their seclusion at puberty are forbidden to eat anything that
+bleeds.(241) The same principle may perhaps partly explain the rule, of
+which we have had some examples, that women at such times should refrain
+from fish and flesh, and restrict themselves to a vegetable diet.
+
+(M77) The philosophic student of human nature will observe, or learn,
+without surprise that ideas thus deeply ingrained in the savage mind
+reappear at a more advanced stage of society in those elaborate codes
+which have been drawn up for the guidance of certain peoples by lawgivers
+who claim to have derived the rules they inculcate from the direct
+inspiration of the deity. However we may explain it, the resemblance which
+exists between the earliest official utterances of the deity and the ideas
+of savages is unquestionably close and remarkable; whether it be, as some
+suppose, that God communed face to face with man in those early days, or,
+as others maintain, that man mistook his wild and wandering thoughts for a
+revelation from heaven. Be that as it may, certain it is that the natural
+uncleanness of woman at her monthly periods is a conception which has
+occurred, or been revealed, with singular unanimity to several ancient
+legislators. The Hindoo lawgiver Manu, who professed to have received his
+institutes from the creator Brahman, informs us that the wisdom, the
+energy, the strength, the sight, and the vitality of a man who approaches
+a woman in her courses will utterly perish; whereas, if he avoids her, his
+wisdom, energy, strength, sight, and vitality will all increase.(242) The
+Persian lawgiver Zoroaster, who, if we can take his word for it, derived
+his code from the mouth of the supreme being Ahura Mazda, devoted special
+attention to the subject. According to him, the menstrous flow, at least
+in its abnormal manifestations, is a work of Ahriman, or the devil.
+Therefore, so long as it lasts, a woman "is unclean and possessed of the
+demon; she must be kept confined, apart from the faithful whom her touch
+would defile, and from the fire which her very look would injure; she is
+not allowed to eat as much as she wishes, as the strength she might
+acquire would accrue to the fiends. Her food is not given her from hand to
+hand, but is passed to her from a distance, in a long leaden spoon."(243)
+The Hebrew lawgiver Moses, whose divine legation is as little open to
+question as that of Manu and Zoroaster, treats the subject at still
+greater length; but I must leave to the reader the task of comparing the
+inspired ordinances on this head with the merely human regulations of the
+Carrier Indians which they so closely resemble.
+
+(M78) Amongst the civilized nations of Europe the superstitions which
+cluster round this mysterious aspect of woman's nature are not less
+extravagant than those which prevail among savages. In the oldest existing
+cyclopaedia--the _Natural History_ of Pliny--the list of dangers apprehended
+from menstruation is longer than any furnished by mere barbarians.
+According to Pliny, the touch of a menstruous woman turned wine to
+vinegar, blighted crops, killed seedlings, blasted gardens, brought down
+the fruit from trees, dimmed mirrors, blunted razors, rusted iron and
+brass (especially at the waning of the moon), killed bees, or at least
+drove them from their hives, caused mares to miscarry, and so forth.(244)
+Similarly, in various parts of Europe, it is still believed that if a
+woman in her courses enters a brewery the beer will turn sour; if she
+touches beer, wine, vinegar, or milk, it will go bad; if she makes jam, it
+will not keep; if she mounts a mare, it will miscarry; if she touches
+buds, they will wither; if she climbs a cherry tree, it will die.(245) In
+Brunswick people think that if a menstruous woman assists at the killing
+of a pig, the pork will putrefy.(246) In the Greek island of Calymnos a
+woman at such times may not go to the well to draw water, nor cross a
+running stream, nor enter the sea. Her presence in a boat is said to raise
+storms.(247)
+
+(M79) Thus the object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralize
+the dangerous influences which are supposed to emanate from them at such
+times. That the danger is believed to be especially great at the first
+menstruation appears from the unusual precautions taken to isolate girls
+at this crisis. Two of these precautions have been illustrated above,
+namely, the rules that the girl may not touch the ground nor see the sun.
+The general effect of these rules is to keep her suspended, so to say,
+between heaven and earth. Whether enveloped in her hammock and slung up to
+the roof, as in South America, or raised above the ground in a dark and
+narrow cage, as in New Ireland, she may be considered to be out of the way
+of doing mischief, since, being shut off both from the earth and from the
+sun, she can poison neither of these great sources of life by her deadly
+contagion. In short, she is rendered harmless by being, in electrical
+language, insulated. But the precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate
+the girl are dictated by a regard for her own safety as well as for the
+safety of others. For it is thought that she herself would suffer if she
+were to neglect the prescribed regimen. Thus Zulu girls, as we have seen,
+believe that they would shrivel to skeletons if the sun were to shine on
+them at puberty, and in some Brazilian tribes the young women think that a
+transgression of the rules would entail sores on the neck and throat. In
+short, the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which, if not
+kept within bounds, may prove destructive both to herself and to all with
+whom she comes in contact. To repress this force within the limits
+necessary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in
+question.
+
+(M80) The same explanation applies to the observance of the same rules by
+divine kings and priests. The uncleanness, as it is called, of girls at
+puberty and the sanctity of holy men do not, to the primitive mind, differ
+materially from each other. They are only different manifestations of the
+same mysterious energy which, like energy in general, is in itself neither
+good nor bad, but becomes beneficent or maleficent according to its
+application.(248) Accordingly, if, like girls at puberty, divine
+personages may neither touch the ground nor see the sun, the reason is, on
+the one hand, a fear lest their divinity might, at contact with earth or
+heaven, discharge itself with fatal violence on either; and, on the other
+hand, an apprehension that the divine being, thus drained of his ethereal
+virtue, might thereby be incapacitated for the future performance of those
+magical functions, upon the proper discharge of which the safety of the
+people and even of the world is believed to hang. Thus the rules in
+question fall under the head of the taboos which we examined in the second
+part of this work;(249) they are intended to preserve the life of the
+divine person and with it the life of his subjects and worshippers.
+Nowhere, it is thought, can his precious yet dangerous life be at once so
+safe and so harmless as when it is neither in heaven nor in earth, but, as
+far as possible, suspended between the two.(250)
+
+(M81) In legends and folk-tales, which reflect the ideas of earlier ages,
+we find this suspension between heaven and earth attributed to beings who
+have been endowed with the coveted yet burdensome gift of immortality. The
+wizened remains of the deathless Sibyl are said to have been preserved in
+a jar or urn which hung in a temple of Apollo at Cumae; and when a group
+of merry children, tired, perhaps, of playing in the sunny streets, sought
+the shade of the temple and amused themselves by gathering underneath the
+familiar jar and calling out, "Sibyl, what do you wish?" a hollow voice,
+like an echo, used to answer from the urn, "I wish to die."(251) A story,
+taken down from the lips of a German peasant at Thomsdorf, relates that
+once upon a time there was a girl in London who wished to live for ever,
+so they say:
+
+
+    "_London, London is a fine town._
+    _A maiden prayed to live for ever._"
+
+
+And still she lives and hangs in a basket in a church, and every St.
+John's Day, about the hour of noon, she eats a roll of bread.(252) Another
+German story tells of a lady who resided at Danzig and was so rich and so
+blest with all that life can give that she wished to live always. So when
+she came to her latter end, she did not really die but only looked like
+dead, and very soon they found her in a hollow of a pillar in the church,
+half standing and half sitting, motionless. She stirred never a limb, but
+they saw quite plainly that she was alive, and she sits there down to this
+blessed day. Every New Year's Day the sacristan comes and puts a morsel of
+the holy bread in her mouth, and that is all she has to live on. Long,
+long has she rued her fatal wish who set this transient life above the
+eternal joys of heaven.(253) A third German story tells of a noble damsel
+who cherished the same foolish wish for immortality. So they put her in a
+basket and hung her up in a church, and there she hangs and never dies,
+though many a year has come and gone since they put her there. But every
+year on a certain day they give her a roll, and she eats it and cries out,
+"For ever! for ever! for ever!" And when she has so cried she falls silent
+again till the same time next year, and so it will go on for ever and for
+ever.(254) A fourth story, taken down near Oldenburg in Holstein, tells of
+a jolly dame that ate and drank and lived right merrily and had all that
+heart could desire, and she wished to live always. For the first hundred
+years all went well, but after that she began to shrink and shrivel up,
+till at last she could neither walk nor stand nor eat nor drink. But die
+she could not. At first they fed her as if she were a little child, but
+when she grew smaller and smaller they put her in a glass bottle and hung
+her up in the church. And there she still hangs, in the church of St.
+Mary, at Luebeck. She is as small as a mouse, but once a year she
+stirs.(255)
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE MYTH OF BALDER.
+
+
+(M82) A deity whose life might in a sense be said to be neither in heaven
+nor on earth but between the two, was the Norse Balder, the good and
+beautiful god, the son of the great god Odin, and himself the wisest,
+mildest, best beloved of all the immortals. The story of his death, as it
+is told in the younger or prose _Edda_, runs thus. Once on a time Balder
+dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to forebode his death. Thereupon the
+gods held a council and resolved to make him secure against every danger.
+So the goddess Frigg took an oath from fire and water, iron and all
+metals, stones and earth, from trees, sicknesses and poisons, and from all
+four-footed beasts, birds, and creeping things, that they would not hurt
+Balder. When this was done Balder was deemed invulnerable; so the gods
+amused themselves by setting him in their midst, while some shot at him,
+others hewed at him, and others threw stones at him. But whatever they
+did, nothing could hurt him; and at this they were all glad, Only Loki,
+the mischief-maker, was displeased, and he went in the guise of an old
+woman to Frigg, who told him that the weapons of the gods could not wound
+Balder, since she had made them all swear not to hurt him. Then Loki
+asked, "Have all things sworn to spare Balder?" She answered, "East of
+Walhalla grows a plant called mistletoe; it seemed to me too young to
+swear." So Loki went and pulled the mistletoe and took it to the assembly
+of the gods. There he found the blind god Hother standing at the outside
+of the circle. Loki asked him, "Why do you not shoot at Balder?" Hother
+answered, "Because I do not see where he stands; besides I have no
+weapon." Then said Loki, "Do like the rest and shew Balder honour, as they
+all do. I will shew you where he stands, and do you shoot at him with this
+twig." Hother took the mistletoe and threw it at Balder, as Loki directed
+him. The mistletoe struck Balder and pierced him through and through, and
+he fell down dead. And that was the greatest misfortune that ever befell
+gods and men. For a while the gods stood speechless, then they lifted up
+their voices and wept bitterly. They took Balder's body and brought it to
+the sea-shore. There stood Balder's ship; it was called Ringhorn, and was
+the hugest of all ships. The gods wished to launch the ship and to burn
+Balder's body on it, but the ship would not stir. So they sent for a
+giantess called Hyrrockin. She came riding on a wolf and gave the ship
+such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook.
+Then Balder's body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his ship.
+When his wife Nanna saw that, her heart burst for sorrow and she died. So
+she was laid on the funeral pile with her husband, and fire was put to it.
+Balder's horse, too, with all its trappings, was burned on the pile.(256)
+
+(M83) In the older or poetic _Edda_ the tragic tale of Balder is hinted at
+rather than told at length. Among the visions which the Norse Sibyl sees
+and describes in the weird prophecy known as the _Voluspa_ is one of the
+fatal mistletoe. "I behold," says she, "Fate looming for Balder, Woden's
+son, the bloody victim. There stands the Mistletoe slender and delicate,
+blooming high above the ground. Out of this shoot, so slender to look on,
+there shall grow a harmful fateful shaft. Hod shall shoot it, but Frigga
+in Fen-hall shall weep over the woe of Wal-hall."(257) Yet looking far
+into the future the Sibyl sees a brighter vision of a new heaven and a new
+earth, where the fields unsown shall yield their increase and all sorrows
+shall be healed; then Balder will come back to dwell in Odin's mansions of
+bliss, in a hall brighter than the sun, shingled with gold, where the
+righteous shall live in joy for ever more.(258)
+
+(M84) Writing about the end of the twelfth century, the old Danish
+historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which
+professes to be historical. According to him, Balder and Hother were rival
+suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now
+Balder was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The
+two rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle, and though Odin
+and Thor and the rest of the gods fought for Balder, yet was he defeated
+and fled away, and Hother married the princess. Nevertheless Balder took
+heart of grace and again met Hother in a stricken field. But he fared even
+worse than before; for Hother dealt him a deadly wound with a magic sword,
+which he had received from Miming, the Satyr of the woods; and after
+lingering three days in pain Balder died of his hurt and was buried with
+royal honours in a barrow.(259)
+
+(M85) Whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage, Balder was
+worshipped in Norway. On one of the bays of the beautiful Sogne Fiord,
+which penetrates far into the depths of the solemn Norwegian mountains,
+with their sombre pine-forests and their lofty cascades dissolving into
+spray before they reach the dark water of the fiord far below, Balder had
+a great sanctuary. It was called Balder's Grove. A palisade enclosed the
+hallowed ground, and within it stood a spacious temple with the images of
+many gods, but none of them was worshipped with such devotion as Balder.
+So great was the awe with which the heathen regarded the place that no man
+might harm another there, nor steal his cattle, nor defile himself with
+women. But women cared for the images of the gods in the temple; they
+warmed them at the fire, anointed them with oil, and dried them with
+cloths.(260)
+
+(M86) It might be rash to affirm that the romantic figure of Balder was
+nothing but a creation of the mythical fancy, a radiant phantom conjured
+up as by a wizard's wand to glitter for a time against the gloomy
+background of the stern Norwegian landscape. It may be so; yet it is also
+possible that the myth was founded on the tradition of a hero, popular and
+beloved in his lifetime, who long survived in the memory of the people,
+gathering more and more of the marvellous about him as he passed from
+generation to generation of story-tellers. At all events it is worth while
+to observe that a somewhat similar story is told of another national hero,
+who may well have been a real man. In his great poem, _The Epic of Kings_,
+which is founded on Persian traditions, the poet Firdusi tells us that in
+the combat between Rustem and Isfendiyar the arrows of the former did no
+harm to his adversary, "because Zerdusht had charmed his body against all
+dangers, so that it was like unto brass." But Simurgh, the bird of God,
+shewed Rustem the way he should follow in order to vanquish his
+redoubtable foe. He rode after her, and they halted not till they came to
+the sea-shore. There she led him into a garden, where grew a tamarisk,
+tall and strong, and the roots thereof were in the ground, but the
+branches pierced even unto the sky. Then the bird of God bade Rustem break
+from the tree a branch that was long and slender, and fashion it into an
+arrow, and she said, "Only through his eyes can Isfendiyar be wounded. If,
+therefore, thou wouldst slay him, direct this arrow unto his forehead, and
+verily it shall not miss its aim." Rustem did as he was bid; and when next
+he fought with Isfendiyar, he shot the arrow at him, and it pierced his
+eye, and he died. Great was the mourning for Isfendiyar. For the space of
+one year men ceased not to lament for him, and for many years they shed
+bitter tears for that arrow, and they said, "The glory of Iran hath been
+laid low."(261)
+
+(M87) Whatever may be thought of an historical kernel underlying a
+mythical husk in the legend of Balder, the details of the story suggest
+that it belongs to that class of myths which have been dramatized in
+ritual, or, to put it otherwise, which have been performed as magical
+ceremonies for the sake of producing those natural effects which they
+describe in figurative language. A myth is never so graphic and precise in
+its details as when it is, so to speak, the book of the words which are
+spoken and acted by the performers of the sacred rite. That the Norse
+story of Balder was a myth of this sort will become probable if we can
+prove that ceremonies resembling the incidents in the tale have been
+performed by Norsemen and other European peoples. Now the main incidents
+in the tale are two--first, the pulling of the mistletoe, and second, the
+death and burning of the god; and both of them may perhaps be found to
+have had their counterparts in yearly rites observed, whether separately
+or conjointly, by people in various parts of Europe. These rites will be
+described and discussed in the following chapters. We shall begin with the
+annual festivals of fire and shall reserve the pulling of the mistletoe
+for consideration later on.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE FIRE-FESTIVALS OF EUROPE.
+
+
+
+
+§ 1. The Lenten Fires.
+
+
+(M88) All over Europe the peasants have been accustomed from time
+immemorial to kindle bonfires on certain days of the year, and to dance
+round or leap over them. Customs of this kind can be traced back on
+historical evidence to the Middle Ages,(262) and their analogy to similar
+customs observed in antiquity goes with strong internal evidence to prove
+that their origin must be sought in a period long prior to the spread of
+Christianity. Indeed the earliest proof of their observance in Northern
+Europe is furnished by the attempts made by Christian synods in the eighth
+century to put them down as heathenish rites.(263) Not uncommonly effigies
+are burned in these fires, or a pretence is made of burning a living
+person in them; and there are grounds for believing that anciently human
+beings were actually burned on these occasions. A general survey of the
+customs in question will bring out the traces of human sacrifice, and will
+serve at the same time to throw light on their meaning.(264)
+
+(M89) The seasons of the year when these bonfires are most commonly lit
+are spring and midsummer; but in some places they are kindled also at the
+end of autumn or during the course of the winter, particularly on Hallow
+E'en (the thirty-first of October), Christmas Day, and the Eve of Twelfth
+Day. We shall consider them in the order in which they occur in the
+calendar year. The earliest of them is the winter festival of the Eve of
+Twelfth Day (the fifth of January); but as it has been already described
+in an earlier part of this work(265) we shall pass it over here and begin
+with the fire-festivals of spring, which usually fall on the first Sunday
+of Lent (_Quadragesima_ or _Invocavit_),(266) Easter Eve, and May Day.
+
+(M90) The custom of kindling bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent has
+prevailed in Belgium, the north of France, and many parts of Germany. Thus
+in the Belgian Ardennes for a week or a fortnight before the "day of the
+great fire," as it is called, children go about from farm to farm
+collecting fuel. At Grand Halleux any one who refuses their request is
+pursued next day by the children, who try to blacken his face with the
+ashes of the extinct fire. When the day has come, they cut down bushes,
+especially juniper and broom, and in the evening great bonfires blaze on
+all the heights. It is a common saying that seven bonfires should be seen
+if the village is to be safe from conflagrations. If the Meuse happens to
+be frozen hard at the time, bonfires are lit also on the ice. At Grand
+Halleux they set up a pole called _makral_, or "the witch," in the midst
+of the pile, and the fire is kindled by the man who was last married in
+the village. In the neighbourhood of Morlanwelz a straw man is burnt in
+the fire. Young people and children dance and sing round the bonfires, and
+leap over the embers to secure good crops or a happy marriage within the
+year, or as a means of guarding themselves against colic. In Brabant on
+the same Sunday, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, women
+and men disguised in female attire used to go with burning torches to the
+fields, where they danced and sang comic songs for the purpose, as they
+alleged, of driving away "the wicked sower," who is mentioned in the
+Gospel for the day. At Maeseyck and in many villages of Limburg, on the
+evening of the day children run through the streets carrying lighted
+torches; then they kindle little fires of straw in the fields and dance
+round them. At Ensival old folks tell young folks that they will have as
+many Easter eggs as they see bonfires on this day.(267) At Paturages, in
+the province of Hainaut, down to about 1840 the custom was observed under
+the name of _Escouvion_ or _Scouvion_. Every year on the first Sunday of
+Lent, which was called the Day of the Little Scouvion, young folks and
+children used to run with lighted torches through the gardens and
+orchards. As they ran they cried at the pitch of their voices,
+
+
+    "_Bear apples, bear pears_
+    _And cherries all black_
+      _To Scouvion!_"
+
+
+At these words the torch-bearer whirled his blazing brand and hurled it
+among the branches of the apple-trees, the pear-trees, and the
+cherry-trees. The next Sunday was called the Day of the Great Scouvion,
+and the same race with lighted torches among the trees of the orchards was
+repeated in the afternoon till darkness fell. The same custom was observed
+on the same two days at Wasmes.(268) In the neighbourhood of Liege, where
+the Lenten fires were put down by the police about the middle of the
+nineteenth century, girls thought that by leaping over the fires without
+being smirched they made sure of a happy marriage. Elsewhere in order to
+get a good husband it was necessary to see seven of the bonfires from one
+spot. In Famenne, a district of Namur, men and cattle who traversed the
+Lenten fires were thought to be safe from sickness and witchcraft. Anybody
+who saw seven such fires at once had nothing to fear from sorcerers. An
+old saying ran, that if you do not light "the great fire," God will light
+it for you; which seems to imply that the kindling of the bonfires was
+deemed a protection against conflagrations throughout the year.(269)
+
+(M91) In the French department of the Ardennes the whole village used to
+dance and sing round the bonfires which were lighted on the first Sunday
+in Lent. Here, too, it was the person last married, sometimes a man and
+sometimes a woman, who put the match to the fire. The custom is still kept
+up very commonly in the district. Cats used to be burnt in the fire or
+roasted to death by being held over it; and while they were burning the
+shepherds drove their flocks through the smoke and flames as a sure means
+of guarding them against sickness and witchcraft. In some communes it was
+believed that the livelier the dance round the fire, the better would be
+the crops that year.(270) In the Vosges Mountains it is still customary to
+light great fires on the heights and around the villages on the first
+Sunday in Lent; and at Rupt and elsewhere the right of kindling them
+belongs to the person who was last married. Round the fires the people
+dance and sing merrily till the flames have died out. Then the master of
+the fire, as they call the man who kindled it, invites all who contributed
+to the erection of the pile to follow him to the nearest tavern, where
+they partake of good cheer. At Dommartin they say that, if you would have
+the hemp tall, it is absolutely necessary that the women should be tipsy
+on the evening of this day.(271) At Epinal in the Vosges, on the first
+Sunday in Lent, bonfires used to be kindled at various places both in the
+town and on the banks of the Moselle. They consisted of pyramids of sticks
+and faggots, which had been collected some days earlier by young folks
+going from door to door. When the flames blazed up, the names of various
+couples, whether young or old, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, were called
+out, and the persons thus linked in mock marriage were forced, whether
+they liked it or not, to march arm in arm round the fire amid the laughter
+and jests of the crowd. The festivity lasted till the fire died out, and
+then the spectators dispersed through the streets, stopping under the
+windows of the houses and proclaiming the names of the _fechenots_ and
+_fechenottes_ or Valentines whom the popular voice had assigned to each
+other. These couples had to exchange presents; the mock bridegroom gave
+his mock bride something for her toilet, while she in turn presented him
+with a cockade of coloured ribbon. Next Sunday, if the weather allowed it,
+all the couples, arrayed in their best attire and attended by their
+relations, repaired to the wood of Saint Antony, where they mounted a
+famous stone called the _danserosse_ or _danseresse_. Here they found
+cakes and refreshments of all sorts, and danced to the music of a couple
+of fiddlers. The evening bell, ringing the Angelus, gave the signal to
+depart. As soon as its solemn chime was heard, every one quitted the
+forest and returned home. The exchange of presents between the Valentines
+went by the name of ransom or redemption (_rachat_), because it was
+supposed to redeem the couple from the flames of the bonfire. Any pair who
+failed thus to ransom themselves were not suffered to share the
+merrymaking at the great stone in the forest; and a pretence was made of
+burning them in small fires kindled before their own doors.(272)
+
+(M92) In the French province of Franche-Comte, to the west of the Jura
+Mountains, the first Sunday of Lent is known as the Sunday of the
+Firebrands (_Brandons_), on account of the fires which it is customary to
+kindle on that day. On the Saturday or the Sunday the village lads harness
+themselves to a cart and drag it about the streets, stopping at the doors
+of the houses where there are girls and begging for a faggot. When they
+have got enough, they cart the fuel to a spot at some little distance from
+the village, pile it up, and set it on fire. All the people of the parish
+come out to see the bonfire. In some villages, when the bells have rung
+the Angelus, the signal for the observance is given by cries of, "To the
+fire! to the fire!" Lads, lasses, and children dance round the blaze, and
+when the flames have died down they vie with each other in leaping over
+the red embers. He or she who does so without singeing his or her garments
+will be married within the year. Young folk also carry lighted torches
+about the streets or the fields, and when they pass an orchard they cry
+out, "More fruit than leaves!" Down to recent years at Laviron, in the
+department of Doubs, it was the young married couples of the year who had
+charge of the bonfires. In the midst of the bonfire a pole was planted
+with a wooden figure of a cock fastened to the top. Then there were races,
+and the winner received the cock as a prize.(273)
+
+(M93) In Auvergne fires are everywhere kindled on the evening of the first
+Sunday in Lent. Every village, every hamlet, even every ward, every
+isolated farm has its bonfire or _figo_, as it is called, which blazes up
+as the shades of night are falling. The fires may be seen flaring on the
+heights and in the plains; the people dance and sing round about them and
+leap through the flames. Then they proceed to the ceremony of the
+_Grannas-mias_. A _granno-mio_(274) is a torch of straw fastened to the
+top of a pole. When the pyre is half consumed, the bystanders kindle the
+torches at the expiring flames and carry them into the neighbouring
+orchards, fields, and gardens, wherever there are fruit-trees. As they
+march they sing at the top of their voices,
+
+
+    "_Granno, mo mio,_
+    _Granno, mon pouere,_
+    _Granno, mo mouere!_"
+
+
+that is, "Grannus my friend, Grannus my father, Grannus my mother." Then
+they pass the burning torches under the branches of every tree, singing,
+
+
+    "_Brando, brandounci_
+    _Tsaque brantso, in plan panei!_"
+
+
+that is, "Firebrand burn; every branch a basketful!" In some villages the
+people also run across the sown fields and shake the ashes of the torches
+on the ground; also they put some of the ashes in the fowls' nests, in
+order that the hens may lay plenty of eggs throughout the year. When all
+these ceremonies have been performed, everybody goes home and feasts; the
+special dishes of the evening are fritters and pancakes.(275) Here the
+application of the fire to the fruit-trees, to the sown fields, and to the
+nests of the poultry is clearly a charm intended to ensure fertility; and
+the Granno to whom the invocations are addressed, and who gives his name
+to the torches, may possibly be, as Dr. Pommerol suggests,(276) no other
+than the ancient Celtic god Grannus, whom the Romans identified with
+Apollo, and whose worship is attested by inscriptions found not only in
+France but in Scotland and on the Danube.(277) If the name Grannus is
+derived, as the learned tell us, from a root meaning "to glow, burn,
+shine,"(278) the deity who bore the name and was identified with Apollo
+may well have been a sun-god; and in that case the prayers addressed to
+him by the peasants of the Auvergne, while they wave the blazing,
+crackling torches about the fruit-trees, would be eminently appropriate.
+For who could ripen the fruit so well as the sun-god? and what better
+process could be devised to draw the blossoms from the bare boughs than
+the application to them of that genial warmth which is ultimately derived
+from the solar beams? Thus the fire-festival of the first Sunday in Lent,
+as it is observed in Auvergne, may be interpreted very naturally and
+simply as a religious or rather perhaps magical ceremony designed to
+procure a due supply of the sun's heat for plants and animals. At the same
+time we should remember that the employment of fire in this and kindred
+ceremonies may have been designed originally, not so much to stimulate
+growth and reproduction, as to burn and destroy all agencies, whether in
+the shape of vermin, witches, or what not, which threatened or were
+supposed to threaten the growth of the crops and the multiplication of
+animals. It is often difficult to decide between these two different
+interpretations of the use of fire in agricultural rites. In any case the
+fire-festival of Auvergne on the first Sunday in Lent may date from
+Druidical times.
+
+(M94) The custom of carrying lighted torches of straw (_brandons_) about
+the orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent
+seems to have been common in France, whether it was accompanied with the
+practice of kindling bonfires or not. Thus in the province of Picardy "on
+the first Sunday of Lent people carried torches through the fields,
+exorcising the field-mice, the darnel, and the smut. They imagined that
+they did much good to the gardens and caused the onions to grow large.
+Children ran about the fields, torch in hand, to make the land more
+fertile. All that was done habitually in Picardy, and the ceremony of the
+torches is not entirely forgotten, especially in the villages on both
+sides the Somme as far as Saint-Valery."(279) "A very agreeable spectacle,
+said the curate of l'Etoile, is to survey from the portal of the church,
+situated almost on the top of the mountain, the vast plains of Vimeux all
+illuminated by these wandering fires. The same pastime is observed at
+Poix, at Conty, and in all the villages round about."(280) Again, in the
+district of Beauce a festival of torches (_brandons_ or _brandelons_) used
+to be held both on the first and on the second Sunday in Lent; the first
+was called "the Great Torches" and the second "the Little Torches." The
+torches were, as usual, bundles of straw wrapt round poles. In the evening
+the village lads carried the burning brands through the country, running
+about in disorder and singing,
+
+
+            "_Torches burn_
+    _At these vines, at this wheat;_
+            _Torches burn_
+    _For the maidens that shall wed!_"
+
+
+From time to time the bearers would stand still and smite the earth all
+together with the blazing straw of the torches, while they cried, "A sheaf
+of a peck and a half!" (_Gearbe a boissiaux_). If two torchbearers
+happened to meet each other on their rounds, they performed the same
+ceremony and uttered the same words. When the straw was burnt out, the
+poles were collected and a great bonfire made of them. Lads and lasses
+danced round the flames, and the lads leaped over them. Afterwards it was
+customary to eat a special sort of hasty-pudding made of wheaten flour.
+These usages were still in vogue at the beginning of the nineteenth
+century, but they have now almost disappeared. The peasants believed that
+by carrying lighted torches through the fields they protected the crops
+from field-mice, darnel, and smut.(281) "At Dijon, in Burgundy, it is the
+custom upon the first Sunday in Lent to make large fires in the streets,
+whence it is called Firebrand Sunday. This practice originated in the
+processions formerly made on that day by the peasants with lighted torches
+of straw, to drive away, as they called it, the bad air from the
+earth."(282) In some parts of France, while the people scoured the country
+with burning brands on the first Sunday in Lent, they warned the
+fruit-trees that if they did not take heed and bear fruit they would
+surely be cut down and cast into the fire.(283) On the same day peasants
+in the department of Loiret used to run about the sowed fields with
+burning torches in their hands, while they adjured the field-mice to quit
+the wheat on pain of having their whiskers burned.(284) In the department
+of Ain the great fires of straw and faggots which are kindled in the
+fields at this time are or were supposed to destroy the nests of the
+caterpillars.(285) At Verges, a lonely village surrounded by forests
+between the Jura and the Combe d'Ain, the torches used at this season were
+kindled in a peculiar manner. The young people climbed to the top of a
+mountain, where they placed three nests of straw in three trees. These
+nests being then set on fire, torches made of dry lime-wood were lighted
+at them, and the merry troop descended the mountain to their flickering
+light, and went to every house in the village, demanding roasted peas and
+obliging all couples who had been married within the year to dance.(286)
+In Berry, a district of central France, it appears that bonfires are not
+lighted on this day, but when the sun has set the whole population of the
+villages, armed with blazing torches of straw, disperse over the country
+and scour the fields, the vineyards, and the orchards. Seen from afar, the
+multitude of moving lights, twinkling in the darkness, appear like
+will-o'-the-wisps chasing each other across the plains, along the
+hillsides, and down the valleys. While the men wave their flambeaus about
+the branches of the fruit-trees, the women and children tie bands of
+wheaten-straw round the tree-trunks. The effect of the ceremony is
+supposed to be to avert the various plagues from which the fruits of the
+earth are apt to suffer; and the bands of straw fastened round the stems
+of the trees are believed to render them fruitful.(287) In the peninsula
+of La Manche the Norman peasants used to spend almost the whole night of
+the first Sunday in Lent rushing about the country with lighted torches
+for the purpose, as they supposed, of driving away the moles and
+field-mice; fires were also kindled on some of the dolmens.(288)
+
+(M95) In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the same season similar
+customs have prevailed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on
+the first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood
+from house to house. These they carried to an eminence and piled up round
+a tall, slim beech-tree, to which a piece of wood was fastened at right
+angles to form a cross. The structure was known as the "hut" or "castle."
+Fire was set to it and the young people marched round the blazing "castle"
+bareheaded, each carrying a lighted torch and praying aloud. Sometimes a
+straw-man was burned in the "hut." People observed the direction in which
+the smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards the corn-fields, it was a
+sign that the harvest would be abundant. On the same day, in some parts of
+the Eifel, a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three horses to
+the top of a hill. Thither the village boys marched at nightfall, set fire
+to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope. Two lads followed it
+with levers to set it in motion again, in case it should anywhere meet
+with a check. At Oberstattfeld the wheel had to be provided by the young
+man who was last married.(289) About Echternach in Luxemburg the same
+ceremony is called "burning the witch"; while it is going on, the older
+men ascend the heights and observe what wind is blowing, for that is the
+wind which will prevail the whole year.(290) At Voralberg in the Tyrol, on
+the first Sunday in Lent, a slender young fir-tree is surrounded with a
+pile of straw and firewood. To the top of the tree is fastened a human
+figure called the "witch," made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder.
+At night the whole is set on fire and boys and girls dance round it,
+swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words "corn in the
+winnowing-basket, the plough in the earth" may be distinguished.(291) In
+Swabia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the "witch" or the "old
+wife" or "winter's grandmother" is made up of clothes and fastened to a
+pole. This is stuck in the middle of a pile of wood, to which fire is
+applied. While the "witch" is burning, the young people throw blazing
+discs into the air. The discs are thin round pieces of wood, a few inches
+in diameter, with notched edges to imitate the rays of the sun or stars.
+They have a hole in the middle, by which they are attached to the end of a
+wand. Before the disc is thrown it is set on fire, the wand is swung to
+and fro, and the impetus thus communicated to the disc is augmented by
+dashing the rod sharply against a sloping board. The burning disc is thus
+thrown off, and mounting high into the air, describes a long fiery curve
+before it reaches the ground. A single lad may fling up forty or fifty of
+these discs, one after the other. The object is to throw them as high as
+possible. The wand by which they are hurled must, at least in some parts
+of Swabia, be of hazel. Sometimes the lads also leap over the fire
+brandishing lighted torches of pine-wood. The charred embers of the burned
+"witch" and discs are taken home and planted in the flax-fields the same
+night, in the belief that they will keep vermin from the fields.(292) At
+Wangen, near Molsheim in Baden, a like custom is observed on the first
+Sunday in Lent. The young people kindle a bonfire on the crest of the
+mountain above the village; and the burning discs which they hurl into the
+air are said to present in the darkness the aspect of a continual shower
+of falling stars. When the supply of discs is exhausted and the bonfire
+begins to burn low, the boys light torches and run with them at full speed
+down one or other of the three steep and winding paths that descend the
+mountain-side to the village. Bumps, bruises, and scratches are often the
+result of their efforts to outstrip each other in the headlong race.(293)
+In the Rhoen Mountains, situated on the borders of Hesse and Bavaria, the
+people used to march to the top of a hill or eminence on the first Sunday
+in Lent. Children and lads carried torches, brooms daubed with tar, and
+poles swathed in straw. A wheel, wrapt in combustibles, was kindled and
+rolled down the hill; and the young people rushed about the fields with
+their burning torches and brooms, till at last they flung them in a heap,
+and standing round them, struck up a hymn or a popular song. The object of
+running about the fields with the blazing torches was to "drive away the
+wicked sower." Or it was done in honour of the Virgin, that she might
+preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and bless them.(294)
+In neighbouring villages of Hesse, between the Rhoen and the Vogel
+Mountains, it is thought that wherever the burning wheels roll, the fields
+will be safe from hail and storm.(295) At Konz on the Moselle, on the
+Thursday before the first Sunday in Lent, the two guilds of the butchers
+and the weavers used to repair to the Marxberg and there set up an
+oak-tree with a wheel fastened to it. On the following Sunday the people
+ascended the hill, cut down the oak, set fire to the wheel, and sent both
+oak and wheel rolling down the hillside, while a guard of butchers,
+mounted on horses, fired at the flaming wheel in its descent. If the wheel
+rolled down into the Moselle, the butchers were rewarded with a
+waggon-load of wine by the archbishop of Treves.(296)
+
+(M96) In Switzerland, also, it is or used to be customary to kindle
+bonfires on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent, and
+the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. The custom
+prevailed, for example, throughout the canton of Lucerne. Boys went about
+from house to house begging for wood and straw, then piled the fuel on a
+conspicuous mountain or hill round about a pole, which bore a straw effigy
+called "the witch." At nightfall the pile was set on fire, and the young
+folks danced wildly round it, some of them cracking whips or ringing
+bells; and when the fire burned low enough, they leaped over it. This was
+called "burning the witch." In some parts of the canton also they used to
+wrap old wheels in straw and thorns, put a light to them, and send them
+rolling and blazing down hill. The same custom of rolling lighted wheels
+down hill is attested by old authorities for the cantons of Aargau and
+Bale. The more bonfires could be seen sparkling and flaring in the
+darkness, the more fruitful was the year expected to be; and the higher
+the dancers leaped beside or over the fire, the higher, it was thought,
+would grow the flax. In the district of Freiburg and at Birseck in the
+district of Bale it was the last married man or woman who must kindle the
+bonfire. While the bonfires blazed up, it was customary in some parts of
+Switzerland to propel burning discs of wood through the air by means of
+the same simple machinery which is used for the purpose in Swabia. Each
+lad tried to send his disc fizzing and flaring through the darkness as far
+as possible, and in discharging it he mentioned the name of the person to
+whose honour it was dedicated. But in Praettigau the words uttered in
+launching the fiery discs referred to the abundance which was apparently
+expected to follow the performance of the ceremony. Among them were,
+"Grease in the pan, corn in the fan, and the plough in the earth!"(297)
+
+(M97) It seems hardly possible to separate from these bonfires, kindled on
+the first Sunday in Lent, the fires in which, about the same season, the
+effigy called Death is burned as part of the ceremony of "carrying out
+Death." We have seen that at Spachendorf, in Austrian Silesia, on the
+morning of Rupert's Day (Shrove Tuesday?), a straw-man, dressed in a fur
+coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there
+burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to snatch a fragment
+of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or
+buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow
+better. The ceremony is known as the "burying of Death."(298) Even when
+the straw-man is not designated as Death, the meaning of the observance is
+probably the same; for the name Death, as I have tried to shew, does not
+express the original intention of the ceremony. At Cobern in the Eifel
+Mountains the lads make up a straw-man on Shrove Tuesday. The effigy is
+formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have
+been committed in the neighbourhood throughout the year. Being condemned
+to death, the straw-man is led through the village, shot, and burned upon
+a pyre. They dance round the blazing pile, and the last bride must leap
+over it.(299) In Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to
+make long bundles of straw, which they set on fire, and then ran about the
+fields waving them, shrieking, and singing wild songs. Finally they burned
+a straw-man on the field.(300) In the district of Duesseldorf the straw-man
+burned on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn.(301) On
+the first Monday after the spring equinox the urchins of Zurich drag a
+straw-man on a little cart through the streets, while at the same time the
+girls carry about a May-tree. When vespers ring, the straw-man is
+burned.(302) In the district of Aachen on Ash Wednesday a man used to be
+encased in peas-straw and taken to an appointed place. Here he slipped
+quietly out of his straw casing, which was then burned, the children
+thinking that it was the man who was being burned.(303) In the Val di
+Ledro (Tyrol) on the last day of the Carnival a figure is made up of straw
+and brushwood and then burned. The figure is called the Old Woman, and the
+ceremony "burning the Old Woman."(304)
+
+
+
+
+§ 2. The Easter Fires.
+
+
+(M98) Another occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is Easter
+Eve, the Saturday before Easter Sunday. On that day it has been customary
+in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches, and
+then to make a new fire, sometimes with flint and steel, sometimes with a
+burning-glass. At this fire is lit the great Paschal or Easter candle,
+which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church.
+In many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled, by means of the new
+fire, on some open space near the church. It is consecrated, and the
+people bring sticks of oak, walnut, and beech, which they char in the
+fire, and then take home with them. Some of these charred sticks are
+thereupon burned at home in a newly-kindled fire, with a prayer that God
+will preserve the homestead from fire, lightning, and hail. Thus every
+house receives "new fire." Some of the sticks are kept throughout the year
+and laid on the hearth-fire during heavy thunder-storms to prevent the
+house from being struck by lightning, or they are inserted in the roof
+with the like intention. Others are placed in the fields, gardens, and
+meadows, with a prayer that God will keep them from blight and hail. Such
+fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others; the corn and
+the plants that grow in them are not beaten down by hail, nor devoured by
+mice, vermin, and beetles; no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand
+close and full. The charred sticks are also applied to the plough. The
+ashes of the Easter bonfire, together with the ashes of the consecrated
+palm-branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing. A wooden figure called
+Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire, and even where this
+custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some places goes by the
+name of "the burning of Judas."(305)
+
+(M99) In the Hollertau, Bavaria, the young men used to light their
+lanterns at the newly-kindled Easter candle in the church and then race to
+the bonfire; he who reached it first set fire to the pile, and next day,
+Easter Sunday, was rewarded at the church-door by the housewives, who
+presented him with red eggs. Great was the jubilation while the effigy of
+the traitor was being consumed in the flames. The ashes were carefully
+collected and thrown away at sunrise in running water.(306) In many parts
+of the Abruzzi, also, pious people kindle their fires on Easter Saturday
+with a brand brought from the sacred new fire in the church. When the
+brand has thus served to bless the fire on the domestic hearth, it is
+extinguished, and the remainder is preserved, partly in a cranny of the
+outer wall of the house, partly on a tree to which it is tied. This is
+done for the purpose of guarding the homestead against injury by storms.
+At Campo di Giove the people say that if you can get a piece of one of the
+three holy candles which the priest lights from the new fire, you should
+allow a few drops of the wax to fall into the crown of your hat; for after
+that, if it should thunder and lighten, you have nothing to do but to clap
+the hat on your head, and no flash of lightning can possibly strike
+you.(307)
+
+(M100) Further, it deserves to be noted that in the Abruzzi water as well
+as fire is, as it were, renewed and consecrated on Easter Saturday. Most
+people fetch holy water on that day from the churches, and every member of
+the family drinks a little of it, believing that it has power to protect
+him or her against witchcraft, fever, and stomach-aches of all sorts. And
+when the church bells ring again after their enforced silence, the water
+is sprinkled about the house, and especially under the beds, with the help
+of a palm-branch. Some of this blessed water is also kept in the house for
+use in great emergencies, when there is no time to fetch a priest; thus it
+may be employed to baptize a new-born infant gasping for life or to
+sprinkle a sick man in the last agony; such a sprinkling is reckoned equal
+to priestly absolution.(308) In Calabria the customs with regard to the
+new water, as it is called, on Easter Saturday are similar; it is poured
+into a new vessel, adorned with ribbons and flowers, is blessed by the
+priest, and is tasted by every one of the household, beginning with the
+parents. And when the air vibrates with the glad music of the church bells
+announcing the resurrection, the people sprinkle the holy water about the
+houses, bidding in a loud voice all evil things to go forth and all good
+things to come in. At the same time, to emphasize the exorcism, they knock
+on doors, window-shutters, chests, and other domestic articles of
+furniture. At Cetraro people who suffer from diseases of the skin bathe in
+the sea at this propitious moment; at Pietro in Guarano they plunge into
+the river on the night of Easter Saturday before Easter Sunday dawns, and
+while they bathe they utter never a word. Moreover, the Calabrians keep
+the "new water" as a sacred thing. They believe that it serves as a
+protection against witchcraft if it is sprinkled on a fire or a lamp, when
+the wood crackles or the wick sputters; for they regard it as a bad omen
+when the fire talks, as they say.(309) Among the Germans of Western
+Bohemia, also, water as well as fire is consecrated by the priest in front
+of the church on Easter Saturday. People bring jugs full of water to the
+church and set them beside the holy fire; afterwards they use the water to
+sprinkle on the palm-branches which are stuck in the fields. Charred
+sticks of the Judas fire, as it is popularly called, are supposed to
+possess a magical and healing virtue; hence the people take them home with
+them, and even scuffle with each other for the still glowing embers in
+order to carry them, still glimmering, to their houses and so obtain "the
+light" or "the holy light."(310) At Hildesheim, also, and the neighbouring
+villages of central Germany rites both of fire and water are or were till
+lately observed at Easter. Thus on Easter night many people fetch water
+from the Innerste river and keep it carefully, believing it to be a remedy
+for many sorts of ailments both of man and beast. In the villages on the
+Leine river servant men and maids used to go silently on Easter night
+between the hours of eleven and twelve and silently draw water in buckets
+from the river; they mixed the water with the fodder and the drink of the
+cattle to make the animals thrive, and they imagined that to wash in it
+was good for human beings. Many were also of opinion that at the same
+mystic hour the water turned to wine as far as the crowing of a cock could
+be heard, and in this belief they laid themselves flat on their stomachs
+and kept their tongues in the water till the miraculous change occurred,
+when they took a great gulp of the transformed water. At Hildesheim, too,
+and the neighbouring villages fires used to blaze on all the heights on
+Easter Eve; and embers taken from the bonfires were dipped in the cattle
+troughs to benefit the beasts and were kept in the houses to avert
+lightning.(311)
+
+(M101) In the Lesachthal, Carinthia, all the fires in the houses used to
+be extinguished on Easter Saturday, and rekindled with a fresh fire
+brought from the churchyard, where the priest had lit it by the friction
+of flint and steel and had bestowed his blessing on it.(312) Such customs
+were probably widespread. In a Latin poem of the sixteenth century,
+written by a certain Thomas Kirchmeyer and translated into English by
+Barnabe Googe, we read:--
+
+
+    "_On Easter Eve the fire all is quencht in every place,_
+    _And fresh againe from out the flint is fetcht with solemne
+                grace:_
+    _The priest doth halow this against great daungers many one,_
+    _A brande whereof doth every man with greedie mind take home,_
+    _That when the fearefull storme appeares, or tempest black arise,_
+    _By lighting this he safe may be from stroke of hurtful skies:_
+    _A taper great, the Paschall namde, with musicke then they
+                blesse,_
+    _And franckensence herein they pricke, for greater holynesse:_
+    _This burneth night and day as signe of Christ that conquerde
+                hell,_
+    _As if so be this foolish toye suffiseth this to tell._
+    _Then doth the Bishop or the Priest, the water halow straight,_
+    _That for their baptisme is reservde: for now no more of waight_
+    _Is that they usde the yeare before, nor can they any more,_
+    _Yong children christen with the same, as they have done before._
+    _With wondrous pompe and furniture, amid the Church they go,_
+    _With candles, crosses, banners, Chrisme, and oyle appoynted tho:_
+    _Nine times about the font they marche, and on the saintes doe
+                call,_
+    _Then still at length they stande, and straight the Priest begins
+                withall,_
+    _And thrise the water doth he touche, and crosses thereon make,_
+    _Here bigge and barbrous wordes he speakes, to make the devill
+                quake:_
+    _And holsome waters conjureth, and foolishly doth dresse,_
+    _Supposing holyar that to make, which God before did blesse:_
+    _And after this his candle than, he thrusteth in the floode,_
+    _And thrise he breathes thereon with breath, that stinkes of
+                former foode:_
+    _And making here an ende, his Chrisme he poureth thereupon,_
+    _The people staring hereat stande, amazed every one:_
+    _Beleeving that great powre is given to this water here,_
+    _By gaping of these learned men, and such like trifling gere._
+    _Therefore in vessels brought they draw, and home they carie
+                some,_
+    _Against the grieves that to themselves, or to their beastes may
+                come._
+    _Then Clappers ceasse, and belles are set againe at libertee,_
+    _And herewith all the hungrie times of fasting ended bee._" (313)
+
+
+It is said that formerly all the fires in Rome were lighted afresh from
+the holy fire kindled in St. Peter's on Easter Saturday. (314)
+
+(M102) In Florence the ceremony of kindling the new fire on Easter Eve is
+peculiar. The holy flame is elicited from certain flints which are said to
+have been brought by a member of the Pazzi family from the Holy Land. They
+are kept in the church of the Holy Apostles on the Piazza del Limbo, and
+on the morning of Easter Saturday the prior strikes fire from them and
+lights a candle from the new flame. The burning candle is then carried in
+solemn procession by the clergy and members of the municipality to the
+high altar in the cathedral. A vast crowd has meanwhile assembled in the
+cathedral and the neighbouring square to witness the ceremony; amongst the
+spectators are many peasants drawn from the surrounding country, for it is
+commonly believed that on the success or failure of the ceremony depends
+the fate of the crops for the year. Outside the door of the cathedral
+stands a festal car drawn by two fine white oxen with gilded horns. The
+body of the car is loaded with a pyramid of squibs and crackers and is
+connected by a wire with a pillar set up in front of the high altar. The
+wire extends down the middle of the nave at a height of about six feet
+from the ground. Beneath it a clear passage is left, the spectators being
+ranged on either side and crowding the vast interior from wall to wall.
+When all is ready, High Mass is celebrated, and precisely at noon, when
+the first words of the _Gloria_ are being chanted, the sacred fire is
+applied to the pillar, which like the car is wreathed with fireworks. A
+moment more and a fiery dove comes flying down the nave, with a hissing
+sound and a sputter of sparks, between the two hedges of eager spectators.
+If all goes well, the bird pursues its course along the wire and out at
+the door, and in another moment a prolonged series of fizzes, pops and
+bangs announces to the excited crowd in the cathedral that the fireworks
+on the car are going off. Great is the joy accordingly, especially among
+the bumpkins, who are now sure of an abundant harvest. But if, as
+sometimes happens, the dove stops short in its career and fizzles out,
+revealing itself as a stuffed bird with a packet of squibs tied to its
+tail, great is the consternation, and deep the curses that issue from
+between the set teeth of the clodhoppers, who now give up the harvest for
+lost. Formerly the unskilful mechanician who was responsible for the
+failure would have been clapped into gaol; but nowadays he is thought
+sufficiently punished by the storm of public indignation and the loss of
+his pay. The disaster is announced by placards posted about the streets in
+the evening; and next morning the newspapers are full of gloomy
+prognostications.(315)
+
+(M103) Some of these customs have been transported by the Catholic Church
+to the New World. Thus in Mexico the new fire is struck from a flint early
+in the morning of Easter Saturday, and a candle which has been lighted at
+the sacred flame is carried through the church by a deacon shouting
+"_Lumen Christi_." Meantime the whole city, we are informed, has been
+converted into a vast place of execution. Ropes stretch across the streets
+from house to house, and from every house dangles an effigy of Judas, made
+of paper pulp. Scores or hundreds of them may adorn a single street. They
+are of all shapes and sizes, grotesque in form and garbed in strange
+attire, stuffed with gunpowder, squibs and crackers, sometimes, too, with
+meat, bread, soap, candy, and clothing, for which the crowd will scramble
+and scuffle while the effigies are burning. There they hang grim, black,
+and sullen in the strong sunshine, greeted with a roar of execration by
+the pious mob. A peal of bells from the cathedral tower on the stroke of
+noon gives the signal for the execution. At the sound a frenzy seizes the
+crowd. They throw themselves furiously on the figures of the detested
+traitor, cut them down, hurl them with curses into the fire, and fight and
+struggle with each other in their efforts to tear the effigies to tatters
+and appropriate their contents. Smoke, stink, sputter of crackers, oaths,
+curses, yells are now the order of the day. But the traitor does not
+perish unavenged. For the anatomy of his frame has been cunningly
+contrived so as in burning to discharge volleys of squibs into his
+assailants; and the wounds and burns with which their piety is rewarded
+form a feature of the morning's entertainment. The English Jockey Club in
+Mexico used to improve on this popular pastime by suspending huge figures
+of Judas, stuffed with copper coins, from ropes in front of their
+clubhouse. These were ignited at the proper moment and lowered within
+reach of the expectant rabble, and it was the privilege of members of the
+club, seated in the balcony, to watch the grimaces and to hear the shrieks
+of the victims, as they stamped and capered about with the hot coppers
+sticking to their hands, divided in their minds between an acute sense of
+pain and a thirst for filthy lucre.(316)
+
+(M104) Scenes of the same sort, though on a less ambitious scale, are
+witnessed among the Catholics of South America on the same day. In Brazil
+the mourning for the death of Christ ceases at noon on Easter Saturday and
+gives place to an extravagant burst of joy at his resurrection. Shots are
+fired everywhere, and effigies of Judas are hung on trees or dragged about
+the streets, to be finally burned or otherwise destroyed.(317) In the
+Indian villages scattered among the wild valleys of the Peruvian Andes
+figures of the traitor, made of pasteboard and stuffed with squibs and
+crackers, are hanged on gibbets before the door of the church on Easter
+Saturday. Fire is set to them, and while they crackle and explode, the
+Indians dance and shout for joy at the destruction of their hated
+enemy.(318) Similarly at Rio Hacha, in Colombia, Judas is represented
+during Holy Week by life-sized effigies, and the people fire at them as if
+they were discharging a sacred duty.(319)
+
+(M105) But usages of this sort are not confined to the Latin Church; they
+are common to the Greek Church also. Every year on the Saturday before
+Easter Sunday a new fire is miraculously kindled at the Holy Sepulchre in
+Jerusalem. It descends from heaven and ignites the candles which the
+patriarch holds in his hands, while with closed eyes he wrestles in prayer
+all alone in the chapel of the Angel. The worshippers meanwhile wait
+anxiously in the body of the church, and great are their transports of joy
+when at one of the windows of the chapel, which had been all dark a minute
+before, there suddenly appears the hand of an angel, or of the patriarch,
+holding a lighted taper. This is the sacred new fire; it is passed out to
+the expectant believers, and the desperate struggle which ensues among
+them to get a share of its blessed influence is only terminated by the
+intervention of the Turkish soldiery, who restore peace and order by
+hustling the whole multitude impartially out of the church. In days gone
+by many lives were often lost in these holy scrimmages. For example, in
+the year 1834, the famous Ibrahim Pasha witnessed the frantic scene from
+one of the galleries, and, being moved with compassion at the sight,
+descended with a few guards into the arena in the chimerical hope of
+restoring peace and order among the contending Christians. He contrived to
+force his way into the midst of the dense crowd, but there the heat and
+pressure were so great that he fainted away; a body of soldiers, seeing
+his danger, charged straight into the throng and carried him out of it in
+their arms, trampling under foot the dying and dead in their passage.
+Nearly two hundred people were killed that day in the church. The
+fortunate survivors on these occasions who succeeded in obtaining a
+portion of the coveted fire applied it freely to their faces, their
+beards, and their garments. The theory was that the fire, being
+miraculous, could only bless and not burn them; but the practical results
+of the experiment were often disappointing, for while the blessings were
+more or less dubious, there could be no doubt whatever about the
+burns.(320) The history of the miracle has been carefully investigated by
+a Jesuit father. The conclusions at which he arrives are that the miracle
+was a miracle indeed so long as the Catholics had the management of it;
+but that since it fell into the hands of the heretics it has been nothing
+but a barefaced trick and imposture.(321) Many people will be disposed to
+agree with the latter conclusion who might hesitate to accept the former.
+
+(M106) At Athens the new fire is kindled in the cathedral at midnight on
+Holy Saturday. A dense crowd with unlit candles in their hands fills the
+square in front of the cathedral; the king, the archbishop, and the
+highest dignitaries of the church, arrayed in their gorgeous robes, occupy
+a platform; and at the exact moment of the resurrection the bells ring
+out, and the whole square bursts as by magic into a blaze of light.
+Theoretically all the candles are lit from the sacred new fire in the
+cathedral, but practically it may be suspected that the matches which bear
+the name of Lucifer have some share in the sudden illumination.(322)
+Effigies of Judas used to be burned at Athens on Easter Saturday, but the
+custom has been forbidden by the Government. However, firing goes on more
+or less continuously all over the city both on Easter Saturday and Easter
+Sunday, and the cartridges used on this occasion are not always blank. The
+shots are aimed at Judas, but sometimes they miss him and hit other
+people. Outside of Athens the practice of burning Judas in effigy still
+survives in some places. For example, in Cos a straw image of the traitor
+is made on Easter Day, and after being hung up and shot at it is
+burned.(323) A similar custom appears to prevail at Thebes;(324) it used
+to be observed by the Macedonian peasantry, and it is still kept up at
+Therapia, a fashionable summer resort of Constantinople.(325)
+
+(M107) In the Armenian Church the sacred new fire is kindled not at Easter
+but at Candlemas, that is, on the second of February, or on the eve of
+that festival. The materials of the bonfire are piled in an open space
+near a church, and they are generally ignited by young couples who have
+been married within the year. However, it is the bishop or his vicar who
+lights the candles with which fire is set to the pile. All young married
+pairs are expected to range themselves about the fire and to dance round
+it. Young men leap over the flames, but girls and women content themselves
+with going round them, while they pray to be preserved from the itch and
+other skin-diseases. When the ceremony is over, the people eagerly pick up
+charred sticks or ashes of the fire and preserve them or scatter them on
+the four corners of the roof, in the cattle-stall, in the garden, and on
+the pastures; for these holy sticks and ashes protect men and cattle
+against disease, and fruit-trees against worms and caterpillars. Omens,
+too, are drawn from the direction in which the wind blows the flames and
+the smoke: if it carries them eastward, there is hope of a good harvest;
+but if it inclines them westward, the people fear that the crops will
+fail.(326)
+
+(M108) In spite of the thin cloak of Christianity thrown over these
+customs by representing the new fire as an emblem of Christ and the figure
+burned in it as an effigy of Judas, we can hardly doubt that both
+practices are of pagan origin. Neither of them has the authority of Christ
+or of his disciples; but both of them have abundant analogies in popular
+custom and superstition. Some instances of the practice of annually
+extinguishing fires and relighting them from a new and sacred flame have
+already come before us;(327) but a few examples may here be cited for the
+sake of illustrating the wide diffusion of a custom which has found its
+way into the ritual both of the Eastern and of the Western Church.
+
+(M109) The Incas of Peru celebrated a festival called Raymi, a word which
+their native historian Garcilasso de la Vega tells us was equivalent to
+our Easter. It was held in honour of the sun at the solstice in June. For
+three days before the festival the people fasted, men did not sleep with
+their wives, and no fires were lighted in Cuzco, the capital. The sacred
+new fire was obtained direct from the sun by concentrating his beams on a
+highly polished concave plate and reflecting them on a little cotton wool.
+With this holy fire the sheep and lambs offered to the sun were consumed,
+and the flesh of such as were to be eaten at the festival was roasted.
+Portions of the new fire were also conveyed to the temple of the sun and
+to the convent of the sacred virgins, where they were kept burning all the
+year, and it was an ill omen if the holy flame went out.(328) At a
+festival held in the last month of the old Mexican year all the fires both
+in the temples and in the houses were extinguished, and the priest kindled
+a new fire by rubbing two sticks against each other before the image of
+the fire-god.(329) The Zuni Indians of New Mexico kindle a new fire by the
+friction of wood both at the winter and the summer solstice. At the winter
+solstice the chosen fire-maker collects a faggot of cedar-wood from every
+house in the village, and each person, as he hands the wood to the
+fire-maker, prays that the crops may be good in the coming year. For
+several days before the new fire is kindled, no ashes or sweepings may be
+removed from the houses and no artificial light may appear outside of
+them, not even a burning cigarette or the flash of firearms. The Indians
+believe that no rain will fall on the fields of the man outside whose
+house a light has been seen at this season. The signal for kindling the
+new fire is given by the rising of the Morning Star. The flame is produced
+by twirling an upright stick between the hands on a horizontal stick laid
+on the floor of a sacred chamber, the sparks being caught by a tinder of
+cedar-dust. It is forbidden to blow up the smouldering tinder with the
+breath, for that would offend the gods. After the fire has thus been
+ceremonially kindled, the women and girls of all the families in the
+village clean out their houses. They carry the sweepings and ashes in
+baskets or bowls to the fields and leave them there. To the sweepings the
+woman says: "I now deposit you as sweepings, but in one year you will
+return to me as corn." And to the ashes she says: "I now deposit you as
+ashes, but in one year you will return to me as meal." At the summer
+solstice the sacred fire which has been procured by the friction of wood
+is used to kindle the grass and trees, that there may be a great cloud of
+smoke, while bull-roarers are swung and prayers offered that the
+Rain-makers up aloft will water the earth.(330) From this account we see
+how intimately the kindling of a new fire at the two turning-points of the
+sun's course is associated in the minds of these Indians with the
+fertility of the land, particularly with the growth of the corn. The
+rolling smoke is apparently an imitation of rain-clouds designed, on the
+principle of homoeopathic magic, to draw showers from the blue sky. Once a
+year the Iroquois priesthood supplied the people with a new fire. As a
+preparation for the annual rite the fires in all the huts were
+extinguished and the ashes scattered about. Then the priest, wearing the
+insignia of his office, went from hut to hut relighting the fires by means
+of a flint.(331) Among the Esquimaux with whom C. F. Hall resided, it was
+the custom that at a certain time, which answered to our New Year's Day,
+two men went about from house to house blowing out every light in the
+village. One of the men was dressed to represent a woman. Afterwards the
+lights were rekindled from a fresh fire. An Esquimau woman being asked
+what all this meant, replied, "New sun--new light."(332) Among the
+Esquimaux of Iglulik, when the sun first rises above the horizon after the
+long night of the Arctic winter, the children who have watched for his
+reappearance run into the houses and blow out the lamps. Then they receive
+from their mothers presents of pieces of wick.(333)
+
+(M110) In the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai all the fires in the villages are
+put out and the ashes removed from the houses on the day which precedes
+the New Year festival. At the beginning of the new year a new fire is lit
+by the friction of wood in the great straw hut where the village elders
+lounge away the sultry hours together; and every man takes thence a
+burning brand with which he rekindles the fire on his domestic
+hearth.(334) In the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Egyptian Sudan the
+people extinguish their old fires at the Arab New Year and bring in new
+fire. On the same occasion they beat the walls of their huts, the grass
+thatches, and the walls of their enclosures in order to drive away the
+devil or evil spirits. The beating of the walls and roofs is accompanied
+by the firing of guns, the shouting of men, and the shriller cries of the
+women.(335) Thus these people combine an annual expulsion of demons with
+an annual lighting of a new fire. Among the Swahili of East Africa the
+greatest festival is that of the New Year, which falls in the second half
+of August. At a given moment all the fires are extinguished with water and
+afterwards relit by the friction of two dry pieces of wood. The ashes of
+the old fires are carried out and deposited at cross-roads. All the people
+get up very early in the morning and bathe in the sea or some other water,
+praying to be kept in good health and to live that they may bathe again
+next year. Sham-fights form part of the amusements of the day; sometimes
+they pass into grim reality. Indeed the day was formerly one of general
+license; every man did that which was good in his own eyes. No awkward
+questions were asked about any crimes committed on this occasion, so some
+people improved the shining hour by knocking a few poor devils on the
+head. Shooting still goes on during the whole day, and at night the
+proceedings generally wind up with a great dance.(336) The King of
+Benametapa, as the early Portuguese traders called him, in East Africa
+used to send commissioners annually to every town in his dominions; on the
+arrival of one of these officers the inhabitants of each town had to put
+out all their fires and to receive a new fire from him. Failure to comply
+with this custom was treated as rebellion.(337) Some tribes of British
+Central Africa carefully extinguish the fires on the hearths at the
+beginning of the hoeing season and at harvest; the fires are afterwards
+rekindled by friction, and the people indulge in dances of various
+kinds.(338)
+
+(M111) The Todas of the Neilgherry Hills, in Southern India, annually
+kindle a sacred new fire by the friction of wood in the month which begins
+with the October moon. The ceremony is performed by two holy dairymen at
+the foot of a high hill. When they have lighted the fire by rubbing two
+dry sticks together, and it begins to burn well, they stand a little way
+off and pray, saying, "May the young grass flower! May honey flourish! May
+fruit ripen!" The purpose of the ceremony is to make the grass and honey
+plentiful. In ancient times the Todas lived largely on wild fruits, and
+then the rite of the new fire was very important. Now that they subsist
+chiefly on the milk of their buffaloes, the ceremony has lost much of its
+old significance.(339) When the Nagas of North-Eastern India have felled
+the timber and cut down the scrub in those patches of jungle which they
+propose to cultivate, they put out all the fires in the village and light
+a new fire by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together. Then having kindled
+torches at it they proceed with them to the jungle and ignite the felled
+timber and brushwood. The flesh of a cow or buffalo is also roasted on the
+new fire and furnishes a sacrificial meal.(340) Near the small town of
+Kahma in Burma, between Prome and Thayetmyo, certain gases escape from a
+hollow in the ground and burn with a steady flame during the dry season of
+the year. The people regard the flame as the forge of a spectral smith who
+here carried on his business after death had removed him from his old
+smithy in the village. Once a year all the household fires in Kahma are
+extinguished and then lighted afresh from the ghostly flame.(341)
+
+(M112) In China every year, about the beginning of April, certain
+officials, called _Sz'hueen_, used of old to go about the country armed
+with wooden clappers. Their business was to summon the people and command
+them to put out every fire. This was the beginning of a season called
+_Han-shih-tsieh_, or "eating cold food." For three days all household
+fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the
+fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day of April, being the
+hundred and fifth day after the winter solstice. The ceremony was
+performed with great pomp by the same officials, who procured the new fire
+from heaven by reflecting the sun's rays either from a metal mirror or
+from a crystal on dry moss. Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese
+heavenly fire, and its use is enjoined in sacrifices; whereas fire
+elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its
+use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes. When once the
+new fire had thus been drawn from the sun, all the people were free to
+rekindle their domestic hearths; and, as a Chinese distich has it--
+
+
+    "_At the festival of the cold food there are a thousand white
+                stalks among the flowers;_
+    _On the day Tsing-ming, at sunrise, you may see the smoke of ten
+                thousand houses._"
+
+
+According to a Chinese philosopher, the reason for thus renewing fire
+periodically is that the vital principle grows weaker and weaker in old
+fire, whereas in new fire it is young and vigorous. This annual renewal of
+fire was a ceremony of very great antiquity in China, since it is known to
+have been observed in the time of the first dynasty, about two thousand
+years before Christ. Under the Tcheou dynasty a change in the calendar led
+to shifting the fire-festival from spring to the summer solstice, but
+afterwards it was brought back to its original date. Although the custom
+appears to have long fallen into disuse, the barbarous inhabitants of
+Hainan, an island to the south of China, still call a year "a fire," as if
+in memory of the time when the years were reckoned by the annually
+recurring ceremony of rekindling the sacred fire.(342) "A Japanese book
+written two centuries ago informs us that sticks resembling the wands used
+for offerings at the purification ceremony were part shaven and set up in
+bundles at the four corners of the Gion shrine on the last day of the
+year. The priests, after prayers were recited, broke up the bundles and
+set fire to the sticks, which the people then carried home to light their
+household fires with for the New Year. The object of this ceremony was to
+avert pestilence."(343)
+
+(M113) In classical antiquity the Greek island of Lemnos was devoted to
+the worship of the smith-god Hephaestus, who was said to have fallen on it
+when Zeus hurled him from heaven.(344) Once a year every fire in the
+island was extinguished and remained extinct for nine days, during which
+sacrifices were offered to the dead and to the infernal powers. New fire
+was brought in a ship from the sacred isle of Delos, and with it the fires
+in the houses and the workshops were relit. The people said that with the
+new fire they made a new beginning of life. If the ship that bore the
+sacred flame arrived too soon, it might not put in to shore, but had to
+cruise in the offing till the nine days were expired.(345) At Rome the
+sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was kindled anew every year on the
+first of March, which used to be the beginning of the Roman year;(346) the
+task of lighting it was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins, and they
+performed it by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till the flame
+was elicited by friction. The new fire thus produced was carried into the
+temple of Vesta by one of the virgins in a bronze sieve.(347)
+
+(M114) Among the Celts of Ireland a new fire was annually kindled on
+Hallowe'en or the Eve of Samhain, as they called it, the last day of
+October, from which the Irish new year began; and all the hearths
+throughout the country are said to have been relighted from the fresh
+fire. The place where this holy flame was lit bore the name of Tlachtga or
+Tlactga; it has been identified with a rath or native fort on the Hill of
+Ward near Athboy in the county of Meath. "It was there," says the old
+Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating, "that the Festival of the Fire of
+Tlactga was ordered to be held, and it was thither that the Druids of
+Ireland were wont to repair and to assemble, in solemn meeting, on the eve
+of Samhain, for the purpose of making a sacrifice to all the gods. It was
+in that fire at Tlactga, that their sacrifice was burnt; and it was made
+obligatory, under pain of punishment, to extinguish all the fires of
+Ireland, on that eve; and the men of Ireland were allowed to kindle no
+other fire but that one; and for each of the other fires, which were all
+to be lighted from it, the king of Munster was to receive a tax of a
+_sgreball_, that is, of three pence, because the land, upon which Tlactga
+was built, belongs to the portion of Meath which had been taken from
+Munster."(348) In the villages near Moscow at the present time the
+peasants put out all their fires on the eve of the first of September, and
+next morning at sunrise a wise man or a wise woman rekindles them with the
+help of muttered incantations and spells.(349)
+
+(M115) Instances of such practices might doubtless be multiplied, but the
+foregoing examples may suffice to render it probable that the
+ecclesiastical ceremony of lighting a sacred new fire on Easter Saturday
+had originally nothing to do with Christianity, but is merely one case of
+a world-wide custom which the Church has seen fit to incorporate in its
+ritual. It might be supposed that in the Western Church the custom was
+merely a survival of the old Roman usage of renewing the fire on the first
+of March, were it not that the observance by the Eastern Church of the
+custom on the same day seems to point back to a still older period when
+the ceremony of lighting a new fire in spring, perhaps at the vernal
+equinox, was common to many peoples of the Mediterranean area. We may
+conjecture that wherever such a ceremony has been observed, it originally
+marked the beginning of a new year, as it did in ancient Rome and Ireland,
+and as it still does in the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai and among the
+Swahili of Eastern Africa.
+
+(M116) The essentially pagan character of the Easter fire festival appears
+plainly both from the mode in which it is celebrated by the peasants and
+from the superstitious beliefs which they associate with it. All over
+northern and central Germany, from Altmark and Anhalt on the east, through
+Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, the Harz district, and Hesse to Westphalia
+the Easter bonfires still blaze simultaneously on the hill-tops. As many
+as forty may sometimes be counted within sight at once. Long before Easter
+the young people have been busy collecting firewood; every farmer
+contributes, and tar-barrels, petroleum cases, and so forth go to swell
+the pile. Neighbouring villages vie with each other as to which shall send
+up the greatest blaze. The fires are always kindled, year after year, on
+the same hill, which accordingly often takes the name of Easter Mountain.
+It is a fine spectacle to watch from some eminence the bonfires flaring up
+one after another on the neighbouring heights. As far as their light
+reaches, so far, in the belief of the peasants, the fields will be
+fruitful, and the houses on which they shine will be safe from
+conflagration or sickness. At Volkmarsen and other places in Hesse the
+people used to observe which way the wind blew the flames, and then they
+sowed flax seed in that direction, confident that it would grow well.
+Brands taken from the bonfires preserve houses from being struck by
+lightning; and the ashes increase the fertility of the fields, protect
+them from mice, and mixed with the drinking-water of cattle make the
+animals thrive and ensure them against plague. As the flames die down,
+young and old leap over them, and cattle are sometimes driven through the
+smouldering embers. In some places tar-barrels or wheels wrapt in straw
+used to be set on fire, and then sent rolling down the hillside. In others
+the boys light torches and wisps of straw at the bonfires and rush about
+brandishing them in their hands. Where the people are divided between
+Protestantism and Catholicism, as in Hildesheim, it has been observed that
+among Protestants the Easter bonfires are generally left to the boys,
+while in Catholic districts they are cared for by grown-up persons, and
+here the whole population will gather round the blazing pile and join in
+singing choral hymns, which echo far and wide in the stillness of
+night.(350)
+
+(M117) In Muensterland these Easter fires are always kindled upon certain
+definite hills, which are hence known as Easter or Paschal Mountains. The
+whole community assembles about the fire. Fathers of families form an
+inner circle round it. An outer circle is composed of the young men and
+maidens, who, singing Easter hymns, march round and round the fire in the
+direction of the sun, till the blaze dies down. Then the girls jump over
+the fire in a line, one after the other, each supported by two young men
+who hold her hands and run beside her. When the fire has burned out, the
+whole assembly marches in solemn procession to the church, singing hymns.
+They go thrice round the church, and then break up. In the twilight boys
+with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them
+fruitful.(351) At Delmenhorst, in Oldenburg, it used to be the custom to
+cut down two trees, plant them in the ground side by side, and pile twelve
+tar-barrels, one above the other, against each of the trees. Brushwood was
+then heaped about the trees, and on the evening of Easter Saturday the
+boys, after rushing about with blazing bean-poles in their hands, set fire
+to the whole. At the end of the ceremony the urchins tried to blacken each
+other and the clothes of grown-up people.(352) In Schaumburg the Easter
+bonfires may be seen blazing on all the mountains around for miles. They
+are made with a tar-barrel fastened to a pine-tree, which is wrapt in
+straw. The people dance singing round them.(353) In the Harz Mountains the
+fire is commonly made by piling brushwood about a tree and setting it on
+fire. At Osterode every one tries to snatch a brand from the bonfire and
+runs about with it; the better it burns, the more lucky it is. In Grund
+there are torch-races.(354) In the Altmark the Easter bonfires are
+composed of tar-barrels, bee-hives, and so forth, piled round a pole. The
+young folk dance round the fire; and when it has died out, the old folk
+come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the
+ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the
+bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no
+conflagration will break out.(355) At Braunroede, in the Harz Mountains, it
+was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.(356) In the
+Altmark, bones were burned in it.(357)
+
+(M118) Further south the Easter fires are, or used to be, lit in many
+districts of Bavaria. Thus on Easter Monday in some parts of Middle
+Franken the schoolboys collect all the old worn-out besoms they can lay
+hands on, and march with them in a long procession to a neighbouring
+height. When the first chime of the evening bell comes up from the dale
+they set fire to the brooms, and run along the ridges waving them, so that
+seen from below the hills appear to be crested with a twinkling and moving
+chain of fire.(358) In some parts of Upper Bavaria at Easter burning
+arrows or discs of wood were shot from hill-tops high into the air, as in
+the Swabian and Swiss customs already described.(359) At Oberau, instead
+of the discs, an old cart-wheel was sometimes wrapt in straw, ignited, and
+sent rolling and blazing down the mountain. The lads who hurled the discs
+received painted Easter eggs from the girls.(360) Near Forchheim, in Upper
+Franken, a straw-man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards
+on Easter Saturday. The whole village contributed wood to the pyre on
+which he perished, and the charred sticks were afterwards kept and planted
+in the fields on Walpurgis Day (the first of May) to preserve the wheat
+from blight and mildew.(361) About a hundred years ago or more the custom
+at Althenneberg, in Upper Bavaria, used to be as follows. On the afternoon
+of Easter Saturday the lads collected wood, which they piled in a
+cornfield, while in the middle of the pile they set up a tall wooden cross
+all swathed in straw. After the evening service they lighted their
+lanterns at the consecrated candle in the church, and ran with them at
+full speed to the pyre, each striving to get there first. The first to
+arrive set fire to the heap. No woman or girl might come near the bonfire,
+but they were allowed to watch it from a distance. As the flames rose the
+men and lads rejoiced and made merry, shouting, "We are burning the
+Judas!" Two of them had to watch the glowing embers the whole night long,
+lest people should come and steal them. Next morning at sunrise they
+carefully collected the ashes, and threw them into the running water of
+the Roeten brook. The man who had been the first to reach the pyre and to
+kindle it was rewarded on Easter Sunday by the women, who gave him
+coloured eggs at the church door. Well-to-do women gave him two; poorer
+women gave him only one. The object of the whole ceremony was to keep off
+the hail. About a century ago the Judas fire, as it was called, was put
+down by the police.(362) At Giggenhausen and Aufkirchen, two other
+villages of Upper Bavaria, a similar custom prevailed, yet with some
+interesting differences. Here the ceremony, which took place between nine
+and ten at night on Easter Saturday, was called "burning the Easter Man."
+On a height about a mile from the village the young fellows set up a tall
+cross enveloped in straw, so that it looked like a man with his arms
+stretched out. This was the Easter Man. No lad under eighteen years of age
+might take part in the ceremony. One of the young men stationed himself
+beside the Easter Man, holding in his hand a consecrated taper which he
+had brought from the church and lighted. The rest stood at equal intervals
+in a great circle round the cross. At a given signal they raced thrice
+round the circle, and then at a second signal ran straight at the cross
+and at the lad with the lighted taper beside it; the one who reached the
+goal first had the right of setting fire to the Easter Man. Great was the
+jubilation while he was burning. When he had been consumed in the flames,
+three lads were chosen from among the rest, and each of the three drew a
+circle on the ground with a stick thrice round the ashes. Then they all
+left the spot. On Easter Monday the villagers gathered the ashes and
+strewed them on their fields; also they planted in the fields
+palm-branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and sticks which
+had been charred and hallowed on Good Friday, all for the purpose of
+protecting their fields against showers of hail. The custom of burning an
+Easter Man made of straw on Easter Saturday was observed also at
+Abensberg, in Lower Bavaria.(363) In some parts of Swabia the Easter fires
+might not be kindled with iron or steel or flint, but only by the friction
+of wood.(364)
+
+(M119) In Baden bonfires are still kindled in the churchyards on Easter
+Saturday, and ecclesiastical refuse of various sorts, such as candle-ends,
+old surplices, and the wool used by the priest in the application of
+extreme unction, is consumed in the flames. At Zoznegg down to about 1850
+the fire was lighted by the priest by means of a flint which had never
+been used before. People bring sticks, especially oaken sticks, char them
+in the fire, and then carry them home and keep them in the house as a
+preservative against lightning. At Zoznegg these oaken sticks were
+sword-shaped, each about an ell and a half long, and they went by the name
+of "weather or thunder poles" (_Wetterpfaehle_). When a thunder-storm
+threatened to break out, one of the sticks was put into a small fire, in
+order that the hallowed smoke, ascending to the clouds, might ward off the
+lightning from the house and the hail from the fields and gardens. At
+Schoellbronn the oaken sticks, which are thus charred in the Easter bonfire
+and kept in the house as a protective against thunder and lightning, are
+three in number, perhaps with an allusion to the Trinity; they are brought
+every Easter to be consecrated afresh in the bonfire, till they are quite
+burnt away. In the lake district of Baden it is also customary to burn one
+of these holy sticks in the fire when a heavy thunderstorm is raging.(365)
+Hence it seems that the ancient association of the oak with the
+thunder(366) persists in the minds of German peasants to the present day.
+
+(M120) Thus the custom of the Easter fires appears to have prevailed all
+over central and western Germany from north to south. We find it also in
+Holland, where the fires were kindled on the highest eminences, and the
+people danced round them and leaped through the flames or over the glowing
+embers. Here too, as so often in Germany, the materials for the bonfire
+were collected by the young folk from door to door.(367) In many parts of
+Sweden firearms are, as at Athens, discharged in all directions on Easter
+eve, and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences. Some people
+think that the intention is to keep off the Troll and other evil spirits
+who are especially active at this season.(368) When the afternoon service
+on Good Friday is over, German children in Bohemia drive Judas out of the
+church by running about the sacred edifice and even the streets shaking
+rattles and clappers. Next day, on Easter Saturday, the remains of the
+holy oil are burnt before the church door in a fire which must be kindled
+with flint and steel. This fire is called "the burning of Judas," but in
+spite of its evil name a beneficent virtue is ascribed to it, for the
+people scuffle for the cinders, which they put in the roofs of their
+houses as a safeguard against fire and lightning.(369)
+
+
+
+
+§ 3. The Beltane Fires.
+
+
+(M121) In the central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane
+fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the first of May, and
+the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and
+unequivocal. The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places
+far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by
+writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of
+ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them
+in the words of their authors. The fullest of the descriptions, so far as
+I know, is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre,
+near Crieff, the patron of Burns and the friend of Sir Walter Scott. From
+his voluminous manuscripts, written in the last quarter of the eighteenth
+century, a selection was published in the latter part of the nineteenth
+century. The following account of Beltane is extracted from a chapter
+dealing with Highland superstitions. Ramsay says: "But the most
+considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day,
+which was lately observed in some parts of the Highlands with
+extraordinary ceremonies. Of later years it is chiefly attended to by
+young people, persons advanced in years considering it as inconsistent
+with their gravity to give it any countenance. Yet a number of
+circumstances relative to it may be collected from tradition, or the
+conversation of very old people, who witnessed this feast in their youth,
+when the ancient rites were better observed.
+
+(M122) "This festival is called in Gaelic _Beal-tene_--_i.e._, the fire of
+Bel.... Like the other public worship of the Druids, the Beltane feast
+seems to have been performed on hills or eminences. They thought it
+degrading to him whose temple is the universe, to suppose that he would
+dwell in any house made with hands. Their sacrifices were therefore
+offered in the open air, frequently upon the tops of hills, where they
+were presented with the grandest views of nature, and were nearest the
+seat of warmth and order. And, according to tradition, such was the manner
+of celebrating this festival in the Highlands within the last hundred
+years. But since the decline of superstition, it has been celebrated by
+the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their
+cattle were pasturing. Thither the young folks repaired in the morning,
+and cut a trench, on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the
+company. And in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed, which
+of old they kindled with _tein-eigin_--_i.e._, forced-fire or _need-fire_.
+Although, for many years past, they have been contented with common fire,
+yet we shall now describe the process, because it will hereafter appear
+that recourse is still had to the _tein-eigin_ upon extraordinary
+emergencies.
+
+(M123) "The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully
+extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire
+were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used
+in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was
+procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same
+timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in
+some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame
+of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree.
+In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were
+required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of
+them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime,
+it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be
+devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of
+the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old
+birch-trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of
+being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues
+ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft, and a
+sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and
+in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their
+nature changed.
+
+(M124) "After kindling the bonfire with the _tein-eigin_ the company
+prepared their victuals. And as soon as they had finished their meal, they
+amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards
+the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the
+feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge,
+called _am bonnach beal-tine_--_i.e._, the Beltane cake. It was divided
+into a number of pieces, and distributed in great form to the company.
+There was one particular piece which whoever got was called _cailleach
+beal-tine_--_i.e._, the Beltane _carline_, a term of great reproach. Upon
+his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of
+putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued.
+And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they
+would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with egg-shells, and retained
+the odious appellation during the whole year. And while the feast was
+fresh in people's memory, they affected to speak of the _cailleach
+beal-tine_ as dead.
+
+(M125) "This festival was longest observed in the interior Highlands, for
+towards the west coast the traces of it are faintest. In Glenorchy and
+Lorne, a large cake is made on that day, which they consume in the house;
+and in Mull it has a large hole in the middle, through which each of the
+cows in the fold is milked. In Tiree it is of a triangular form. The more
+elderly people remember when this festival was celebrated without-doors
+with some solemnity in both these islands. There are at present no
+vestiges of it in Skye or the Long Island, the inhabitants of which have
+substituted the _connach Micheil_ or St. Michael's cake. It is made at
+Michaelmas with milk and oatmeal, and some eggs are sprinkled on its
+surface. Part of it is sent to the neighbours.
+
+(M126) "It is probable that at the original Beltane festival there were
+two fires kindled near one another. When any person is in a critical
+dilemma, pressed on each side by unsurmountable difficulties, the
+Highlanders have a proverb, _The e' eada anda theine bealtuin_--_i.e._, he
+is between the two Beltane fires. There are in several parts small round
+hills, which, it is like, owe their present names to such solemn uses. One
+of the highest and most central in Icolmkil is called
+_Cnoch-nan-ainneal_--_i.e._, the hill of the fires. There is another of the
+same name near the kirk of Balquhidder; and at Killin there is a round
+green eminence which seems to have been raised by art. It is called
+_Tom-nan-ainneal_--_i.e._, the eminence of the fires. Around it there are
+the remains of a circular wall about two feet high. On the top a stone
+stands upon end. According to the tradition of the inhabitants, it was a
+place of Druidical worship; and it was afterwards pitched on as the most
+venerable spot for holding courts of justice for the country of
+Breadalbane. The earth of this eminence is still thought to be possessed
+of some healing virtue, for when cattle are observed to be diseased some
+of it is sent for, which is rubbed on the part affected."(370)
+
+(M127) In the parish of Callander, a beautiful district of western
+Perthshire, the Beltane custom was still in vogue towards the end of the
+eighteenth century. It has been described as follows by the parish
+minister of the time: "Upon the first day of May, which is called
+_Beltan_, or _Bal-tein_ day, all the boys in a township or hamlet, meet in
+the moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by
+casting a trench in the ground, of such circumference as to hold the whole
+company. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the
+consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted
+at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide
+the cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in
+size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of
+these portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They
+put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws
+out a portion. He who holds the bonnet, is entitled to the last bit.
+Whoever draws the black bit, is the _devoted_ person who is to be
+sacrificed to _Baal_,(371) whose favour they mean to implore, in rendering
+the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast. There is little
+doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this
+country, as well as in the east, although they now pass from the act of
+sacrificing, and only compel the _devoted_ person to leap three times
+through the flames; with which the ceremonies of this festival are
+closed."(372)
+
+(M128) Thomas Pennant, who travelled in Perthshire in the year 1769, tells
+us that "on the first of May, the herdsmen of every village hold their
+Bel-tien, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square trench on the ground,
+leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a fire of wood, on which
+they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and milk; and bring
+besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer and whisky; for each
+of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling
+some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation: on that every one
+takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each
+dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks
+and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them: each
+person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it
+over his shoulders, says, 'This I give to thee, preserve thou my horses;
+this to thee, preserve thou my sheep; and so on.' After that, they use the
+same ceremony to the noxious animals: 'This I give to thee, O fox! spare
+thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded crow! this to thee, O eagle!' When
+the ceremony is over, they dine on the caudle; and after the feast is
+finished, what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose; but
+on the next Sunday they re-assemble, and finish the reliques of the first
+entertainment."(373)
+
+(M129) Another writer of the eighteenth century has described the Beltane
+festival as it was held in the parish of Logierait in Perthshire. He says:
+"On the first of May, O.S., a festival called _Beltan_ is annually held
+here. It is chiefly celebrated by the cow-herds, who assemble by scores in
+the fields, to dress a dinner for themselves, of boiled milk and eggs.
+These dishes they eat with a sort of cakes baked for the occasion, and
+having small lumps in the form of _nipples_, raised all over the
+surface."(374) In this last account no mention is made of bonfires, but
+they were probably lighted, for a contemporary writer informs us that in
+the parish of Kirkmichael, which adjoins the parish of Logierait on the
+east, the custom of lighting a fire in the fields and baking a consecrated
+cake on the first of May was not quite obsolete in his time.(375) We may
+conjecture that the cake with knobs was formerly used for the purpose of
+determining who should be the "Beltane carline" or victim doomed to the
+flames. A trace of this custom survived, perhaps, in the custom of baking
+oatmeal cakes of a special kind and rolling them down hill about noon on
+the first of May; for it was thought that the person whose cake broke as
+it rolled would die or be unfortunate within the year. These cakes, or
+bannocks as we call them in Scotland, were baked in the usual way, but
+they were washed over with a thin batter composed of whipped egg, milk or
+cream, and a little oatmeal. This custom appears to have prevailed at or
+near Kingussie in Inverness-shire. At Achterneed, near Strathpeffer in
+Ross-shire, the Beltane bannocks were called _tcharnican_ or hand-cakes,
+because they were kneaded entirely in the hand, and not on a board or
+table like common cakes; and after being baked they might not be placed
+anywhere but in the hands of the children who were to eat them.(376)
+
+(M130) In the north-east of Scotland the Beltane fires were still kindled
+in the latter half of the eighteenth century; the herdsmen of several
+farms used to gather dry wood, kindle it, and dance three times
+"southways" about the burning pile.(377) But in this region, according to
+a later authority, the Beltane fires were lit not on the first but on the
+second of May, Old Style. They were called bone-fires. The people believed
+that on that evening and night the witches were abroad and busy casting
+spells on cattle and stealing cows' milk. To counteract their
+machinations, pieces of rowan-tree and woodbine, but especially of
+rowan-tree, were placed over the doors of the cow-houses, and fires were
+kindled by every farmer and cottar. Old thatch, straw, furze, or broom was
+piled in a heap and set on fire a little after sunset. While some of the
+bystanders kept tossing the blazing mass, others hoisted portions of it on
+pitchforks or poles and ran hither and thither, holding them as high as
+they could. Meantime the young people danced round the fire or ran through
+the smoke shouting, "Fire! blaze and burn the witches; fire! fire! burn
+the witches." In some districts a large round cake of oat or barley meal
+was rolled through the ashes. When all the fuel was consumed, the people
+scattered the ashes far and wide, and till the night grew quite dark they
+continued to run through them, crying, "Fire! burn the witches."(378)
+
+(M131) In the Hebrides "the Beltane bannock is smaller than that made at
+St. Michael's, but is made in the same way; it is no longer made in Uist,
+but Father Allan remembers seeing his grandmother make one about
+twenty-five years ago. There was also a cheese made, generally on the
+first of May, which was kept to the next Beltane as a sort of charm
+against the bewitching of milk-produce. The Beltane customs seem to have
+been the same as elsewhere. Every fire was put out and a large one lit on
+the top of the hill, and the cattle driven round it sunwards (_dessil_),
+to keep off murrain all the year. Each man would take home fire wherewith
+to kindle his own."(379)
+
+(M132) In Wales also the custom of lighting Beltane fires at the beginning
+of May used to be observed, but the day on which they were kindled varied
+from the Eve of May Day to the third of May. The flame was sometimes
+elicited by the friction of two pieces of oak, as appears from the
+following description. "The fire was done in this way. Nine men would turn
+their pockets inside out, and see that every piece of money and all metals
+were off their persons. Then the men went into the nearest woods, and
+collected sticks of nine different kinds of trees. These were carried to
+the spot where the fire had to be built. There a circle was cut in the
+sod, and the sticks were set crosswise. All around the circle the people
+stood and watched the proceedings. One of the men would then take two bits
+of oak, and rub them together until a flame was kindled. This was applied
+to the sticks, and soon a large fire was made. Sometimes two fires were
+set up side by side. These fires, whether one or two, were called
+_coelcerth_ or bonfire. Round cakes of oatmeal and brown meal were split
+in four, and placed in a small flour-bag, and everybody present had to
+pick out a portion. The last bit in the bag fell to the lot of the
+bag-holder. Each person who chanced to pick up a piece of brown-meal cake
+was compelled to leap three times over the flames, or to run thrice
+between the two fires, by which means the people thought they were sure of
+a plentiful harvest. Shouts and screams of those who had to face the
+ordeal could be heard ever so far, and those who chanced to pick the
+oatmeal portions sang and danced and clapped their hands in approval, as
+the holders of the brown bits leaped three times over the flames, or ran
+three times between the two fires. As a rule, no danger attended these
+curious celebrations, but occasionally somebody's clothes caught fire,
+which was quickly put out. The greatest fire of the year was the eve of
+May, or May first, second, or third. The Midsummer Eve fire was more for
+the harvest. Very often a fire was built on the eve of November. The high
+ground near the Castle Ditches at Llantwit Major, in the Vale of
+Glamorgan, was a familiar spot for the Beltane on May third and on
+Midsummer Eve.... Sometimes the Beltane fire was lighted by the flames
+produced by stone instead of wood friction. Charred logs and faggots used
+in the May Beltane were carefully preserved, and from them the next fire
+was lighted. May fires were always started with old faggots of the
+previous year, and midsummer from those of the last summer. It was unlucky
+to build a midsummer fire from May faggots. People carried the ashes left
+after these fires to their homes, and a charred brand was not only
+effectual against pestilence, but magical in its use. A few of the ashes
+placed in a person's shoes protected the wearer from any great sorrow or
+woe."(380)
+
+(M133) From the foregoing account we learn that bonfires were kindled in
+Wales on Midsummer Eve and Hallowe'en (the thirty-first of October), as
+well as at the beginning of May, but that the Beltane fires in May were
+deemed the most important. To the Midsummer Eve and Hallowe'en fires we
+shall return presently. The belief of the people that by leaping thrice
+over the bonfires or running thrice between them they ensured a plentiful
+harvest is worthy of note. The mode in which this result was supposed to
+be brought about is indicated by another writer on Welsh folk-lore,
+according to whom it used to be held that "the bonfires lighted in May or
+Midsummer protected the lands from sorcery, so that good crops would
+follow. The ashes were also considered valuable as charms."(381) Hence it
+appears that the heat of the fires was thought to fertilize the fields,
+not directly by quickening the seeds in the ground, but indirectly by
+counteracting the baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up
+the persons of the witches.
+
+(M134) "The Druidical anniversary of Beil or Baal is still celebrated in
+the Isle of Man. On the first of May, 1837, the Baal fires were, as usual
+on that day, so numerous as to give the island the appearance of a general
+conflagration."(382) By May Day in Manx folk-lore is meant May Day Old
+Style, or _Shenn Laa Boaldyn_, as it is called in Manx. The day was one on
+which the power of elves and witches was particularly dreaded, and the
+people resorted to many precautions in order to protect themselves against
+these mischievous beings. Hence at daybreak they set fire to the ling or
+gorse, for the purpose of burning out the witches, who are wont to lurk in
+the form of hares.(383) On the Hemlock Stone, a natural pillar of
+sandstone standing on Stapleford Hill in Nottinghamshire, a fire used to
+be solemnly kindled every year on Beltane Eve. The custom seems to have
+survived down to the beginning of the nineteenth century; old people could
+remember and describe the ceremony long after it had fallen into
+desuetude.(384)
+
+(M135) The Beltane fires appear to have been kindled also in Ireland, for
+Cormac, "or somebody in his name, says that _belltaine_, May-day, was so
+called from the 'lucky fire,' or the 'two fires,' which the druids of Erin
+used to make on that day with great incantations; and cattle, he adds,
+used to be brought to those fires, or to be driven between them, as a
+safeguard against the diseases of the year."(385) Again, a very ancient
+Irish poem, enumerating the May Day celebrations, mentions among them a
+bonfire on a hill (_tendal ar cnuc_); and another old authority says that
+these fires were kindled in the name of the idol-god Bel.(386) From an old
+life of St. Patrick we learn that on a day in spring the heathen of
+Ireland were wont to extinguish all their fires until a new fire was
+kindled with solemn ceremony in the king's house at Tara. In the year in
+which St. Patrick landed in Ireland it chanced that the night of the
+extinguished fires coincided with the Eve of Easter; and the saint,
+ignorant of this pagan superstition, resolved to celebrate his first
+Easter in Ireland after the true Christian fashion by lighting the holy
+Paschal fire on the hill of Slane, which rises high above the left bank of
+the Boyne, about twelve miles from the mouth of the river. So that night,
+looking from his palace at Tara across the darkened landscape, the king of
+Tara saw the solitary fire flaring on the top of the hill of Slane, and in
+consternation he asked his wise men what that light meant. They warned him
+of the danger that it betokened for the ancient faith of Erin.(387) In
+spite of the difference of date between Easter and Beltane, we may suspect
+that the new fire annually kindled with solemn ceremony about Easter in
+the king of Ireland's palace at Tara was no other than the Beltane fire.
+We have seen that in the Highlands of Scotland down to modern times it was
+customary to extinguish all fires in the neighbourhood before proceeding
+to kindle the sacred flame.(388) The Irish historian Geoffrey Keating, who
+wrote in the first part of the seventeenth century, tells us that the men
+of Ireland held a great fair every year in the month of May at Uisnech
+(_Ushnagh_) in the county of Meath, "and at it they were wont to exchange
+their goods and their wares and their jewels. At it, they were, also, wont
+to make a sacrifice to the Arch-God that they adored, whose name was Bel
+(_bayl_). It was, likewise, their usage to light two fires to Bel, in
+every district of Ireland, at this season, and to drive a pair of each
+kind of cattle that the district contained, between those two fires, as a
+preservative to guard them against all the diseases of that year. It is
+from that fire, thus made in honour of Bel, that the day [the first of
+May] on which the noble feast of the apostles, Philip and James, is held,
+has been called Beltaini, or Bealtaine (_Bayltinnie_); for Beltaini is the
+same as Beil-teine, _i.e._ Teine Bheil (_Tinnie Vayl_) or Bel's
+Fire."(389) The custom of driving cattle through or between fires on May
+Day or the eve of May Day persisted in Ireland down to a time within
+living memory. Thus Sir John Rhys was informed by a Manxman that an Irish
+cattle-dealer of his acquaintance used to drive his cattle through fire on
+May Day so as to singe them a little, since he believed that it would
+preserve them from harm. When the Manxman was asked where the dealer came
+from, he answered, "From the mountains over there," pointing to the Mourne
+Mountains then looming faintly in the mists on the western horizon.(390)
+
+(M136) The first of May is a great popular festival in the more midland
+and southern parts of Sweden. On the eve of the festival, huge bonfires,
+which should be lighted by striking two flints together, blaze on all the
+hills and knolls. Every large hamlet has its own fire, round which the
+young people dance in a ring. The old folk notice whether the flames
+incline to the north or to the south. In the former case, the spring will
+be cold and backward; in the latter, it will be mild and genial.(391)
+Similarly, in Bohemia, on the eve of May Day, young people kindle fires on
+hills and eminences, at crossways, and in pastures, and dance round them.
+They leap over the glowing embers or even through the flames. The ceremony
+is called "burning the witches." In some places an effigy representing a
+witch used to be burnt in the bonfire.(392) We have to remember that the
+eve of May Day is the notorious Walpurgis Night, when the witches are
+everywhere speeding unseen through the air on their hellish errands. On
+this witching night children in Voigtland also light bonfires on the
+heights and leap over them. Moreover, they wave burning brooms or toss
+them into the air. So far as the light of the bonfire reaches, so far will
+a blessing rest on the fields. The kindling of the fires on Walpurgis
+Night is called "driving away the witches."(393) The custom of kindling
+fires on the eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) for the purpose of burning
+the witches is, or used to be, widespread in the Tyrol, Moravia, Saxony
+and Silesia.(394)
+
+
+
+
+§ 4. The Midsummer Fires.
+
+
+(M137) But the season at which these fire-festivals have been mostly
+generally held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer
+Eve (the twenty-third of June) or Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of
+June). A faint tinge of Christianity has been given to them by naming
+Midsummer Day after St. John the Baptist, but we cannot doubt that the
+celebration dates from a time long before the beginning of our era. The
+summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, is the great turning-point in the sun's
+career, when, after climbing higher and higher day by day in the sky, the
+luminary stops and thenceforth retraces his steps down the heavenly road.
+Such a moment could not but be regarded with anxiety by primitive man so
+soon as he began to observe and ponder the courses of the great lights
+across the celestial vault; and having still to learn his own
+powerlessness in face of the vast cyclic changes of nature, he may have
+fancied that he could help the sun in his seeming decline--could prop his
+failing steps and rekindle the sinking flame of the red lamp in his feeble
+hand. In some such thoughts as these the midsummer festivals of our
+European peasantry may perhaps have taken their rise. Whatever their
+origin, they have prevailed all over this quarter of the globe, from
+Ireland on the west to Russia on the east, and from Norway and Sweden on
+the north to Spain and Greece on the south.(395) According to a mediaeval
+writer, the three great features of the midsummer celebration were the
+bonfires, the procession with torches round the fields, and the custom of
+rolling a wheel. He tells us that boys burned bones and filth of various
+kinds to make a foul smoke, and that the smoke drove away certain noxious
+dragons which at this time, excited by the summer heat, copulated in the
+air and poisoned the wells and rivers by dropping their seed into them;
+and he explains the custom of trundling a wheel to mean that the sun,
+having now reached the highest point in the ecliptic, begins thenceforward
+to descend.(396)
+
+(M138) A good general account of the midsummer customs, together with some
+of the reasons popularly alleged for observing them, is given by Thomas
+Kirchmeyer, a writer of the sixteenth century, in his poem _The Popish
+Kingdome_:--
+
+
+    "_Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne,_
+    _When bonfiers great with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne;_
+    _And yong men round about with maides, doe daunce in every
+                streete,_
+    _With garlands wrought of Motherwort, or else with Vervain
+                sweete,_
+    _And many other flowres faire, with Violets in their handes,_
+    _Whereas they all do fondly thinke, that whosoever standes,_
+    _And thorow the flowres beholds the flame, his eyes shall feele no
+                paine._
+    _When thus till night they daunced have, they through the fire
+                amaine_
+    _With striving mindes doe runne, and all their hearbes they cast
+                therin,_
+    _And then with wordes devout and prayers, they solemnely begin,_
+    _Desiring God that all their illes may there consumed bee,_
+    _Whereby they thinke through all that yeare from Agues to be
+                free._
+    _Some others get a rotten wheele, all worne and cast aside,_
+    _Which covered round about with strawe, and tow, they closely
+                hide:_
+    _And caryed to some mountaines top, being all with fire light,_
+    _They hurle it downe with violence, when darke appeares the
+                night:_
+    _Resembling much the Sunne, that from the heavens downe should
+                fal,_
+    _A straunge and monstrous sight it seemes, and fearfull to them
+                all:_
+    _But they suppose their mischiefes all are likewise throwne to
+                hell,_
+    _And that from harmes and daungers now, in safetie here they
+                dwell._"(397)
+
+
+From these general descriptions, which to some extent still hold good, or
+did so till lately, we see that the main features of the midsummer
+fire-festival resemble those which we have found to characterize the
+vernal festivals of fire. The similarity of the two sets of ceremonies
+will plainly appear from the following examples.
+
+(M139) A writer of the first half of the sixteenth century informs us that
+in almost every village and town of Germany public bonfires were kindled
+on the Eve of St. John, and young and old, of both sexes, gathered about
+them and passed the time in dancing and singing. People on this occasion
+wore chaplets of mugwort and vervain, and they looked at the fire through
+bunches of larkspur which they held in their hands, believing that this
+would preserve their eyes in a healthy state throughout the year. As each
+departed, he threw the mugwort and vervain into the fire, saying, "May all
+my ill-luck depart and be burnt up with these."(398) At Lower Konz, a
+village prettily situated on a hillside overlooking the Moselle, in the
+midst of a wood of walnut-trees and fruit-trees, the midsummer festival
+used to be celebrated as follows. A quantity of straw was collected on the
+top of the steep Stromberg Hill. Every inhabitant, or at least every
+householder, had to contribute his share of straw to the pile; a recusant
+was looked at askance, and if in the course of the year he happened to
+break a leg or lose a child, there was not a gossip in the village but
+knew the reason why. At nightfall the whole male population, men and boys,
+mustered on the top of the hill; the women and girls were not allowed to
+join them, but had to take up their position at a certain spring half-way
+down the slope. On the summit stood a huge wheel completely encased in
+some of the straw which had been jointly contributed by the villagers; the
+rest of the straw was made into torches. From each side of the wheel the
+axle-tree projected about three feet, thus furnishing handles to the lads
+who were to guide it in its descent. The mayor of the neighbouring town of
+Sierck, who always received a basket of cherries for his services, gave
+the signal; a lighted torch was applied to the wheel, and as it burst into
+flame, two young fellows, strong-limbed and swift of foot, seized the
+handles and began running with it down the slope. A great shout went up.
+Every man and boy waved a blazing torch in the air, and took care to keep
+it alight so long as the wheel was trundling down the hill. Some of them
+followed the fiery wheel, and watched with amusement the shifts to which
+its guides were put in steering it round the hollows and over the broken
+ground on the mountainside. The great object of the young men who guided
+the wheel was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but they
+rarely succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover the
+greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was
+often burned out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the women
+and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by
+the men on the top of the mountain; and the shouts were echoed by the
+inhabitants of neighbouring villages who watched the spectacle from their
+hills on the opposite bank of the Moselle. If the fiery wheel was
+successfully conveyed to the bank of the river and extinguished in the
+water, the people looked for an abundant vintage that year, and the
+inhabitants of Konz had the right to exact a waggon-load of white wine
+from the surrounding vineyards. On the other hand, they believed that, if
+they neglected to perform the ceremony, the cattle would be attacked by
+giddiness and convulsions and would dance in their stalls.(399)
+
+(M140) Down at least to the middle of the nineteenth century the midsummer
+fires used to blaze all over Upper Bavaria. They were kindled especially
+on the mountains, but also far and wide in the lowlands, and we are told
+that in the darkness and stillness of night the moving groups, lit up by
+the flickering glow of the flames, presented an impressive spectacle. In
+some places the people shewed their sense of the sanctity of the fires by
+using for fuel the trees past which the gay procession had defiled, with
+fluttering banners, on Corpus Christi Day. In others the children
+collected the firewood from door to door on the eve of the festival,
+singing their request for fuel at every house in doggerel verse. Cattle
+were driven through the fire to cure the sick animals and to guard such as
+were sound against plague and harm of every kind throughout the year. Many
+a householder on that day put out the fire on the domestic hearth and
+rekindled it by means of a brand taken from the midsummer bonfire. The
+people judged of the height to which the flax would grow in the year by
+the height to which the flames of the bonfire rose; and whoever leaped
+over the burning pile was sure not to suffer from backache in reaping the
+corn at harvest. But it was especially the practice for lovers to spring
+over the fire hand in hand, and the way in which each couple made the leap
+was the subject of many a jest and many a superstition. In one district
+the custom of kindling the bonfires was combined with that of lighting
+wooden discs and hurling them in the air after the manner which prevails
+at some of the spring festivals.(400) In many parts of Bavaria it was
+believed that the flax would grow as high as the young people leaped over
+the fire.(401) In others the old folk used to plant three charred sticks
+from the bonfire in the fields, believing that this would make the flax
+grow tall.(402) Elsewhere an extinguished brand was put in the roof of the
+house to protect it against fire. In the towns about Wuerzburg the bonfires
+used to be kindled in the market-places, and the young people who jumped
+over them wore garlands of flowers, especially of mugwort and vervain, and
+carried sprigs of larkspur in their hands. They thought that such as
+looked at the fire holding a bit of larkspur before their face would be
+troubled by no malady of the eyes throughout the year.(403) Further, it
+was customary at Wuerzburg, in the sixteenth century, for the bishop's
+followers to throw burning discs of wood into the air from a mountain
+which overhangs the town. The discs were discharged by means of flexible
+rods, and in their flight through the darkness presented the appearance of
+fiery dragons.(404)
+
+(M141) In the valley of the Lech, which divides Upper Bavaria from Swabia,
+the midsummer customs and beliefs are, or used to be, very similar.
+Bonfires are kindled on the mountains on Midsummer Day; and besides the
+bonfire a tall beam, thickly wrapt in straw and surmounted by a
+cross-piece, is burned in many places. Round this cross as it burns the
+lads dance with loud shouts; and when the flames have subsided, the young
+people leap over the fire in pairs, a young man and a young woman
+together. If they escape unsmirched, the man will not suffer from fever,
+and the girl will not become a mother within the year. Further, it is
+believed that the flax will grow that year as high as they leap over the
+fire; and that if a charred billet be taken from the fire and stuck in a
+flax-field it will promote the growth of the flax.(405) Similarly in
+Swabia, lads and lasses, hand in hand, leap over the midsummer bonfire,
+praying that the hemp may grow three ells high, and they set fire to
+wheels of straw and send them rolling down the hill. Among the places
+where burning wheels were thus bowled down hill at Midsummer were the
+Hohenstaufen mountains in Wurtemberg and the Frauenberg near
+Gerhausen.(406) At Deffingen, in Swabia, as the people sprang over the
+midsummer bonfire they cried out, "Flax, flax! may the flax this year grow
+seven ells high!"(407) At Rottenburg in Swabia, down to the year 1807 or
+1808, the festival was marked by some special features. About mid-day
+troops of boys went about the town begging for firewood at the houses. In
+each troop there were three leaders, one of whom carried a dagger, a
+second a paper banner, and a third a white plate covered with a white
+cloth. These three entered each house and recited verses, in which they
+expressed an intention of roasting Martin Luther and sending him to the
+devil; and for this meritorious service they expected to be paid, the
+contributions being received in the cloth-covered plate. In the evening
+they counted up their money and proceeded to "behead the Angel-man." For
+this ceremony an open space was chosen, sometimes in the middle of the
+town. Here a stake was thrust into the ground and straw wrapt about it, so
+as to make a rude effigy of human form with arms, head, and face. Every
+boy brought a handful of nosegays and fastened them to the straw-man, who
+was thus enveloped in flowers. Fuel was heaped about the stake and set on
+fire. When the Angel-man, as the straw-effigy was called, blazed up, all
+the boys of the neighbourhood, who had gathered expectantly around, fell
+upon him with their wooden swords and hewed him to pieces. As soon as he
+had vanished in smoke and flame, the lads leaped backward and forward over
+the glowing embers, and later in the evening they feasted on the proceeds
+of their collection.(408) Here the Angel-man burnt in the fire appears to
+be identified with Martin Luther, to whom, as we have seen, allusion was
+made during the house-to-house visitation. The identification was probably
+modern, for we may assume that the custom of burning an effigy in the
+Midsummer bonfire is far older than the time of Luther.
+
+(M142) In Baden the children used to collect fuel from house to house for
+the Midsummer bonfire on St. John's Day; and lads and lasses leaped over
+the fire in couples. Here, as elsewhere, a close connexion was traced
+between these bonfires and the harvest. In some places it was thought that
+those who leaped over the fires would not suffer from backache at reaping.
+Sometimes, as the young folk sprang over the flames, they cried, "Grow,
+that the hemp may be three ells high!" This notion that the hemp or the
+corn would grow as high as the flames blazed or as the people jumped over
+them, seems to have been widespread in Baden. It was held that the parents
+of the young people who bounded highest over the fire would have the most
+abundant harvest; and on the other hand, if a man contributed nothing to
+the bonfire, it was imagined that there would be no blessing on his crops,
+and that his hemp in particular would never grow.(409) In the
+neighbourhood of Buehl and Achern the St. John's fires were kindled on the
+tops of hills; only the unmarried lads of the village brought the fuel,
+and only the unmarried young men and women sprang through the flames. But
+most of the villagers, old and young, gathered round the bonfires, leaving
+a clear space for the leapers to take their run. One of the bystanders
+would call out the names of a pair of sweethearts; on which the two would
+step out from the throng, take each other by the hand, and leap high and
+lightly through the swirling smoke and flames, while the spectators
+watched them critically and drew omens of their married life from the
+height to which each of them bounded. Such an invitation to jump together
+over the bonfire was regarded as tantamount to a public betrothal.(410)
+Near Offenburg, in the Black Forest, on Midsummer Day the village boys
+used to collect faggots and straw on some steep and conspicuous height,
+and they spent some time in making circular wooden discs by slicing the
+trunk of a pine-tree across. When darkness had fallen, they kindled the
+bonfire, and then, as it blazed up, they lighted the discs at it, and,
+after swinging them to and fro at the end of a stout and supple
+hazel-wand, they hurled them one after the other, whizzing and flaming,
+into the air, where they described great arcs of fire, to fall at length,
+like shooting-stars, at the foot of the mountain.(411) In many parts of
+Alsace and Lorraine the midsummer fires still blaze annually or did so not
+very many years ago.(412) At Speicher in the Eifel, a district which lies
+on the middle Rhine, to the west of Coblentz, a bonfire used to be kindled
+in front of the village on St. John's Day, and all the young people had to
+jump over it. Those who failed to do so were not allowed to join the rest
+in begging for eggs from house to house. Where no eggs were given, they
+drove a wedge into the keyhole of the door. On this day children in the
+Eifel used also to gather flowers in the fields, weave them into garlands,
+and throw the garlands on the roofs or hang them on the doors of the
+houses. So long as the flowers remained there, they were supposed to guard
+the house from fire and lightning.(413) In the southern Harz district and
+in Thuringia the Midsummer or St. John's fires used to be commonly lighted
+down to about the middle of the nineteenth century, and the custom has
+probably not died out. At Edersleben, near Sangerhausen, a high pole was
+planted in the ground and a tar-barrel was hung from it by a chain which
+reached to the ground. The barrel was then set on fire and swung round the
+pole amid shouts of joy.(414)
+
+(M143) According to one account, German tradition required that the
+midsummer fire should be lighted, not from a common hearth, but by the
+friction of two sorts of wood, namely oak and fir.(415) In some old
+farm-houses of the Surenthal and Winenthal, in Switzerland, a couple of
+holes or a whole row of them may be seen facing each other in the
+door-posts of the barn or stable. Sometimes the holes are smooth and
+round; sometimes they are deeply burnt and blackened. The explanation of
+them is this. About midsummer, but especially on Midsummer Day, two such
+holes are bored opposite each other, into which the extremities of a
+strong pole are fixed. The holes are then stuffed with tow steeped in
+resin and oil; a rope is looped round the pole, and two young men, who
+must be brothers or must have the same baptismal name, and must be of the
+same age, pull the ends of the rope backwards and forwards so as to make
+the pole revolve rapidly, till smoke and sparks issue from the two holes
+in the door-posts. The sparks are caught and blown up with tinder, and
+this is the new and pure fire, the appearance of which is greeted with
+cries of joy. Heaps of combustible materials are now ignited with the new
+fire, and blazing bundles are placed on boards and sent floating down the
+brook. The boys light torches at the new fire and run to fumigate the
+pastures. This is believed to drive away all the demons and witches that
+molest the cattle. Finally the torches are thrown in a heap on the meadow
+and allowed to burn out. On their way back the boys strew the ashes over
+the fields, which is supposed to make them fertile. If a farmer has taken
+possession of a new house, or if servants have changed masters, the boys
+fumigate the new abode and are rewarded by the farmer with a supper.(416)
+
+(M144) In Silesia, from the south-eastern part of the Sudeten range and
+north-westward as far as Lausitz, the mountains are ablaze with bonfires
+on Midsummer Eve; and from the valleys and the plains round about
+Leobschuetz, Neustadt, Zuelz, Oels, and other places answering fires twinkle
+through the deepening gloom. While they are smouldering and sending forth
+volumes of smoke across the fields, young men kindle broom-stumps, soaked
+in pitch, at the bonfires and then, brandishing the stumps, which emit
+showers of sparks, they chase one another or dance with the girls round
+the burning pile. Shots, too, are fired, and shouts raised. The fire, the
+smoke, the shots, and the shouts are all intended to scare away the
+witches, who are let loose on this witching day, and who would certainly
+work harm to the crops and the cattle, if they were not deterred by these
+salutary measures. Mere contact with the fire brings all sorts of
+blessings. Hence when the bonfire is burning low, the lads leap over it,
+and the higher they bound, the better is the luck in store for them. He
+who surpasses his fellows is the hero of the day and is much admired by
+the village girls. It is also thought to be very good for the eyes to
+stare steadily at the bonfire without blinking; moreover he who does so
+will not drowse and fall asleep betimes in the long winter evenings. On
+Midsummer Eve the windows and doors of houses in Silesia are crowned with
+flowers, especially with the blue corn-flowers and the bright
+corn-cockles; in some villages long strings of garlands and nosegays are
+stretched across the streets. The people believe that on that night St.
+John comes down from heaven to bless the flowers and to keep all evil
+things from house and home.(417)
+
+(M145) In Denmark and Norway also Midsummer fires were kindled on St.
+John's Eve on roads, open spaces, and hills. People in Norway thought that
+the fires banished sickness from among the cattle.(418) Even yet the fires
+are said to be lighted all over Norway on the night of June the
+twenty-third, Midsummer Eve, Old Style. As many as fifty or sixty bonfires
+may often be counted burning on the hills round Bergen. Sometimes fuel is
+piled on rafts, ignited, and allowed to drift blazing across the fiords in
+the darkness of night. The fires are thought to be kindled in order to
+keep off the witches, who are said to be flying from all parts that night
+to the Blocksberg, where the big witch lives.(419) In Sweden the Eve of
+St. John (St. Hans) is the most joyous night of the whole year. Throughout
+some parts of the country, especially in the provinces of Bohus and Scania
+and in districts bordering on Norway, it is celebrated by the frequent
+discharge of firearms and by huge bonfires, formerly called Balder's
+Balefires (_Balder's Balar_), which are kindled at dusk on hills and
+eminences and throw a glare of light over the surrounding landscape. The
+people dance round the fires and leap over or through them. In parts of
+Norrland on St. John's Eve the bonfires are lit at the cross-roads. The
+fuel consists of nine different sorts of wood, and the spectators cast
+into the flames a kind of toad-stool (_Baeran_) in order to counteract the
+power of the Trolls and other evil spirits, who are believed to be abroad
+that night; for at that mystic season the mountains open and from their
+cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and disport
+themselves for a time. The peasants believe that should any of the Trolls
+be in the vicinity they will shew themselves; and if an animal, for
+example a he or she goat, happens to be seen near the blazing, crackling
+pile, the peasants are firmly persuaded that it is no other than the Evil
+One in person.(420) Further, it deserves to be remarked that in Sweden St.
+John's Eve is a festival of water as well as of fire; for certain holy
+springs are then supposed to be endowed with wonderful medicinal virtues,
+and many sick people resort to them for the healing of their
+infirmities.(421)
+
+(M146) In Switzerland on Midsummer Eve fires are, or used to be, kindled
+on high places in the cantons of Bern, Neuchatel, Valais, and Geneva.(422)
+In Austria the midsummer customs and superstitions resemble those of
+Germany. Thus in some parts of the Tyrol bonfires are kindled and burning
+discs hurled into the air.(423) In the lower valley of the Inn a
+taterdemalian effigy is carted about the village on Midsummer Day and then
+burned. He is called the _Lotter_, which has been corrupted into Luther.
+At Ambras, one of the villages where Martin Luther is thus burned in
+effigy, they say that if you go through the village between eleven and
+twelve on St. John's Night and wash yourself in three wells, you will see
+all who are to die in the following year.(424) At Gratz on St. John's Eve
+(the twenty-third of June) the common people used to make a puppet called
+the _Tatermann_, which they dragged to the bleaching ground, and pelted
+with burning besoms till it took fire.(425) At Reutte, in the Tyrol,
+people believed that the flax would grow as high as they leaped over the
+midsummer bonfire, and they took pieces of charred wood from the fire and
+stuck them in their flax-fields the same night, leaving them there till
+the flax harvest had been got in.(426) In Lower Austria fires are lit in
+the fields, commonly in front of a cross, and the people dance and sing
+round them and throw flowers into the flames. Before each handful of
+flowers is tossed into the fire, a set speech is made; then the dance is
+resumed and the dancers sing in chorus the last words of the speech. At
+evening bonfires are kindled on the heights, and the boys caper round
+them, brandishing lighted torches drenched in pitch. Whoever jumps thrice
+across the fire will not suffer from fever within the year. Cart-wheels
+are often smeared with pitch, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down
+the hillsides.(427)
+
+(M147) All over Bohemia bonfires still burn on Midsummer Eve. In the
+afternoon boys go about with handcarts from house to house collecting
+fuel, such as sticks, brushwood, old besoms, and so forth. They make their
+request at each house in rhyming verses, threatening with evil
+consequences the curmudgeons who refuse them a dole. Sometimes the young
+men fell a tall straight fir in the woods and set it up on a height, where
+the girls deck it with nosegays, wreaths of leaves, and red ribbons. Then
+brushwood is piled about it, and at nightfall the whole is set on fire.
+While the flames break out, the young men climb the tree and fetch down
+the wreaths which the girls had placed on it. After that, lads and lasses
+stand on opposite sides of the fire and look at one another through the
+wreaths to see whether they will be true to each other and marry within
+the year. Also the girls throw the wreaths across the flames to the men,
+and woe to the awkward swain who fails to catch the wreath thrown him by
+his sweetheart. When the blaze has died down, each couple takes hands, and
+leaps thrice across the fire. He or she who does so will be free from ague
+throughout the year, and the flax will grow as high as the young folks
+leap. A girl who sees nine bonfires on Midsummer Eve will marry before the
+year is out. The singed wreaths are carried home and carefully preserved
+throughout the year. During thunderstorms a bit of the wreath is burned on
+the hearth with a prayer; some of it is given to kine that are sick or
+calving, and some of it serves to fumigate house and cattle-stall, that
+man and beast may keep hale and well. Sometimes an old cart-wheel is
+smeared with resin, ignited, and sent rolling down the hill. Often the
+boys collect all the worn-out besoms they can get hold of, dip them in
+pitch, and having set them on fire wave them about or throw them high into
+the air. Or they rush down the hillside in troops, brandishing the flaming
+brooms and shouting, only however to return to the bonfire on the summit
+when the brooms have burnt out. The stumps of the brooms and embers from
+the fire are preserved and stuck in cabbage gardens to protect the
+cabbages from caterpillars and gnats. Some people insert charred sticks
+and ashes from the bonfire in their sown fields and meadows, in their
+gardens and the roofs of their houses, as a talisman against lightning and
+foul weather; or they fancy that the ashes placed in the roof will prevent
+any fire from breaking out in the house. In some districts they crown or
+gird themselves with mugwort while the midsummer fire is burning, for this
+is supposed to be a protection against ghosts, witches, and sickness; in
+particular, a wreath of mugwort is a sure preventive of sore eyes.
+Sometimes the girls look at the bonfires through garlands of wild flowers,
+praying the fire to strengthen their eyes and eyelids. She who does this
+thrice will have no sore eyes all that year. In some parts of Bohemia they
+used to drive the cows through the midsummer fire to guard them against
+witchcraft.(428)
+
+(M148) The Germans of Moravia in like manner still light bonfires on open
+grounds and high places on Midsummer Eve; and they kindle besoms in the
+flames and then stick the charred stumps in the cabbage-fields as a
+powerful protection against caterpillars. On the same mystic evening
+Moravian girls gather flowers of nine sorts and lay them under their
+pillow when they go to sleep; then they dream every one of him who is to
+be her partner for life. For in Moravia maidens in their beds as well as
+poets by haunted streams have their Midsummer Night's dreams.(429) In
+Austrian Silesia the custom also prevails of lighting great bonfires on
+hilltops on Midsummer Eve, and here too the boys swing blazing besoms or
+hurl them high in the air, while they shout and leap and dance wildly.
+Next morning every door is decked with flowers and birchen saplings.(430)
+In the district of Cracow, especially towards the Carpathian Mountains,
+great fires are kindled by the peasants in the fields or on the heights at
+nightfall on Midsummer Eve, which among them goes by the name of Kupalo's
+Night. The fire must be kindled by the friction of two sticks. The young
+people dance round or leap over it; and a band of sturdy fellows run a
+race with lighted torches, the winner being rewarded with a peacock's
+feather, which he keeps throughout the year as a distinction. Cattle also
+are driven round the fire in the belief that this is a charm against
+pestilence and disease of every sort.(431)
+
+(M149) The name of Kupalo's Night, applied in this part of Galicia to
+Midsummer Eve, reminds us that we have now passed from German to Slavonic
+ground; even in Bohemia the midsummer celebration is common to Slavs and
+Germans. We have already seen that in Russia the summer solstice or Eve of
+St. John is celebrated by young men and maidens, who jump over a bonfire
+in couples carrying a straw effigy of Kupalo in their arms.(432) In some
+parts of Russia an image of Kupalo is burnt or thrown into a stream on St.
+John's Night.(433) Again, in some districts of Russia the young folk wear
+garlands of flowers and girdles of holy herbs when they spring through the
+smoke or flames; and sometimes they drive the cattle also through the fire
+in order to protect the animals against wizards and witches, who are then
+ravenous after milk.(434) In Little Russia a stake is driven into the
+ground on St. John's Night, wrapt in straw, and set on fire. As the flames
+rise the peasant women throw birchen boughs into them, saying, "May my
+flax be as tall as this bough!"(435) In Ruthenia the bonfires are lighted
+by a flame procured by the friction of wood. While the elders of the party
+are engaged in thus "churning" the fire, the rest maintain a respectful
+silence; but when the flame bursts from the wood, they break forth into
+joyous songs. As soon as the bonfires are kindled, the young people take
+hands and leap in pairs through the smoke, if not through the flames; and
+after that the cattle in their turn are driven through the fire.(436)
+
+(M150) In many parts of Prussia and Lithuania great fires are kindled on
+Midsummer Eve. All the heights are ablaze with them, as far as the eye can
+see. The fires are supposed to be a protection against witchcraft,
+thunder, hail, and cattle disease, especially if next morning the cattle
+are driven over the places where the fires burned. Above all, the bonfires
+ensure the farmer against the arts of witches, who try to steal the milk
+from his cows by charms and spells. That is why next morning you may see
+the young fellows who lit the bonfire going from house to house and
+receiving jugfuls of milk. And for the same reason they stick burs and
+mugwort on the gate or the hedge through which the cows go to pasture,
+because that is supposed to be a preservative against witchcraft.(437) In
+Masuren, a district of Eastern Prussia inhabited by a branch of the Polish
+family, it is the custom on the evening of Midsummer Day to put out all
+the fires in the village. Then an oaken stake is driven into the ground
+and a wheel is fixed on it as on an axle. This wheel the villagers,
+working by relays, cause to revolve with great rapidity till fire is
+produced by friction. Every one takes home a lighted brand from the new
+fire and with it rekindles the fire on the domestic hearth.(438) In the
+sixteenth century Martin of Urzedow, a Polish priest, denounced the
+heathen practices of the women who on St. John's Eve (Midsummer Eve)
+kindled fires by the friction of wood, danced, and sang songs in honour of
+the devil.(439)
+
+(M151) Among the Letts who inhabit the Baltic provinces of Russia the most
+joyful festival of the year is held on Midsummer Day. The people drink and
+dance and sing and adorn themselves and their houses with flowers and
+branches. Chopped boughs of fir are strewn about the rooms, and leaves are
+stuck in the roofs. In every farm-yard a birch tree is set up, and every
+person of the name of John who enters the farm that day must break off a
+twig from the tree and hang up on its branches in return a small present
+for the family. When the serene twilight of the summer night has veiled
+the landscape, bonfires gleam on all the hills, and wild shouts of "Ligho!
+Ligho!" echo from the woods and fields. In Riga the day is a festival of
+flowers. From all the neighbourhood the peasants stream into the city
+laden with flowers and garlands. A market of flowers is held in an open
+square and on the chief bridge over the river; here wreaths of
+immortelles, which grow wild in the meadows and woods, are sold in great
+profusion and deck the houses of Riga for long afterwards. Roses, too, are
+now at the prime of their beauty, and masses of them adorn the
+flower-stalls. Till far into the night gay crowds parade the streets to
+music or float on the river in gondolas decked with flowers.(440) So long
+ago in ancient Rome barges crowned with flowers and crowded with revellers
+used to float down the Tiber on Midsummer Day, the twenty-fourth of
+June,(441) and no doubt the strains of music were wafted as sweetly across
+the water to listeners on the banks as they still are to the throngs of
+merrymakers at Riga.
+
+(M152) Bonfires are commonly kindled by the South Slavonian peasantry on
+Midsummer Eve, and lads and lasses dance and shout round them in the usual
+way. The very names of St. John's Day (_Ivanje_) and the St. John's fires
+(_kries_) are said to act like electric sparks on the hearts and minds of
+these swains, kindling a thousand wild, merry, and happy fancies and ideas
+in their rustic breasts. At Kamenagora in Croatia the herdsmen throw nine
+three-year old vines into the bonfire, and when these burst into flames
+the young men who are candidates for matrimony jump through the blaze. He
+who succeeds in leaping over the fire without singeing himself will be
+married within the year. At Vidovec in Croatia parties of two girls and
+one lad unite to kindle a Midsummer bonfire and to leap through the
+flames; he or she who leaps furthest will soonest wed. Afterwards lads and
+lasses dance in separate rings, but the ring of lads bumps up against the
+ring of girls and breaks it, and the girl who has to let go her
+neighbour's hand will forsake her true love hereafter.(442) In Servia on
+Midsummer Eve herdsmen light torches of birch bark and march round the
+sheepfolds and cattle-stalls; then they climb the hills and there allow
+the torches to burn out.(443)
+
+(M153) Among the Magyars in Hungary the midsummer fire-festival is marked
+by the same features that meet us in so many parts of Europe. On Midsummer
+Eve in many places it is customary to kindle bonfires on heights and to
+leap over them, and from the manner in which the young people leap the
+bystanders predict whether they will marry soon. At Nograd-Ludany the
+young men and women, each carrying a truss of straw, repair to a meadow,
+where they pile the straw in seven or twelve heaps and set it on fire.
+Then they go round the fire singing, and hold a bunch of iron-wort in the
+smoke, while they say, "No boil on my body, no sprain in my foot!" This
+holding of the flowers over the flames is regarded, we are told, as
+equally important with the practice of walking through the fire barefoot
+and stamping it out. On this day also many Hungarian swineherds make fire
+by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and through the
+fire thus made they drive their pigs to preserve them from sickness.(444)
+In villages on the Danube, where the population is a cross between Magyar
+and German, the young men and maidens go to the high banks of the river on
+Midsummer Eve; and while the girls post themselves low down the slope, the
+lads on the height above set fire to little wooden wheels and, after
+swinging them to and fro at the end of a wand, send them whirling through
+the air to fall into the Danube. As he does so, each lad sings out the
+name of his sweetheart, and she listens well pleased down below.(445)
+
+(M154) The Esthonians of Russia, who, like the Magyars, belong to the
+great Turanian family of mankind, also celebrate the summer solstice in
+the usual way. On the Eve of St. John all the people of a farm, a village,
+or an estate, walk solemnly in procession, the girls decked with flowers,
+the men with leaves and carrying bundles of straw under their arms. The
+lads carry lighted torches or flaming hoops steeped in tar at the top of
+long poles. Thus they go singing to the cattle-sheds, the granaries, and
+so forth, and afterwards march thrice round the dwelling-house. Finally,
+preceded by the shrill music of the bagpipes and shawms, they repair to a
+neighbouring hill, where the materials of a bonfire have been collected.
+Tar-barrels filled with combustibles are hung on poles, or the trunk of a
+felled tree has been set up with a great mass of juniper piled about it in
+the form of a pyramid. When a light has been set to the pile, old and
+young gather about it and pass the time merrily with song and music till
+break of day. Every one who comes brings fresh fuel for the fire, and they
+say, "Now we all gather together, where St. John's fire burns. He who
+comes not to St. John's fire will have his barley full of thistles, and
+his oats full of weeds." Three logs are thrown into the fire with special
+ceremony; in throwing the first they say, "Gold of pleasure (a plant with
+yellow flowers) into the fire!" in throwing the second they say, "Weeds to
+the unploughed land!" but in throwing the third they cry, "Flax on my
+field!" The fire is said to keep the witches from the cattle.(446)
+According to others, it ensures that for the whole year the milk shall be
+"as pure as silver and as the stars in the sky, and the butter as yellow
+as the sun and the fire and the gold."(447) In the Esthonian island of
+Oesel, while they throw fuel into the midsummer fire, they call out,
+"Weeds to the fire, flax to the field," or they fling three billets into
+the flames, saying, "Flax grow long!" And they take charred sticks from
+the bonfire home with them and keep them to make the cattle thrive. In
+some parts of the island the bonfire is formed by piling brushwood and
+other combustibles round a tree, at the top of which a flag flies. Whoever
+succeeds in knocking down the flag with a pole before it begins to burn
+will have good luck. Formerly the festivities lasted till daybreak, and
+ended in scenes of debauchery which looked doubly hideous by the growing
+light of a summer morning.(448)
+
+(M155) Still farther north, among a people of the same Turanian stock, we
+learn from an eye-witness that Midsummer Night used to witness a sort of
+witches' sabbath on the top of every hill in Finland. The bonfire was made
+by setting up four tall birches in a square and piling the intermediate
+space with fuel. Round the roaring flames the people sang and drank and
+gambolled in the usual way.(449) Farther east, in the valley of the Volga,
+the Cheremiss celebrate about midsummer a festival which Haxthausen
+regarded as identical with the midsummer ceremonies of the rest of Europe.
+A sacred tree in the forest, generally a tall and solitary oak, marks the
+scene of the solemnity. All the males assemble there, but no woman may be
+present. A heathen priest lights seven fires in a row from north-west to
+south-east; cattle are sacrificed and their blood poured in the fires,
+each of which is dedicated to a separate deity. Afterwards the holy tree
+is illumined by lighted candles placed on its branches; the people fall on
+their knees and with faces bowed to the earth pray that God would be
+pleased to bless them, their children, their cattle, and their bees, grant
+them success in trade, in travel, and in the chase, enable them to pay the
+Czar's taxes, and so forth.(450)
+
+(M156) When we pass from the east to the west of Europe we still find the
+summer solstice celebrated with rites of the same general character. Down
+to about the middle of the nineteenth century the custom of lighting
+bonfires at midsummer prevailed so commonly in France that there was
+hardly a town or a village, we are told, where they were not kindled.(451)
+Though the pagan origin of the custom may be regarded as certain, the
+Catholic Church threw a Christian cloak over it by boldly declaring that
+the bonfires were lit in token of the general rejoicing at the birth of
+the Baptist, who opportunely came into the world at the solstice of
+summer, just as his greater successor did at the solstice of winter; so
+that the whole year might be said to revolve on the golden hinges of these
+two great birthdays.(452) Writing in the seventeenth century Bishop
+Bossuet expressly affirms this edifying theory of the Midsummer bonfires,
+and he tells his catechumens that the Church herself participated in the
+illumination, since in several dioceses, including his own diocese of
+Meaux, a number of parishes kindled what were called ecclesiastical fires
+for the purpose of banishing the superstitions practised at the purely
+mundane bonfires. These superstitions, he goes on to say, consisted in
+dancing round the fire, playing, feasting, singing ribald songs, throwing
+herbs across the fire, gathering herbs at noon or while fasting, carrying
+them on the person, preserving them throughout the year, keeping brands or
+cinders of the fire, and other similar practices.(453) However excellent
+the intentions of the ecclesiastical authorities may have been, they
+failed of effecting their purpose; for the superstitions as well as the
+bonfires survived in France far into the nineteenth century, if indeed
+they are extinct even now at the beginning of the twentieth. Writing in
+the latter part of the nineteenth century Mr. Ch. Cuissard tells us that
+he himself witnessed in Touraine and Poitou the superstitious practices
+which he describes as follows: "The most credulous examine the ways in
+which the flame burns and draw good or bad omens accordingly. Others,
+after leaping through the flames crosswise, pass their little children
+through them thrice, fully persuaded that the little ones will then be
+able to walk at once. In some places the shepherds make their sheep tread
+the embers of the extinct fire in order to preserve them from the
+foot-rot. Here you may see about midnight an old woman grubbing among the
+cinders of the pyre to find the hair of the Holy Virgin or Saint John,
+which she deems an infallible specific against fever. There, another woman
+is busy plucking the roots of the herbs which have been burned on the
+surface of the ground; she intends to eat them, imagining that they are an
+infallible preservative against cancer. Elsewhere a girl wears on her neck
+a flower which the touch of St. John's fire has turned for her into a
+talisman, and she is sure to marry within the year. Shots are fired at the
+tree planted in the midst of the fire to drive away the demons who might
+purpose to send sicknesses about the country. Seats are set round about
+the bonfire, in order that the souls of dead relations may come and enjoy
+themselves for a little with the living."(454)
+
+(M157) In Brittany, apparently, the custom of the Midsummer bonfires is
+kept up to this day. Thus in Lower Brittany every town and every village
+still lights its _tantad_ or bonfire on St. John's Night. When the flames
+have died down, the whole assembly kneels round about the bonfire and an
+old man prays aloud. Then they all rise and march thrice round the fire;
+at the third turn they stop and every one picks up a pebble and throws it
+on the burning pile. After that they disperse.(455) In Finistere the
+bonfires of St. John's Day are kindled by preference in an open space near
+a chapel of St. John; but if there is no such chapel, they are lighted in
+the square facing the parish church and in some districts at cross-roads.
+Everybody brings fuel for the fire, it may be a faggot, a log, a branch,
+or an armful of gorse. When the vespers are over, the parish priest sets a
+light to the pile. All heads are bared, prayers recited, and hymns sung.
+Then the dancing begins. The young folk skip round the blazing pile and
+leap over it, when the flames have died down. If anybody makes a false
+step and falls or rolls in the hot embers, he or she is greeted with hoots
+and retires abashed from the circle of dancers. Brands are carried home
+from the bonfire to protect the houses against lightning, conflagrations,
+and certain maladies and spells. The precious talisman is carefully kept
+in a cupboard till St. John's Day of the following year.(456) At Quimper,
+and in the district of Leon, chairs used to be placed round the midsummer
+bonfire, that the souls of the dead might sit on them and warm themselves
+at the blaze.(457) At Brest on this day thousands of people used to
+assemble on the ramparts towards evening and brandish lighted torches,
+which they swung in circles or flung by hundreds into the air. The closing
+of the town gates put an end to the spectacle, and the lights might be
+seen dispersing in all directions like wandering will-o'-the-wisps.(458)
+In Upper Brittany the materials for the midsummer bonfires, which
+generally consist of bundles of furze and heath, are furnished by
+voluntary contributions, and piled on the tops of hills round poles, each
+of which is surmounted by a nosegay or a crown. This nosegay or crown is
+generally provided by a man named John or a woman named Jean, and it is
+always a John or a Jean who puts a light to the bonfire. While the fire is
+blazing the people dance and sing round it, and when the flames have
+subsided they leap over the glowing embers. Charred sticks from the
+bonfire are thrown into wells to improve the water, and they are also
+taken home as a protection against thunder.(459) To make them thoroughly
+effective, however, against thunder and lightning you should keep them
+near your bed, between a bit of a Twelfth Night cake and a sprig of
+boxwood which has been blessed on Palm Sunday.(460) Flowers from the
+nosegay or crown which overhung the fire are accounted charms against
+disease and pain, both bodily and spiritual; hence girls hang them at
+their breast by a thread of scarlet wool. In many parishes of Brittany the
+priest used to go in procession with the crucifix and kindle the bonfire
+with his own hands; and farmers were wont to drive their flocks and herds
+through the fire in order to preserve them from sickness till midsummer of
+the following year. Also it was believed that every girl who danced round
+nine of the bonfires would marry within the year.(461)
+
+(M158) In Normandy the midsummer fires have now almost disappeared, at
+least in the district known as the Bocage, but they used to shine on every
+hill. They were commonly made by piling brushwood, broom, and ferns about
+a tall tree, which was decorated with a crown of moss and sometimes with
+flowers. While they burned, people danced and sang round them, and young
+folk leaped over the flames or the glowing ashes. In the valley of the
+Orne the custom was to kindle the bonfire just at the moment when the sun
+was about to dip below the horizon; and the peasants drove their cattle
+through the fires to protect them against witchcraft, especially against
+the spells of witches and wizards who attempted to steal the milk and
+butter.(462) At Jumieges in Normandy, down to the first half of the
+nineteenth century, the midsummer festival was marked by certain singular
+features which bore the stamp of a very high antiquity. Every year, on the
+twenty-third of June, the Eve of St. John, the Brotherhood of the Green
+Wolf chose a new chief or master, who had always to be taken from the
+hamlet of Conihout. On being elected, the new head of the brotherhood
+assumed the title of the Green Wolf, and donned a peculiar costume
+consisting of a long green mantle and a very tall green hat of a conical
+shape and without a brim. Thus arrayed he stalked solemnly at the head of
+the brothers, chanting the hymn of St. John, the crucifix and holy banner
+leading the way, to a place called Chouquet. Here the procession was met
+by the priest, precentors, and choir, who conducted the brotherhood to the
+parish church. After hearing mass the company adjourned to the house of
+the Green Wolf, where a simple repast, such as is required by the church
+on fast-days, was served up to them. Then they danced before the door till
+it was time to light the bonfire. Night being come, the fire was kindled
+to the sound of hand-bells by a young man and a young woman, both decked
+with flowers. As the flames rose, the _Te Deum_ was sung, and a villager
+thundered out a parody in the Norman dialect of the hymn _ut queant
+laxis_. Meantime the Green Wolf and his brothers, with their hoods down on
+their shoulders and holding each other by the hand, ran round the fire
+after the man who had been chosen to be the Green Wolf of the following
+year. Though only the first and the last man of the chain had a hand free,
+their business was to surround and seize thrice the future Green Wolf, who
+in his efforts to escape belaboured the brothers with a long wand which he
+carried. When at last they succeeded in catching him they carried him to
+the burning pile and made as if they would throw him on it. This ceremony
+over, they returned to the house of the Green Wolf, where a supper, still
+of the most meagre fare, was set before them. Up till midnight a sort of
+religious solemnity prevailed. No unbecoming word might fall from the lips
+of any of the company, and a censor, armed with a hand-bell, was appointed
+to mark and punish instantly any infraction of the rule. But at the stroke
+of twelve all this was changed. Constraint gave way to license; pious
+hymns were replaced by Bacchanalian ditties, and the shrill quavering
+notes of the village fiddle hardly rose above the roar of voices that went
+up from the merry brotherhood of the Green Wolf. Next day, the
+twenty-fourth of June or Midsummer Day, was celebrated by the same
+personages with the same noisy gaiety. One of the ceremonies consisted in
+parading, to the sound of musketry, an enormous loaf of consecrated bread,
+which, rising in tiers, was surmounted by a pyramid of verdure adorned
+with ribbons. After that the holy hand-bells, deposited on the step of the
+altar, were entrusted as insignia of office to the man who was to be the
+Green Wolf next year.(463)
+
+(M159) In the canton of Breteuil in Picardy (department of Oise) the
+priest used to kindle the midsummer bonfire, and the people marched thrice
+round it in procession. Some of them took ashes of the fire home with them
+to protect the houses against lightning.(464) The custom is, or was down
+to recent years, similar at Vorges, near Laon. An enormous pyre, some
+fifty or sixty feet high, supported in the middle by a tall pole, is
+constructed every year on the twenty-third of June, the Eve of St. John.
+It stands at one end of the village, and all the inhabitants contribute
+fuel to it: a cart goes round the village in the morning, by order of the
+mayor, collecting combustibles from house to house: no one would dream of
+refusing to comply with the customary obligation. In the evening, after a
+service in honour of St. John has been performed in the church, the
+clergy, the mayor, the municipal authorities, the rural police, and the
+fire-brigade march in procession to the bonfire, accompanied by the
+inhabitants and a crowd of idlers drawn by curiosity from the neighbouring
+villages. After addressing the throng in a sermon, to which they pay
+little heed, the parish priest sprinkles the pyre with holy water, and
+taking a lighted torch from the hand of an assistant sets fire to the
+pile. The enormous blaze, flaring up against the dark sky of the summer
+night, is seen for many miles around, particularly from the hill of Laon.
+When it has died down into a huge heap of glowing embers and grey ashes,
+every one carries home a charred stick or some cinders; and the
+fire-brigade, playing their hose on what remains, extinguishes the
+smouldering fire. The people preserve the charred sticks and cinders
+throughout the year, believing that these relics of St. John's bonfire
+have power to guard them from lightning and from contagious diseases.(465)
+At Chateau-Thierry, a town of the department of Aisne, between Paris and
+Reims, the custom of lighting bonfires and dancing round them at the
+midsummer festival of St. John lasted down to about 1850; the fires were
+kindled especially when June had been rainy, and the people thought that
+the lighting of the bonfires would cause the rain to cease.(466)
+
+(M160) In Beauce and Perche, two neighbouring districts of France to the
+south-west of Paris, the midsummer bonfires have nearly or wholly
+disappeared, but formerly they were commonly kindled and went by the name
+of the "fires of St. John." The site of the bonfire was either the village
+square or beside the cross in the cemetery. Here a great pile of faggots,
+brushwood, and grass was accumulated about a huge branch, which bore at
+the top a crown of fresh flowers. The priest blessed the bonfire and the
+people danced round it. When it blazed and crackled, the bystanders thrust
+their heads into the puffs of smoke, in the belief that it would preserve
+them from a multitude of ills; and when the fire was burnt out, they
+rushed upon the charred embers and ashes and carried them home, imagining
+that they had a secret virtue to guard their houses from being struck by
+lightning or consumed by fire. Some of the Perche farmers in the old days,
+not content with the public bonfire, used to light little private bonfires
+in their farmyards and make all their cattle pass through the smoke and
+flames for the purpose of protecting them against witchcraft or
+disease.(467)
+
+(M161) In the department of the Ardennes every one was wont to contribute
+his faggot to the midsummer bonfire, and the clergy marched at the head of
+the procession to kindle it. Failure to light the fires would, in the
+popular belief, have exposed the fields to the greatest danger. At Revin
+the young folk, besides dancing round the fire to the strains of the
+village fiddler, threw garlands of flowers across the flames to each
+other.(468) In the Vosges it is still customary to kindle bonfires upon
+the hill-tops on Midsummer Eve; the people believe that the fires help to
+preserve the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops.(469) In the Jura
+Mountains the midsummer bonfires went by the name of _ba_ or _beau_. They
+were lit on the most conspicuous points of the landscape.(470) Near St.
+Jean, in the Jura, it appears that at this season young people still
+repair to the cross-roads and heights, and there wave burning torches so
+as to present the appearance of fiery wheels in the darkness.(471) In
+Franche-Comte, the province of France which lies immediately to the west
+of the Jura mountains, the fires of St. John still shone on the saint's
+day in several villages down to recent years. They were generally lit on
+high ground and the young folks of both sexes sang and danced round them,
+and sprang over the dying flames.(472) In Bresse bonfires used to be
+kindled on Midsummer Eve (the twenty-third of June) and the people danced
+about them in a circle. Devout persons, particularly old women,
+circumambulated the fires fourteen times, telling their beads and mumbling
+seven _Paters_ and seven _Aves_ in the hope that thereby they would feel
+no pains in their backs when they stooped over the sickle in the harvest
+field.(473) In Berry, a district of Central France, the midsummer fire was
+lit on the Eve of St. John and went by the name of the _jonee_, _joannee_,
+or _jouannee_. Every family according to its means contributed faggots,
+which were piled round a pole on the highest ground in the neighbourhood.
+In the hamlets the office of kindling the fire devolved on the oldest man,
+but in the towns it was the priest or the mayor who discharged the duty.
+Here, as in Brittany, people supposed that a girl who had danced round
+nine of the midsummer bonfires would marry within the year. To leap
+several times over the fire was regarded as a sort of purification which
+kept off sickness and brought good luck to the leaper. Hence the nimble
+youth bounded through the smoke and flames, and when the fire had somewhat
+abated parents jumped across it with their children in their arms in order
+that the little ones might also partake of its beneficent influence.
+Embers from the extinct bonfire were taken home, and after being dipped in
+holy water were kept as a talisman against all kinds of misfortune, but
+especially against lightning.(474) The same virtue was ascribed to the
+ashes and charred sticks of the midsummer bonfire in Perigord, where
+everybody contributed his share of fuel to the pile and the whole was
+crowned with flowers, especially with roses and lilies.(475) On the
+borders of the departments of Creuse and Correze, in Central France, the
+fires of St. John used to be lit on the Eve of the saint's day (the
+twenty-third of June); the custom seems to have survived till towards the
+end of the nineteenth century. Men, women, and children assembled round
+the fires, and the young people jumped over them. Children were brought by
+their parents or elder brothers into contact with the flames in the belief
+that this would save them from fever. Older people girded themselves with
+stalks of rye taken from a neighbouring field, because they fancied that
+by so doing they would not grow weary in reaping the corn at harvest.(476)
+
+(M162) Bonfires were lit in almost all the hamlets of Poitou on the Eve of
+St. John. People marched round them thrice, carrying a branch of walnut in
+their hand. Shepherdesses and children passed sprigs of mullein
+(_verbascum_) and nuts across the flames; the nuts were supposed to cure
+toothache, and the mullein to protect the cattle from sickness and
+sorcery. When the fire died down people took some of the ashes home with
+them, either to keep them in the house as a preservative against thunder
+or to scatter them on the fields for the purpose of destroying
+corn-cockles and darnel. Stones were also placed round the fire, and it
+was believed that the first to lift one of these stones next morning would
+find under it the hair of St. John.(477) In Poitou also it used to be
+customary on the Eve of St. John to trundle a blazing wheel wrapt in straw
+over the fields to fertilize them.(478) This last custom is said to be now
+extinct,(479) but it is still usual, or was so down to recent years, in
+Poitou to kindle fires on this day at cross-roads or on the heights. The
+oldest or youngest person present sets a light to the pile, which consists
+of broom, gorse, and heath. A bright and crackling blaze shoots up, but
+soon dies down, and over it the young folk leap. They also throw stones
+into it, picking the stone according to the size of the turnips that they
+wish to have that year. It is said that "the good Virgin" comes and sits
+on the prettiest of the stones, and next morning they see there her
+beautiful golden tresses. At Lussac, in Poitou, the lighting of the
+midsummer bonfire is still an affair of some ceremony. A pyramid of
+faggots is piled round a tree or tall pole on the ground where the fair is
+held; the priest goes in procession to the spot and kindles the pile. When
+prayers have been said and the clergy have withdrawn, the people continue
+to march round the fire, telling their beads, but it is not till the
+flames have begun to die down that the youth jump over them. A brand from
+the midsummer bonfire is supposed to be a preservative against
+thunder.(480)
+
+(M163) 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 pass
+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 quantities of wood
+used to be piled on an open space round about a huge post or a tree
+stripped of its leaves and branches. Every one took care to contribute a
+faggot 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 passed 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)
+
+(M164) 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
+assemble, 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 assured 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 passers-by, which has often had disagreeable
+consequences. At Marseilles they drench each other with scented water,
+which is poured from the windows or squirted from little syringes; the
+roughest jest is to souse passers-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 assembly 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 mass 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 Marseilles 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)
+
+(M165) 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 sexes 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 assembled 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)
+
+(M166) 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 sexes, 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 cock-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 passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity,
+praising God 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
+glass, 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 fashion. Wars, he adds, extinguish superstition
+as well as religion and laws, and there is nothing like gunpowder for
+putting phantoms to flight.(498)
+
+(M167) 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 Cumberland 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 snatch 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 assembled 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 Yorkshire.(505)
+
+(M168) In Herefordshire and Somersetshire the peasants used to make fires
+in the fields on Midsummer Eve "to bless the apples."(506) In Devonshire
+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 superstition; 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, Godolphin, Carnwarth, and Carn 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
+assemble 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 principal streets
+in Penzance. On either side of this line young men and women pass 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 sexes, 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)
+
+(M169) 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 faggots
+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
+buttonholes 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 participated. She was at that time about fourteen, and old enough
+to retain a vivid recollection of the circumstances. 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 pass over the corn; and they folded
+their cattle and carried blazing furze or gorse round them several
+times.(514)
+
+(M170) 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, pass 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-worship 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 assemble,
+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 passed 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 passed 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)
+
+(M171) 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)
+
+(M172) 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 worshippers 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 multitude, 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)
+
+(M173) In Scotland the traces of midsummer fires are few. We are told by a
+writer of the eighteenth century that "the midsummer-even fire, a relict
+of Druidism," was kindled in some parts of the county of Perth.(526)
+Another writer of the same period, describing what he calls the Druidical
+festivals of the Highlanders, says that "the least considerable of them is
+that of midsummer. In the Highlands of Perthshire there are some vestiges
+of it. The cowherd goes three times round the fold, according to the
+course of the sun, with a burning torch in his hand. They imagined this
+rite had a tendency to purify their herds and flocks, and to prevent
+diseases. At their return the landlady makes an entertainment for the
+cowherd and his associates."(527) In the north-east of Scotland, down to
+the latter half of the eighteenth century, farmers used to go round their
+lands with burning torches about the middle of June.(528) On the hill of
+Cairnshee, in the parish of Durris, Kincardineshire, the herdsmen of the
+country round about annually kindle a bonfire at sunset on Midsummer Day
+(the twenty-fourth of June); the men or lads collect the fuel and push
+each other through the smoke and flames. The custom is kept up through the
+benefaction of a certain Alexander Hogg, a native of the parish, who died
+about 1790 and left a small sum for the maintenance of a midsummer bonfire
+on the spot, because as a boy he had herded cattle on the hill. We may
+conjecture that in doing so he merely provided for the continuance of an
+old custom which he himself had observed in the same place in his
+youth.(529) At the village of Tarbolton in Ayrshire a bonfire has been
+annually kindled from time immemorial on the evening of the first Monday
+after the eleventh of June. A noted cattle-market was formerly held at the
+fair on the following day. The bonfire is still lit at the gloaming by the
+lads and lasses of the village on a high mound or hillock just outside of
+the village. Fuel for it is collected by the lads from door to door. The
+youth dance round the fire and leap over the fringes of it. The many
+cattle-drovers who used to assemble for the fair were wont to gather round
+the blazing pile, smoke their pipes, and listen to the young folk singing
+in chorus on the hillock. Afterwards they wrapped themselves in their
+plaids and slept round the bonfire, which was intended to last all
+night.(530) Thomas Moresin of Aberdeen, a writer of the sixteenth century,
+says that on St. Peter's Day, which is the twenty-ninth of June, the
+Scotch ran about at night with lighted torches on mountains and high
+grounds, "as Ceres did when she roamed the whole earth in search of
+Proserpine";(531) and towards the end of the eighteenth century the parish
+minister of Loudoun, a district of Ayrshire whose "bonny woods and braes"
+have been sung by Burns, wrote that "the custom still remains amongst the
+herds and young people to kindle fires in the high grounds in honour of
+Beltan. _Beltan_, which in Gaelic signifies _Baal_, or _Bel's-fire_, was
+antiently the time of this solemnity. It is now kept on St. Peter's
+day."(532)
+
+(M174) All over Spain great bonfires called _lumes_ are still lit on
+Midsummer Eve. They are kept up all night, and the children leap over them
+in a certain rhythmical way which is said to resemble the ancient dances.
+On the coast, people at this season plunge into the sea; in the inland
+districts the villagers go and roll naked in the dew of the meadows, which
+is supposed to be a sovereign preservative against diseases of the skin.
+On this evening, too, girls who would pry into the future put a vessel of
+water on the sill outside their window; and when the clocks strike twelve,
+they break an egg in the water and see, or fancy they see, in the shapes
+assumed by the pulp, as it blends with the liquid, the likeness of future
+bridegrooms, castles, coffins, and so forth. But generally, as might
+perhaps have been anticipated, the obliging egg exhibits the features of a
+bridegroom.(533) In the Azores, also, bonfires are lit on Midsummer Eve
+(St. John's Eve), and boys jump over them for luck. On that night St. John
+himself is supposed to appear in person and bless all the seas and waters,
+driving out the devils and demons who had been disporting themselves in
+them ever since the second day of November; that is why in the interval
+between the second of November and the twenty-third of June nobody will
+bathe in the sea or in a hot spring. On Midsummer Eve, too, you can always
+see the devil, if you will go into a garden at midnight. He is invariably
+found standing near a mustard-plant. His reason for adopting this posture
+has not been ascertained; perhaps in the chilly air of the upper world he
+is attracted by the genial warmth of the mustard. Various forms of
+divination are practised by people in the Azores on Midsummer Eve. Thus a
+new-laid egg is broken into a glass of water, and the shapes which it
+assumes foreshadow the fate of the person concerned. Again, seven saucers
+are placed in a row, filled respectively with water, earth, ashes, keys, a
+thimble, money, and grass, which things signify travel, death, widowhood,
+housekeeping, spinsterhood, riches, and farming. A blindfolded person
+touches one or other of the saucers with a wand and so discovers his or
+her fate. Again, three broad beans are taken; one is left in its skin, one
+is half peeled, and the third is peeled outright. The three denote
+respectively riches, competence, and poverty. They are hidden and searched
+for; and he who finds one of them knows accordingly whether he will be
+rich, moderately well-off, or poor. Again, girls take slips of paper and
+write the names of young men twice over on them. These they fold up and
+crumple and place one set under their pillows and the other set in a
+saucer full of water. In the morning they draw one slip of paper from
+under their pillow, and see whether one in the water has opened out. If
+the names on the two slips are the same, it is the name of her future
+husband. Young men do the same with girls' names. Once more, if a girl
+rises at sunrise, goes out into the street, and asks the first passer-by
+his Christian name, that will be her husband's name.(534) Some of these
+modes of divination resemble those which are or used to be practised in
+Scotland at Hallowe'en.(535) In Corsica on the Eve of St. John the people
+set fire to the trunk of a tree or to a whole tree, and the young men and
+maidens dance round the blaze, which is called _fucaraia_.(536) We have
+seen that at Ozieri, in Sardinia, a great bonfire is kindled on St. John's
+Eve, and that the young people dance round it.(537)
+
+(M175) Passing to Italy, we find that the midsummer fires are still
+lighted on St. John's Eve in many parts of the Abruzzi. They are commonest
+in the territory which was inhabited in antiquity by the Vestini; they are
+rarer in the land of the ancient Marsi, and they disappear entirely in the
+lower valley of the Sangro. For the most part, the fires are fed with
+straw and dry grass, and are kindled in the fields near the villages or on
+high ground. As they blaze up, the people dance round or over them. In
+leaping across the flames the boys cry out, "St. John, preserve my thighs
+and legs!" Formerly it used to be common to light the bonfires also in the
+towns in front of churches of St. John, and the remains of the sacred fire
+were carried home by the people; but this custom has mostly fallen into
+disuse. However, at Celano the practice is still kept up of taking brands
+and ashes from the bonfires to the houses, although the fires are no
+longer kindled in front of the churches, but merely in the streets.(538)
+In the Abruzzi water also is supposed to acquire certain marvellous and
+beneficent properties on St. John's Night. Hence many people bathe or at
+least wash their faces and hands in the sea or a river at that season,
+especially at the moment of sunrise. Such a bath is said to be an
+excellent cure for diseases of the skin. At Castiglione a Casauria the
+people, after washing in the river or in springs, gird their waists and
+wreath their brows with sprigs of briony in order to keep them from aches
+and pains.(539) In various parts of Sicily, also, fires are kindled on
+Midsummer Eve (St. John's Eve), the twenty-third of June. On the Madonie
+mountains, in the north of the island, the herdsmen kindle them at
+intervals, so that the crests of the mountains are seen ablaze in the
+darkness for many miles. About Acireale, on the east coast of the island,
+the bonfires are lit by boys, who jump over them. At Chiaromonte the
+witches that night acquire extraordinary powers; hence everybody then puts
+a broom outside of his house, because a broom is an excellent protective
+against witchcraft.(540) At Orvieto the midsummer fires were specially
+excepted from the prohibition directed against bonfires in general.(541)
+
+(M176) In Malta also the people celebrate Midsummer Eve (St. John's Eve)
+"by kindling great fires in the public streets, and giving their children
+dolls to carry in their arms on this day, in order to make good the
+prophecy respecting the Baptist, _Multi in nativitate ejus gaudebunt_.
+Days and even weeks before this festival, groups of children are seen
+going out into the country fields to gather straw, twigs, and all sorts of
+other combustibles, which they store up for St. John's Eve. On the night
+of the twenty-third of June, the day before the festival of the Saint,
+great fires are kindled in the streets, squares, and market places of the
+towns and villages of the Island, and as fire after fire blazes out of the
+darkness of that summer night, the effect is singularly striking. These
+fires are sometimes kept up for hours, being continually fed by the scores
+of bystanders, who take great delight in throwing amidst the flames some
+old rickety piece of furniture which they consider as lumber in their
+houses. Lots of happy and reckless children, and very often men, are seen
+merrily leaping in succession over and through the crackling flames. At
+the time of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the Grand Master himself,
+soon after the _Angelus_, used to leave his palace, accompanied by the
+Grand Prior, the Bishop, and two bailiffs, to set fire to some pitch
+barrels which were placed for the occasion in the square facing the sacred
+Hospital. Great crowds used to assemble here in order to assist at this
+ceremony. The setting ablaze of the five casks, and later on of the eight
+casks, by the Grand Master, was a signal for the others to kindle their
+fires in the different parts of the town."(542)
+
+(M177) In Greece, the custom of kindling fires on St. John's Eve and
+jumping over them is said to be still universal. One reason assigned for
+it is a wish to escape from the fleas.(543) According to another account,
+the women cry out, as they leap over the fire, "I leave my sins behind
+me."(544) In Lesbos the fires on St. John's Eve are usually lighted by
+threes, and the people spring thrice over them, each with a stone on his
+head, saying, "I jump the hare's fire, my head a stone!" On the morning of
+St. John's Day those who dwell near the coast go to bathe in the sea. As
+they go they gird themselves with osiers, and when they are in the water
+they let the osiers float away, saying, "Let my maladies go away!" Then
+they look for what is called "the hairy stone," which possesses the
+remarkable property not only of keeping moths from clothes but even of
+multiplying the clothes in the chest where it is laid up, and the more
+hairs on the stone the more will the clothes multiply in the chest.(545)
+In Calymnos the midsummer fire is supposed to ensure abundance in the
+coming year as well as deliverance from fleas. The people dance round the
+fires singing, with stones on their heads, and then jump over the blaze or
+the glowing embers. When the fire is burning low, they throw the stones
+into it; and when it is nearly out, they make crosses on their legs and
+then go straightway and bathe in the sea.(546) In Cos the lads and lasses
+dance round the bonfires on St. John's Eve. Each of the lads binds a black
+stone on his head, signifying that he wishes to become as strong as the
+stone. Also they make the sign of the cross on their feet and legs and
+jump over the fire.(547) On Midsummer Eve the Greeks of Macedonia light
+fires after supper in front of their gates. The garlands, now faded, which
+were hung over the doors on May Day, are taken down and cast into the
+flames, after which the young folk leap over the blaze, fully persuaded
+that St. John's fire will not burn them.(548) In Albania fires of dry
+herbage are, or used to be, lit everywhere on St. John's Eve; young and
+old leap over them, for such a leap is thought to be good for the
+health.(549)
+
+(M178) From the Old World the midsummer fires have been carried across the
+Atlantic to America. In Brazil people jump over the fires of St. John, and
+at this season they can take hot coals in their mouths without burning
+themselves.(550) In Bolivia on the Eve of St. John it is usual to see
+bonfires lighted on the hills and even in the streets of the capital La
+Paz. As the city stands at the bottom of an immense ravine, and the
+Indians of the neighbourhood take a pride in kindling bonfires on heights
+which might seem inaccessible, the scene is very striking when the
+darkness of night is suddenly and simultaneously lit up by hundreds of
+fires, which cast a glare on surrounding objects, producing an effect at
+once weird and picturesque.(551)
+
+(M179) The custom of kindling bonfires on Midsummer Day or on Midsummer
+Eve is widely spread among the Mohammedan peoples of North Africa,
+particularly in Morocco and Algeria; it is common both to the Berbers and
+to many of the Arabs or Arabic-speaking tribes. In these countries
+Midsummer Day (the twenty-fourth of June, Old Style) is called _l'ansara_.
+The fires are lit in the courtyards, at cross-roads, in the fields, and
+sometimes on the threshing-floors. Plants which in burning give out a
+thick smoke and an aromatic smell are much sought after for fuel on these
+occasions; among the plants used for the purpose are giant-fennel, thyme,
+rue, chervil-seed, camomile, geranium, and penny-royal. People expose
+themselves, and especially their children, to the smoke, and drive it
+towards the orchards and the crops. Also they leap across the fires; in
+some places everybody ought to repeat the leap seven times. Moreover they
+take burning brands from the fires and carry them through the houses in
+order to fumigate them. They pass things through the fire, and bring the
+sick into contact with it, while they utter prayers for their recovery.
+The ashes of the bonfires are also reputed to possess beneficial
+properties; hence in some places people rub their hair or their bodies
+with them.(552) For example, the Andjra mountaineers of Morocco kindle
+large fires in open places of their villages on Midsummer Day. Men, women,
+and children jump over the flames or the glowing embers, believing that by
+so doing they rid themselves of all misfortune which may be clinging to
+them; they imagine, also, that such leaps cure the sick and procure
+offspring for childless couples. Moreover, they burn straw, together with
+some marjoram and alum, in the fold where the cattle, sheep, and goats are
+penned for the night; the smoke, in their opinion, will make the animals
+thrive. On Midsummer Day the Arabs of the Mnasara tribe make fires outside
+their tents, near their animals, on their fields, and in their gardens.
+Large quantities of penny-royal are burned in these fires, and over some
+of them the people leap thrice to and fro. Sometimes small fires are also
+kindled inside the tents. They say that the smoke confers blessings on
+everything with which it comes into contact. At Salee, on the Atlantic
+coast of Morocco, persons who suffer from diseased eyes rub them with the
+ashes of the midsummer fire; and in Casablanca and Azemmur the people hold
+their faces over the fire, because the smoke is thought to be good for the
+eyes. The Arab tribe Ulad Bu Aziz, in the Dukkala province of Morocco,
+kindle midsummer bonfires, not for themselves and their cattle, but only
+for crops and fruit; nobody likes to reap his crops before Midsummer Day,
+because if he did they would lose the benefit of the blessed influence
+which flows from the smoke of the bonfires. Again, the Beni Mgild, a
+Berber tribe of Morocco, light fires of straw on Midsummer Eve and leap
+thrice over them to and fro. They let some of the smoke pass underneath
+their clothes, and married women hold their breasts over the fire, in
+order that their children may be strong. Moreover, they paint their eyes
+and lips with some black powder, in which ashes of the bonfire are mixed.
+And in order that their horses may also benefit by the fires, they dip the
+right forelegs of the animals in the smoke and flames or in the hot
+embers, and they rub ashes on the foreheads and between the nostrils of
+the horses. Berbers of the Rif province, in northern Morocco, similarly
+make great use of fires at midsummer for the good of themselves, their
+cattle, and their fruit-trees. They jump over the bonfires in the belief
+that this will preserve them in good health, and they light fires under
+fruit-trees to keep the fruit from falling untimely. And they imagine that
+by rubbing a paste of the ashes on their hair they prevent the hair from
+falling off their heads.(553)
+
+(M180) In all these Moroccan customs, we are told, the beneficial effect
+is attributed wholly to the smoke, which is supposed to be endued with a
+magical quality that removes misfortune from men, animals, fruit-trees,
+and crops. But in some parts of Morocco people at midsummer kindle fires
+of a different sort, not for the sake of fumigation, but in order to burn
+up misfortune in the flames. Thus on Midsummer Eve the Berber tribe of the
+Beni Mgild burn three sheaves of unthreshed wheat or barley, "one for the
+children, one for the crops, and one for the animals." On the same
+occasion they burn the tent of a widow who has never given birth to a
+child; by so doing they think to rid the village of ill luck. It is said
+that at midsummer the Zemmur burn a tent, which belongs to somebody who
+was killed in war during a feast; or if there is no such person in the
+village, the schoolmaster's tent is burned instead. Among the
+Arabic-speaking Beni Ahsen it is customary for those who live near the
+river Sbu to make a little hut of straw at midsummer, set it on fire, and
+let it float down the river. Similarly the inhabitants of Salee burn a
+straw hut on the river which flows past their town.(554)
+
+(M181) Further it deserves to be noticed that in Northern Africa, as in
+Southern Europe, the midsummer festival comprises rites concerned with
+water as well as with fire. For example, among the Beni-Snous the women
+light a fire in an oven, throw perfumes into it, and circumambulate a
+tank, which they also incense after a fashion. In many places on the
+coast, as in the province of Oran and particularly in the north of
+Morocco, everybody goes and bathes in the sea at midsummer; and in many
+towns of the interior, such as Fez, Mequinez, and especially Merrakech,
+people throw water over each other on this day; and where water is scarce,
+earth is used instead, according to the Mohammedan principle which permits
+ablutions to be performed with earth or sand when water cannot be spared
+for the purpose.(555) People of the Andjra district in Morocco not only
+bathe themselves in the sea or in rivers at midsummer, they also bathe
+their animals, their horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, sheep, and goats; for
+they think that on that day water possesses a blessed virtue (_baraka_),
+which removes sickness and misfortune. In Aglu, again, men, women, and
+children bathe in the sea or springs or rivers at midsummer, alleging that
+by so doing they protect themselves against disease for the whole year.
+Among the Berbers of the Rif district the custom of bathing on this day is
+commonly observed, and animals share the ablutions.(556)
+
+(M182) The celebration of a midsummer festival by Mohammedan peoples is
+particularly remarkable, because the Mohammedan calendar, being purely
+lunar and uncorrected by intercalation, necessarily takes no note of
+festivals which occupy fixed points in the solar year; all strictly
+Mohammedan feasts, being pinned to the moon, slide gradually with that
+luminary through the whole period of the earth's revolution about the sun.
+This fact of itself seems to prove that among the Mohammedan peoples of
+Northern Africa, as among the Christian peoples of Europe, the midsummer
+festival is quite independent of the religion which the people publicly
+profess, and is a relic of a far older paganism. There are, indeed,
+independent grounds for thinking that the Arabs enjoyed the advantage of a
+comparatively well-regulated solar year before the prophet of God saddled
+them with the absurdity and inconvenience of a purely lunar calendar.(557)
+Be that as it may, it is notable that some Mohammedan people of North
+Africa kindle fires and bathe in water at the movable New Year of their
+lunar calendar instead of at the fixed Midsummer of the solar year; while
+others again practise these observances at both seasons. New Year's Day,
+on which the rites are celebrated, is called _Ashur_; it is the tenth day
+of Moharram, the first month of the Mohammedan calendar. On that day
+bonfires are kindled in Tunis and also at Merrakech and among some tribes
+of the neighbourhood.(558) At Demnat, in the Great Atlas mountains, people
+kindle a large bonfire on New Year's Eve and leap to and fro over the
+flames, uttering words which imply that by these leaps they think to
+purify themselves from all kinds of evil. At Aglu, in the province of Sus,
+the fire is lighted at three different points by an unmarried girl, and
+when it has died down the young men leap over the glowing embers, saying,
+"We shook on you, O Lady Ashur, fleas, and lice, and the illnesses of the
+heart, as also those of the bones; we shall pass through you again next
+year and the following years with safety and health." Both at Aglu and
+Glawi, in the Great Atlas, smaller fires are also kindled, over which the
+animals are driven. At Demnat girls who wish to marry wash themselves in
+water which has been boiled over the New Year fire; and in Dukkala people
+use the ashes of that fire to rub sore eyes with. New Year fires appear to
+be commonly kindled among the Berbers who inhabit the western portion of
+the Great Atlas, and also among the Arabic-speaking tribes of the plains;
+but Dr. Westermarck found no traces of such fires among the
+Arabic-speaking mountaineers of Northern Morocco and the Berbers of the
+Rif province. Further, it should be observed that water ceremonies like
+those which are practised at Midsummer are very commonly observed in
+Morocco at the New Year, that is, on the tenth day of the first month. On
+the morning of that day (_Ashur_) all water or, according to some people,
+only spring water is endowed with a magical virtue (_baraka_), especially
+before sunrise. Hence at that time the people bathe and pour water over
+each other; in some places they also sprinkle their animals, tents, or
+rooms. In Dukkala some of the New Year water is preserved at home till New
+Year's Day (_Ashur_) of next year; some of it is kept to be used as
+medicine, some of it is poured on the place where the corn is threshed,
+and some is used to water the money which is to be buried in the ground;
+for the people think that the earth-spirits will not be able to steal the
+buried treasures which have thus been sanctified with the holy water.(559)
+
+(M183) Thus the rites of fire and water which are observed in Morocco at
+Midsummer and New Year appear to be identical in character and intention,
+and it seems certain that the duplication of the rites is due to a
+conflict between two calendars, namely the old Julian calendar of the
+Romans, which was based on the sun, and the newer Mohammedan calendar of
+the Arabs, which is based on the moon. For not only was the Julian
+calendar in use throughout the whole of Northern Africa under the Roman
+Empire; to this day it is everywhere employed among Mohammedans for the
+regulation of agriculture and all the affairs of daily life; its practical
+convenience has made it indispensable, and the lunar calendar of orthodox
+Mohammedanism is scarcely used except for purposes of chronology. Even the
+old Latin names of the months are known and employed, in slightly
+disguised forms, throughout the whole Moslem world; and little calendars
+of the Julian year circulate in manuscript among Mohammedans, permitting
+them to combine the practical advantages of pagan science with a nominal
+adherence to orthodox absurdity.(560) Thus the heathen origin of the
+midsummer festival is too palpable to escape the attention of good
+Mohammedans, who accordingly frown upon the midsummer bonfires as pagan
+superstitions, precisely as similar observances in Europe have often been
+denounced by orthodox Christianity. Indeed, many religious people in
+Morocco entirely disapprove of the whole of the midsummer ceremonies,
+maintaining that they are all bad; and a conscientious schoolmaster will
+even refuse his pupils a holiday at midsummer, though the boys sometimes
+offer him a bribe if he will sacrifice his scruples to his avarice.(561)
+As the midsummer customs appear to flourish among all the Berbers of
+Morocco but to be unknown among the pure Arabs who have not been affected
+by Berber influence, it seems reasonable to infer with Dr. Westermarck
+that the midsummer festival has belonged from time immemorial to the
+Berber race, and that so far as it is now observed by the Arabs of
+Morocco, it has been learned by them from the Berbers, the old indigenous
+inhabitants of the country. Dr. Westermarck may also be right in holding
+that, in spite of the close similarity which obtains between the midsummer
+festival of Europe and the midsummer festival of North Africa, the latter
+is not a copy of the former, but that both have been handed down
+independently from a time beyond the purview of history, when such
+ceremonies were common to the Mediterranean race.(562)
+
+
+
+
+§ 5. The Autumn Fires.
+
+
+(M184) In the months which elapse between midsummer and the setting in of
+winter the European festivals of fire appear to be few and unimportant. On
+the evening of the first day of August, which is the Festival of the
+Cross, bonfires are commonly lit in Macedonia and boys jump over them,
+shouting, "Dig up! bury!" but whom or what they wish to dig up or bury
+they do not know.(563) The Russians hold the feast of two martyrs, Florus
+and Laurus, on the eighteenth day of August, Old Style. "On this day the
+Russians lead their horses round the church of their village, beside which
+on the foregoing evening they dig a hole with two mouths. Each horse has a
+bridle made of the bark of the linden-tree. The horses go through this
+hole one after the other, opposite to one of the mouths of which the
+priest stands with a sprinkler in his hand, with which he sprinkles them.
+As soon as the horses have passed by their bridles are taken off, and they
+are made to go between two fires that they kindle, called by the Russians
+_Givoy Agon_, that is to say, living fires, of which I shall give an
+account. I shall before remark, that the Russian peasantry throw the
+bridles of their horses into one of these fires to be consumed. This is
+the manner of their lighting these _givoy agon_, or living fires. Some men
+hold the ends of a stick made of the plane-tree, very dry, and about a
+fathom long. This stick they hold firmly over one of birch, perfectly dry,
+and rub with violence and quickly against the former; the birch, which is
+somewhat softer than the plane, in a short time inflames, and serves them
+to light both the fires I have described."(564)
+
+(M185) The Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on the eighth day of
+September is celebrated at Naples and Capri with fireworks, bonfires, and
+assassinations. On this subject my friend Professor A. E. Housman, who
+witnessed the celebration in different years at both places, has kindly
+furnished me with the following particulars: "In 1906 I was in the island
+of Capri on September the eighth, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin.
+The anniversary was duly solemnised by fire-works at nine or ten in the
+evening, which I suppose were municipal; but just after sundown the boys
+outside the villages were making small fires of brushwood on waste bits of
+ground by the wayside. Very pretty it looked, with the flames blowing
+about in the twilight; but what took my attention was the listlessness of
+the boys and their lack of interest in the proceeding. A single lad, the
+youngest, would be raking the fire together and keeping it alight, but the
+rest stood lounging about and looking in every other direction, with the
+air of discharging mechanically a traditional office from which all zest
+had evaporated." "The pious orgy at Naples on September the eighth went
+through the following phases when I witnessed it in 1897. It began at
+eight in the evening with an illumination of the facade of Santa Maria
+Piedigrotta and with the whole population walking about blowing penny
+trumpets. After four hours of this I went to bed at midnight, and was
+lulled to sleep by barrel-organs, which supersede the trumpets about that
+hour. At four in the morning I was waked by detonations as if the British
+fleet were bombarding the city, caused, I was afterwards told, by dynamite
+rockets. The only step possible beyond this is assassination, which
+accordingly takes place about peep of day: I forget now the number of the
+slain, but I think the average is eight or ten, and I know that in honour
+of my presence they murdered a few more than usual."
+
+(M186) It is no doubt possible that these illuminations and fire-works,
+like the assassinations, are merely the natural and spontaneous
+expressions of that overflowing joy with which the thought of the birth of
+the Virgin must fill every pious heart; but when we remember how often the
+Church has skilfully decanted the new wine of Christianity into the old
+bottles of heathendom, we may be allowed to conjecture that the
+ecclesiastical authorities adroitly timed the Nativity of the Virgin so as
+to coincide with an old pagan festival of that day, in which fire, noise,
+and uproar, if not broken heads and bloodshed, were conspicuous features.
+The penny trumpets blown on this occasion recall the like melodious
+instruments which figure so largely in the celebration of Befana (the Eve
+of Epiphany) at Rome.(565)
+
+
+
+
+§ 6. The Hallowe'en Fires.
+
+
+(M187) From the foregoing survey we may infer that among the heathen
+forefathers of the European peoples the most popular and widespread
+fire-festival of the year was the great celebration of Midsummer Eve or
+Midsummer Day. The coincidence of the festival with the summer solstice
+can hardly be accidental. Rather we must suppose that our pagan ancestors
+purposely timed the ceremony of fire on earth to coincide with the arrival
+of the sun at the highest point of his course in the sky. If that was so,
+it follows that the old founders of the midsummer rites had observed the
+solstices or turning-points of the sun's apparent path in the sky, and
+that they accordingly regulated their festal calendar to some extent by
+astronomical considerations.
+
+(M188) But while this may be regarded as fairly certain for what we may
+call the aborigines throughout a large part of the continent, it appears
+not to have been true of the Celtic peoples who inhabited the Land's End
+of Europe, the islands and promontories that stretch out into the Atlantic
+ocean on the North-West. The principal fire-festivals of the Celts, which
+have survived, though in a restricted area and with diminished pomp, to
+modern times and even to our own day, were seemingly timed without any
+reference to the position of the sun in the heaven. They were two in
+number, and fell at an interval of six months, one being celebrated on the
+eve of May Day and the other on Allhallow Even or Hallowe'en, as it is now
+commonly called, that is, on the thirty-first of October, the day
+preceding All Saints' or Allhallows' Day. These dates coincide with none
+of the four great hinges on which the solar year revolves, to wit, the
+solstices and the equinoxes. Nor do they agree with the principal seasons
+of the agricultural year, the sowing in spring and the reaping in autumn.
+For when May Day comes, the seed has long been committed to the earth; and
+when November opens, the harvest has long been reaped and garnered, the
+fields lie bare, the fruit-trees are stripped, and even the yellow leaves
+are fast fluttering to the ground. Yet the first of May and the first of
+November mark turning-points of the year in Europe; the one ushers in the
+genial heat and the rich vegetation of summer, the other heralds, if it
+does not share, the cold and barrenness of winter. Now these particular
+points of the year, as has been well pointed out by a learned and
+ingenious writer,(566) while they are of comparatively little moment to
+the European husbandman, do deeply concern the European herdsman; for it
+is on the approach of summer that he drives his cattle out into the open
+to crop the fresh grass, and it is on the approach of winter that he leads
+them back to the safety and shelter of the stall. Accordingly it seems not
+improbable that the Celtic bisection of the year into two halves at the
+beginning of May and the beginning of November dates from a time when the
+Celts were mainly a pastoral people, dependent for their subsistence on
+their herds, and when accordingly the great epochs of the year for them
+were the days on which the cattle went forth from the homestead in early
+summer and returned to it again in early winter.(567) Even in Central
+Europe, remote from the region now occupied by the Celts, a similar
+bisection of the year may be clearly traced in the great popularity, on
+the one hand, of May Day and its Eve (Walpurgis Night), and, on the other
+hand, of the Feast of All Souls at the beginning of November, which under
+a thin Christian cloak conceals an ancient pagan festival of the
+dead.(568) Hence we may conjecture that everywhere throughout Europe the
+celestial division of the year according to the solstices was preceded by
+what we may call a terrestrial division of the year according to the
+beginning of summer and the beginning of winter.
+
+(M189) Be that as it may, the two great Celtic festivals of May Day and
+the first of November or, to be more accurate, the Eves of these two days,
+closely resemble each other in the manner of their celebration and in the
+superstitions associated with them, and alike, by the antique character
+impressed upon both, betray a remote and purely pagan origin. The festival
+of May Day or Beltane, as the Celts called it, which ushered in summer,
+has already been described;(569) it remains to give some account of the
+corresponding festival of Hallowe'en, which announced the arrival of
+winter.
+
+(M190) Of the two feasts Hallowe'en was perhaps of old the more important,
+since the Celts would seem to have dated the beginning of the year from it
+rather than from Beltane. In the Isle of Man, one of the fortresses in
+which the Celtic language and lore longest held out against the siege of
+the Saxon invaders, the first of November, Old Style, has been regarded as
+New Year's day down to recent times. Thus Manx mummers used to go round on
+Hallowe'en (Old Style), singing, in the Manx language, a sort of Hogmanay
+song which began "To-night is New Year's Night, _Hogunnaa_!"(570) One of
+Sir John Rhys's Manx informants, an old man of sixty-seven, "had been a
+farm servant from the age of sixteen till he was twenty-six to the same
+man, near Regaby, in the parish of Andreas, and he remembers his master
+and a near neighbour of his discussing the term New Year's Day as applied
+to the first of November, and explaining to the younger men that it had
+always been so in old times. In fact, it seemed to him natural enough, as
+all tenure of land ends at that time, and as all servant men begin their
+service then."(571) In ancient Ireland, as we saw, a new fire used to be
+kindled every year on Hallowe'en or the Eve of Samhain, and from this
+sacred flame all the fires in Ireland were rekindled.(572) Such a custom
+points strongly to Samhain or All Saints' Day (the first of November) as
+New Year's Day; since the annual kindling of a new fire takes place most
+naturally at the beginning of the year, in order that the blessed
+influence of the fresh fire may last throughout the whole period of twelve
+months. Another confirmation of the view that the Celts dated their year
+from the first of November is furnished by the manifold modes of
+divination which, as we shall see presently, were commonly resorted to by
+Celtic peoples on Hallowe'en for the purpose of ascertaining their
+destiny, especially their fortune in the coming year; for when could these
+devices for prying into the future be more reasonably put in practice than
+at the beginning of the year? As a season of omens and auguries Hallowe'en
+seems to have far surpassed Beltane in the imagination of the Celts; from
+which we may with some probability infer that they reckoned their year
+from Hallowe'en rather than Beltane. Another circumstance of great moment
+which points to the same conclusion is the association of the dead with
+Hallowe'en. Not only among the Celts but throughout Europe, Hallowe'en,
+the night which marks the transition from autumn to winter, seems to have
+been of old the time of year when the souls of the departed were supposed
+to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by the fire and to
+comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them in the kitchen or
+the parlour by their affectionate kinsfolk.(573) It was, perhaps, a
+natural thought that the approach of winter should drive the poor
+shivering hungry ghosts from the bare fields and the leafless woodlands to
+the shelter of the cottage with its familiar fireside.(574) Did not the
+lowing kine then troop back from the summer pastures in the forests and on
+the hills to be fed and cared for in the stalls, while the bleak winds
+whistled among the swaying boughs and the snow drifts deepened in the
+hollows? and could the good-man and the good-wife deny to the spirits of
+their dead the welcome which they gave to the cows?
+
+(M191) But it is not only the souls of the departed who are supposed to be
+hovering unseen on the day "when autumn to winter resigns the pale year."
+Witches then speed on their errands of mischief, some sweeping through the
+air on besoms, others galloping along the roads on tabby-cats, which for
+that evening are turned into coal-black steeds.(575) The fairies, too, are
+all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about. In South
+Uist and Eriskay there is a saying:--
+
+
+    "_Hallowe'en will come, will come,_
+    _Witchcraft [or divination] will be set agoing,_
+    _Fairies will be at full speed,_
+    _Running in every pass._
+    _Avoid the road, children, children._"(576)
+
+
+In Cardiganshire on November Eve a bogie sits on every stile.(577) On that
+night in Ireland all the fairy hills are thrown wide open and the fairies
+swarm forth; any man who is bold enough may then peep into the open green
+hills and see the treasures hidden in them. Worse than that, the cave of
+Cruachan in Connaught, known as "the Hell-gate of Ireland," is unbarred on
+Samhain Eve or Hallowe'en, and a host of horrible fiends and goblins used
+to rush forth, particularly a flock of copper-red birds, which blighted
+crops and killed animals by their poisonous breath.(578) The Scotch
+Highlanders have a special name _Samhanach_ (derived from _Samhain_,
+"All-hallows") for the dreadful bogies that go about that night stealing
+babies and committing other atrocities.(579) And though the fairies are a
+kindlier folk, it is dangerous to see even them at their revels on
+Hallowe'en. A melancholy case of this sort is reported from the Ferintosh
+district of the Highlands, though others say that it happened at the Slope
+of Big Stones in Harris. Two young men were coming home after nightfall on
+Hallowe'en, each with a jar of whisky on his back, when they saw, as they
+thought, a house all lit up by the roadside, from which proceeded the
+sounds of music and dancing. In reality it was not a house at all but a
+fairy knoll, and it was the fairies who were jigging it about there so
+merrily. But one of the young men was deceived and stepping into the house
+joined in the dance, without even stopping to put down the jar of whisky.
+His companion was wiser; he had a shrewd suspicion that the place was not
+what it seemed, and on entering he took the precaution of sticking a
+needle in the door. That disarmed the power of the fairies, and he got
+away safely. Well, that day twelve months he came back to the spot and
+what should he see but his poor friend still dancing away with the jar of
+whisky on his back? A weary man was he, as you may well believe, but he
+begged to be allowed to finish the reel which he was in the act of
+executing, and when they took him out into the open air, there was nothing
+of him left but skin and bones.(580) Again, the wicked fairies are apt to
+carry off men's wives with them to fairyland; but the lost spouses can be
+recovered within a year and a day when the procession of the fairies is
+defiling past on Hallowe'en, always provided that the mortals did not
+partake of elfin food while they were in elfinland.(581)
+
+(M192) Sometimes valuable information may be obtained from the fairies on
+Hallowe'en. There was a young man named Guleesh in the County of Mayo.
+Near his house was a _rath_ or old fort with a fine grass bank running
+round it. One Hallowe'en, when the darkness was falling, Guleesh went to
+the rath and stood on a gray old flag. The night was calm and still; there
+was not a breath of wind stirring, nor a sound to be heard except the hum
+of the insects flitting past, or the whistle of the plovers, or the hoarse
+scream of the wild geese as they winged their way far overhead. Above the
+white fog the moon rose like a knob of fire in the east, and a thousand
+thousand stars were twinkling in the sky. There was a little frost in the
+air, the grass was white and crisp and crackled under foot. Guleesh
+expected to see the fairies, but they did not come. Hour after hour wore
+away, and he was just bethinking him of going home to bed, when his ear
+caught a sound far off coming towards him, and he knew what it was in a
+moment. The sound grew louder and louder; at first it was like the beating
+of waves on a stony shore, then it was like the roar of a waterfall, at
+last it was like a mighty rushing wind in the tops of the trees, then the
+storm burst upon the rath, and sure enough the fairies were in it. The
+rout went by so suddenly that Guleesh lost his breath; but he came to
+himself and listened. The fairies were now gathered within the grassy bank
+of the rath, and a fine uproar they made. But Guleesh listened with all
+his ears, and he heard one fairy saying to another that a magic herb grew
+by Guleesh's own door, and that Guleesh had nothing to do but pluck it and
+boil it and give it to his sweetheart, the daughter of the King of France,
+and she would be well, for just then she was lying very ill. Guleesh took
+the hint, and everything went as the fairy had said. And he married the
+daughter of the King of France; and they had never a cark nor a care, a
+sickness nor a sorrow, a mishap nor a misfortune to the day of their
+death.(582)
+
+(M193) In all Celtic countries Hallowe'en seems to have been the great
+season of the year for prying into the future; all kinds of divination
+were put in practice that night. We read that Dathi, a king of Ireland in
+the fifth century, happening to be at the Druids' Hill (_Cnoc-nan-druad_)
+in the county of Sligo one Hallowe'en, ordered his druid to forecast for
+him the future from that day till the next Hallowe'en should come round.
+The druid passed the night on the top of the hill, and next morning made a
+prediction to the king which came true.(583) In Wales Hallowe'en was the
+weirdest of all the _Teir Nos Ysbrydion_, or Three Spirit Nights, when the
+wind, "blowing over the feet of the corpses," bore sighs to the houses of
+those who were to die within the year. People thought that if on that
+night they went out to a cross-road and listened to the wind, they would
+learn all the most important things that would befall them during the next
+twelve months.(584) In Wales, too, not so long ago women used to
+congregate in the parish churches on the night of Hallowe'en and read
+their fate from the flame of the candle which each of them held in her
+hand; also they heard the names or saw the coffins of the parishioners who
+would die within the year, and many were the sad scenes to which these
+gloomy visions gave rise.(585) And in the Highlands of Scotland anybody
+who pleased could hear proclaimed aloud the names of parishioners doomed
+to perish within the next twelve months, if he would only take a
+three-legged stool and go and sit on it at three cross-roads, while the
+church clock was striking twelve at midnight on Hallowe'en. It was even in
+his power to save the destined victims from their doom by taking with him
+articles of wearing apparel and throwing them away, one by one, as each
+name was called out by the mysterious voice.(586)
+
+(M194) But while a glamour of mystery and awe has always clung to
+Hallowe'en in the minds of the Celtic peasantry, the popular celebration
+of the festival has been, at least in modern times, by no means of a
+prevailingly gloomy cast; on the contrary it has been attended by
+picturesque features and merry pastimes, which rendered it the gayest
+night of all the year. Amongst the things which in the Highlands of
+Scotland contributed to invest the festival with a romantic beauty were
+the bonfires which used to blaze at frequent intervals on the heights. "On
+the last day of autumn children gathered ferns, tar-barrels, the long thin
+stalks called _gainisg_, and everything suitable for a bonfire. These were
+placed in a heap on some eminence near the house, and in the evening set
+fire to. The fires were called _Samhnagan_. There was one for each house,
+and it was an object of ambition who should have the biggest. Whole
+districts were brilliant with bonfires, and their glare across a Highland
+loch, and from many eminences, formed an exceedingly picturesque
+scene."(587) Like the Beltane fires on the first of May, the Hallowe'en
+bonfires seem to have been kindled most commonly in the Perthshire
+Highlands. Travelling in the parish of Moulin, near Pitlochrie, in the
+year 1772, the Englishman Thomas Pennant writes that "Hallow Eve is also
+kept sacred: as soon as it is dark, a person sets fire to a bush of broom
+fastened round a pole, and, attended with a crowd, runs about the village.
+He then flings it down, heaps great quantity of combustible matters on it,
+and makes a great bonfire. A whole tract is thus illuminated at the same
+time, and makes a fine appearance."(588) The custom has been described
+more fully by a Scotchman of the eighteenth century, John Ramsay of
+Ochtertyre. On the evening of Hallowe'en "the young people of every hamlet
+assembled upon some eminence near the houses. There they made a bonfire of
+ferns or other fuel, cut the same day, which from the feast was called
+_Samh-nag_ or _Savnag_, a fire of rest and pleasure. Around it was placed
+a circle of stones, one for each person of the families to whom they
+belonged. And when it grew dark the bonfire was kindled, at which a loud
+shout was set up. Then each person taking a torch of ferns or sticks in
+his hand, ran round the fire exulting; and sometimes times they went into
+the adjacent fields, where, if there was another company, they visited the
+bonfire, taunting the others if inferior in any respect to themselves.
+After the fire was burned out they returned home, where a feast was
+prepared, and the remainder of the evening was spent in mirth and
+diversions of various kinds. Next morning they repaired betimes to the
+bonfire, where the situation of the stones was examined with much
+attention. If any of them were misplaced, or if the print of a foot could
+be discerned near any particular stone, it was imagined that the person
+for whom it was set would not live out the year. Of late years this is
+less attended to, but about the beginning of the present century it was
+regarded as a sure prediction. The Hallowe'en fire is still kept up in
+some parts of the Low country; but on the western coast and in the Isles
+it is never kindled, though the night is spent in merriment and
+entertainments."(589) In the Perthshire parish of Callander, which
+includes the now famous pass of the Trossachs opening out on the winding
+and wooded shores of the lovely Loch Katrine, the Hallowe'en bonfires were
+still kindled down to near the end of the eighteenth century. When the
+fire had died down, the ashes were carefully collected in the form of a
+circle, and a stone was put in, near the circumference, for every person
+of the several families interested in the bonfire. Next morning, if any of
+these stones was found to be displaced or injured, the people made sure
+that the person represented by it was _fey_ or devoted, and that he could
+not live twelve months from that day.(590) In the parish of Logierait,
+which covers the beautiful valley of the Tummel, one of the fairest
+regions of all Scotland, the Hallowe'en fire was somewhat different.
+Faggots of heath, broom, and the dressings of flax were kindled and
+carried on poles by men, who ran with them round the villages, attended by
+a crowd. As soon as one faggot was burnt out, a fresh one was lighted and
+fastened to the pole. Numbers of these blazing faggots were often carried
+about together, and when the night happened to be dark, they formed a
+splendid illumination.(591)
+
+(M195) Nor did the Hallowe'en fires die out in Perthshire with the end of
+the eighteenth century. Journeying from Dunkeld to Aberfeldy on Hallowe'en
+in the first half of the nineteenth century, Sheriff Barclay counted
+thirty fires blazing on the hill tops, and saw the figures of the people
+dancing like phantoms round the flames.(592) Again, "in 1860, I was
+residing near the head of Loch Tay during the season of the Hallowe'en
+feast. For several days before Hallowe'en, boys and youths collected wood
+and conveyed it to the most prominent places on the hill sides in their
+neighbourhood. Some of the heaps were as large as a corn-stack or
+hay-rick. After dark on Hallowe'en, these heaps were kindled, and for
+several hours both sides of Loch Tay were illuminated as far as the eye
+could see. I was told by old men that at the beginning of this century men
+as well as boys took part in getting up the bonfires, and that, when the
+fire was ablaze, all joined hands and danced round the fire, and made a
+great noise; but that, as these gatherings generally ended in drunkenness
+and rough and dangerous fun, the ministers set their faces against the
+observance, and were seconded in their efforts by the more intelligent and
+well-behaved in the community; and so the practice was discontinued by
+adults and relegated to school boys."(593) At Balquhidder down to the
+latter part of the nineteenth century each household kindled its bonfire
+at Hallowe'en, but the custom was chiefly observed by children. The fires
+were lighted on any high knoll near the house; there was no dancing round
+them.(594)
+
+(M196) Hallowe'en fires were also lighted in some districts of the
+north-east of Scotland, such as Buchan. Villagers and farmers alike must
+have their fire. In the villages the boys went from house to house and
+begged a peat from each householder, usually with the words, "Ge's a peat
+t' burn the witches." In some villages the lads collected the peats in a
+cart, some of them drawing it along and the others receiving the peats and
+loading them on the cart. Along with the peats they accumulated straw,
+furze, potato haulm, everything that would burn quickly, and when they had
+got enough they piled it all in a heap and set it on fire. Then each of
+the youths, one after another, laid himself down on the ground as near to
+the fire as he could without being scorched, and thus lying allowed the
+smoke to roll over him. The others ran through the smoke and jumped over
+their prostrate comrade. When the heap was burned down, they scattered the
+ashes. Each one took a share in this part of the ceremony, giving a kick
+first with the right foot and then with the left; and each vied with the
+other who should scatter the most. After that some of them still continued
+to run through the scattered ashes and to pelt each other with the
+half-burned peats. At each farm a spot as high as possible, not too near
+the steading, was chosen for the fire, and the proceedings were much the
+same as at the village bonfire. The lads of one farm, when their own fire
+was burned down and the ashes scattered, sometimes went to a neighbouring
+fire and helped to kick the ashes about.(595) Referring to this part of
+Scotland, a writer at the end of the eighteenth century observes that "the
+Hallow-even fire, another relict of druidism, was kindled in Buchan.
+Various magic ceremonies were then celebrated to counteract the influence
+of witches and demons, and to prognosticate to the young their success or
+disappointment in the matrimonial lottery. These being devoutly finished,
+the hallow fire was kindled, and guarded by the male part of the family.
+Societies were formed, either by pique or humour, to scatter certain
+fires, and the attack and defence were often conducted with art and with
+fury."(596) Down to about the middle of the nineteenth century "the
+Braemar Highlanders made the circuit of their fields with lighted torches
+at Hallowe'en to ensure their fertility in the coming year. At that date
+the custom was as follows: Every member of the family (in those days
+households were larger than they are now) was provided with a bundle of
+fir 'can'les' with which to go the round. The father and mother stood at
+the hearth and lit the splints in the peat fire, which they passed to the
+children and servants, who trooped out one after the other, and proceeded
+to tread the bounds of their little property, going slowly round at equal
+distances apart, and invariably with the sun. To go 'withershins' seems to
+have been reserved for cursing and excommunication. When the fields had
+thus been circumambulated the remaining spills were thrown together in a
+heap and allowed to burn out."(597)
+
+(M197) In the Highlands of Scotland, as the evening of Hallowe'en wore on,
+young people gathered in one of the houses and resorted to an almost
+endless variety of games, or rather forms of divination, for the purpose
+of ascertaining the future fate of each member of the company. Were they
+to marry or remain single, was the marriage to take place that year or
+never, who was to be married first, what sort of husband or wife she or he
+was to get, the name, the trade, the colour of the hair, the amount of
+property of the future spouse--these were questions that were eagerly
+canvassed and the answers to them furnished never-failing
+entertainment.(598) Nor were these modes of divination at Hallowe'en
+confined to the Highlands, where the bonfires were kindled; they were
+practised with equal faith and in practically the same forms in the
+Lowlands, as we learn, for example, from Burns's poem _Hallowe'en_, which
+describes the auguries drawn from a variety of omens by the Ayrshire
+peasantry. These Lowlanders of Saxon descent may well have inherited the
+rites from the Celts who preceded them in the possession of the south
+country. A common practice at Hallowe'en was to go out stealthily to a
+neighbour's kailyard and there, with shut eyes, to pull up the first kail
+stock that came to hand. It was necessary that the plants should be stolen
+without the knowledge or consent of their owner; otherwise they were quite
+useless for the purpose of divination. Strictly speaking, too, the
+neighbour upon whose garden the raid was made should be unmarried, whether
+a bachelor or a spinster. The stolen kail was taken home and examined, and
+according to its height, shape, and features would be the height, shape,
+and features of the future husband or wife. The taste of the _custock_,
+that is, the heart of the stem, was an infallible indication of his or her
+temper; and a clod of earth adhering to the root signified, in proportion
+to its size, the amount of property which he or she would bring to the
+common stock. Then the kail-stock or _runt_, as it was called in Ayrshire,
+was placed over the lintel of the door; and the baptismal name of the
+young man or woman who first entered the door after the kail was in
+position would be the baptismal name of the husband or wife.(599) Again,
+young women sowed hemp seed over nine ridges of ploughed land, saying, "I
+sow hemp seed, and he who is to be my husband, let him come and harrow
+it." On looking back over her left shoulder the girl would see the figure
+of her future mate behind her in the darkness. In the north-east of
+Scotland lint seed was used instead of hemp seed and answered the purpose
+quite as well.(600) Again, a mode of ascertaining your future husband or
+wife was this. Take a clue of blue yarn and go to a lime-kiln. Throw the
+clue into the kiln, but keep one end of the thread in your hand and wind
+it on to another clue. As you come near the end somebody or something will
+hold the other end tight in the kiln. Then you call out, "Who holds?"
+giving the thread at the same time a gentle pull. Some one or something
+will thereupon pull the other end of the thread, and a voice will mention
+the name of your future husband or wife.(601) Another way is this. Go to
+the barn alone and secretly. Be sure to open both doors and if possible
+take them off their hinges; for if the being who is about to appear should
+catch you in the barn and clap the doors to on you, he or she might do you
+a mischief. Having done this, take the sieve or winnowing-basket, which in
+Lowland Scotch is called a _wecht_ or _waicht_, and go through the action
+of winnowing corn. Repeat it thrice, and at the third time the apparition
+of your future husband or wife will pass through the barn, entering at the
+windy door and passing out at the other.(602) Or this. Go to a southward
+running stream, where the lands of three lairds meet, or to a ford where
+the dead and living have crossed. Dip the left sleeve of your shirt in the
+water. Then go home, take off the shirt, hang it up before a fire to dry,
+and go to bed, taking care that the bed stands so that you can see your
+shirt hanging before the fire. Keep awake, and at midnight you will see
+the form of your future spouse come into the room and turn the other side
+of the sleeve to the fire to dry it.(603) A Highland form of divination at
+Hallowe'en is to take a shoe by the tip and throw it over the house, then
+observe the direction in which the toe points as it lies on the ground on
+the other side; for in that direction you are destined to go before long.
+If the shoe should fall sole uppermost, it is very unlucky for you.(604)
+
+(M198) These ways of prying into the future are practised outside of the
+house; others are observed in the kitchen or the parlour before the
+cheerful blaze of the fire. Thus the white of eggs, dropped in a glass of
+pure water, indicates by certain marks how many children a person will
+have. The impatience and clamour of the children, eager to ascertain the
+exact number of their future progeny, often induced the housewife to
+perform this ceremony for them by daylight; and the kindly mother,
+standing with her face to the window, dropping the white of an egg into a
+crystal glass of clean water, and surrounded by a group of children
+intently watching her proceedings, made up a pretty picture.(605) When the
+fun of the evening had fairly commenced, the names of eligible or likely
+matches were written on the chimney-piece, and the young man who wished to
+try his fortune was led up blindfolded to the list. Whatever name he put
+his finger on would prove that of his future wife.(606) Again, two nuts,
+representing a lad and a lass whose names were announced to the company,
+were put side by side in the fire. If they burned quietly together, the
+pair would be man and wife, and from the length of time they burned and
+the brightness of the flame the length and happiness of the married life
+of the two were augured. But if instead of burning together one of the
+nuts leaped away from the other, then there would be no marriage, and the
+blame would rest with the person whose nut had thus started away by
+itself.(607) Again, a dish of milk and meal (in Gaelic _fuarag_, in
+Lowland Scotch _crowdie_) or of beat potatoes was made and a ring was
+hidden in it. Spoons were served out to the company, who supped the
+contents of the dish hastily with them, and the one who got the ring would
+be the first to be married.(608) Again, apples and a silver sixpence were
+put in a tub of water; the apples naturally floated on the top and the
+sixpence sank to the bottom. Whoever could lift an apple or the sixpence
+from the water with his mouth, without using his teeth, was counted very
+lucky and got the prize to himself.(609) Again, three plates or basins
+were placed on the hearth. One was filled with clean water, another with
+dirty water, and the third was empty. The enquirer was blindfolded, knelt
+in front of the hearth, and groped about till he put his finger in one of
+them. If he lighted on the plate with the clean water, he would wed a
+maid; if on the plate with the dirty water, he would marry a widow; and if
+on the empty plate, he would remain a bachelor. For a girl the answer of
+the oracle was analogous; she would marry a bachelor, a widower, or nobody
+according to the plate into which she chanced to dip her finger. But to
+make sure, the operation had to be repeated thrice, the position of the
+plates being changed each time. If the enquirer put his or her finger into
+the same plate thrice or even twice, it was quite conclusive.(610)
+
+(M199) These forms of divination in the house were practised by the
+company in a body; but the following had to be performed by the person
+alone. You took an apple and stood with it in your hand in front of a
+looking-glass. Then you sliced the apple, stuck each slice on the point of
+the knife, and held it over your left shoulder, while you looked into the
+glass and combed your hair. The spectre of your future husband would then
+appear in the mirror stretching forth his hand to take the slices of the
+apple over your shoulder. Some say that the number of slices should be
+nine, that you should eat the first eight yourself, and only throw the
+ninth over your left shoulder for your husband; also that at each slice
+you should say, "In the name of the Father and the Son."(611) Again, take
+an egg, prick it with a pin, and let the white drop into a wine-glass
+nearly full of water. Take some of this in your mouth and go out for a
+walk. The first name you hear called out aloud will be that of your future
+husband or wife. An old woman told a lady that she had tried this mode of
+divination in her youth, that the name of Archibald "came up as it were
+from the very ground," and that Archibald sure enough was the name of her
+husband.(612) In South Uist and Eriskay, two of the outer Hebrides, a salt
+cake called _Bonnach Salainn_ is eaten at Hallowe'en to induce dreams that
+will reveal the future. It is baked of common meal with a great deal of
+salt. After eating it you may not drink water nor utter a word, not even
+to say your prayers. A salt herring, eaten bones and all in three bites,
+is equally efficacious, always provided that you drink no water and hold
+your tongue.(613)
+
+(M200) In the northern part of Wales it used to be customary for every
+family to make a great bonfire called _Coel Coeth_ on Hallowe'en. The fire
+was kindled on the most conspicuous spot near the house; and when it had
+nearly gone out everyone threw into the ashes a white stone, which he had
+first marked. Then having said their prayers round the fire, they went to
+bed. Next morning, as soon as they were up, they came to search out the
+stones, and if any one of them was found to be missing, they had a notion
+that the person who threw it would die before he saw another
+Hallowe'en.(614) A writer on Wales at the beginning of the nineteenth
+century says that "the autumnal fire is still kindled in North Wales,
+being on the eve of the first day of November, and is attended by many
+ceremonies; such as running through the fire and smoke, each casting a
+stone into the fire, and all running off at the conclusion to escape from
+the black short-tailed sow; then supping upon parsnips, nuts, and apples;
+catching up an apple suspended by a string with the mouth alone, and the
+same by an apple in a tub of water: each throwing a nut into the fire; and
+those that burn bright, betoken prosperity to the owners through the
+following year, but those that burn black and crackle, denote misfortune.
+On the following morning the stones are searched for in the fire, and if
+any be missing, they betide ill to those who threw them in."(615)
+According to Sir John Rhys, the habit of celebrating Hallowe'en by
+lighting bonfires on the hills is perhaps not yet extinct in Wales, and
+men still living can remember how the people who assisted at the bonfires
+would wait till the last spark was out and then would suddenly take to
+their heels, shouting at the top of their voices, "The cropped black sow
+seize the hindmost!" The saying, as Sir John Rhys justly remarks, implies
+that originally one of the company became a victim in dead earnest. Down
+to the present time the saying is current in Carnarvonshire, where
+allusions to the cutty black sow are still occasionally made to frighten
+children.(616) We can now understand why in Lower Brittany every person
+throws a pebble into the midsummer bonfire.(617) Doubtless there, as in
+Wales and the Highlands of Scotland,(618) omens of life and death have at
+one time or other been drawn from the position and state of the pebbles on
+the morning of All Saints' Day. The custom, thus found among three
+separate branches of the Celtic stock, probably dates from a period before
+their dispersion, or at least from a time when alien races had not yet
+driven home the wedges of separation between them.
+
+(M201) In Wales, as in Scotland, Hallowe'en was also the great season for
+forecasting the future in respect of love and marriage, and some of the
+forms of divination employed for this purpose resembled those which were
+in use among the Scotch peasantry. Two girls, for example, would make a
+little ladder of yarn, without breaking it from the ball, and having done
+so they would throw it out of the window. Then one of the girls, holding
+the ball in her hand, would wind the yarn back, repeating a rhyme in
+Welsh. This she did thrice, and as she wound the yarn she would see her
+future husband climbing up the little ladder. Again, three bowls or basins
+were placed on a table. One of them contained clean water, one dirty
+water, and one was empty. The girls of the household, and sometimes the
+boys too, then eagerly tried their fortunes. They were blindfolded, led up
+to the table, and dipped their hands into a bowl. If they happened to dip
+into the clean water, they would marry maidens or bachelors; if into the
+dirty water, they would be widowers or widows; if into the empty bowl,
+they would live unmarried. Again, if a girl, walking backwards, would
+place a knife among the leeks on Hallowe'en, she would see her future
+husband come and pick up the knife and throw it into the middle of the
+garden.(619)
+
+(M202) In Ireland the Hallowe'en bonfires would seem to have died out, but
+the Hallowe'en divination has survived. Writing towards the end of the
+eighteenth century, General Vallancey tells us that on Hallowe'en or the
+vigil of Saman, as he calls it, "the peasants in Ireland assemble with
+sticks and clubs (the emblems of laceration) going from house to house,
+collecting money, bread-cake, butter, cheese, eggs, etc., etc., for the
+feast, repeating verses in honour of the solemnity, demanding preparations
+for the festival, in the name of St. Columb Kill, desiring them to lay
+aside the fatted calf, and to bring forth the black sheep. The good women
+are employed in making the griddle cake and candles; these last are sent
+from house to house in the vicinity, and are lighted up on the (Saman)
+next day, before which they pray, or are supposed to pray, for the
+departed souls of the donor. Every house abounds in the best viands they
+can afford: apples and nuts are devoured in abundance: the nut-shells are
+burnt, and from the ashes many strange things are foretold: cabbages are
+torn up by the root: hemp seed is sown by the maidens, and they believe,
+that if they look back, they will see the apparition of the man intended
+for their future spouse: they hang a smock before the fire, on the close
+of the feast, and sit up all night, concealed in a corner of the room,
+convinced that his apparition will come down the chimney and turn the
+smock: they throw a ball of yarn out of the window, and wind it on the
+reel within, convinced, that if they repeat the _Pater Noster_ backwards,
+and look at the ball of yarn without, they will then also see his _sith_
+or apparition: they dip for apples in a tub of water, and endeavour to
+bring one up in the mouth: they suspend a cord with a cross-stick, with
+apples at one point, and candles lighted at the other, and endeavour to
+catch the apple, while it is in a circular motion, in the mouth. These,
+and many other superstitious ceremonies, the remains of Druidism, are
+observed on this holiday, which will never be eradicated, while the name
+of _Saman_ is permitted to remain."(620)
+
+(M203) In Queen's County, Ireland, down to the latter part of the
+nineteenth century children practised various of these rites of divination
+on Hallowe'en. Girls went out into the garden blindfold and pulled up
+cabbages: if the cabbage was well grown, the girl would have a handsome
+husband, but if it had a crooked stalk, the future spouse would be a
+stingy old man. Nuts, again, were placed in pairs on the bar of the fire,
+and from their behaviour omens were drawn of the fate in love and marriage
+of the couple whom they represented. Lead, also, was melted and allowed to
+drop into a tub of cold water, and from the shapes which it assumed in the
+water predictions were made to the children of their future destiny.
+Again, apples were bobbed for in a tub of water and brought up with the
+teeth; or a stick was hung from a hook with an apple at one end and a
+candle at the other, and the stick being made to revolve you made a bite
+at the apple and sometimes got a mouthful of candle instead.(621) In
+County Leitrim, also, down to near the end of the nineteenth century
+various forms of divination were practised at Hallowe'en. Girls
+ascertained the character of their future husbands by the help of cabbages
+just as in Queen's County. Again, if a girl found a branch of a
+briar-thorn which had bent over and grown into the ground so as to form a
+loop, she would creep through the loop thrice late in the evening in the
+devil's name, then cut the briar and put it under her pillow, all without
+speaking a word. Then she would lay her head on the pillow and dream of
+the man she was to marry. Boys, also, would dream in like manner of love
+and marriage at Hallowe'en, if only they would gather ten leaves of ivy
+without speaking, throw away one, and put the other nine under their
+pillow. Again, divination was practised by means of a cake called
+_barm-breac_, in which a nut and a ring were baked. Whoever got the ring
+would be married first; whoever got the nut would marry a widow or a
+widower; but if the nut were an empty shell, he or she would remain unwed.
+Again, a girl would take a clue of worsted, go to a lime kiln in the
+gloaming, and throw the clew into the kiln in the devil's name, while she
+held fast the other end of the thread. Then she would rewind the thread
+and ask, "Who holds my clue?" and the name of her future husband would
+come up from the depth of the kiln. Another way was to take a rake, go to
+a rick and walk round it nine times, saying, "I rake this rick in the
+devil's name." At the ninth time the wraith of your destined partner for
+life would come and take the rake out of your hand. Once more, before the
+company separated for the night, they would rake the ashes smooth on the
+hearth, and search them next morning for tracks, from which they judged
+whether anybody should come to the house, or leave it, or die in it before
+another year was out.(622) In County Roscommon, which borders on County
+Leitrim, a cake is made in nearly every house on Hallowe'en, and a ring, a
+coin, a sloe, and a chip of wood are put into it. Whoever gets the coin
+will be rich; whoever gets the ring will be married first; whoever gets
+the chip of wood, which stands for a coffin, will die first; and whoever
+gets the sloe will live longest, because the fairies blight the sloes in
+the hedges on Hallowe'en, so that the sloe in the cake will be the last of
+the year. Again, on the same mystic evening girls take nine grains of oats
+in their mouths, and going out without speaking walk about till they hear
+a man's name pronounced; it will be the name of their future husband. In
+County Roscommon, too, on Hallowe'en there is the usual dipping in water
+for apples or sixpences, and the usual bites at a revolving apple and
+tallow candle.(623)
+
+(M204) In the Isle of Man also, another Celtic country, Hallowe'en was
+celebrated down to modern times by the kindling of fires, accompanied with
+all the usual ceremonies designed to prevent the baneful influence of
+fairies and witches. Bands of young men perambulated the island by night,
+and at the door of every dwelling-house they struck up a Manx rhyme,
+beginning
+
+
+    "_Noght oie howney hop-dy-naw,_"
+
+
+that is to say, "This is Hollantide Eve." For Hollantide is the Manx way
+of expressing the old English _All hallowen tide_, that is, All Saints'
+Day, the first of November. But as the people reckon this festival
+according to the Old Style, Hollantide in the Isle of Man is our twelfth
+of November. The native Manx name for the day is _Sauin_ or _Laa Houney_.
+Potatoes, parsnips and fish, pounded up together and mixed with butter,
+formed the proper evening meal (_mrastyr_) on Hallowe'en in the Isle of
+Man.(624) Here, too, as in Scotland forms of divination are practised by
+some people on this important evening. For example, the housewife fills a
+thimble full of salt for each member of the family and each guest; the
+contents of the thimblefuls are emptied out in as many neat little piles
+on a plate, and left there over night. Next morning the piles are
+examined, and if any of them has fallen down, he or she whom it represents
+will die within the year. Again, the women carefully sweep out the ashes
+from under the fireplace and flatten them down neatly on the open hearth.
+If they find next morning a footprint turned towards the door, it
+signifies a death in the family within the year; but if the footprint is
+turned in the opposite direction, it bodes a marriage. Again, divination
+by eavesdropping is practised in the Isle of Man in much the same way as
+in Scotland. You go out with your mouth full of water and your hands full
+of salt and listen at a neighbour's door, and the first name you hear will
+be the name of your husband. Again, Manx maids bandage their eyes and
+grope about the room till they dip their hands in vessels full of clean or
+dirty water, and so on; and from the thing they touch they draw
+corresponding omens. But some people in the Isle of Man observe these
+auguries, not on Hallowe'en or Hollantide Eve, as they call it, which was
+the old Manx New Year's Eve, but on the modern New Year's Eve, that is, on
+the thirty-first of December. The change no doubt marks a transition from
+the ancient to the modern mode of dating the beginning of the year.(625)
+
+(M205) In Lancashire, also, some traces of the old Celtic celebration of
+Hallowe'en have been reported in modern times. It is said that "fires are
+still lighted in Lancashire, on Hallowe'en, under the name of Beltains or
+Teanlas; and even such cakes as the Jews are said to have made in honour
+of the Queen of Heaven, are yet to be found at this season amongst the
+inhabitants of the banks of the Ribble.... Both the fires and the cakes,
+however, are now connected with superstitious notions respecting
+Purgatory, etc."(626) On Hallowe'en, too, the Lancashire maiden "strews
+the ashes which are to take the form of one or more letters of her lover's
+name; she throws hemp-seed over her shoulder and timidly glances to see
+who follows her."(627) Again, witches in Lancashire used to gather on
+Hallowe'en at the Malkin Tower, a ruined and desolate farm-house in the
+forest of Pendle. They assembled for no good purpose; but you could keep
+the infernal rout at bay by carrying a lighted candle about the fells from
+eleven to twelve o'clock at night. The witches tried to blow out the
+candle, and if they succeeded, so much the worse for you; but if the flame
+burned steadily till the clocks had struck midnight, you were safe. Some
+people performed the ceremony by deputy; and parties went about from house
+to house in the evening collecting candles, one for each inmate, and
+offering their services to _late_ or _leet_ the witches, as the phrase
+ran. This custom was practised at Longridge Fell in the early part of the
+nineteenth century.(628) In Northumberland on Hallowe'en omens of marriage
+were drawn from nuts thrown into the fire; and the sports of ducking for
+apples and biting at a revolving apple and lighted candle were also
+practised on that evening.(629) The equivalent of the Hallowe'en bonfires
+is reported also from France. We are told that in the department of
+Deux-Sevres, which forms part of the old province of Poitou, young people
+used to assemble in the fields on All Saints' Day (the first of November)
+and kindle great fires of ferns, thorns, leaves, and stubble, at which
+they roasted chestnuts. They also danced round the fires and indulged in
+noisy pastimes.(630)
+
+
+
+
+§ 7. The Midwinter Fires.
+
+
+(M206) If the heathen of ancient Europe celebrated, as we have good reason
+to believe, the season of Midsummer with a great festival of fire, of
+which the traces have survived in many places down to our own time, it is
+natural to suppose that they should have observed with similar rites the
+corresponding season of Midwinter; for Midsummer and Midwinter, or, in
+more technical language, the summer solstice and the winter solstice, are
+the two great turning-points in the sun's apparent course through the sky,
+and from the standpoint of primitive man nothing might seem more
+appropriate than to kindle fires on earth at the two moments when the fire
+and heat of the great luminary in heaven begin to wane or to wax. In this
+way the savage philosopher, to whose meditations on the nature of things
+we owe many ancient customs and ceremonies, might easily imagine that he
+helped the labouring sun to relight his dying lamp, or at all events to
+blow up the flame into a brighter blaze. Certain it is that the winter
+solstice, which the ancients erroneously assigned to the twenty-fifth of
+December, was celebrated in antiquity as the Birthday of the Sun, and that
+festal lights or fires were kindled on this joyful occasion. Our Christmas
+festival is nothing but a continuation under a Christian name of this old
+solar festivity; for the ecclesiastical authorities saw fit, about the end
+of the third or the beginning of the fourth century, arbitrarily to
+transfer the nativity of Christ from the sixth of January to the
+twenty-fifth of December, for the purpose of diverting to their Lord the
+worship which the heathen had hitherto paid on that day to the sun.(631)
+
+(M207) In modern Christendom the ancient fire-festival of the winter
+solstice appears to survive, or to have survived down to recent years, in
+the old custom of the Yule log, clog, or block, as it was variously called
+in England.(632) The custom was widespread in Europe, but seems to have
+flourished especially in England, France, and among the South Slavs; at
+least the fullest accounts of the custom come from these quarters. That
+the Yule log was only the winter counterpart of the Midsummer bonfire,
+kindled within doors instead of in the open air on account of the cold and
+inclement weather of the season, was pointed out long ago by our English
+antiquary John Brand;(633) and the view is supported by the many quaint
+superstitions attaching to the Yule log, superstitions which have no
+apparent connexion with Christianity but carry their heathen origin
+plainly stamped upon them. But while the two solstitial celebrations were
+both festivals of fire, the necessity or desirability of holding the
+winter celebration within doors lent it the character of a private or
+domestic festivity, which contrasts strongly with the publicity of the
+summer celebration, at which the people gathered on some open space or
+conspicuous height, kindled a huge bonfire in common, and danced and made
+merry round it together.
+
+(M208) Among the Germans the custom of the Yule log is known to have been
+observed in the eleventh century; for in the year 1184 the parish priest
+of Ahlen, in Muensterland, spoke of "bringing a tree to kindle the festal
+fire at the Lord's Nativity."(634) Down to about the middle of the
+nineteenth century the old rite was kept up in some parts of central
+Germany, as we learn from an account of it given by a contemporary writer.
+After mentioning the custom of feeding the cattle and shaking the
+fruit-trees on Christmas night, to make them bear fruit, he goes on as
+follows: "Other customs pointing back to the far-off times of heathendom
+may still be met with among the old-fashioned peasants of the mountain
+regions. Such is in the valleys of the Sieg and Lahn the practice of
+laying a new log as a foundation of the hearth. A heavy block of oak-wood,
+generally a stump grubbed up from the ground, is fitted either into the
+floor of the hearth, or into a niche made for the purpose in the wall
+under the hook on which the kettle hangs. When the fire on the hearth
+glows, this block of wood glows too, but it is so placed that it is hardly
+reduced to ashes within a year. When the new foundation is laid, the
+remains of the old block are carefully taken out, ground to powder, and
+strewed over the fields during the Twelve Nights. This, so people fancied,
+promotes the fruitfulness of the year's crops."(635) In some parts of the
+Eifel Mountains, to the west of Coblentz, a log of wood called the
+_Christbrand_ used to be placed on the hearth on Christmas Eve; and the
+charred remains of it on Twelfth Night were put in the corn-bin to keep
+the mice from devouring the corn.(636) At Weidenhausen and Girkshausen, in
+Westphalia, the practice was to withdraw the Yule log (_Christbrand_) from
+the fire so soon as it was slightly charred; it was then kept carefully to
+be replaced on the fire whenever a thunder-storm broke, because the people
+believed that lightning would not strike a house in which the Yule log was
+smouldering.(637) In some villages near Berleburg in Westphalia the old
+custom was to tie up the Yule log in the last sheaf cut at harvest.(638)
+On Christmas Eve the peasantry of the Oberland, in Meiningen, a province
+of Central Germany, used to put a great block of wood called the
+_Christklotz_ on the fire before they went to bed; it should burn all
+night, and the charred remains were believed to guard the house for the
+whole year against the risk of fire, burglary, and other misfortunes.(639)
+The Yule log seems to be known only in the French-speaking parts of
+Switzerland, where it goes by the usual French name of _Buche de Noel_. In
+the Jura mountains of the canton of Bern, while the log is burning on the
+hearth the people sing a blessing over it as follows:--
+
+
+    "_May the log burn!_
+    _May all good come in!_
+    _May the women have children_
+    _And the sheep lambs!_
+    _White bread for every one_
+    _And the vat full of wine!_"
+
+
+The embers of the Yule log were kept carefully, for they were believed to
+be a protection against lightning.(640)
+
+(M209) "The Christmas fires, which were formerly lit everywhere in the Low
+Countries, have fallen into disuse. But in Flanders a great log of wood,
+called the _kersavondblok_ and usually cut from the roots of a fir or a
+beech, is still put on the fire; all the lights in the house are
+extinguished, and the whole family gathers round the log to spend part of
+the night in singing, in telling stories, especially about ghosts,
+were-wolves, and so on, and also in drinking gin. At Grammont and in the
+neighbourhood of that town, where the Yule log is called _Kersmismot_, it
+is customary to set fire to the remainder of the gin at the moment when
+the log is reduced to ashes. Elsewhere a piece of the log is kept and put
+under the bed to protect the house against thunder and lightning. The
+charcoal of the log which burned during Christmas Night, if pounded up and
+mixed with water, is a cure for consumption. In the country of Limburg the
+log burns several nights, and the pounded charcoal is kept as a preventive
+(so they say), of toothache."(641)
+
+(M210) In several provinces of France, and particularly in Provence, the
+custom of the Yule log or _trefoir_, as it was called in many places, was
+long observed. A French writer of the seventeenth century tells us that on
+Christmas Eve the log was prepared, and when the whole family had
+assembled in the kitchen or parlour of the house, they went and brought it
+in, walking in procession and singing Provencal verses to the following
+effect:--
+
+
+    "_Let the log rejoice,_
+    _To-morrow is the day of bread;_
+    _Let all good enter here;_
+    _Let the women bear children;_
+    _Let the she-goats bring forth kids;_
+    _Let the ewes drop lambs;_
+    _Let there be much wheat and flour,_
+    _And the vat full of wine._"
+
+
+Then the log was blessed by the smallest and youngest child of the house,
+who poured a glass of wine over it saying, _In nomine patris_, etc.; after
+which the log was set on the fire. The charcoal of the burnt wood was kept
+the whole year, and used as an ingredient in several remedies.(642)
+
+(M211) Amongst the superstitions denounced by the same writer is "the
+belief that a log called the _trefoir_ or Christmas brand, which you put
+on the fire for the first time on Christmas Eve and continue to put on the
+fire for a little while every day till Twelfth Night, can, if kept under
+the bed, protect the house for a whole year from fire and thunder; that it
+can prevent the inmates from having chilblains on their heels in winter;
+that it can cure the cattle of many maladies; that if a piece of it be
+steeped in the water which cows drink it helps them to calve; and lastly
+that if the ashes of the log be strewn on the fields it can save the wheat
+from mildew."(643)
+
+(M212) In Marseilles the Yule log used to be a great block of oak, which
+went by the name of _calendeau_ or _calignau_; it was sprinkled with wine
+and oil, and the head of the house kindled it himself.(644) "The Yule log
+plays a great part at the festival of the winter solstice in Perigord. The
+countryman thinks that it is best made of plum-tree, cherry, or oak, and
+that the larger it is the better. If it burns well, it is a good omen, the
+blessing of heaven rests upon it. The charcoal and ashes, which are
+collected very carefully, are excellent for healing swollen glands; the
+part of the trunk which has not been burnt in the fire is used by
+ploughmen to make the wedge (_tecoin ou cale_) for their plough, because
+they allege that it causes the seeds to thrive better; and the women keep
+pieces of it till Twelfth Night for the sake of their chickens.
+Nevertheless if you sit down on the log, you become subject to boils, and
+to cure yourself of them you must pass nine times under a bramble branch
+which happens to be rooted in the ground at both ends. The charcoal heals
+sheep of a disease called the _goumon_; and the ashes, carefully wrapt up
+in white linen, preserve the whole household from accidents. Some people
+think that they will have as many chickens as there are sparks that fly
+out of the brands of the log when they shake them; and others place the
+extinct brands under the bed to drive away vermin. In Vienne, on Christmas
+Eve, when supper is over, the master of the house has a great log--the
+Christmas brand--brought in, and then, surrounded by all the spectators
+gathered in profound silence, he sprinkles salt and water on the log. It
+is then put on the fire to burn during the three festivals; but they
+carefully preserve a piece to be kindled every time that it
+thunders."(645) In Berry, a district of Central France, the Yule log was
+called the _cosse de Nau_, the last word being an abbreviation of the
+usual French word for Christmas (Noel). It consisted of an enormous
+tree-trunk, so heavy that the united strength of several men was needed to
+carry it in and place it on the hearth, where it served to feed the fire
+during the three days of the Christmas festivity. Strictly speaking, it
+should be the trunk of an old oak-tree which had never been lopped and had
+been felled at midnight. It was placed on the hearth at the moment when
+the tinkle of the bell announced the elevation of the host at the midnight
+mass; and the head of the family, after sprinkling it with holy water, set
+it on fire. The remains of the log were preserved till the same day next
+year. They were kept under the bed of the master of the house; and
+whenever thunder was heard, one of the family would take a piece of the
+log and throw it on the fire, which was believed to guard the family
+against lightning. In the Middle Ages, we are told, several fiefs were
+granted on condition that the vassal should bring in person a Yule log
+every year for the hearth of his liege lord.(646)
+
+(M213) Similar customs and beliefs survived till recent years in some of
+the remote country villages of the picturesque district known as the
+Bocage of Normandy. There it was the grandfather or other oldest man of
+the family who chose the Yule log in good time and had it ready for
+Christmas Eve. Then he placed it on the hearth at the moment when the
+church bell began to ring for the evening service. Kneeling reverently at
+the hearth with the members of his family in a like attitude of devotion,
+the old man recited three _Pater Nosters_ and three _Aves_, and invoked
+the blessing of heaven on the log and on the cottage. Then at the sound of
+the bell which proclaimed the sacrament of the mass, or, if the church was
+too far off to allow the tinkle of the bell to be heard, at the moment
+when they judged that the priest was elevating the host before the high
+altar, the patriarch sprinkled the burning log with holy water, blessed it
+in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and drew
+it out of the fire. The charred log was then carefully kept till the
+following Christmas as a precious relic which would guard the house
+against the levin bolt, evil spirits, sorcerers, and every misfortune that
+might befall in the course of the year.(647) In the department of Orne
+"the Yule-log is called _trefouet_; holy water is poured on it; it should
+last the three days of the festival, and the remains of it are kept to be
+put on the fire when it thunders. This brand is a protection both against
+thunder and against sorcerers."(648) In Upper Brittany, also, the Yule log
+is thought to be a safeguard against thunder and lightning. It is
+sprinkled with holy water on Christmas morning and allowed to burn till
+evening. If a piece of it is thrown into the well, it will ensure a supply
+of good water.(649)
+
+(M214)
+
+"In almost all the families of the Ardennes," we are told, "at the present
+day they never fail to put the Yule log on the fireplace, but formerly it
+was the object of a superstitious worship which is now obsolete. The
+charred remains of it, placed under the pillow or under the house,
+preserved the house from storms, and before it was burned the Virgin used
+to come and sit on it, invisible, swaddling the infant Jesus. At Nouzon,
+twenty years ago, the traditional log was brought into the kitchen on
+Christmas Eve, and the grandmother, with a sprig of box in her hand,
+sprinkled the log with holy water as soon as the clock struck the first
+stroke of midnight. As she did so she chanted,
+
+
+    '_When Christmas comes,_
+    _Every one should rejoice,_
+    _For it is a New Covenant._'
+
+
+Following the grandmother and joining in the song, the children and the
+rest of the family marched thrice round the log, which was as fine a log
+as could be got."(650) We can now, perhaps, understand why in Perigord
+people who sat on the Yule log suffered from boils,(651) and why in
+Lorraine young folks used to be warned that if they sat on it they would
+have the scab.(652) The reason probably was that the Virgin and child were
+supposed to be seated, invisible, upon the log and to resent the indignity
+of contact with mortal children.
+
+(M215) On Christmas Eve the mountaineers of Rupt, in the Vosges, also
+never fail to put on the hearth the largest log which the hearth can hold;
+they call it _la galeuche de Noe_, that is, the Yule log. Next morning
+they rake the ashes for any charred fragments and keep them as valuable
+talismans to guard them against the stroke of lightning. At Vagney and
+other places near it in the Vosges it used to be customary on the same
+evening to grease the hinges and the latches of the doors, that no harsh
+grating sound should break the slumbers of the infant Christ. In the
+Vosges Mountains, too, as indeed in many other places, cattle acquired the
+gift of speech on Christmas Eve and conversed with each other in the
+language of Christians. Their conversation was, indeed, most instructive;
+for the future, it seems, had no secret worth mentioning for them. Yet few
+people cared to be caught eavesdropping at the byre; wise folk contented
+themselves with setting a good store of fodder in the manger, then shut
+the door, and left the animals to their ruminations. A farmer of Vecoux
+once hid in a corner of the byre to overhear the edifying talk of the
+beasts. But it did him little good; for one ox said to another ox, "What
+shall we do to-morrow?" and the other replied, "We shall carry our master
+to the churchyard." Sure enough the farmer died that very night and was
+buried next morning.(653) In Franche-Comte, the province of France to the
+west of the Jura mountains, if the Yule log is really to protect a house
+against thunder and lightning, it is essential that it should burn during
+the midnight mass, and that the flame should not go out before the divine
+service is concluded. Otherwise the log is quite useless for the
+purpose.(654) In Burgundy the log which is placed on the fire on Christmas
+Eve is called the _suche_. While it is burning, the father of the family,
+assisted by his wife and children, sings Christmas carols; and when he has
+finished, he tells the smallest children to go into a corner of the room
+and pray God that the log may give them sweeties. The prayer is invariably
+answered.(655)
+
+(M216) In England the customs and beliefs concerning the Yule log, clog,
+or block, as it was variously called, used to be similar. On the night of
+Christmas Eve, says the antiquary John Brand, "our ancestors were wont to
+light up candles of an uncommon size, called Christmas Candles, and lay a
+log of wood upon the fire, called a Yule-clog or Christmas-block, to
+illuminate the house, and, as it were, to turn night into day. This custom
+is, in some measure, still kept up in the North of England. In the buttery
+of St. John's College, Oxford, an ancient candle-socket of stone still
+remains ornamented with the figure of the Holy Lamb. It was formerly used
+to burn the Christmas Candle in, on the high table at supper, during the
+twelve nights of that festival."(656) "A tall mould candle, called a Yule
+candle, is lighted and set on the table; these candles are presented by
+the chandlers and grocers to their customers. The Yule-log is bought of
+the carpenters' lads. It would be unlucky to light either of them before
+the time, or to stir the fire or candle during the supper; the candle must
+not be snuffed, neither must any one stir from the table till supper is
+ended. In these suppers it is considered unlucky to have an odd number at
+table. A fragment of the log is occasionally saved, and put under a bed,
+to remain till next Christmas: it secures the house from fire; a small
+piece of it thrown into a fire occurring at the house of a neighbour, will
+quell the raging flame. A piece of the candle should likewise be kept to
+ensure good luck."(657) In the seventeenth century, as we learn from some
+verses of Herrick, the English custom was to light the Yule log with a
+fragment of its predecessor, which had been kept throughout the year for
+the purpose; where it was so kept, the fiend could do no mischief.(658)
+Indeed the practice of preserving a piece of the Yule-log of one year to
+light that of the next was observed by at least one family at Cheadle in
+Staffordshire down to the latter part of the nineteenth century.(659)
+
+(M217) In the North of England farm-servants used to lay by a large knotty
+block of wood for the Christmas fire, and so long as the block lasted they
+were entitled by custom to ale at their meals. The log was as large as the
+hearth could hold.(660) At Belford, in Northumberland, "the lord of the
+manor sends round to every house, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the
+Yule Logs--four or five large logs--to be burnt on Christmas Eve and Day.
+This old custom has always, I am told, been kept up here."(661) The custom
+of burning the Yule log at Christmas used to be observed in Wensleydale
+and other parts of Yorkshire, and prudent housewives carefully preserved
+pieces of the log throughout the year. At Whitby the portions so kept were
+stowed away under the bed till next Christmas, when they were burnt with
+the new log; in the interval they were believed to protect the house from
+conflagration, and if one of them were thrown into the fire, it would
+quell a raging storm.(662) The practice and the belief were similar at
+Filey on the coast of Yorkshire, where besides the Yule log a tall Yule
+candle was lit on the same evening.(663) In the West Riding, while the log
+blazed cheerfully, the people quaffed their ale and sang, "Yule! Yule! a
+pack of new cards and a Christmas stool!"(664) At Clee, in Lincolnshire,
+"when Christmas Eve has come the Yule cake is duly cut and the Yule log
+lit, and I know of some even middle-class houses where the new log must
+always rest upon and be lighted by the old one, a small portion of which
+has been carefully stored away to preserve a continuity of light and
+heat."(665) At the village of Wootton Wawen in Warwickshire, down to 1759
+at least, the Yule-block, as it was called, was drawn into the house by a
+horse on Christmas Eve "as a foundation for the fire on Christmas Day, and
+according to the superstition of those times for the twelve days
+following, as the said block was not to be entirely reduc'd to ashes till
+that time had passed by."(666) As late as 1830, or thereabout, the scene
+of lighting the hearth-fire on Christmas Eve, to continue burning
+throughout the Christmas season, might have been witnessed in the secluded
+and beautiful hill-country of West Shropshire, from Chirbury and Worthen
+to Pulverbatch and Pontesbury. The Christmas brand or brund, as they
+called it, was a great trunk of seasoned oak, holly, yew, or crab-tree,
+drawn by horses to the farm-house door and thence rolled by means of
+rollers and levers to the back of the wide open hearth, where the fire was
+made up in front of it. The embers were raked up to it every night, and it
+was carefully tended, that it might not go out during the whole Christmas
+season. All those days no light might be struck, given, or borrowed. Such
+was the custom at Worthen in the early part of the nineteenth
+century.(667) In Herefordshire the Christmas feast "lasted for twelve
+days, and no work was done. All houses were, and are now, decorated with
+sprigs of holly and ivy, which must not be brought in until Christmas Eve.
+A Yule log, as large as the open hearth could accommodate, was brought
+into the kitchen of each farmhouse, and smaller ones were used in the
+cottages. W---- P---- said he had seen a tree drawn into the kitchen at
+Kingstone Grange years ago by two cart horses; when it had been consumed a
+small portion was carefully kept to be used for lighting next year's log.
+'Mother always kept it very carefully; she said it was lucky, and kept the
+house from fire and from lightning.' It seems to have been the general
+practice to light it on Christmas Eve."(668) "In many parts of Wales it is
+still customary to keep part of the Yule-log until the following Christmas
+Eve 'for luck.' It is then put into the fireplace and burnt, but before it
+is consumed the new log is put on, and thus 'the old fire and the new'
+burn together. In some families this is done from force of habit, and they
+cannot now tell why they do it; but in the past the observance of this
+custom was to keep witches away, and doubtless was a survival of
+fire-worship."(669)
+
+(M218) But nowhere, apparently, in Europe is the old heathen ritual of the
+Yule log preserved to the present day more perfectly than in Servia. At
+early dawn on Christmas Eve (_Badnyi Dan_) every peasant house sends two
+of its strongest young men to the nearest forest to cut down a young oak
+tree and bring it home. There, after offering up a short prayer or
+crossing themselves thrice, they throw a handful of wheat on the chosen
+oak and greet it with the words, "Happy _Badnyi_ day to you!" Then they
+cut it down, taking care that it shall fall towards the east at the moment
+when the sun's orb appears over the rim of the eastern horizon. Should the
+tree fall towards the west, it would be the worst possible omen for the
+house and its inmates in the ensuing year; and it is also an evil omen if
+the tree should be caught and stopped in its fall by another tree. It is
+important to keep and carry home the first chip from the fallen oak. The
+trunk is sawn into two or three logs, one of them rather longer than the
+others. A flat, unleavened cake of the purest wheaten flour is brought out
+of the house and broken on the larger of the logs by a woman. The logs are
+left for the present to stand outside, leaning on one of the walls of the
+house. Each of them is called a Yule log (_badnyak_).
+
+(M219) Meanwhile the children and young people go from house to house
+singing special songs called _Colleda_ because of an old pagan divinity
+Colleda, who is invoked in every line. In one of them she is spoken of as
+"a beautiful little maid"; in another she is implored to make the cows
+yield milk abundantly. The day is spent in busy preparations. The women
+bake little cakes of a special sort in the shape of lambs, pigs, and
+chickens; the men make ready a pig for roasting, for in every Servian
+house roast pig is the principal dish at Christmas. A bundle of straw,
+tied with a rope, is brought into the courtyard and left to stand there
+near the Yule logs.
+
+(M220) At the moment when the sun is setting all the members of the family
+assemble in the central hall (the great family kitchen) of the principal
+house. The mother of the family (or the wife of the chief of the
+Zadrooga)(670) gives a pair of woollen gloves to one of the young men, who
+goes out and presently returns carrying in his gloved hands the largest of
+the logs. The mother receives him at the threshold, throwing at him a
+handful of wheat, in which the first chip of the oak tree cut in the early
+morning for the Yule log has been kept all day. Entering the central hall
+with the Yule log the young man greets all present with the words: "Good
+evening, and may you have a happy Christmas!" and they all answer in
+chorus, "May God and the happy and holy Christmas help thee!" In some
+parts of Servia the chief of the family, holding a glass of red wine in
+his hand, greets the Yule log as if it were a living person, and drinks to
+its health. After that, another glass of red wine is poured on the log.
+Then the oldest male member of the family, assisted by the young man who
+brought in the log, places it on the burning fire so that the thicker end
+of the log protrudes for about a foot from the hearth. In some places this
+end is smeared with honey.
+
+(M221) Next the mother of the family brings in the bundle of straw which
+was left standing outside. All the young children arrange themselves
+behind her in a row. She then walks slowly round the hall and the
+adjoining rooms, throwing handfuls of straw on the floor and imitating the
+cackling of a hen, while all the children follow her peeping with their
+lips as if they were chickens cheeping and waddling after the mother bird.
+When the floor is well strewn with straw, the father or the eldest member
+of the family throws a few walnuts in every corner of the hall,
+pronouncing the words: "In the name of God the Father, and the Son, and
+the Holy Ghost, Amen!" A large pot, or a small wooden box, filled with
+wheat is placed high in the east corner of the hall, and a tall candle of
+yellow wax is stuck in the middle of the wheat. Then the father of the
+family reverently lights the candle and prays God to bless the family with
+health and happiness, the fields with a good harvest, the beehives with
+plenty of honey, the cattle and sheep with young, and the cows with
+abundant milk and rich cream. After that they all sit down to supper,
+squatting on the floor, for the use of chairs and tables is forbidden on
+this occasion.
+
+(M222) By four o'clock next morning (Christmas Day) the whole village is
+astir; indeed most people do not sleep at all that night. It is deemed
+most important to keep the Yule log burning brightly all night long. Very
+early, too, the pig is laid on the fire to roast, and at the same moment
+one of the family goes out into the yard and fires a pistol or gun; and
+when the roast pig is removed from the fire the shot is repeated. Hence
+for several hours in the early morning of Christmas Day such a popping and
+banging of firearms goes on that a stranger might think a stubborn
+skirmish was in progress. Just before the sun rises a girl goes and draws
+water at the village spring or at the brook. Before she fills her vessels,
+she wishes the water a happy Christmas and throws a handful of wheat into
+it. The first cupfuls of water she brings home are used to bake a special
+Christmas cake (_chesnitsa_), of which all the members partake at dinner,
+and portions are kept for absent relatives. A small silver coin is baked
+in the cake, and he or she who gets it will be lucky during the year.
+
+(M223) All the family gathered round the blazing Yule log now anxiously
+expect the arrival of the special Christmas visiter, who bears the title
+of _polaznik_. He is usually a young boy of a friendly family. No other
+person, not even the priest or the mayor of the village, would be allowed
+to set foot in the house before the arrival of this important personage.
+Therefore he ought to come, and generally does come, very early in the
+morning. He carries a woollen glove full of wheat, and when the door is
+opened at his knock he throws handfuls of wheat on the family gathered
+round the hearth, greeting them with the words, "Christ is born!" They all
+answer, "He is born indeed," and the hostess flings a handful of wheat
+over the Christmas visiter, who moreover casts some of his wheat into the
+corners of the hall as well as upon the people. Then he walks straight to
+the hearth, takes a shovel and strikes the burning log so that a cloud of
+sparks flies up the chimney, while he says, "May you have this year so
+many oxen, so many horses, so many sheep, so many pigs, so many beehives
+full of honey, so much good luck, prosperity, progress, and happiness!"
+Having uttered these good wishes, he embraces and kisses his host. Then he
+turns again to the hearth, and after crossing himself falls on his knees
+and kisses the projecting part of the Yule log. On rising to his feet he
+places a coin on the log as his gift. Meanwhile a low wooden chair has
+been brought in by a woman, and the visiter is led to it to take his seat.
+But just as he is about to do so, the chair is jerked away from under him
+by a male member of the family and he measures his length on the floor. By
+this fall he is supposed to fix into the ground all the good wishes which
+he has uttered that morning. The hostess thereupon wraps him in a thick
+blanket, and he sits quietly muffled in it for a few minutes; the thick
+blanket in which he is swathed is believed, on the principles of
+homoeopathic magic, to ensure that the cows will give thick cream the next
+year. While he sits thus enriching the milk of the dairy, the lads who are
+to herd the sheep in the coming year go to the hearth and kneeling down
+before it kiss each other across the projecting end of the Yule log. By
+this demonstration of affection they are thought to seal the love of the
+ewes for their lambs.(671)
+
+(M224) The ritual of the Yule log is observed in a similar form by the
+Servians who inhabit the southern provinces of Austria. Thus in Syrmia, a
+district of Slavonia which borders on Servia, the head of the house sends
+out one or two young men on Christmas Eve to cut the Yule log in the
+nearest forest. On being brought in, the log is not mixed with the
+ordinary fuel but placed by itself, generally leaning against a fruit-tree
+till the evening shadows begin to fall. When a man carries it into the
+kitchen and lays it on the fire, the master of the house throws corn over
+him, and the two greet each other solemnly, the one saying, "Christ is
+born," and the other answering, "He is born indeed." Later in the evening
+the master of the house pours a glass of wine on the charred end of the
+log, whereupon one of the younger men takes the burnt piece of wood,
+carries it to the orchard, and sets it up against one of the fruit-trees.
+For this service he is rewarded by the master of the house with a piece of
+money. On Christmas Day, when the family is assembled at table, they
+expect the arrival of the special Christmas visiter (called _polazenik_),
+the only person who is allowed to enter the house that day. When he comes,
+he goes to the hearth, stirs the fire with the poker and says, "Christ is
+born. May the family enjoy all good luck and happiness in this year! May
+the cattle increase in number like the sparks I have struck!" As he says
+these words, the mistress of the house pours corn over him and leads him
+to the parlour, where he takes the place of honour beside the master of
+the house. He is treated with marked attention and respect. The family are
+at pains to entertain him; they sing their best songs for his amusement,
+and after midnight a numerous band of men and maidens escorts him by
+torchlight, with songs and jubilation, to his own house.(672)
+
+(M225) Among the Servians of Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and Montenegro it is
+customary on Christmas Eve (_Badnyi Dan_) to fetch a great Yule log
+(_badnyak_), which serves as a symbol of family luck. It is generally cut
+from an evergreen oak, but sometimes from an olive-tree or a beech. At
+nightfall the master of the house himself brings in the log and lays it on
+the fire. Then he and all present bare their heads, sprinkle the log with
+wine, and make a cross on it. After that the master of the house says,
+"Welcome, O log! May God keep you from mishap!" So saying he strews peas,
+maize, raisins, and wheat on the log, praying for God's blessing on all
+members of the family living and dead, for heaven's blessing on their
+undertakings, and for domestic prosperity. In Montenegro they meet the log
+with a loaf of bread and a jug of wine, drink to it, and pour wine on it,
+whereupon the whole family drinks out of the same beaker. In Dalmatia and
+other places, for example in Rizano, the Yule logs are decked by young
+women with red silk, flowers, laurel leaves, ribbons, and even gold wire;
+and the lights near the doorposts are kindled when the log is brought into
+the house. Among the Morlaks, as soon as the master of the house crosses
+the threshold with the Yule log, one of the family must sprinkle corn on
+him and say, "God bless you," to which he answers, "The same to you." A
+piece of the log is kept till New Year's Day to kindle a light with or it
+is carried out to the fields to protect them from hail. It is customary to
+invite before hand a Christmas visiter (_polazaynik_) and to admit no one
+else into the house on that day. He comes early, carrying in his sleeves a
+quantity of corn which he throws into the house, saying, "Christ is born."
+One of the household replies, "He is born indeed," and throws corn on the
+visiter. Then the newcomer goes up to the hearth, pokes the fire and
+strikes the burning log with the poker so hard that sparks fly off in all
+directions. At each blow he says, "I wish the family as many cows, calves,
+sucking pigs, goats, and sheep, and as many strokes of good luck, as the
+sparks that now fly from the log." With these words he throws some small
+coins into the ashes.(673) In Albania down to recent years it was a common
+custom to burn a Yule log at Christmas, and with it corn, maize, and
+beans; moreover, wine and _rakia_ were poured on the flames, and the ashes
+of the fire were scattered on the fields to make them fertile.(674) The
+Huzuls, a Slavonic people of the Carpathians, kindle fire by the friction
+of wood on Christmas Eve (Old Style, the fifth of January) and keep it
+burning till Twelfth Night.(675)
+
+(M226) It is remarkable how common the belief appears to have been that
+the remains of the Yule-log, if kept throughout the year, had power to
+protect the house against fire and especially against lightning.(676) As
+the Yule log was frequently of oak,(677) it seems possible that this
+belief may be a relic of the old Aryan creed which associated the oak-tree
+with the god of thunder.(678) Whether the curative and fertilizing virtues
+ascribed to the ashes of the Yule log, which are supposed to heal cattle
+as well as men, to enable cows to calve, and to promote the fruitfulness
+of the earth,(679) may not be derived from the same ancient source, is a
+question which deserves to be considered.
+
+(M227) Thus far we have regarded only the private or domestic celebration
+of the fire-festival at midwinter. The public celebration of such rites at
+that season of the year appears to have been rare and exceptional in
+Central and Northern Europe. However, some instances are on record. Thus
+at Schweina, in Thuringia, down to the second half of the nineteenth
+century, the young people used to kindle a great bonfire on the Antonius
+Mountain every year on Christmas Eve. Neither the civil nor the
+ecclesiastical authorities were able to suppress the celebration; nor
+could the cold, rain, and snow of the season damp or chill the enthusiasm
+of the celebrants. For some time before Christmas the young men and boys
+were busy building a foundation for the bonfire on the top of the
+mountain, where the oldest church of the village used to stand. The
+foundation consisted of a pyramidal structure composed of stones, turf,
+and moss. When Christmas Eve came round, a strong pole, with bundles of
+brushwood tied to it, was erected on the pyramid. The young folk also
+provided themselves with poles to which old brooms or faggots of shavings
+were attached. These were to serve as torches. When the evening grew dark
+and the church bells rang to service, the troop of lads ascended the
+mountain; and soon from the top the glare of the bonfire lit up the
+darkness, and the sound of a hymn broke the stillness of night. In a
+circle round the great fire lesser fires were kindled; and last of all the
+lads ran about swinging their lighted torches, till these twinkling points
+of fire, moving down the mountain-side, went out one by one in the
+darkness. At midnight the bells rang out from the church tower, mingled
+with the blast of horns and the sound of singing. Feasting and revelry
+were kept up throughout the night, and in the morning young and old went
+to early mass to be edified by hearing of the light eternal.(680)
+
+(M228) In the Bocage of Normandy the peasants used to repair, often from a
+distance of miles, to the churches to hear the midnight mass on Christmas
+Eve. They marched in procession by torchlight, chanting Christmas carols,
+and the fitful illumination of the woods, the hedges, and the fields as
+they moved through the darkness, presented a succession of picturesque
+scenes. Mention is also made of bonfires kindled on the heights; the
+custom is said to have been observed at Athis near Conde down to recent
+years.(681)
+
+(M229) In the Isle of Man, "on the twenty-first of December, a day
+dedicated to Saint Thomas, the people went to the mountains to catch deer
+and sheep for Christmas, and in the evenings always kindled a large fire
+on the top of every _fingan_ or cliff. Hence, at the time of casting
+peats, every one laid aside a large one, saying, '_Faaid mooar moayney son
+oie'l fingan_'; that is, 'a large turf for Fingan Eve.' "(682) At
+Burghead, an ancient village on the southern shore of the Moray Firth,
+about nine miles from the town of Elgin, a festival of fire called "the
+Burning of the Clavie" has been celebrated from time immemorial on
+Hogmanay, the last day of December. A tar-barrel is sawn in two, one half
+of it is set on the top of a stout pole, and filled with tar and other
+combustibles. The half-barrel is fastened to the pole by means of a long
+nail, which is made for the purpose and furnished gratuitously by the
+village blacksmith. The nail must be knocked in with a stone; the use of a
+hammer is forbidden. When the shades of evening have begun to fall, the
+Clavie, as it is called, is set on fire by means of a burning peat, which
+is always fetched from the same house; it may not be kindled with a match.
+As soon as it is in a blaze, it is shouldered by a man, who proceeds to
+carry it at a run, flaring and dripping melted tar, round the old
+boundaries of the village; the modern part of the town is not included in
+the circuit. Close at his heels follows a motley crowd, cheering and
+shouting. One bearer relieves another as each wearies of his burden. The
+first to shoulder the Clavie, which is esteemed an honour, is usually a
+man who has been lately married. Should the bearer stumble or fall, it is
+deemed a very ill omen for him and for the village. In bygone times it was
+thought necessary that one man should carry it all round the village;
+hence the strongest man was chosen for the purpose. Moreover it was
+customary to carry the burning Clavie round every fishing-boat and vessel
+in the harbour; but this part of the ceremony was afterwards discontinued.
+Finally, the blazing tar-barrel is borne to a small hill called the
+Doorie, which rises near the northern end of the promontory. Here the pole
+is fixed into a socket in a pillar of freestone, and fresh fuel is heaped
+upon the flames, which flare up higher and brighter than ever. Formerly
+the Clavie was allowed to burn here the whole night, but now, after
+blazing for about half an hour, it is lifted from the socket and thrown
+down the western slope of the hill. Then the crowd rushes upon it,
+demolishes it, and scrambles for the burning, smoking embers, which they
+carry home and carefully preserve as charms to protect them against
+witchcraft and misfortune.(683) The great antiquity of Burghead, where
+this curious and no doubt ancient festival is still annually observed,
+appears from the remains of a very remarkable rampart which formerly
+encircled the place. It consists of a mound of earth faced on both sides
+with a solid wall of stone and strengthened internally by oak beams and
+planks, the whole being laid on a foundation of boulders. The style of the
+rampart agrees in general with Caesar's description of the mode in which
+the Gauls constructed their walls of earth, stone, and logs,(684) and it
+resembles the ruins of Gallic fortifications which have been discovered in
+France, though it is said to surpass them in the strength and solidity of
+its structure. No similar walls appear to be known in Britain. A great
+part of this interesting prehistoric fortress was barbarously destroyed in
+the early part of the nineteenth century, much of it being tumbled into
+the sea and many of the stones used to build the harbour piers.(685)
+
+(M230) In Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands, "on Christmas Eve,
+the fourth of January,--for the old style is still observed--the children go
+_a guizing_, that is to say, they disguising themselves in the most
+fantastic and gaudy costumes, parade the streets, and infest the houses
+and shops, begging for the wherewithal to carry on their Christmas
+amusements. One o'clock on Yule morning having struck, the young men turn
+out in large numbers, dressed in the coarsest of garments, and, at the
+double-quick march, drag huge tar barrels through the town, shouting and
+cheering as they go, or blowing loud blasts with their 'louder horns.' The
+tar barrel simply consists of several--say from four to eight--tubs filled
+with tar and chips, placed on a platform of wood. It is dragged by means
+of a chain, to which scores of jubilant youths readily yoke themselves.
+They have recently been described by the worthy burgh officer of Lerwick
+as 'fiery chariots, the effect of which is truly grand and terrific.' In a
+Christmas morning the dark streets of Lerwick are generally lighted up by
+the bright glare, and its atmosphere blackened by the dense smoke of six
+or eight tar barrels in succession. On the appearance of daybreak, at six
+A.M., the morning revellers put off their coarse garments--well begrimed by
+this time--and in their turn become guizards. They assume every imaginable
+form of costume--those of soldiers, sailors, highlanders, Spanish
+chevaliers, etc. Thus disguised, they either go in pairs, as man and wife,
+or in larger groups, and proceed to call on their friends, to wish them
+the compliments of the season. Formerly, these adolescent guizards used to
+seat themselves in crates, and accompanied by fiddlers, were dragged
+through the town."(686)
+
+(M231) The Persians used to celebrate a festival of fire called _Sada_ or
+_Saza_ at the winter solstice. On the longest night of the year they
+kindled bonfires everywhere, and kings and princes tied dry grass to the
+feet of birds and animals, set fire to the grass, and then let the birds
+and beasts fly or run blazing through the air or over the fields and
+mountains, so that the whole air and earth appeared to be on fire.(687)
+
+
+
+
+§ 8. The Need-fire.
+
+
+(M232) The fire-festivals hitherto described are all celebrated
+periodically at certain stated times of the year. But besides these
+regularly recurring celebrations the peasants in many parts of Europe have
+been wont from time immemorial to resort to a ritual of fire at irregular
+intervals in seasons of distress and calamity, above all when their cattle
+were attacked by epidemic disease. No account of the popular European
+fire-festivals would be complete without some notice of these remarkable
+rites, which have all the greater claim on our attention because they may
+perhaps be regarded as the source and origin of all the other
+fire-festivals; certainly they must date from a very remote antiquity. The
+general name by which they are known among the Teutonic peoples is
+need-fire.(688)
+
+(M233) The history of the need-fire can be traced back to the early Middle
+Ages; for in the reign of Pippin, King of the Franks, the practice of
+kindling need-fires was denounced as a heathen superstition by a synod of
+prelates and nobles held under the presidency of Boniface, Archbishop of
+Mainz.(689) Not long afterwards the custom was again forbidden, along with
+many more relics of expiring paganism, in an "Index of Superstitions and
+Heathenish Observances," which has been usually referred to the year 743
+A.D., though some scholars assign it a later date under the reign of
+Charlemagne.(690) In Germany the need-fires would seem to have been
+popular down to the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus in the
+year 1598, when a fatal cattle-plague was raging at Neustadt, near
+Marburg, a wise man of the name of Joh. Koehler induced the authorities of
+the town to adopt the following remedy. A new waggon-wheel was taken and
+twirled round an axle, which had never been used before, until the
+friction elicited fire. With this fire a bonfire was next kindled between
+the gates of the town, and all the cattle were driven through the smoke
+and flames. Moreover, every householder had to rekindle the fire on his
+hearth by means of a light taken from the bonfire. Strange to say, this
+salutary measure had no effect whatever in staying the cattle-plague, and
+seven years later the sapient Joh. Koehler himself was burnt as a witch.
+The farmers, whose pigs and cows had derived no benefit from the
+need-fire, perhaps assisted as spectators at the burning, and, while they
+shook their heads, agreed among themselves that it served Joh. Koehler
+perfectly right.(691) According to a writer who published his book about
+nine years afterwards, some of the Germans, especially in the Wassgaw
+mountains, confidently believed that a cattle-plague could be stayed by
+driving the animals through a need-fire which had been kindled by the
+violent friction of a pole on a quantity of dry oak wood; but it was a
+necessary condition of success that all fires in the village should
+previously be extinguished with water, and any householder who failed to
+put out his fire was heavily fined.(692)
+
+(M234) The method of kindling the need-fire is described as follows by a
+writer towards the end of the seventeenth century: "When an evil plague
+has broken out among the cattle, large and small, and the herds have
+thereby suffered great ravages, the peasants resolve to light a need-fire.
+On a day appointed there must be no single flame in any house nor on any
+hearth. From every house a quantity of straw and water and underwood must
+be brought forth; then a strong oaken pole is fixed firmly in the earth, a
+hole is bored in it, and a wooden winch, well smeared with pitch and tar,
+is inserted in the hole and turned round forcibly till great heat and then
+fire is generated. The fire so produced is caught in fuel and fed with
+straw, heath, and underwood till it bursts out into a regular need-fire,
+which must then be somewhat spread out between walls or fences, and the
+cattle and horses driven through it twice or thrice with sticks and whips.
+Others set up two posts, each with a hole in it, and insert a winch, along
+with old greasy rags, in the holes. Others use a thick rope, collect nine
+kinds of wood, and keep them in violent motion till fire leaps forth.
+Perhaps there may be other ways of generating or kindling this fire, but
+they are all directed simply at the cure of the cattle. After passing
+twice or thrice through the fire the cattle are driven to their stalls or
+to pasture, and the heap of wood that had been collected is destroyed, but
+in some places every householder must take with him a brand, extinguish it
+in a washing-tub or trough, and put it in the manger where the cattle are
+fed, where it must lie for some time. The poles that were used to make the
+need-fire, together with the wood that was employed as a winch, are
+sometimes burned with the rest of the fuel, sometimes carefully preserved
+after the cattle have been thrice driven through the flames."(693)
+
+(M235) Sometimes the need-fire was known as the "wild fire," to
+distinguish it no doubt from the tame fire produced by more ordinary
+methods. The following is Grimm's account of the mode of kindling it which
+prevailed in some parts of Central Germany, particularly about Hildesheim,
+down apparently to the first half of the nineteenth century: "In many
+places of Lower Saxony, especially among the mountains, the custom
+prevails of preparing the so-called 'wild fire' for the purpose of
+preventing cattle-plague; and through it first the pigs, then the cows,
+and last of all the geese are driven. The proceedings on the occasion are
+as follows. The principal farmers and parishioners assemble, and notice is
+served to every inhabitant to extinguish entirely all fire in his house,
+so that not even a spark remains alight in the whole village. Then young
+and old repair to a road in a hollow, usually towards evening, the women
+carrying linen, and the men wood and tow. Two oaken poles are driven into
+the ground about a foot and a half from each other. Each pole has in the
+side facing the other a socket into which a cross-piece as thick as a
+man's arm is fitted. The sockets are stuffed with linen, and the
+cross-piece is rammed in as tight as possible, while the poles are bound
+together at the top by ropes. A rope is wound about the round, smooth
+cross-piece, and the free ends of the rope at both sides are gripped by
+several persons, who pull the cross-piece to and fro with the utmost
+rapidity, till through the friction the linen in the sockets takes fire.
+The sparks of the linen are immediately caught in tow or oakum and waved
+about in a circle until they burst into a bright glow, when straw is
+applied to it, and the flaming straw used to kindle the brushwood which
+has been stacked in piles in the hollow way. When this wood has blazed up
+and the fire has nearly died out again, the people hasten to the herds,
+which have been waiting in the background, and drive them forcibly, one
+after the other, through the glow. As soon as all the beasts are through,
+the young folk rush wildly at the ashes and cinders, sprinkling and
+blackening each other with them; those who have been most sprinkled and
+blackened march in triumph behind the cattle into the village and do not
+wash themselves for a long time. If after long rubbing the linen should
+not catch fire, they guess that there is still fire somewhere in the
+village; then a strict search is made from house to house, any fire that
+may be found is put out, and the householder is punished or upbraided. The
+'wild fire' must be made by prolonged friction; it may not be struck with
+flint and steel. Some villages do not prepare it yearly as a preventive of
+cattle-plague, but only kindle it when the disease has actually broken
+out."(694) In the Halberstadt district the ends of the rope which was used
+to make the cross-piece revolve in the sockets had to be pulled by two
+chaste young men.(695)
+
+(M236) In the Mark down to the first half of the nineteenth century the
+practice was similar. We read that "in many parts of the Mark there still
+prevails on certain occasions the custom of kindling a need-fire, it
+happens particularly when a farmer has sick pigs. Two posts of dry wood
+are planted in the earth amid solemn silence before the sun rises, and
+round these posts hempen ropes are pulled to and fro till the wood
+kindles; whereupon the fire is fed with dry leaves and twigs and the sick
+beasts are driven through it. In some places the fire is produced by the
+friction of an old cart-wheel."(696)
+
+(M237) In Mecklenburg the need-fire used to be lighted by the friction of
+a rope wound about an oaken pole or by rubbing two boards against each
+other. Having been thus elicited, the flame was fed with wood of seven
+kinds. The practice was forbidden by Gustavus Adolphus, Duke of
+Mecklenburg, in 1682; but the prohibition apparently had little effect,
+for down to the end of the eighteenth century the custom was so common
+that the inhabitants even of large towns made no scruple of resorting to
+it. For example, in the month of July 1792 sickness broke out among the
+cattle belonging to the town of Sternberg; some of the beasts died
+suddenly, and so the people resolved to drive all the survivors through a
+need-fire. On the tenth day of July the magistrates issued a proclamation
+announcing that next morning before sunrise a need-fire would be kindled
+for the behoof of all the cattle of the town, and warning all the
+inhabitants against lighting fires in their kitchens that evening. So next
+morning very early, about two o'clock, nearly the whole population was
+astir, and having assembled outside one of the gates of the town they
+helped to drive the timid cattle, not without much ado, through three
+separate need-fires; after which they dispersed to their homes in the
+unalterable conviction that they had rescued the cattle from destruction.
+But to make assurance doubly sure they deemed it advisable to administer
+the rest of the ashes as a bolus to the animals. However, some people in
+Mecklenburg used to strew the ashes of the need-fire on fields for the
+purpose of protecting the crops against vermin. As late as June 1868 a
+traveller in Mecklenburg saw a couple of peasants sweating away at a rope,
+which they were pulling backwards and forwards so as to make a tarry
+roller revolve with great speed in the socket of an upright post. Asked
+what they were about, they vouchsafed no reply; but an old woman who
+appeared on the scene from a neighbouring cottage was more communicative.
+In the fulness of her heart she confided to the stranger that her pigs
+were sick, that the two taciturn bumpkins were her sons, who were busy
+extracting a need-fire from the roller, and that, when they succeeded, the
+flame would be used to ignite a heap of rags and brushwood, through which
+the ailing swine would be driven. She further explained that the persons
+who kindle a need-fire should always be two brothers or at least bear the
+same Christian name.(697)
+
+(M238) In the summer of 1828 there was much sickness among the pigs and
+the cows of Eddesse, a village near Meinersen, in the south of Hanover.
+When all ordinary measures to arrest the malady failed, the farmers met in
+solemn conclave on the village green and determined that next morning
+there should be a need-fire. Thereupon the head man of the village sent
+word from house to house that on the following day nobody should kindle a
+fire before sunrise, and that everybody should stand by ready to drive out
+the cattle. The same afternoon all the necessary preparations were made
+for giving effect to the decision of the collective wisdom. A narrow
+street was enclosed with planks, and the village carpenter set to work at
+the machinery for kindling the fire. He took two posts of oak wood, bored
+a hole about three inches deep and broad in each, and set the two poles up
+facing each other at a distance of about two feet. Then he fitted a roller
+of oak wood into the two holes of the posts, so that it formed a
+cross-piece between them. About two o'clock next morning every householder
+brought a bundle of straw and brushwood and laid it down across the street
+in a prescribed order. The sturdiest swains who could be found were chosen
+to make the need-fire. For this purpose a long hempen rope was wound twice
+round the oaken roller in the oaken posts: the pivots were well smeared
+with pitch and tar: a bundle of tow and other tinder was laid close at
+hand, and all was ready. The stalwart clodhoppers now seized the two ends
+of the rope and went to work with a will. Puffs of smoke soon issued from
+the sockets, but to the consternation of the bystanders not a spark of
+fire could be elicited. Some people openly declared their suspicion that
+some rascal had not put out the fire in his house, when suddenly the
+tinder burst into flame. The cloud passed away from all faces; the fire
+was applied to the heaps of fuel, and when the flames had somewhat died
+down, the herds were forcibly driven through the fire, first the pigs,
+next the cows, and last of all the horses. The herdsmen then drove the
+beasts to pasture, and persons whose faith in the efficacy of the
+need-fire was particularly robust carried home brands.(698)
+
+(M239) Again, at a village near Quedlinburg, in the Harz Mountains, it was
+resolved to put a herd of sick swine through the need-fire. Hearing of
+this intention the Superintendent of Quedlinburg hurried to the spot and
+has described for us what he saw. The beadles went from house to house to
+see that there was no fire in any house; for it is well known that should
+there be common fire burning in a house the need-fire will not kindle. The
+men made their rounds very early in the morning to make quite sure that
+all lights were out. At two o'clock a night-light was still burning in the
+parsonage, and this was of course a hindrance to the need-fire. The
+peasants knocked at the window and earnestly entreated that the
+night-light might be extinguished. But the parson's wife refused to put
+the light out; it still glimmered at the window; and in the darkness
+outside the angry rustics vowed that the parson's pigs should get no
+benefit of the need-fire. However, as good luck would have it, just as the
+morning broke, the night-light went out of itself, and the hopes of the
+people revived. From every house bundles of straw, tow, faggots and so
+forth were now carried to feed the bonfire. The noise and the cheerful
+bustle were such that you might have thought they were all hurrying to
+witness a public execution. Outside the village, between two garden walls,
+an oaken post had been driven into the ground and a hole bored through it.
+In the hole a wooden winch, smeared with tar, was inserted and made to
+revolve with such force and rapidity that fire and smoke in time issued
+from the socket. The collected fuel was then thrown upon the fire and soon
+a great blaze shot up. The pigs were now driven into the upper end of the
+street. As soon as they saw the fire, they turned tail, but the peasants
+drove them through with shrieks and shouts and lashes of whips. At the
+other end of the street there was another crowd waiting, who chased the
+swine back through the fire a second time. Then the other crowd repeated
+the manoeuvre, and the herd of swine was driven for the third time through
+the smoke and flames. That was the end of the performance. Many pigs were
+scorched so severely that they gave up the ghost. The bonfire was broken
+up, and every householder took home with him a brand, which he washed in
+the water-barrel and laid for some time, as a treasure of great price, in
+the manger from which the cattle were fed. But the parson's wife had
+reason bitterly to repent her folly in refusing to put out that
+night-light; for not one of her pigs was driven through the need-fire, so
+they died.(699)
+
+(M240) In Brunswick, also, the need-fire is known to have been repeatedly
+kindled during the nineteenth century. After driving the pigs through the
+fire, which was kindled by the friction of wood, some people took brands
+home, dipped them in water, and then gave the water to the pigs to drink,
+no doubt for the purpose of inoculating them still more effectually with
+the precious virtue of the need-fire. In the villages of the Droemling
+district everybody who bore a hand in kindling the "wild fire" must have
+the same Christian name; otherwise they laboured in vain. The fire was
+produced by the friction of a rope round the beams of a door; and bread,
+corn, and old boots contributed their mites to swell the blaze through
+which the pigs as usual were driven. In one place, apparently not far from
+Wolfenbuettel, the need-fire is said to have been kindled, contrary to
+custom, by the smith striking a spark from the cold anvil.(700) At
+Gandersheim down to about the beginning of the nineteenth century the
+need-fire was lit in the common way by causing a cross-bar to revolve
+rapidly on its axis between two upright posts. The rope which produced the
+revolution of the bar had to be new, but it was if possible woven from
+threads taken from a gallows-rope, with which people had been hanged.
+While the need-fire was being kindled in this fashion, every other fire in
+the town had to be put out; search was made through the houses, and any
+fire discovered to be burning was extinguished. If in spite of every
+precaution no flame could be elicited by the friction of the rope, the
+failure was set down to witchcraft; but if the efforts were successful, a
+bonfire was lit with the new fire, and when the flames had died down, the
+sick swine were driven thrice through the glowing embers.(701) On the
+lower Rhine the need-fire is said to have been kindled by the friction of
+oak-wood on fir-wood, all fires in the village having been previously
+extinguished. The bonfires so kindled were composed of wood of nine
+different sorts; there were three such bonfires, and the cattle were
+driven round them with great gravity and devotion.(702)
+
+(M241) In Silesia, also, need-fires were often employed for the purpose of
+curing a murrain or preventing its spread. While all other lights within
+the boundaries were extinguished, the new fire was produced by the
+friction of nine kinds of wood, and the flame so obtained was used to
+kindle heaps of brushwood or straw to which every inhabitant had
+contributed. Through these fires the cattle, both sick and sound, were
+driven in the confident expectation that thereby the sick would be healed
+and the sound saved from sickness.(703) When plague breaks out among the
+herds at Dobischwald, in Austrian Silesia, a splinter of wood is chipped
+from the threshold of every house, the cattle are driven to a cross-road,
+and there a tree, growing at the boundary, is felled by a pair of twin
+brothers. The wood of the tree and the splinters from the thresholds
+furnish the fuel of a bonfire, which is kindled by the rubbing of two
+pieces of wood together. When the bonfire is ablaze, the horns of the
+cattle are pared and the parings thrown into the flames, after which the
+animals are driven through the fire. This is believed to guard the herd
+against the plague.(704) The Germans of Western Bohemia resort to similar
+measures for staying a murrain. You set up a post, bore a hole in it, and
+insert in the hole a stick, which you have first of all smeared with pitch
+and wrapt in inflammable stuffs. Then you wind a rope round the stick and
+give the two ends of the rope to two persons who must either be brothers
+or have the same baptismal name. They haul the rope backwards and forwards
+so as to make the tarred stick revolve rapidly till the rope first smokes
+and then emits sparks. The sparks are used to kindle a bonfire, through
+which the cattle are driven in the usual way. And as usual no other fire
+may burn in the village while the need-fire is being kindled; for
+otherwise the rope could not possibly be ignited.(705) In Upper Austria
+sick pigs are reported to have been driven through a need-fire about the
+beginning of the nineteenth century.(706)
+
+(M242) The need-fire is still in use in some parts of Switzerland, but it
+seems to have degenerated into a children's game and to be employed rather
+for the dispersal of a mist than for the prevention or cure of
+cattle-plague. In some cantons it goes by the name of "mist-healing,"
+while in others it is called "butter-churning." On a misty or rainy day a
+number of children will shut themselves up in a stable or byre and proceed
+to make fire for the purpose of improving the weather. The way in which
+they make it is this. A boy places a board against his breast, takes a peg
+pointed at both ends, and, setting one end of the peg against the board on
+his breast, presses the other end firmly against a second board, the
+surface of which has been flaked into a nap. A string is tied round the
+peg, and two other boys pull it to and fro, till through the rapid motion
+of the point of the peg a hole is burnt in the flaked board, to which tow
+or dry moss is then applied as a tinder. In this way fire and smoke are
+elicited, and with their appearance the children fancy that the mist will
+vanish.(707) We may conjecture that this method of dispersing a mist,
+which is now left to children, was formerly practised in all seriousness
+by grown men in Switzerland. It is thus that religious or magical rites
+dwindle away into the sports of children. In the canton of the Grisons
+there is still in common use an imprecation, "Mist, go away, or I'll heal
+you," which points to an old custom of burning up the fog with fire. A
+longer form of the curse lingers in the Vallee des Bagnes of the canton
+Valais. It runs thus: "Mist, mist, fly, fly, or St. Martin will come with
+a sheaf of straw to burn your guts, a great log of wood to smash your
+brow, and an iron chain to drag you to hell."(708)
+
+(M243) In Sweden the need-fire is called, from the mode of its production,
+either _vrid-eld_, "turned fire," or _gnid-eld_, "rubbed fire." Down to
+near the end of the eighteenth century the need-fire was kindled, as in
+Germany, by the violent rubbing of two pieces of wood against each other;
+sometimes nine different kinds of wood were used for the purpose. The
+smoke of the fire was deemed salutary; fruit-trees and nets were fumigated
+with it, in order that the trees might bear fruit and the nets catch fish.
+Cattle were also driven through the smoke.(709) In Sundal, a narrow
+Norwegian valley, shut in on both sides by precipitous mountains, there
+lived down to the second half of the nineteenth century an old man who was
+very superstitious. He set salmon-traps in the river Driva, which
+traverses the valley, and he caught many fish both in spring and autumn.
+When his fishing went wrong, he kindled _naueld_ ("need-fire") or
+_gnideild_ ("rubbed fire," "friction fire") to counteract the witchcraft,
+which he believed to be the cause of his bad luck. He set up two planks
+near each other, bored a hole in each, inserted a pointed rod in the
+holes, and twisted a long cord round the rod. Then he pulled the cord so
+as to make the rod revolve rapidly. Thus by reason of the friction he at
+last drew fire from the wood. That contented him, for "he believed that
+the witchery was thus rendered powerless, and that good luck in his
+fishing was now ensured."(710)
+
+(M244) Slavonic peoples hold the need-fire in high esteem. They call it
+"living fire," and attribute to it a healing virtue. The ascription of
+medicinal power to fire kindled by the friction of wood is said to be
+especially characteristic of the Slavs who inhabit the Carpathian
+Mountains and the Balkan peninsula. The mode in which they produce the
+need-fire differs somewhat in different places. Thus in the Schar
+mountains of Servia the task is entrusted to a boy and girl between eleven
+and fourteen years of age. They are led into a perfectly dark room, and
+having stripped themselves naked kindle the fire by rubbing two rollers of
+lime wood against each other, till the friction produces sparks, which are
+caught in tinder. The Serbs of Western Macedonia drive two oaken posts
+into the ground, bore a round hole in the upper end of each, insert a
+roller of lime wood in the holes, and set it revolving rapidly by means of
+a cord, which is looped round the roller and worked by a bow. Elsewhere
+the roller is put in motion by two men, who hold each one end of the cord
+and pull it backwards and forwards forcibly between them. Bulgarian
+shepherds sometimes kindle the need-fire by drawing a prism-shaped piece
+of lime wood to and fro across the flat surface of a tree-stump in the
+forest.(711) But in the neighbourhood of Kuestendil, in Bulgaria, the
+need-fire is kindled by the friction of two pieces of oak wood and the
+cattle are driven through it.(712)
+
+(M245) In many districts of Russia, also, "living fire" is made by the
+friction of wood on St. John's Day, and the herds are driven through it,
+and the people leap over it in the conviction that their health is thereby
+assured; when a cattle-plague is raging, the fire is produced by rubbing
+two pieces of oak wood against each other, and it is used to kindle the
+lamps before the holy pictures and the censers in the churches.(713) Thus
+it appears that in Russia the need-fire is kindled for the sake of the
+cattle periodically as well as on special emergencies. Similarly in Poland
+the peasants are said to kindle fires in the village streets on St.
+Rochus's day and to drive the cattle thrice through them in order to
+protect the animals against the murrain. The fire is produced by rubbing a
+pole of poplar wood on a plank of poplar or fir wood and catching the
+sparks in tow. The embers are carried home to be used as remedies in
+sickness.(714) As practised in Slavonia, the custom of the need-fire used
+to present some interesting features, which are best described in the
+words of an eye-witness:--"In the year 1833 I came for the first time as a
+young merchant to Slavonia; it was to Gaj that I went, in the Pozega
+district. The time was autumn, and it chanced that a cattle-plague was
+raging in the neighbourhood, which inflicted much loss on the people. The
+peasants believed that the plague was a woman, an evil spirit (_Kuga_),
+who was destroying the cattle; so they sought to banish her. I had then
+occasion to observe the proceedings in the villages of Gaj, Kukunjevac,
+Brezina, and Brekinjska. Towards evening the whole population of the
+village was busy laying a ring of brushwood round the boundaries of the
+village. All fires were extinguished throughout the village. Then pairs of
+men in several places took pieces of wood, which had been specially
+prepared for the purpose, and rubbed them together till they emitted
+sparks. The sparks were allowed to fall on tinder and fanned into a flame,
+with which the dry brushwood was kindled. Thus the fire burned all round
+the village. The peasants persuaded themselves that thereupon _Kuga_ must
+take her departure."(715)
+
+(M246) This last account leaves no doubt as to the significance of the
+need-fire in the minds of Slavonian peasantry. They regard it simply as a
+barrier interposed between their cattle and the evil spirit, which prowls,
+like a hungry wolf, round the fold and can, like a wolf, be kept at bay by
+fire. The same interpretation of the need-fire comes out, hardly less
+clearly, in the account which another writer gives of a ceremony witnessed
+by him at the village of Setonje, at the foot of the Homolje mountains in
+the great forest of Servia. An epidemic was raging among the children, and
+the need-fire was resorted to as a means of staying the plague. It was
+produced by an old man and an old woman in the first of the ways described
+above; that is, they made it in the dark by rubbing two sticks of lime
+wood against each other. Before the healing virtue of the fire was applied
+to the inhabitants of the village, two old women performed the following
+ceremony. Both bore the name of Stana, from the verb _stati_, "to remain
+standing"; for the ceremony could not be successfully performed by persons
+of any other name. One of them carried a copper kettle full of water, the
+other an old house-lock with the key. Thus equipped they repaired to a
+spot outside of the village, and there the old dame with the kettle asked
+the old dame with the lock, "Whither away?" and the other answered her, "I
+came to shut the village against ill-luck." With that she locked the lock
+and threw it with the key into the kettle of water. Then they marched
+thrice round the village, repeating the ceremony of the lock and key at
+each round. Meantime all the villagers, arrayed in their best clothes,
+were assembled in an open place. All the fires in the houses had been
+previously extinguished. Two sturdy yokels now dug a tunnel through a
+mound beside an oak tree; the tunnel was just high enough to let a man
+creep through it on all fours. Two fires, lit by the need-fire, were now
+laid, one at each end of the tunnel; and the old woman with the kettle
+took her stand at the entrance of the tunnel, while the one with the lock
+posted herself at the exit. Facing the latter stood another woman with a
+great pot of milk before her, and on the other side was set a pot full of
+melted swine's fat. All was now ready. The villagers thereupon crawled
+through the tunnel on hands and knees, one behind the other. Each, as he
+emerged from the tunnel, received a spoonful of milk from the woman and
+looked at his face reflected in the pot of melted swine's fat. Then
+another woman made a cross with a piece of charcoal on his back. When all
+the inhabitants had thus crept through the tunnel and been doctored at the
+other end, each took some glowing embers home with him in a pot wherewith
+to rekindle the fire on the domestic hearth. Lastly they put some of the
+charcoal in a vessel of water and drank the mixture in order to be thereby
+magically protected against the epidemic.(716)
+
+It would be superfluous to point out in detail how admirably these
+measures are calculated to arrest the ravages of disease; but for the sake
+of those, if there are any, to whom the medicinal effect of crawling
+through a hole on hands and knees is not at once apparent, I shall merely
+say that the procedure in question is one of the most powerful specifics
+which the wit of man has devised for maladies of all sorts. Ample evidence
+of its application will be adduced in a later part of this work.(717)
+
+(M247) In Bulgaria the herds suffer much from the raids of certain
+blood-sucking vampyres called _Ustrels_. An _Ustrel_ is the spirit of a
+Christian child who was born on a Saturday and died unfortunately before
+he could be baptized. On the ninth day after burial he grubs his way out
+of the grave and attacks the cattle at once, sucking their blood all night
+and returning at peep of dawn to the grave to rest from his labours. In
+ten days or so the copious draughts of blood which he has swallowed have
+so fortified his constitution that he can undertake longer journeys; so
+when he falls in with great herds of cattle or flocks of sheep he returns
+no more to the grave for rest and refreshment at night, but takes up his
+quarters during the day either between the horns of a sturdy calf or ram
+or between the hind legs of a milch-cow. Beasts whose blood he has sucked
+die the same night. In any herd that he may fasten on he begins with the
+fattest animal and works his way down steadily through the leaner kine
+till not one single beast is left alive. The carcases of the victims swell
+up, and when the hide is stripped off you can always perceive the livid
+patch of flesh where the monster sucked the blood of the poor creature. In
+a single night he may, by working hard, kill five cows; but he seldom
+exceeds that number. He can change his shape and weight very easily; for
+example, when he is sitting by day between the horns of a ram, the animal
+scarcely feels his weight, but at night he will sometimes throw himself on
+an ox or a cow so heavily that the animal cannot stir, and lows so
+pitifully that it would make your heart bleed to hear. People who were
+born on a Saturday can see these monsters, and they have described them
+accurately, so that there can be no doubt whatever about their existence.
+It is, therefore, a matter of great importance to the peasant to protect
+his flocks and herds against the ravages of such dangerous vampyres. The
+way in which he does so is this. On a Saturday morning before sunrise the
+village drummer gives the signal to put out every fire in the village;
+even smoking is forbidden. Next all the domestic animals, with the
+exception of fowls, geese, and ducks, are driven out into the open. In
+front of the flocks and herds march two men, whose names during the
+ceremony may not be mentioned in the village. They go into the wood, pick
+two dry branches, and having stript themselves of their clothes they rub
+the two branches together very hard till they catch fire; then with the
+fire so obtained they kindle two bonfires, one on each side of a
+cross-road which is known to be frequented by wolves. After that the herd
+is driven between the two fires. Coals from the bonfires are then taken
+back to the village and used to rekindle the fires on the domestic
+hearths. For several days no one may go near the charred and blackened
+remains of the bonfires at the cross-road. The reason is that the vampyre
+is lying there, having dropped from his seat between the cow's horns when
+the animals were driven between the two fires. So if any one were to pass
+by the spot during these days, the monster would be sure to call him by
+name and to follow him to the village; whereas if he is left alone, a wolf
+will come at midnight and strangle him, and in a few days the herdsmen can
+see the ground soaked with his slimy blood. So that is the end of the
+vampyre.(718) In this Bulgarian custom, as in the Slavonian custom
+described above, the conception of the need-fire as a barrier set up
+between the cattle and a dangerous spirit is clearly worked out. The
+spirit rides the cow till he comes to the narrow pass between the two
+fires, but the heat there is too much for him; he drops in a faint from
+the saddle, or rather from the horns, and the now riderless animal escapes
+safe and sound beyond the smoke and flame, leaving her persecutor
+prostrate on the ground on the further side of the blessed barrier.
+
+(M248) In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are some local differences in the
+mode of kindling the need-fire, or "living fire," as it is called. Thus at
+Jablanica both the uprights and the roller or cross-piece, which by its
+revolution kindles the fire, are made of cornel-tree wood; whereas at
+Dolac, near Sarajevo, the uprights and the cross-piece or roller are all
+made of lime wood. In Gacko, contrary to the usual custom, the fire is
+made by striking a piece of iron on an anvil, till sparks are given out,
+which are caught in tinder. The "living fire" thus produced is employed
+for purposes of healing. In particular, if any one suffers from wounds or
+sores, ashes of the need-fire are sprinkled on the ailing part. In Gacko
+it is also believed that if a pregnant woman witnesses a conflagration,
+her child will either be born with a red eruption on its skin or will
+contract the malady sooner or later afterwards. The only remedy consists
+in ashes of the need-fire, which are mixed with water and given to the
+child to drink.(719)
+
+(M249) In England the earliest notice of the need-fire seems to be
+contained in the Chronicle of Lanercost for the year 1268. The annalist
+tells with pious horror how, when an epidemic was raging in that year
+among the cattle, "certain beastly men, monks in garb but not in mind,
+taught the idiots of their country to make fire by the friction of wood
+and to set up an image of Priapus, whereby they thought to succour the
+animals."(720) The use of the need-fire is particularly attested for the
+counties of Yorkshire and Northumberland. Thus in Yorkshire down to the
+middle of the eighteenth century "the favourite remedy of the country
+people, not only in the way of cure, but of prevention, was an odd one; it
+was to smoke the cattle almost to suffocation, by kindling straw, litter,
+and other combustible matter about them. The effects of this mode of cure
+are not stated, but the most singular part of it was that by which it was
+reported to have been discovered. An angel (says the legend), descended
+into Yorkshire, and there set a large tree on fire; the strange appearance
+of which or else the savour of the smoke, incited the cattle around (some
+of which were infected) to draw near the miracle, when they all either
+received an immediate cure or an absolute prevention of the disorder. It
+is not affirmed that the angel staid to speak to anybody, but only that he
+left a _written_ direction for the neighbouring people to catch this
+supernatural fire, and to communicate it from one to another with all
+possible speed throughout the country; and in case it should be
+extinguished and utterly lost, that then new fire, of equal virtue, might
+be obtained, not by any common method, but by rubbing two pieces of wood
+together till they ignited. Upon what foundation this story stood, is not
+exactly known, but it put the farmers actually into a hurry of
+communicating flame and smoke from one house to another with wonderful
+speed, making it run like wildfire over the country."(721) Again, we read
+that "the father of the writer, who died in 1843, in his seventy-ninth
+year, had a perfect remembrance of a great number of persons, belonging to
+the upper and middle classes of his native parish of Bowes, assembling on
+the banks of the river Greta to work for need-fire. A disease among
+cattle, called the murrain, then prevailed to a very great extent through
+that district of Yorkshire. The cattle were made to pass through the smoke
+raised by this miraculous fire, and their cure was looked upon as certain,
+and to neglect doing so was looked upon as wicked. This fire was produced
+by the violent and continued friction of two dry pieces of wood until such
+time as it was thereby obtained. 'To work as though one was working for
+need-fire' is a common proverb in the North of England."(722) At Ingleton,
+a small town nestling picturesquely at the foot of the high hill of
+Ingleborough in western Yorkshire, "within the last thirty years or so it
+was a common practice to kindle the so-called 'Need-fire' by rubbing two
+pieces of wood briskly together, and setting ablaze a large heap of sticks
+and brushwood, which were dispersed, and cattle then driven through the
+smoking brands. This was thought to act as a charm against the spread or
+developement of the various ailments to which cattle are liable, and the
+farmers seem to have had great faith in it."(723) Writing about the middle
+of the nineteenth century, Kemble tells us that the will-fire or need-fire
+had been used in Devonshire for the purpose of staying a murrain within
+the memory of man.(724)
+
+(M250) So in Northumberland, down to the first half of the nineteenth
+century, "when a contagious disease enters among cattle, the fires are
+extinguished in the adjacent villages. Two pieces of dried wood are then
+rubbed together until fire be produced; with this a quantity of straw is
+kindled, juniper is thrown into the flame, and the cattle are repeatedly
+driven through the smoke. Part of the forced fire is sent to the
+neighbours, who again forward it to others, and, as great expedition is
+used, the fires may be seen blazing over a great extent of country in a
+very short space of time."(725) "It is strange," says the antiquary
+William Henderson, writing about 1866, "to find the custom of lighting
+'need-fires' on the occasion of epidemics among cattle still lingering
+among us, but so it is. The vicar of Stamfordham writes thus respecting
+it: 'When the murrain broke out among the cattle about eighteen years ago,
+this fire was produced by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, and was
+carried from place to place all through this district, as a charm against
+cattle taking the disease. Bonfires were kindled with it, and the cattle
+driven into the smoke, where they were left for some time. Many farmers
+hereabouts, I am informed, had the need-fire.' "(726)
+
+(M251) In the earliest systematic account of the western islands of
+Scotland we read that "the inhabitants here did also make use of a fire
+called _Tin-egin_, _i.e._ a forced fire, or fire of necessity, which they
+used as an antidote against the plague or murrain in cattle; and it was
+performed thus: all the fires in the parish were extinguished, and then
+eighty-one married men, being thought the necessary number for effecting
+this design, took two great planks of wood, and nine of them were employed
+by turns, who by their repeated efforts rubbed one of the planks against
+the other until the heat thereof produced fire; and from this forced fire
+each family is supplied with new fire, which is no sooner kindled than a
+pot full of water is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled upon the
+people infected with the plague, or upon the cattle that have the murrain.
+And this they all say they find successful by experience: it was practised
+in the main land, opposite to the south of Skie, within these thirty
+years."(727)
+
+(M252) In the island of Mull, one of the largest of the Hebrides, the
+need-fire was kindled as late as 1767. "In consequence of a disease among
+the black cattle the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they
+esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Cammoor a wheel and
+nine spindles of oakwood. They extinguished every fire in every house
+within sight of the hill; the wheel was then turned from east to west over
+the nine spindles long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire
+were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect. They
+failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to the
+obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out for
+what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants
+they contrived to have them extinguished and on that morning raised their
+fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning, while
+yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths from the
+pile and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were
+repeated by an old man from Morven, who came over as master of the
+ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being
+raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the
+spell, he said, the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary,
+and that he dared not say those words again. The whole country believed
+him accursed."(728) From this account we see that in Mull the kindling of
+the need-fire as a remedy for cattle disease was accompanied by the
+sacrifice of one of the diseased animals; and though the two customs are
+for the most part mentioned separately by our authorities, we may surmise
+that they were often, perhaps usually, practised together for the purpose
+of checking the ravages of sickness in the herds.(729)
+
+(M253) In the county of Caithness, forming the extreme north-east corner
+of the mainland of Scotland, the practice of the need-fire survived down
+at least to about 1788. We read that "in those days, when the stock of any
+considerable farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one of
+the charm-doctors to superintend the raising of a _need-fire_. It was done
+by friction, thus; upon any small island, where the stream of a river or
+burn ran on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf, as
+it could be had, in which a semicircular or highland couple of birch, or
+other hard wood, was set; and, in short, a roof closed on it. A straight
+pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a
+wooden pin to the top of the couple, and the lower end in an oblong
+_trink_ in the earth or floor; and lastly, another pole was set across
+horizontally, having both ends tapered, one end of which was supported in
+a hole in the side of the perpendicular pole, and the other in a similar
+hole in the couple leg. The horizontal stick was called the auger, having
+four short arms or levers fixed in its centre, to work it by; the building
+having been thus finished, as many men as could be collected in the
+vicinity, (being divested of all kinds of metal in their clothes, etc.),
+would set to work with the said auger, two after two, constantly turning
+it round by the arms or levers, and others occasionally driving wedges of
+wood or stone behind the lower end of the upright pole, so as to press it
+the more on the end of the auger: by this constant friction and pressure,
+the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be
+instantly kindled, and thus the _need-fire_ would be accomplished. The
+fire in the farmer's house, etc., was immediately quenched with water, a
+fire kindled from this need-fire, both in the farm-houses and offices, and
+the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which
+preserved them from the murrain."(730)
+
+(M254) The last recorded case of the need-fire in Caithness happened in
+1809 or 1810. At Houstry, Dunbeath, a crofter named David Gunn had made
+for himself a kail-yard and in doing so had wilfully encroached on one of
+those prehistoric ruins called _brochs_, which the people of the
+neighbourhood believed to be a fairy habitation. Soon afterwards a murrain
+broke out among the cattle of the district and carried off many beasts. So
+the wise men put their heads together and resolved to light a
+_teine-eigin_ or need-fire as the best way of stopping the plague. They
+cut a branch from a tree in a neighbouring wood, stripped it of bark, and
+carried it to a small island in the Houstry Burn. Every fire in the
+district having been quenched, new fire was made by the friction of wood
+in the island, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the houses
+were lit afresh. One of the sticks used in making the fire was preserved
+down to about the end of the nineteenth century; apparently the mode of
+operation was the one known as the fire-drill: a pointed stick was twirled
+in a hole made in another stick till fire was elicited by the
+friction.(731)
+
+(M255) Another account of the use of need-fire in the Highlands of
+Scotland runs as follows: "When, by the neglect of the prescribed
+safeguards [against witchcraft], the seeds of iniquity have taken root,
+and a person's means are decaying in consequence, the only alternative, in
+this case, is to resort to that grand remedy, the _Tein Econuch_, or
+'Forlorn Fire,' which seldom fails of being productive of the best
+effects. The cure for witchcraft, called _Tein Econuch_, is wrought in the
+following manner:--A consultation being held by the unhappy sufferer and
+his friends as to the most advisable measures of effecting a cure, if this
+process is adopted, notice is privately communicated to all those
+householders who reside within the nearest of two running streams, to
+extinguish their lights and fires on some appointed morning. On its being
+ascertained that this notice has been duly observed, a spinning-wheel, or
+some other convenient instrument, calculated to produce fire by friction,
+is set to work with the most furious earnestness by the unfortunate
+sufferer, and all who wish well to his cause. Relieving each other by
+turns, they drive on with such persevering diligence, that at length the
+spindle of the wheel, ignited by excessive friction, emits 'forlorn fire'
+in abundance, which, by the application of tow, or some other combustible
+material, is widely extended over the whole neighbourhood. Communicating
+the fire to the tow, the tow communicates it to a candle, the candle to a
+fir-torch, the torch to a cartful of peats, which the master of the
+ceremonies, with pious ejaculations for the success of the experiment,
+distributes to messengers, who will proceed with portions of it to the
+different houses within the said two running streams, to kindle the
+different fires. By the influence of this operation, the machinations and
+spells of witchcraft are rendered null and void."(732)
+
+(M256) In various parts of the Highlands of Scotland the need-fire was
+still kindled during the first half of the nineteenth century, as we learn
+from the following account:--
+
+"_Tein-eigin_, neid-fire, need-fire, forced fire, fire produced by the
+friction of wood or iron against wood.
+
+"The fire of purification was kindled from the neid-fire, while the
+domestic fire on the hearth was re-kindled from the purification fire on
+the knoll. Among other names, the purification fire was called _Teine
+Bheuil_, fire of Beul, and _Teine mor Bheuil_, great fire of Beul. The
+fire of Beul was divided into two fires between which people and cattle
+rushed australly for purposes of purification. The ordeal was trying, as
+may be inferred from phrases still current. _Is teodha so na teine teodha
+Bheuil_, 'Hotter is this than the hot fire of Beul.' Replying to his
+grandchild, an old man in Lewis said ... 'Mary! sonnie, it were worse for
+me to do that for thee than to go between the two great fires of Beul.'
+
+"The neid-fire was resorted to in imminent or actual calamity upon the
+first day of the quarter, and to ensure success in great or important
+events.
+
+(M257) "The writer conversed with several persons who saw the neid-fire
+made, and who joined in the ceremony. As mentioned elsewhere, a woman in
+Arran said that her father, and the other men of the townland, made the
+neid-fire on the knoll on _La buidhe Bealltain_--Yellow Day of Beltane.
+They fed the fire from _cuaile mor conaidh caoin_--great bundles of sacred
+faggots brought to the knoll on Beltane Eve. When the sacred fire became
+kindled, the people rushed home and brought their herds and drove them
+through and round the fire of purification, to sain them from the _bana
+bhuitseach mhor Nic Creafain Mac Creafain_--the great arch witch Mac
+Crauford, now Crawford. That was in the second decade of this century.
+
+(M258) "John Macphail, Middlequarter, North Uist, said that the last
+occasion on which the neid-fire was made in North Uist was _bliadhna an
+t-sneachda bhuidhe_--the year of the yellow snow--1829 (?). The snow lay so
+deep and remained so long on the ground, that it became yellow. Some
+suggest that the snow was originally yellow, as snow is occasionally red.
+This extraordinary continuance of snow caused much want and suffering
+throughout the Isles. The people of North Uist extinguished their own
+fires and generated a purification fire at Sail Dharaich, Sollas. The fire
+was produced from an oak log by rapidly boring with an auger. This was
+accomplished by the exertions of _naoi naoinear ciad ginealach mac_--the
+nine nines of first-begotten sons. From the neid-fire produced on the
+knoll the people of the parish obtained fire for their dwellings. Many
+cults and ceremonies were observed on the occasion, cults and ceremonies
+in which Pagan and Christian beliefs intermingled. _Sail Dharaich_, Oak
+Log, obtained its name from the log of oak for the neid-fire being there.
+A fragment of this log riddled with auger holes marks a grave in _Cladh
+Sgealoir_, the burying-ground of _Sgealoir_, in the neighbourhood.
+
+(M259) "Mr. Alexander Mackay, Edinburgh, a native of Reay, Sutherland,
+says:--'My father was the skipper of a fishing crew. Before beginning
+operations for the season, the crew of the boat met at night in our house
+to settle accounts for the past, and to plan operations for the new
+season. My mother and the rest of us were sent to bed. I lay in the
+kitchen, and was listening and watching, though they thought I was asleep.
+After the men had settled their past affairs and future plans, they put
+out the fire on the hearth, not a spark being allowed to live. They then
+rubbed two pieces of wood one against another so rapidly as to produce
+fire, the men joining in one after the other, and working with the utmost
+energy and never allowing the friction to relax. From this friction-fire
+they rekindled the fire on the hearth, from which all the men present
+carried away a kindling to their own homes. Whether their success was due
+to their skill, their industry, their perseverance, or to the neid-fire, I
+do not know, but I know that they were much the most successful crew in
+the place. They met on Saturday, and went to church on Sunday like the
+good men and the good Christians they were--a little of their Pagan faith
+mingling with their Christian belief. I have reason to believe that other
+crews in the place as well as my father's crew practised the neid-fire.'
+
+"A man at Helmsdale, Sutherland, saw the _tein-eigin_ made in his boyhood.
+
+"The neid-fire was made in North Uist about the year 1829, in Arran about
+1820, in Helmsdale about 1818, in Reay about 1830."(733)
+
+(M260) From the foregoing account we learn that in Arran the annual
+Beltane fire was regularly made by the friction of wood, and that it was
+used to protect men and cattle against a great witch. When we remember
+that Beltane Eve or the Eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) is the great
+witching time of the year throughout Europe, we may surmise that wherever
+bonfires have been ceremonially kindled on that day it has been done
+simply as a precaution against witchcraft; indeed this motive is expressly
+alleged not only in Scotland, but in Wales, the Isle of Man, and many
+parts of Central Europe.(734) It deserves, further, to be noticed that in
+North Uist the wood used to kindle the need-fire was oak, and that the
+nine times nine men by whose exertions the flame was elicited were all
+first-born sons. Apparently the first-born son of a family was thought to
+be endowed with more magical virtue than his younger brothers. Similarly
+in the Punjaub "the supernatural power ascribed to the first born is not
+due to his being unlucky, but the idea underlying the belief seems to be
+that being the first product of the parents, he inherits the spiritual
+powers (or magnetism) in a high degree. The success of such persons in
+stopping rain and hail and in stupefying snakes is proverbial. It is
+believed that a first child born with feet forward can cure backache by
+kicking the patient in the back, on a crossing."(735)
+
+(M261) In the north-east of Aberdeenshire and the neighbourhood, when the
+cattle-disease known as the "quarter-ill" broke out, "the 'muckle wheel'
+was set in motion and turned till fire was produced. From this virgin
+flame fires were kindled in the byres. At the same time, if neighbours
+requested the favour, live coals were given them to kindle fires for the
+purification of their homesteads and turning off the disease. Fumigating
+the byres with juniper was a method adopted to ward off disease. Such a
+fire was called 'needfyre.' The kindling of it came under the censure of
+the Presbytery at times."(736)
+
+(M262) In Perthshire the need-fire was kindled as a remedy for
+cattle-disease as late as 1826. "A wealthy old farmer, having lost several
+of his cattle by some disease very prevalent at present, and being able to
+account for it in no way so rationally as by witchcraft, had recourse to
+the following remedy, recommended to him by a weird sister in his
+neighbourhood, as an effectual protection from the attacks of the foul
+fiend. A few stones were piled together in the barnyard, and woodcoals
+having been laid thereon, the fuel was ignited by _will-fire_, that is
+fire obtained by friction; the neighbours having been called in to witness
+the solemnity, the cattle were made to pass through the flames, in the
+order of their dignity and age, commencing with the horses and ending with
+the swine. The ceremony having been duly and decorously gone through, a
+neighbouring farmer observed to the enlightened owner of the herd, that
+he, along with his family, ought to have followed the example of the
+cattle, and the sacrifice to Baal would have been complete."(737)
+
+(M263) In County Leitrim, Ireland, in order to prevent fever from
+spreading, "all the fires on the townland, and the two adjoining (one on
+each side), would be put out. Then the men of the three townlands would
+come to one house, and get two large blocks of wood. One would be set in
+the ground, and the other one, fitted with two handles, placed on the top
+of it. The men would then draw the upper block backwards and forwards over
+the lower until fire was produced by friction, and from this the fires
+would be lighted again. This would prevent the fever from spreading."(738)
+
+(M264) Thus it appears that in many parts of Europe it has been customary
+to kindle fire by the friction of wood for the purpose of curing or
+preventing the spread of disease, particularly among cattle. The mode of
+striking a light by rubbing two dry sticks against each other is the one
+to which all over the world savages have most commonly resorted for the
+sake of providing themselves with fire;(739) and we can scarcely doubt
+that the practice of kindling the need-fire in this primitive fashion is
+merely a survival from the time when our savage forefathers lit all their
+fires in that way. Nothing is so conservative of old customs as religious
+or magical ritual, which invests these relics of the past with an
+atmosphere of mysterious virtue and sanctity. To the educated mind it
+seems obvious that a fire which a man kindles with the sweat of his brow
+by laboriously rubbing one stick against each other can possess neither
+more nor less virtue than one which he has struck in a moment by the
+friction of a lucifer match; but to the ignorant and superstitious this
+truth is far from apparent, and accordingly they take infinite pains to do
+in a roundabout way what they might have done directly with the greatest
+ease, and what, even when it is done, is of no use whatever for the
+purpose in hand. A vast proportion of the labour which mankind has
+expended throughout the ages has been no better spent; it has been like
+the stone of Sisyphus eternally rolled up hill only to revolve eternally
+down again, or like the water poured for ever by the Danaids into broken
+pitchers which it could never fill.
+
+(M265) The curious notion that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other
+fire remains alight in the neighbourhood seems to imply that fire is
+conceived as a unity which is broken up into fractions and consequently
+weakened in exact proportion to the number of places where it burns; hence
+in order to obtain it at full strength you must light it only at a single
+point, for then the flame will burst out with a concentrated energy
+derived from the tributary fires which burned on all the extinguished
+hearths of the country. So in a modern city if all the gas were turned off
+simultaneously at all the burners but one, the flame would no doubt blaze
+at that one burner with a fierceness such as no single burner could shew
+when all are burning at the same time. The analogy may help us to
+understand the process of reasoning which leads the peasantry to insist on
+the extinction of all common fires when the need-fire is about to be
+kindled. Perhaps, too, it may partly explain that ceremonial extinction of
+all old fires on other occasions which is often required by custom as a
+preliminary to the lighting of a new and sacred fire.(740) We have seen
+that in the Highlands of Scotland all common fires were extinguished on
+the Eve of May-day as a preparation for kindling the Beltane bonfire by
+friction next morning;(741) and no doubt the reason for the extinction was
+the same as in the case of the need-fire. Indeed we may assume with a fair
+degree of probability that the need-fire was the parent of the periodic
+fire-festivals; at first invoked only at irregular intervals to cure
+certain evils as they occurred, the powerful virtue of fire was afterwards
+employed at regular intervals to prevent the occurrence of the same evils
+as well as to remedy such as had actually arisen.
+
+(M266) The need-fire of Europe has its parallel in a ceremony which used
+to be observed by the Iroquois Indians of North America. "Formerly when an
+epidemic prevailed among the Iroquois despite the efforts to stay it, it
+was customary for the principal shaman to order the fires in every cabin
+to be extinguished and the ashes and cinders to be carefully removed; for
+it was believed that the pestilence was sent as a punishment for
+neglecting to rekindle 'new fire' or because of the manner in which the
+fire then in use had been kindled. So, after all the fires were out, two
+suitable logs of slippery elm (_Ulmus fulva_) were provided for the new
+fire. One of the logs was from six to eight inches in diameter and from
+eight to ten feet long; the other was from ten to twelve inches in
+diameter and about ten feet long. About midway across the larger log a
+cuneiform notch or cut about six inches deep was made, and in the
+wedge-shaped notch punk was placed. The other log was drawn rapidly to and
+fro in the cut by four strong men chosen for the purpose until the punk
+was ignited by the friction thus produced. Before and during the progress
+of the work of igniting the fire the shaman votively sprinkled
+_tcar-hu'-en-we_, 'real tobacco,' three several times into the cuneiform
+notch and offered earnest prayers to the Fire-god, beseeching him 'to aid,
+to bless, and to redeem the people from their calamities.' The ignited
+punk was used to light a large bonfire, and then the head of every family
+was required to take home 'new fire' to rekindle a fire in his or her
+fire-place."(742)
+
+
+
+
+§ 9. The Sacrifice of an Animal to stay a Cattle-Plague.
+
+
+(M267) Sometimes apparently in England as well as in Scotland the kindling
+of a need-fire was accompanied by the sacrifice of a calf. Thus in
+Northamptonshire, at some time during the first half of the nineteenth
+century, "Miss C---- and her cousin walking saw a fire in a field and a
+crowd round it. They said, 'What is the matter?' 'Killing a calf.' 'What
+for?' 'To stop the murrain.' They went away as quickly as possible. On
+speaking to the clergyman he made enquiries. The people did not like to
+talk of the affair, but it appeared that when there is a disease among the
+cows or the calves are born sickly, they sacrifice (_i.e._ kill and burn)
+one 'for good luck.' "(743) It is not here said that the fire was a
+need-fire, of which indeed the two horrified ladies had probably never
+heard; but the analogy of the parallel custom in Mull(744) renders it
+probable that in Northamptonshire also the fire was kindled by the
+friction of wood, and that the calf or some part of it was burnt in the
+fire. Certainly the practice of burning a single animal alive in order to
+save all the others would seem to have been not uncommon in England down
+to the nineteenth century. Thus a farmer in Cornwall about the year 1800,
+having lost many cattle by disease, and tried many remedies in vain,
+consulted with some of his neighbours and laying their heads together
+"they recalled to their recollections a tale, which tradition had handed
+down from remote antiquity, that the calamity would not cease until he had
+actually burned alive the finest calf which he had upon his farm; but
+that, when this sacrifice was made, the murrain would afflict his cattle
+no more." Accordingly, on a day appointed they met, lighted a large fire,
+placed the best calf in it, and standing round the blazing pile drove the
+animal with pitchforks back into the flames whenever it attempted to
+escape. Thus the victim was burned alive to save the rest of the
+cattle.(745) "There can be no doubt but that a belief prevailed until a
+very recent period, amongst the small farmers in the districts remote from
+towns in Cornwall, that a living sacrifice appeased the wrath of God. This
+sacrifice must be by fire; and I have heard it argued that the Bible gave
+them warranty for this belief.... While correcting these sheets I am
+informed of two recent instances of this superstition. One of them was the
+sacrifice of a calf by a farmer near Portreath, for the purpose of
+removing a disease which had long followed his horses and his cows. The
+other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, 'his
+flocks from spells which had been cast on 'em.' "(746) In a recent account
+of the fire-festivals of Wales we read that "I have also heard my
+grandfather and father say that in times gone by the people would throw a
+calf in the fire when there was any disease among the herds. The same
+would be done with a sheep if there was anything the matter with a flock.
+I can remember myself seeing cattle being driven between two fires to
+'stop the disease spreading.' When in later times it was not considered
+humane to drive the cattle between the fires, the herdsmen were accustomed
+to force the animals over the wood ashes to protect them against various
+ailments."(747) Writing about 1866, the antiquary W. Henderson says that a
+live ox was burned near Haltwhistle in Northumberland "only twenty years
+ago" to stop a murrain.(748) "About the year 1850 disease broke out among
+the cattle of a small farm in the parish of Resoliss, Black Isle,
+Ross-shire. The farmer prevailed on his wife to undertake a journey to a
+wise woman of renown in Banffshire to ask a charm against the effects of
+the 'ill ee.' The long journey of upwards of fifty miles was performed by
+the good wife, and the charm was got. One chief thing ordered was to burn
+to death a pig, and sprinkle the ashes over the byre and other farm
+buildings. This order was carried out, except that the pig was killed
+before it was burned. A more terrible sacrifice was made at times. One of
+the diseased animals was rubbed over with tar, driven forth, set on fire,
+and allowed to run till it fell down and died."(749) "Living animals have
+been burnt alive in sacrifice within memory to avert the loss of other
+stock. The burial of three puppies 'brandise-wise' in a field is supposed
+to rid it of weeds. Throughout the rural districts of Devon witchcraft is
+an article of current faith, and the toad is thrown into the flames as an
+emissary of the evil one."(750)
+
+(M268) But why, we may ask, should the burning alive of a calf or a sheep
+be supposed to save the rest of the herd or the flock from the murrain?
+According to one writer, as we have seen, the burnt sacrifice was thought
+to appease the wrath of God.(751) The idea of appeasing the wrath of a
+ferocious deity by burning an animal alive is probably no more than a
+theological gloss put on an old heathen rite; it would hardly occur to the
+simple mind of an English bumpkin, who, though he may be stupid, is not
+naturally cruel and does not conceive of a divinity who takes delight in
+the contemplation of suffering. To his thinking God has little or nothing
+to do with the murrain, but witches, ill-wishers, and fairies have a great
+deal to do with it. The English farmer who burned one of his lambs alive
+said that he did it "to save his flocks from spells which had been cast on
+them"; and the Scotch farmer who was bidden to burn a pig alive for a
+similar purpose, but who had the humanity to kill the animal first,
+believed that this was a remedy for the "evil eye" which had been cast
+upon his beasts. Again, we read that "a farmer, who possessed broad acres,
+and who was in many respects a sensible man, was greatly annoyed to find
+that his cattle became diseased in the spring. Nothing could satisfy him
+but that they were bewitched, and he was resolved to find out the person
+who had cast the evil eye on his oxen. According to an
+anciently-prescribed rule, the farmer took one of his bullocks and bled it
+to death, catching all the blood on bundles of straw. The bloody straw was
+then piled into a heap, and set on fire. Burning with a vast quantity of
+smoke, the farmer expected to see the witch, either in reality or in
+shadow, amidst the smoke."(752) Such reasons express the real beliefs of
+the peasants. "Cattle, like human beings, were exposed to the influences
+of the evil eye, of forespeaking, and of the casting of evil. Witches and
+warlocks did the work of evil among their neighbours' cattle if their
+anger had been aroused in any way. The fairies often wrought injury
+amongst cattle. Every animal that died suddenly was killed by the dart of
+the fairies, or, in the language of the people, was 'shot-a-dead.' Flint
+arrows and spear-heads went by the name of 'faery dairts.' ... When an
+animal died suddenly the canny woman of the district was sent for to
+search for the 'faery dairt,' and in due course she found one, to the
+great satisfaction of the owner of the dead animal."(753)
+
+(M269) But how, we must still ask, can burning an animal alive break the
+spell that has been cast upon its fellows by a witch or a warlock? Some
+light is thrown on the question by the following account of measures which
+rustic wiseacres in Suffolk are said to have adopted as a remedy for
+witchcraft. "A woman I knew forty-three years had been employed by my
+predecessor to take care of his poultry. At the time I came to make her
+acquaintance she was a bedridden toothless crone, with chin and nose all
+but meeting. She did not discourage in her neighbours the idea that she
+knew more than people ought to know, and had more power than others had.
+Many years before I knew her it happened one spring that the ducks, which
+were a part of her charge, failed to lay eggs.... She at once took it for
+granted that the ducks had been bewitched. This misbelief involved very
+shocking consequences, for it necessitated the idea that so diabolical an
+act could only be combated by diabolical cruelty. And the most diabolical
+act of cruelty she could imagine was that of baking alive in a hot oven
+one of the ducks. And that was what she did. The sequence of thought in
+her mind was that the spell that had been laid on the ducks was that of
+preternaturally wicked wilfulness; that this spell could only be broken
+through intensity of suffering, in this case death by burning; that the
+intensity of suffering would break the spell in the one roasted to death;
+and that the spell broken in one would be altogether broken, that is, in
+all the ducks.... Shocking, however, as was this method of exorcising the
+ducks, there was nothing in it original. Just about a hundred years
+before, everyone in the town and neighbourhood of Ipswich had heard, and
+many had believed, that a witch had been burnt to death in her own house
+at Ipswich by the process of burning alive one of the sheep she had
+bewitched. It was curious, but it was as convincing as curious, that the
+hands and feet of this witch were the only parts of her that had not been
+incinerated. This, however, was satisfactorily explained by the fact that
+the four feet of the sheep, by which it had been suspended over the fire,
+had not been destroyed in the flames that had consumed its body."(754)
+According to a slightly different account of the same tragic incident, the
+last of the "Ipswitch witches," one Grace Pett, "laid her hand heavily on
+a farmer's sheep, who, in order to punish her, fastened one of the sheep
+in the ground and burnt it, except the feet, which were under the earth.
+The next morning Grace Pett was found burnt to a cinder, except her feet.
+Her fate is recorded in the _Philosophical Transactions_ as a case of
+spontaneous combustion."(755)
+
+(M270) This last anecdote is instructive, if perhaps not strictly
+authentic. It shews that in burning alive one of a bewitched flock or herd
+what you really do is to burn the witch, who is either actually incarnate
+in the animal or perhaps more probably stands in a relation of sympathy
+with it so close as almost to amount to identity. Hence if you burn the
+creature to ashes, you utterly destroy the witch and thereby save the
+whole of the rest of the flock or herd from her abominable machinations;
+whereas if you only partially burn the animal, allowing some parts of it
+to escape the flames, the witch is only half-baked, and her power for
+mischief may be hardly, if at all, impaired by the grilling. We can now
+see that in such matters half-measures are useless. To kill the animal
+first and burn it afterwards is a weak compromise, dictated no doubt by a
+well-meant but utterly mistaken kindness; it is like shutting the
+stable-door when the steed is stolen, for obviously by leaving the
+animal's, and therefore the witch's, body nearly intact at the moment of
+death, it allows her soul to escape and return safe and sound to her own
+human body, which all the time is probably lying quietly at home in bed.
+And the same train of reasoning that justifies the burning alive of
+bewitched animals justifies and indeed requires the burning alive of the
+witches themselves; it is really the only way of destroying them, body and
+soul, and therefore of thoroughly extirpating the whole infernal crew.
+
+(M271) In the Isle of Man the practice of burning cattle alive in order to
+stop a murrain seems to have persisted down to a time within living
+memory. On this subject I will quote the evidence collected by Sir John
+Rhys: "A respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with
+his wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on
+the way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with
+a woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which
+they were going, they found that the burning beast belonged to a farmer
+whom they knew. They were further told it was no wonder that the said
+farmer had one of his cattle burnt, as several of them had recently died.
+Whether this was a case of sacrifice or not I cannot say. But let me give
+you another instance: a man whom I have already mentioned, saw at a farm
+nearer the centre of the island a live calf being burnt. The owner bears
+an English name, but his family has long been settled in Man. The farmer's
+explanation to my informant was that the calf was burnt to secure luck for
+the rest of the herd, some of which were threatening to die. My informant
+thought there was absolutely nothing the matter with them, except that
+they had too little to eat. Be that as it may, the one calf was sacrificed
+as a burnt-offering to secure luck for the rest of the cattle. Let me here
+also quote Mr. Moore's note in his _Manx Surnames_, p. 184, on the place
+name _Cabbal yn Oural Losht_, or the Chapel of the Burnt Sacrifice. 'This
+name,' he says, 'records a circumstance which took place in the nineteenth
+century, but which, it is to be hoped, was never customary in the Isle of
+Man. A farmer, who had lost a number of his sheep and cattle by murrain,
+burned a calf as a propitiatory offering to the Deity on this spot, where
+a chapel was afterwards built. Hence the name.' Particulars, I may say, of
+time, place, and person could be easily added to Mr. Moore's statement,
+excepting, perhaps as to the deity in question; on that point I have never
+been informed, but Mr. Moore is probably right in the use of the capital
+_d_, as the sacrificer is, according to all accounts, a highly devout
+Christian. One more instance: an octogenarian woman, born in the parish of
+Bride, and now living at Kirk Andreas, saw, when she was a 'lump of a
+girl' of ten or fifteen years of age, a live sheep being burnt in a field
+in the parish of Andreas, on May-day, whereby she meant the first of May
+reckoned according to the Old Style. She asserts very decidedly that it
+was _son oural_, 'as a sacrifice,' as she put it, and 'for an object to
+the public': those were her words when she expressed herself in English.
+Further, she made the statement that it was a custom to burn a sheep on
+old May-day for a sacrifice. I was fully alive to the interest of this
+evidence, and cross-examined her so far as her age allows of it, and I
+find that she adheres to her statement with all firmness."(756)
+
+(M272) But Manxmen burn beasts when they are dead as well as when they are
+alive; and their reasons for burning the dead animals may help us to
+understand their reasons for burning the living animals. On this subject I
+will again quote Sir John Rhys: "When a beast dies on a farm, of course it
+dies, according to the old-fashioned view of things, as I understand it,
+from the influence of the evil eye or the interposition of a witch. So if
+you want to know to whom you are indebted for the loss of the beast, you
+have simply to burn its carcase in the open air and watch who comes first
+to the spot or who first passes by; that is the criminal to be charged
+with the death of the animal, and he cannot help coming there--such is the
+effect of the fire. A Michael woman, who is now about thirty, related to
+me how she watched while the carcase of a bewitched colt was burning, how
+she saw the witch coming, and how she remembers her shrivelled face, with
+nose and chin in close proximity. According to another native of Michael,
+a well-informed middle-aged man, the animal in question was oftenest a
+calf, and it was wont to be burnt whole, skin and all. The object,
+according to him, is invariably to bring the bewitcher on the spot, and he
+always comes; but I am not clear what happens to him when he appears. My
+informant added, however, that it was believed that, unless the bewitcher
+got possession of the heart of the burning beast, he lost all his power of
+bewitching."(757)
+
+(M273) These statements shew that in the Isle of Man the sympathetic
+relation between the witch and his or her animal victim is believed to be
+so close that by burning the animal you compel the witch to appear. The
+original idea may have been that, by virtue of a magic sympathy which
+binds the two together, whatever harm you do to the animal is felt by the
+witch as if it were done to herself. That notion would fully explain why
+Manx people used also to burn bewitched animals alive; in doing so they
+probably imagined that they were simultaneously burning the witch who had
+cast the spell on their cattle.
+
+(M274) This explanation of the reason for burning a bewitched animal, dead
+or alive, is confirmed by the parallel belief concerning were-wolves. It
+is commonly supposed that certain men and women can transform themselves
+by magic art into wolves or other animals, but that any wound inflicted on
+such a transformed beast (a were-wolf or other were-animal) is
+simultaneously inflicted on the human body of the witch or warlock who had
+transformed herself or himself into the creature. This belief is widely
+diffused; it meets us in Europe, Asia, and Africa. For example, Olaus
+Magnus tells us that in Livonia, not many years before he wrote, a noble
+lady had a dispute with her slave on the subject of were-wolves, she
+doubting whether there were any such things, and he maintaining that there
+were. To convince her he retired to a room, from which he soon appeared in
+the form of a wolf. Being chased by the dogs into the forest and brought
+to bay, the wolf defended himself fiercely, but lost an eye in the
+struggle. Next day the slave returned to his mistress in human form but
+with only one eye.(758) Again, it happened in the year 1588 that a
+gentleman in a village among the mountains of Auvergne, looking out of the
+window one evening, saw a friend of his going out to hunt. He begged him
+to bring him back some of his bag, and his friend said that he would.
+Well, he had not gone very far before he met a huge wolf. He fired and
+missed it, and the animal attacked him furiously, but he stood on his
+guard and with an adroit stroke of his hunting knife he cut off the right
+fore-paw of the brute, which thereupon fled away and he saw it no more. He
+returned to his friend, and drawing from his pouch the severed paw of the
+wolf he found to his horror that it was turned into a woman's hand with a
+golden ring on one of the fingers. His friend recognized the ring as that
+of his own wife and went to find her. She was sitting by the fire with her
+right arm under her apron. As she refused to draw it out, her husband
+confronted her with the hand and the ring on it. She at once confessed the
+truth, that it was she in the form of a were-wolf whom the hunter had
+wounded. Her confession was confirmed by applying the severed hand to the
+stump of her arm, for the two fitted exactly. The angry husband delivered
+up his wicked wife to justice; she was tried and burnt as a witch.(759) It
+is said that a were-wolf, scouring the streets of Padua, was caught, and
+when they cut off his four paws he at once turned into a man, but with
+both his hands and feet amputated.(760) Again, in a farm of the French
+district of Beauce, there was once a herdsman who never slept at home.
+These nocturnal absences naturally attracted attention and set people
+talking. At the same time, by a curious coincidence, a wolf used to prowl
+round the farm every night and to excite the dogs in the farmyard to fury
+by thrusting his snout derisively through the cat's hole in the great
+gate. The farmer had his suspicions and he determined to watch. One night,
+when the herdsman went out as usual, his master followed him quietly till
+he came to a hut, where with his own eyes he saw the man put on a broad
+belt and at once turn into a wolf, which scoured away over the fields. The
+farmer smiled a sickly sort of smile and went back to the farm. There he
+took a stout stick and sat down at the cat's hole to wait. He had not long
+to wait. The dogs barked like mad, a wolf's snout shewed through the hole,
+down came the stick, out gushed the blood, and a voice was heard to say
+without the gate, "A good job too. I had still three years to run." Next
+day the herdsman appeared as usual, but he had a scar on his brow, and he
+never went out again at night.(761)
+
+(M275) In China also the faith in similar transformations is reflected in
+the following tale. A certain man in Sungyang went into the mountains to
+gather fuel. Night fell and he was pursued by two tigers, but scrambled up
+a tree out of their reach. Then said the one tiger to the other tiger, "If
+we can find Chu-Tu-shi, we are sure to catch this man up the tree." So off
+went one of them to find Chu-Tu-shi, while the other kept watch at the
+foot of the tree. Soon after that another tiger, leaner and longer than
+the other two, appeared on the scene and made a grab at the man's coat.
+But fortunately the moon was shining, the man saw the paw, and with a
+stroke of his axe cut off one of its claws. The tigers roared and fled,
+one after the other, so the man climbed down the tree and went home. When
+he told his tale in the village, suspicion naturally fell on the said
+Chu-Tu-shi; and next day some men went to see him in his house. They were
+told that they could not see him; for he had been out the night before and
+had hurt his hand, and he was now ill in bed. So they put two and two
+together and reported him to the police. The police arrived, surrounded
+the house, and set fire to it; but Chu-Tu-shi rose from his bed, turned
+into a tiger, charged right through the police, and escaped, and to this
+day nobody ever knew where he went to.(762)
+
+(M276) The Toradjas of Central Celebes stand in very great fear of
+were-wolves, that is of men and women, who have the power of transforming
+their spirits into animals such as cats, crocodiles, wild pigs, apes,
+deer, and buffaloes, which roam about battening on human flesh, and
+especially on human livers, while the men and women in their own proper
+human form are sleeping quietly in their beds at home. Among them a man is
+either born a were-wolf or becomes one by infection; for mere contact with
+a were-wolf, or even with anything that has been touched by his spittle,
+is quite enough to turn the most innocent person into a were-wolf; nay
+even to lean your head against anything against which a were-wolf has
+leaned his head suffices to do it. The penalty for being a were-wolf is
+death; but the sentence is never passed until the accused has had a fair
+trial and his guilt has been clearly demonstrated by an ordeal, which
+consists in dipping the middle finger into boiling resin. If the finger is
+not burnt, the man is no were-wolf; but if it is burnt, a were-wolf he
+most assuredly is, so they take him away to a quiet spot and hack him to
+bits. In cutting him up the executioners are naturally very careful not to
+be bespattered with his blood, for if that were to happen they would of
+course be turned into were-wolves themselves. Further, they place his
+severed head beside his hinder-quarters to prevent his soul from coming to
+life again and pursuing his depredations. So great is the horror of
+were-wolves among the Toradjas, and so great is their fear of contracting
+the deadly taint by infection, that many persons have assured a missionary
+that they would not spare their own child if they knew him to be a
+were-wolf.(763) Now these people, whose faith in were-wolves is not a mere
+dying or dead superstition but a living, dreadful conviction, tell stories
+of were-wolves which conform to the type which we are examining. They say
+that once upon a time a were-wolf came in human shape under the house of a
+neighbour, while his real body lay asleep as usual at home, and calling
+out softly to the man's wife made an assignation with her to meet him in
+the tobacco-field next day. But the husband was lying awake and he heard
+it all, but he said nothing to anybody. Next day chanced to be a busy one
+in the village, for a roof had to be put on a new house and all the men
+were lending a hand with the work, and among them to be sure was the
+were-wolf himself, I mean to say his own human self; there he was up on
+the roof working away as hard as anybody. But the woman went out to the
+tobacco-field, and behind went unseen her husband, slinking through the
+underwood. When they were come to the field, he saw the were-wolf make up
+to his wife, so out he rushed and struck at him with a stick. Quick as
+thought, the were-wolf turned himself into a leaf, but the man was as
+nimble, for he caught up the leaf, thrust it into the joint of bamboo, in
+which he kept his tobacco, and bunged it up tight. Then he walked back
+with his wife to the village, carrying the bamboo with the were-wolf in
+it. When they came to the village, the human body of the were-wolf was
+still on the roof, working away with the rest. The man put the bamboo in a
+fire. At that the human were-wolf looked down from the roof and said,
+"Don't do that." The man drew the bamboo from the fire, but a moment
+afterwards he put it in the fire again, and again the human were-wolf on
+the roof looked down and cried, "Don't do that." But this time the man
+kept the bamboo in the fire, and when it blazed up, down fell the human
+were-wolf from the roof as dead as a stone.(764) Again, the following
+story went round among the Toradjas not so very many years ago. The thing
+happened at Soemara, on the Gulf of Tomori. It was evening and some men
+sat chatting with a certain Hadji Mohammad. When it had grown dark, one of
+the men went out of the house for something or other. A little while
+afterwards one of the company thought he saw a stag's antlers standing out
+sharp and clear against the bright evening sky. So Hadji Mohammad raised
+his gun and fired. A minute or two afterwards back comes the man who had
+gone out, and says he to Hadji Mohammad, "You shot at me and hit me. You
+must pay me a fine." They searched him but found no wound on him anywhere.
+Then they knew that he was a were-wolf who had turned himself into a stag
+and had healed the bullet-wound by licking it. However, the bullet had
+found its billet, for two days afterwards he was a dead man.(765)
+
+(M277) In Sennar, a province of the Egyptian Sudan, the Hammeg and Fungi
+enjoy the reputation of being powerful magicians who can turn themselves
+into hyaenas and in that guise scour the country at night, howling and
+gorging themselves. But by day they are men again. It is very dangerous to
+shoot at such human hyaenas by night. On the Jebel Bela mountain a soldier
+once shot at a hyaena and hit it, but it dragged itself off, bleeding, in
+the darkness and escaped. Next morning he followed up the trail of blood
+and it led him straight to the hut of a man who was everywhere known for a
+wizard. Nothing of the hyaena was to be seen, but the man himself was laid
+up in the house with a fresh wound and died soon afterwards. And the
+soldier did not long survive him.(766)
+
+(M278) But the classical example of these stories is an old Roman tale
+told by Petronius. It is put in the mouth of one Niceros. Late at night he
+left the town to visit a friend of his, a widow, who lived at a farm five
+miles down the road. He was accompanied by a soldier, who lodged in the
+same house, a man of Herculean build. When they set out it was near dawn,
+but the moon shone as bright as day. Passing through the outskirts of the
+town, they came amongst the tombs, which lined the highroad for some
+distance. There the soldier made an excuse for retiring behind a monument,
+and Niceros sat down to wait for him, humming a tune and counting the
+tombstones to pass the time. In a little he looked round for his
+companion, and saw a sight which froze him with horror. The soldier had
+stripped off his clothes to the last rag and laid them at the side of the
+highway. Then he performed a certain ceremony over them, and immediately
+was changed into a wolf, and ran howling into the forest. When Niceros had
+recovered himself a little, he went to pick up the clothes, but found that
+they were turned to stone. More dead than alive, he drew his sword, and,
+striking at every shadow cast by the tombstones on the moonlit road, he
+tottered to his friend's house. He entered it like a ghost, to the
+surprise of the widow, who wondered to see him abroad so late. "If you had
+only been here a little ago," said she, "you might have been of some use.
+For a wolf came tearing into the yard, scaring the cattle and bleeding
+them like a butcher. But he did not get off so easily, for the servant
+speared him in the neck." After hearing these words, Niceros felt that he
+could not close an eye, so he hurried away home again. It was now broad
+daylight, but when he came to the place where the clothes had been turned
+to stone, he found only a pool of blood. He reached home, and there lay
+the soldier in bed like an ox in the shambles, and the doctor was
+bandaging his neck. "Then I knew," said Niceros, "that the man was a
+were-wolf, and never again could I break bread with him, no, not if you
+had killed me for it."(767)
+
+(M279) These stories may help us to understand the custom of burning a
+bewitched animal, which has been observed in our own country down to
+recent times, if indeed it is even now extinct. For a close parallel may
+be traced in some respects between witches and were-wolves. Like
+were-wolves, witches are commonly supposed to be able to transform
+themselves temporarily into animals for the purpose of playing their
+mischievous pranks;(768) and like were-wolves they can in their animal
+disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in
+drawing their blood. In either case the animal-skin is conceived as a
+cloak thrown round the wicked enchanter; and if you can only pierce the
+skin, whether by the stab of a knife or the shot of a gun, you so rend the
+disguise that the man or woman inside of it stands revealed in his or her
+true colours. Strictly speaking, the stab should be given on the brow or
+between the eyes in the case both of a witch and of a were-wolf;(769) and
+it is vain to shoot at a were-wolf unless you have had the bullet blessed
+in a chapel of St. Hubert or happen to be carrying about you, without
+knowing it, a four-leaved clover; otherwise the bullet will merely rebound
+from the were-wolf like water from a duck's back.(770) However, in Armenia
+they say that the were-wolf, who in that country is usually a woman, can
+be killed neither by shot nor by steel; the only way of delivering the
+unhappy woman from her bondage is to get hold of her wolf's skin and burn
+it; for that naturally prevents her from turning into a wolf again. But it
+is not easy to find the skin, for she is cunning enough to hide it by
+day.(771) So with witches, it is not only useless but even dangerous to
+shoot at one of them when she has turned herself into a hare; if you do,
+the gun may burst in your hand or the shot come back and kill you. The
+only way to make quite sure of hitting a witch-animal is to put a silver
+sixpence or a silver button in your gun.(772) For example, it happened one
+evening that a native of the island of Tiree was going home with a new
+gun, when he saw a black sheep running towards him across the plain of
+Reef. Something about the creature excited his suspicion, so he put a
+silver sixpence in his gun and fired at it. Instantly the black sheep
+became a woman with a drugget coat wrapt round her head. The man knew her
+quite well, for she was a witch who had often persecuted him before in the
+shape of a cat.(773)
+
+(M280) Again, the wounds inflicted on a witch-hare or a witch-cat are to
+be seen on the witch herself, just as the wounds inflicted on a were-wolf
+are to be seen on the man himself when he has doffed the wolf's skin. To
+take a few instances out of a multitude, a young man in the island of
+Lismore was out shooting. When he was near Balnagown loch, he started a
+hare and fired at it. The animal gave an unearthly scream, and then for
+the first time it occurred to him that there were no real hares in
+Lismore. He threw away his gun in terror and fled home; and next day he
+heard that a notorious witch was laid up with a broken leg. A man need be
+no conjuror to guess how she came by that broken leg.(774) Again, at
+Thurso certain witches used to turn themselves into cats and in that shape
+to torment an honest man. One night he lost patience, whipped out his
+broadsword, and put them to flight. As they were scurrying away he struck
+at them and cut off a leg of one of the cats. To his astonishment it was a
+woman's leg, and next morning he found one of the witches short of the
+corresponding limb.(775) Glanvil tells a story of "an old woman in
+Cambridge-shire, whose astral spirit, coming into a man's house (as he was
+sitting alone at the fire) in the shape of an huge cat, and setting her
+self before the fire, not far from him, he stole a stroke at the back of
+it with a fire-fork, and seemed to break the back of it, but it scambled
+from him, and vanisht he knew not how. But such an old woman, a reputed
+witch, was found dead in her bed that very night, with her back broken, as
+I have heard some years ago credibly reported."(776) In Yorkshire during
+the latter half of the nineteenth century a parish clergyman was told a
+circumstantial story of an old witch named Nanny, who was hunted in the
+form of a hare for several miles over the Westerdale moors and kept well
+away from the dogs, till a black one joined the pack and succeeded in
+taking a bit out of one of the hare's legs. That was the end of the chase,
+and immediately afterwards the sportsmen found old Nanny laid up in bed
+with a sore leg. On examining the wounded limb they discovered that the
+hurt was precisely in that part of it which in the hare had been bitten by
+the black dog and, what was still more significant, the wound had all the
+appearance of having been inflicted by a dog's teeth. So they put two and
+two together.(777) The same sort of thing is often reported in
+Lincolnshire. "One night," said a servant from Kirton Lindsey, "my father
+and brother saw a cat in front of them. Father knew it was a witch, and
+took a stone and hammered it. Next day the witch had her face all tied up,
+and shortly afterwards died." Again, a Bardney bumpkin told how a witch in
+his neighbourhood could take all sorts of shapes. One night a man shot a
+hare, and when he went to the witch's house he found her plastering a
+wound just where he had shot the hare.(778) So in County Leitrim, in
+Ireland, they say that a hare pursued by dogs fled to a house near at
+hand, but just as it was bolting in at the door one of the dogs came up
+with it and nipped a piece out of its leg. The hunters entered the house
+and found no hare there but only an old woman, and her side was bleeding;
+so they knew what to think of her.(779)
+
+(M281) Again, in the Vosges Mountains a great big hare used to come out
+every evening to take the air at the foot of the Mont des Fourches. All
+the sportsmen of the neighbourhood tried their hands on that hare for a
+month, but not one of them could hit it. At last one marksman, more
+knowing than the rest, loaded his gun with some pellets of a consecrated
+wafer in addition to the usual pellets of lead. That did the trick. If
+puss was not killed outright, she was badly hurt, and limped away uttering
+shrieks and curses in a human voice. Later it transpired that she was no
+other than the witch of a neighbouring village who had the power of
+putting on the shape of any animal she pleased.(780) Again, a hunter of
+Travexin, in the Vosges, fired at a hare and almost shot away one of its
+hind legs. Nevertheless the creature contrived to escape into a cottage
+through the open door. Immediately a child's cries were heard to proceed
+from the cottage, and the hunter could distinguish these words, "Daddy,
+daddy, come quick! Poor mammy has her leg broken."(781)
+
+(M282) In Swabia the witches are liable to accidents of the same sort when
+they go about their business in the form of animals. For example, there
+was a soldier who was betrothed to a young woman and used to visit her
+every evening when he was off duty. But one evening the girl told him that
+he must not come to the house on Friday nights, because it was never
+convenient to her to see him then. This roused his suspicion, and the very
+next Friday night he set out to go to his sweetheart's house. On the way a
+white cat ran up to him in the street and dogged his steps, and when the
+animal would not make off he drew his sword and slashed off one of its
+paws. On that the cat bolted. The soldier walked on, but when he came to
+his sweetheart's house he found her in bed, and when he asked her what was
+the matter, she gave a very confused reply. Noticing stains of blood on
+the bed, he drew down the coverlet and saw that the girl was weltering in
+her gore, for one of her feet was lopped off. "So that's what's the matter
+with you, you witch!" said he, and turned on his heel and left her, and
+within three days she was dead.(782) Again, a farmer in the neighbourhood
+of Wiesensteig frequently found in his stable a horse over and above the
+four horses he actually owned. He did not know what to make of it and
+mentioned the matter to the smith. The smith said quietly, "The next time
+you see a fifth horse in the stable, just you send for me." Well, it was
+not long before the strange horse was there again, and the farmer at once
+sent for the smith. He came bringing four horse-shoes with him, and said,
+"I'm sure the nag has no shoes; I'll shoe her for you." No sooner said
+than done. However, the smith overreached himself; for next day when his
+friend the farmer paid him a visit he found the smith's own wife prancing
+about with horse-shoes nailed on her hands and feet. But it was the last
+time she ever appeared in the shape of a horse.(783)
+
+(M283) Once more, in Silesia they tell of a miller's apprentice, a sturdy
+and industrious young fellow, who set out on his travels. One day he came
+to a mill, and the miller told him that he wanted an apprentice but did
+not care to engage one, because hitherto all his apprentices had run away
+in the night, and when he came down in the morning the mill was at a
+stand. However, he liked the looks of the young chap and took him into his
+pay. But what the new apprentice heard about the mill and his predecessors
+was not encouraging; so the first night when it was his duty to watch in
+the mill he took care to provide himself with an axe and a prayer-book,
+and while he kept one eye on the whirring, humming wheels he kept the
+other on the good book, which he read by the flickering light of a candle
+set on a table. So the hours at first passed quietly with nothing to
+disturb him but the monotonous drone and click of the machinery. But on
+the stroke of twelve, as he was still reading with the axe lying on the
+table within reach, the door opened and in came two grey cats mewing, an
+old one and a young one. They sat down opposite him, but it was easy to
+see that they did not like his wakefulness and the prayer-book and the
+axe. Suddenly the old cat reached out a paw and made a grab at the axe,
+but the young chap was too quick for her and held it fast. Then the young
+cat tried to do the same for the prayer-book, but the apprentice gripped
+it tight. Thus balked, the two cats set up such a squalling that the young
+fellow could hardly say his prayers. Just before one o'clock the younger
+cat sprang on the table and fetched a blow with her right paw at the
+candle to put it out. But the apprentice struck at her with his axe and
+sliced the paw off, whereupon the two cats vanished with a frightful
+screech. The apprentice wrapped the paw up in paper to shew it to his
+master. Very glad the miller was next morning when he came down and found
+the mill going and the young chap at his post. The apprentice told him
+what had happened in the night and gave him the parcel containing the
+cat's paw. But when the miller opened it, what was the astonishment of the
+two to find in it no cat's paw but a woman's hand! At breakfast the
+miller's young wife did not as usual take her place at the table. She was
+ill in bed, and the doctor had to be called in to bind up her right arm,
+because in hewing wood, so they said, she had made a slip and cut off her
+own right hand. But the apprentice packed up his traps and turned his back
+on that mill before the sun had set.(784)
+
+(M284) It would no doubt be easy to multiply instances, all equally well
+attested and authentic, of the transformation of witches into animals and
+of the damage which the women themselves have sustained through injuries
+inflicted on the animals.(785) But the foregoing evidence may suffice to
+establish the complete parallelism between witches and were-wolves in
+these respects. The analogy appears to confirm the view that the reason
+for burning a bewitched animal alive is a belief that the witch herself is
+in the animal, and that by burning it you either destroy the witch
+completely or at least unmask her and compel her to reassume her proper
+human shape, in which she is naturally far less potent for mischief than
+when she is careering about the country in the likeness of a cat, a hare,
+a horse, or what not. This principle is still indeed clearly recognized by
+people in Oldenburg, though, as might be expected, they do not now carry
+out the principle to its logical conclusion by burning the bewitched
+animal or person alive; instead they resort to a feeble and, it must be
+added, perfectly futile subterfuge dictated by a mistaken humanity or a
+fear of the police. "When anything living is bewitched in a house, for
+example, children or animals, they burn or boil the nobler inwards of
+animals, especially the hearts, but also the lungs or the liver. If
+animals have died, they take the inwards of one of them or of an animal of
+the same kind slaughtered for the purpose; but if that is not possible
+they take the inwards of a cock, by preference a black one. The heart,
+lung, or liver is stuck all over with needles, or marked with a cross cut,
+or placed on the fire in a tightly closed vessel, strict silence being
+observed and doors and windows well shut. When the heart boils or is
+reduced to ashes, the witch must appear, for during the boiling she feels
+the burning pain. She either begs to be released or seeks to borrow
+something, for example, salt or a coal of fire, or she takes the lid off
+the pot, or tries to induce the person whose spell is on her to speak.
+They say, too, that a woman comes with a spinning-wheel. If it is a sheep
+that has died, you proceed in the same way with a tripe from its stomach
+and prick it with needles while it is on the boil. Instead of boiling it,
+some people nail the heart to the highest rafter of the house, or lay it
+on the edge of the hearth, in order that it may dry up, no doubt because
+the same thing happens to the witch. We may conjecture that other
+sympathetic means of destruction are employed against witchcraft. The
+following is expressly reported: the heart of a calf that has died is
+stuck all over with needles, enclosed in a bag, and thrown into flowing
+water before sunset."(786)
+
+(M285) And the same thing holds good also of inanimate objects on which a
+witch has cast her spell. In Wales they say that "if a thing is bewitched,
+burn it, and immediately afterwards the witch will come to borrow
+something of you. If you give what she asks, she will go free; if you
+refuse it, she will burn, and a mark will be on her body the next
+day."(787) So, too, in Oldenburg, "the burning of things that are
+bewitched or that have been received from witches is another way of
+breaking the spell. It is often said that the burning should take place at
+a cross-road, and in several places cross-roads are shewn where the
+burning used to be performed.... As a rule, while the things are burning,
+the guilty witches appear, though not always in their own shape. At the
+burning of bewitched butter they often appear as cockchafers and can be
+killed with impunity. Victuals received from witches may be safely
+consumed if only you first burn a portion of them."(788) For example, a
+young man in Oldenburg was wooing a girl, and she gave him two fine apples
+as a gift. Not feeling any appetite at the time, he put the apples in his
+pocket, and when he came home he laid them by in a chest. Two or three
+days afterwards he remembered the apples and went to the chest to fetch
+them. But when he would have put his hand on them, what was his horror to
+find in their stead two fat ugly toads in the chest! He hastened to a wise
+man and asked him what he should do with the toads. The man told him to
+boil the toads alive, but while he was doing so he must be sure on no
+account to lend anything out of the house. Well, just as he had the toads
+in a pot on the fire and the water began to grow nicely warm, who should
+come to the door but the girl who had given him the apples, and she wished
+to borrow something; but he refused to give her anything, rated her as a
+witch, and drove her out of the house. A little afterwards in came the
+girl's mother and begged with tears in her eyes for something or other;
+but he turned her out also. The last word she said to him was that he
+should at least spare her daughter's life; but he paid no heed to her and
+let the toads boil till they fell to bits. Next day word came that the
+girl was dead.(789) Can any reasonable man doubt that the witch herself
+was boiled alive in the person of the toads?
+
+(M286) Moreover, just as a witch can assume the form of an animal, so she
+can assume the form of some other human being, and the likeness is
+sometimes so good that it is difficult to detect the fraud. However, by
+burning alive the person whose shape the witch has put on, you force the
+witch to disclose herself, just as by burning alive the bewitched animal
+you in like manner oblige the witch to appear. This principle may perhaps
+be unknown to science, falsely so called, but it is well understood in
+Ireland and has been acted on within recent years. In March 1895 a peasant
+named Michael Cleary, residing at Ballyvadlea, a remote and lonely
+district in the county of Tipperary, burned his wife Bridget Cleary alive
+over a slow fire on the kitchen hearth in the presence of and with the
+active assistance of some neighbours, including the woman's own father and
+several of her cousins. They thought that she was not Bridget Cleary at
+all, but a witch, and that when they held her down on the fire she would
+vanish up the chimney; so they cried, while she was burning, "Away she
+goes! Away she goes!" Even when she lay quite dead on the kitchen floor
+(for contrary to the general expectation she did not disappear up the
+chimney), her husband still believed that the woman lying there was a
+witch, and that his own dear wife had gone with the fairies to the old
+_rath_ or fort on the hill of Kylenagranagh, where he would see her at
+night riding a grey horse and roped to the saddle, and that he would cut
+the ropes, and that she would stay with him ever afterwards. So he went
+with some friends to the fort night after night, taking a big table-knife
+with him to cut the ropes. But he never saw his wife again. He and the men
+who had held the woman on the fire were arrested and tried at Clonmel for
+wilful murder in July 1895; they were all found guilty of manslaughter and
+sentenced to various terms of penal servitude and imprisonment; the
+sentence passed on Michael Cleary was twenty years' penal servitude.(790)
+
+(M287) However, our British peasants, it must be confessed, have not
+always acted up to the strict logical theory which seems to call for death
+by fire as the proper treatment both of bewitched animals and of witches.
+Sometimes, perhaps in moments of weakness, they have merely buried the
+bewitched animals alive instead of burning them. For example, in the year
+1643, "many cattle having died, John Brughe and Neane Nikclerith, also one
+of the initiated, conjoined their mutual skill for the safety of the herd.
+The surviving animals were drove past a tub of water containing two
+enchanted stones: and each was sprinkled from the liquid contents in its
+course. One, however, being unable to walk, 'was by force drawin out at
+the byre dure; and the said Johnne with Nikclerith smelling the nois
+thereof said it wald not leive, caused ane hoill to be maid in Maw Greane,
+quhilk was put quick in the hole and maid all the rest of the cattell
+theireftir to go over that place: and in that devillische maner, be
+charmeing,' they were cured."(791) Again, during the prevalence of a
+murrain about the year 1629, certain persons proposed to stay the plague
+with the help of a celebrated "cureing stane" of which the laird of Lee
+was the fortunate owner. But from this they were dissuaded by one who "had
+sene bestiall curet be taking ane quik seik ox, and making ane deip pitt,
+and bureing him therin, and be calling the oxin and bestiall over that
+place." Indeed Issobell Young, the mother of these persons, had herself
+endeavoured to check the progress of the distemper by taking "ane quik ox
+with ane catt, and ane grit quantitie of salt," and proceeding "to burie
+the ox and catt quik with the salt, in ane deip hoill in the grund, as ane
+sacrifice to the devill, that the rest of the guidis might be fred of the
+seiknes or diseases."(792) Writing towards the end of the eighteenth
+century, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre tells us that "the violent death even
+of a brute is in some cases held to be of great avail. There is a disease
+called the _black spauld_, which sometimes rages like a pestilence among
+black cattle, the symptoms of which are a mortification in the legs and a
+corruption of the mass of blood. Among the other engines of superstition
+that are directed against this fatal malady, the first cow seized with it
+is commonly buried alive, and the other cattle are forced to pass
+backwards and forwards over the pit. At other times the heart is taken out
+of the beast alive, and then the carcass is buried. It is remarkable that
+the leg affected is cut off, and hung up in some part of the house or
+byre, where it remains suspended, notwithstanding the seeming danger of
+infection. There is hardly a house in Mull where these may not be seen.
+This practice seems to have taken its rise antecedent to Christianity, as
+it reminds us of the pagan custom of hanging up offerings in their
+temples. In Breadalbane, when a cow is observed to have symptoms of
+madness, there is recourse had to a peculiar process. They tie the legs of
+the mad creature, and throw her into a pit dug at the door of the fold.
+After covering the hole with earth, a large fire is kindled upon it; and
+the rest of the cattle are driven out, and forced to pass through the fire
+one by one."(793) In this latter custom we may suspect that the fire
+kindled on the grave of the buried cow was originally made by the friction
+of wood, in other words, that it was a need-fire. Again, writing in the
+year 1862, Sir Arthur Mitchell tells us that "for the cure of the murrain
+in cattle, one of the herd is still sacrificed for the good of the whole.
+This is done by burying it alive. I am assured that within the last ten
+years such a barbarism occurred in the county of Moray."(794)
+
+(M288) Sometimes, however, the animal has not even been buried alive, it
+has been merely killed and then buried. In this emasculated form the
+sacrifice, we may say with confidence, is absolutely useless for the
+purpose of stopping a murrain. Nevertheless, it has been tried. Thus in
+Lincolnshire, "when the cattle plague was so prevalent in 1866, there was,
+I believe, not a single cowshed in Marshland but had its wicken cross over
+the door; and other charms more powerful than this were in some cases
+resorted to. I never heard of the use of the needfire in the Marsh, though
+it was, I believe, used on the wolds not many miles off. But I knew of at
+least one case in which a calf was killed and solemnly buried feet
+pointing upwards at the threshold of the cowshed. When our garthman told
+me of this, I pointed out to him that the charm had failed, for the
+disease had not spared that shed. But he promptly replied, 'Yis, but owd
+Edwards were a soight too cliver; he were that mean he slew nobbutt a
+wankling cauf as were bound to deny anny road; if he had nobbutt tekken
+his best cauf it wud hev worked reight enuff; 'tain't in reason that owd
+skrat 'ud be hanselled wi' wankling draffle.' "(795)
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRE-FESTIVALS.
+
+
+
+
+§ 1. On the Fire-festivals in general.
+
+
+(M289) The foregoing survey of the popular fire-festivals of Europe
+suggests some general observations. In the first place we can hardly help
+being struck by the resemblance which the ceremonies bear to each other,
+at whatever time of the year and in whatever part of Europe they are
+celebrated. The custom of kindling great bonfires, leaping over them, and
+driving cattle through or round them would seem to have been practically
+universal throughout Europe, and the same may be said of the processions
+or races with blazing torches round fields, orchards, pastures, or
+cattle-stalls. Less widespread are the customs of hurling lighted discs
+into the air(796) and trundling a burning wheel down hill;(797) for to
+judge by the evidence which I have collected these modes of distributing
+the beneficial influence of the fire have been confined in the main to
+Central Europe. The ceremonial of the Yule log is distinguished from that
+of the other fire-festivals by the privacy and domesticity which
+characterize it; but, as we have already seen, this distinction may well
+be due simply to the rough weather of midwinter, which is apt not only to
+render a public assembly in the open air disagreeable, but also at any
+moment to defeat the object of the assembly by extinguishing the
+all-important fire under a downpour of rain or a fall of snow. Apart from
+these local or seasonal differences, the general resemblance between the
+fire-festivals at all times of the year and in all places is tolerably
+close. And as the ceremonies themselves resemble each other, so do the
+benefits which the people expect to reap from them. Whether applied in the
+form of bonfires blazing at fixed points, or of torches carried about from
+place to place, or of embers and ashes taken from the smouldering heap of
+fuel, the fire is believed to promote the growth of the crops and the
+welfare of man and beast, either positively by stimulating them, or
+negatively by averting the dangers and calamities which threaten them from
+such causes as thunder and lightning, conflagration, blight, mildew,
+vermin, sterility, disease, and not least of all witchcraft.
+
+(M290) But we naturally ask, How did it come about that benefits so great
+and manifold were supposed to be attained by means so simple? In what way
+did people imagine that they could procure so many goods or avoid so many
+ills by the application of fire and smoke, of embers and ashes? In short,
+what theory underlay and prompted the practice of these customs? For that
+the institution of the festivals was the outcome of a definite train of
+reasoning may be taken for granted; the view that primitive man acted
+first and invented his reasons to suit his actions afterwards, is not
+borne out by what we know of his nearest living representatives, the
+savage and the peasant. Two different explanations of the fire-festivals
+have been given by modern enquirers. On the one hand it has been held that
+they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended, on the principle of
+imitative magic, to ensure a needful supply of sunshine for men, animals,
+and plants by kindling fires which mimic on earth the great source of
+light and heat in the sky. This was the view of Wilhelm Mannhardt.(798) It
+may be called the solar theory. On the other hand it has been maintained
+that the ceremonial fires have no necessary reference to the sun but are
+simply purificatory in intention, being designed to burn up and destroy
+all harmful influences, whether these are conceived in a personal form as
+witches, demons, and monsters, or in an impersonal form as a sort of
+pervading taint or corruption of the air. This is the view of Dr. Edward
+Westermarck(799) and apparently of Professor Eugen Mogk.(800) It may be
+called the purificatory theory. Obviously the two theories postulate two
+very different conceptions of the fire which plays the principal part in
+the rites. On the one view, the fire, like sunshine in our latitude, is a
+genial creative power which fosters the growth of plants and the
+development of all that makes for health and happiness; on the other view,
+the fire is a fierce destructive power which blasts and consumes all the
+noxious elements, whether spiritual or material, that menace the life of
+men, of animals, and of plants. According to the one theory the fire is a
+stimulant, according to the other it is a disinfectant; on the one view
+its virtue is positive, on the other it is negative.
+
+(M291) Yet the two explanations, different as they are in the character
+which they attribute to the fire, are perhaps not wholly irreconcilable.
+If we assume that the fires kindled at these festivals were primarily
+intended to imitate the sun's light and heat, may we not regard the
+purificatory and disinfecting qualities, which popular opinion certainly
+appears to have ascribed to them, as attributes derived directly from the
+purificatory and disinfecting qualities of sunshine? In this way we might
+conclude that, while the imitation of sunshine in these ceremonies was
+primary and original, the purification attributed to them was secondary
+and derivative. Such a conclusion, occupying an intermediate position
+between the two opposing theories and recognizing an element of truth in
+both of them, was adopted by me in earlier editions of this work;(801) but
+in the meantime Dr. Westermarck has argued powerfully in favour of the
+purificatory theory alone, and I am bound to say that his arguments carry
+great weight, and that on a fuller review of the facts the balance of
+evidence seems to me to incline decidedly in his favour. However, the case
+is not so clear as to justify us in dismissing the solar theory without
+discussion, and accordingly I propose to adduce the considerations which
+tell for it before proceeding to notice those which tell against it. A
+theory which had the support of so learned and sagacious an investigator
+as W. Mannhardt is entitled to a respectful hearing.
+
+
+
+
+§ 2. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals.
+
+
+(M292) In an earlier part of this work we saw that savages resort to
+charms for making sunshine,(802) and it would be no wonder if primitive
+man in Europe did the same. Indeed, when we consider the cold and cloudy
+climate of Europe during a great part of the year, we shall find it
+natural that sun-charms should have played a much more prominent part
+among the superstitious practices of European peoples than among those of
+savages who live nearer the equator and who consequently are apt to get in
+the course of nature more sunshine than they want. This view of the
+festivals may be supported by various arguments drawn partly from their
+dates, partly from the nature of the rites, and partly from the influence
+which they are believed to exert upon the weather and on vegetation.
+
+(M293) First, in regard to the dates of the festivals it can be no mere
+accident that two of the most important and widely spread of the festivals
+are timed to coincide more or less exactly with the summer and winter
+solstices, that is, with the two turning-points in the sun's apparent
+course in the sky when he reaches respectively his highest and his lowest
+elevation at noon. Indeed with respect to the midwinter celebration of
+Christmas we are not left to conjecture; we know from the express
+testimony of the ancients that it was instituted by the church to
+supersede an old heathen festival of the birth of the sun,(803) which was
+apparently conceived to be born again on the shortest day of the year,
+after which his light and heat were seen to grow till they attained their
+full maturity at midsummer. Therefore it is no very far-fetched conjecture
+to suppose that the Yule log, which figures so prominently in the popular
+celebration of Christmas, was originally designed to help the labouring
+sun of midwinter to rekindle his seemingly expiring light.
+
+(M294) The idea that by lighting a log on earth you can rekindle a fire in
+heaven or fan it into a brighter blaze, naturally seems to us absurd; but
+to the savage mind it wears a different aspect, and the institution of the
+great fire-festivals which we are considering probably dates from a time
+when Europe was still sunk in savagery or at most in barbarism. Now it can
+be shewn that in order to increase the celestial source of heat at
+midwinter savages resort to a practice analogous to that of our Yule log,
+if the kindling of the Yule log was originally a magical rite intended to
+rekindle the sun. In the southern hemisphere, where the order of the
+seasons is the reverse of ours, the rising of Sirius or the Dog Star in
+July marks the season of the greatest cold instead of, as with us, the
+greatest heat; and just as the civilized ancients ascribed the torrid heat
+of midsummer to that brilliant star,(804) so the modern savage of South
+Africa attributes to it the piercing cold of midwinter and seeks to
+mitigate its rigour by warming up the chilly star with the genial heat of
+the sun. How he does so may be best described in his own words as
+follows:--(805)
+
+"The Bushmen perceive Canopus, they say to a child: 'Give me yonder piece
+of wood, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that I may point it
+burning towards grandmother, for grandmother carries Bushman rice;
+grandmother shall make a little warmth for us; for she coldly comes out;
+the sun(806) shall warm grandmother's eye for us.' Sirius comes out; the
+people call out to one another: 'Sirius comes yonder;' they say to one
+another: 'Ye must burn a stick for us towards Sirius.' They say to one
+another: 'Who was it who saw Sirius?' One man says to the other: 'Our
+brother saw Sirius.' The other man says to him: 'I saw Sirius.' The other
+man says to him: 'I wish thee to burn a stick for us towards Sirius; that
+the sun may shining come out for us; that Sirius may not coldly come out.'
+The other man (the one who saw Sirius) says to his son: 'Bring me the
+small piece of wood yonder, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that
+I may burn it towards grandmother; that grandmother may ascend the sky,
+like the other one, Canopus.' The child brings him the piece of wood, he
+(the father) holds the end of it in the fire. He points it burning towards
+Sirius; he says that Sirius shall twinkle like Canopus. He sings; he sings
+about Canopus, he sings about Sirius; he points to them with fire,(807)
+that they may twinkle like each other. He throws fire at them. He covers
+himself up entirely (including his head) in his kaross and lies down. He
+arises, he sits down; while he does not again lie down; because he feels
+that he has worked, putting Sirius into the sun's warmth; so that Sirius
+may warmly come out. The women go out early to seek for Bushman rice; they
+walk, sunning their shoulder blades."(808) What the Bushmen thus do to
+temper the cold of midwinter in the southern hemisphere by blowing up the
+celestial fires may have been done by our rude forefathers at the
+corresponding season in the northern hemisphere.
+
+(M295) Not only the date of some of the festivals but the manner of their
+celebration suggests a conscious imitation of the sun. The custom of
+rolling a burning wheel down a hill, which is often observed at these
+ceremonies, might well pass for an imitation of the sun's course in the
+sky, and the imitation would be especially appropriate on Midsummer Day
+when the sun's annual declension begins. Indeed the custom has been thus
+interpreted by some of those who have recorded it.(809) Not less graphic,
+it may be said, is the mimicry of his apparent revolution by swinging a
+burning tar-barrel round a pole.(810) Again, the common practice of
+throwing fiery discs, sometimes expressly said to be shaped like suns,
+into the air at the festivals may well be a piece of imitative magic. In
+these, as in so many cases, the magic force may be supposed to take effect
+through mimicry or sympathy: by imitating the desired result you actually
+produce it: by counterfeiting the sun's progress through the heavens you
+really help the luminary to pursue his celestial journey with punctuality
+and despatch. The name "fire of heaven," by which the midsummer fire is
+sometimes popularly known,(811) clearly implies a consciousness of a
+connexion between the earthly and the heavenly flame.
+
+(M296) Again, the manner in which the fire appears to have been originally
+kindled on these occasions has been alleged in support of the view that it
+was intended to be a mock-sun. As some scholars have perceived, it is
+highly probable that at the periodic festivals in former times fire was
+universally obtained by the friction of two pieces of wood.(812) We have
+seen that it is still so procured in some places both at the Easter and
+the midsummer festivals, and that it is expressly said to have been
+formerly so procured at the Beltane celebration both in Scotland and
+Wales.(813) But what makes it nearly certain that this was once the
+invariable mode of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the
+analogy of the need-fire, which has almost always been produced by the
+friction of wood, and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel. It is a
+plausible conjecture that the wheel employed for this purpose represents
+the sun,(814) and if the fires at the regularly recurring celebrations
+were formerly produced in the same way, it might be regarded as a
+confirmation of the view that they were originally sun-charms. In point of
+fact there is, as Kuhn has indicated,(815) some evidence to shew that the
+midsummer fire was originally thus produced. We have seen that many
+Hungarian swine-herds make fire on Midsummer Eve by rotating a wheel round
+a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and that they drive their pigs through the
+fire thus made.(816) At Obermedlingen, in Swabia, the "fire of heaven," as
+it was called, was made on St. Vitus's Day (the fifteenth of June) by
+igniting a cart-wheel, which, smeared with pitch and plaited with straw,
+was fastened on a pole twelve feet high, the top of the pole being
+inserted in the nave of the wheel. This fire was made on the summit of a
+mountain, and as the flame ascended, the people uttered a set form of
+words, with eyes and arms directed heavenward.(817) Here the fixing of a
+wheel on a pole and igniting it suggests that originally the fire was
+produced, as in the case of the need-fire, by the revolution of a wheel.
+The day on which the ceremony takes place (the fifteenth of June) is near
+midsummer; and we have seen that in Masuren fire is, or used to be,
+actually made on Midsummer Day by turning a wheel rapidly about an oaken
+pole,(818) though it is not said that the new fire so obtained is used to
+light a bonfire. However, we must bear in mind that in all such cases the
+use of a wheel may be merely a mechanical device to facilitate the
+operation of fire-making by increasing the friction; it need not have any
+symbolical significance.
+
+(M297) Further, the influence which these fires, whether periodic or
+occasional, are supposed to exert on the weather and vegetation may be
+cited in support of the view that they are sun-charms, since the effects
+ascribed to them resemble those of sunshine. Thus, the French belief that
+in a rainy June the lighting of the midsummer bonfires will cause the rain
+to cease(819) appears to assume that they can disperse the dark clouds and
+make the sun to break out in radiant glory, drying the wet earth and
+dripping trees. Similarly the use of the need-fire by Swiss children on
+foggy days for the purpose of clearing away the mist(820) may very
+naturally be interpreted as a sun-charm. Again, we have seen that in the
+Vosges Mountains the people believe that the midsummer fires help to
+preserve the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops.(821) In Sweden the
+warmth or cold of the coming season is inferred from the direction in
+which the flames of the May Day bonfire are blown; if they blow to the
+south, it will be warm, if to the north, cold.(822) No doubt at present
+the direction of the flames is regarded merely as an augury of the
+weather, not as a mode of influencing it. But we may be pretty sure that
+this is one of the cases in which magic has dwindled into divination. So
+in the Eifel Mountains, when the smoke blows towards the corn-fields, this
+is an omen that the harvest will be abundant.(823) But the older view may
+have been not merely that the smoke and flames prognosticated, but that
+they actually produced an abundant harvest, the heat of the flames acting
+like sunshine on the corn. Perhaps it was with this view that people in
+the Isle of Man lit fires to windward of their fields in order that the
+smoke might blow over them.(824) So in South Africa, about the month of
+April, the Matabeles light huge fires to the windward of their gardens,
+"their idea being that the smoke, by passing over the crops, will assist
+the ripening of them."(825) Among the Zulus also "medicine is burned on a
+fire placed to windward of the garden, the fumigation which the plants in
+consequence receive being held to improve the crop."(826) Again, the idea
+of our European peasants that the corn will grow well as far as the blaze
+of the bonfire is visible,(827) may be interpreted as a remnant of the
+belief in the quickening and fertilizing power of the bonfires. The same
+belief, it may be argued, reappears in the notion that embers taken from
+the bonfires and inserted in the fields will promote the growth of the
+crops,(828) and it may be thought to underlie the customs of sowing
+flax-seed in the direction in which the flames blow,(829) of mixing the
+ashes of the bonfire with the seed-corn at sowing,(830) of scattering the
+ashes by themselves over the field to fertilize it,(831) and of
+incorporating a piece of the Yule log in the plough to make the seeds
+thrive.(832) The opinion that the flax or hemp will grow as high as the
+flames rise or the people leap over them(833) belongs clearly to the same
+class of ideas. Again, at Konz, on the banks of the Moselle, if the
+blazing wheel which was trundled down the hillside reached the river
+without being extinguished, this was hailed as a proof that the vintage
+would be abundant. So firmly was this belief held that the successful
+performance of the ceremony entitled the villagers to levy a tax upon the
+owners of the neighbouring vineyards.(834) Here the unextinguished wheel
+might be taken to represent an unclouded sun, which in turn would portend
+an abundant vintage. So the waggon-load of white wine which the villagers
+received from the vineyards round about might pass for a payment for the
+sunshine which they had procured for the grapes. Similarly we saw that in
+the Vale of Glamorgan a blazing wheel used to be trundled down hill on
+Midsummer Day, and that if the fire were extinguished before the wheel
+reached the foot of the hill, the people expected a bad harvest; whereas
+if the wheel kept alight all the way down and continued to blaze for a
+long time, the farmers looked forward to heavy crops that summer.(835)
+Here, again, it is natural to suppose that the rustic mind traced a direct
+connexion between the fire of the wheel and the fire of the sun, on which
+the crops are dependent.
+
+(M298) But in popular belief the quickening and fertilizing influence of
+the bonfires is not limited to the vegetable world; it extends also to
+animals. This plainly appears from the Irish custom of driving barren
+cattle through the mid-summer fires,(836) from the French belief that the
+Yule-log steeped in water helps cows to calve,(837) from the French and
+Servian notion that there will be as many chickens, calves, lambs, and
+kids as there are sparks struck out of the Yule log,(838) from the French
+custom of putting the ashes of the bonfires in the fowls' nests to make
+the hens lay eggs,(839) and from the German practice of mixing the ashes
+of the bonfires with the drink of cattle in order to make the animals
+thrive.(840) Further, there are clear indications that even human
+fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the fires. In
+Morocco the people think that childless couples can obtain offspring by
+leaping over the midsummer bonfire.(841) It is an Irish belief that a girl
+who jumps thrice over the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the
+mother of many children;(842) in Flanders women leap over the Midsummer
+fires to ensure an easy delivery;(843) and in various parts of France they
+think that if a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry
+within the year.(844) On the other hand, in Lechrain people say that if a
+young man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape
+unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within twelve
+months:(845) the flames have not touched and fertilized her. In parts of
+Switzerland and France the lighting of the Yule log is accompanied by a
+prayer that the women may bear children, the she-goats bring forth kids,
+and the ewes drop lambs.(846) The rule observed in some places that the
+bonfires should be kindled by the person who was last married(847) seems
+to belong to the same class of ideas, whether it be that such a person is
+supposed to receive from, or to impart to, the fire a generative and
+fertilizing influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the
+fires hand in hand may very well have originated in a notion that thereby
+their marriage would be blessed with offspring; and the like motive would
+explain the custom which obliges couples married within the year to dance
+to the light of torches.(848) And the scenes of profligacy which appear to
+have marked the midsummer celebration among the Esthonians,(849) as they
+once marked the celebration of May Day among ourselves, may have sprung,
+not from the mere license of holiday-makers, but from a crude notion that
+such orgies were justified, if not required, by some mysterious bond which
+linked the life of man to the courses of the heavens at this turning-point
+of the year.
+
+(M299) At the festivals which we are considering the custom of kindling
+bonfires is commonly associated with a custom of carrying lighted torches
+about the fields, the orchards, the pastures, the flocks and the herds;
+and we can hardly doubt that the two customs are only two different ways
+of attaining the same object, namely, the benefits which are believed to
+flow from the fire, whether it be stationary or portable. Accordingly if
+we accept the solar theory of the bonfires, we seem bound to apply it also
+to the torches; we must suppose that the practice of marching or running
+with blazing torches about the country is simply a means of diffusing far
+and wide the genial influence of the sunshine, of which these flickering
+flames are a feeble imitation. In favour of this view it may be said that
+sometimes the torches are carried about the fields for the express purpose
+of fertilizing them,(850) and for the same purpose live coals from the
+bonfires are sometimes placed in the fields "to prevent blight."(851) On
+the Eve of Twelfth Day in Normandy men, women, and children run wildly
+through the fields and orchards with lighted torches, which they wave
+about the branches and dash against the trunks of the fruit-trees for the
+sake of burning the moss and driving away the moles and field mice. "They
+believe that the ceremony fulfils the double object of exorcizing the
+vermin whose multiplication would be a real calamity, and of imparting
+fecundity to the trees, the fields, and even the cattle"; and they imagine
+that the more the ceremony is prolonged, the greater will be the crop of
+fruit next autumn.(852) In Bohemia they say that the corn will grow as
+high as they fling the blazing besoms into the air.(853) Nor are such
+notions confined to Europe. In Corea, a few days before the New Year
+festival, the eunuchs of the palace swing burning torches, chanting
+invocations the while, and this is supposed to ensure bountiful crops for
+the next season.(854) The custom of trundling a burning wheel over the
+fields, which used to be observed in Poitou for the express purpose of
+fertilizing them,(855) may be thought to embody the same idea in a still
+more graphic form; since in this way the mock-sun itself, not merely its
+light and heat represented by torches, is made actually to pass over the
+ground which is to receive its quickening and kindly influence. Once more,
+the custom of carrying lighted brands round cattle(856) is plainly
+equivalent to driving the animals through the bonfire; and if the bonfire
+is a sun-charm, the torches must be so also.
+
+
+
+
+§ 3. The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals.
+
+
+(M300) Thus far we have considered what may be said for the theory that at
+the European fire-festivals the fire is kindled as a charm to ensure an
+abundant supply of sunshine for man and beast, for corn and fruits. It
+remains to consider what may be said against this theory and in favour of
+the view that in these rites fire is employed not as a creative but as a
+cleansing agent, which purifies men, animals, and plants by burning up and
+consuming the noxious elements, whether material or spiritual, which
+menace all living things with disease and death.
+
+(M301) First, then, it is to be observed that the people who practise the
+fire-customs appear never to allege the solar theory in explanation of
+them, while on the contrary they do frequently and emphatically put
+forward the purificatory theory. This is a strong argument in favour of
+the purificatory and against the solar theory; for the popular explanation
+of a popular custom is never to be rejected except for grave cause. And in
+the present case there seems to be no adequate reason for rejecting it.
+The conception of fire as a destructive agent, which can be turned to
+account for the consumption of evil things, is so simple and obvious that
+it could hardly escape the minds even of the rude peasantry with whom
+these festivals originated. On the other hand the conception of fire as an
+emanation of the sun, or at all events as linked to it by a bond of
+physical sympathy, is far less simple and obvious; and though the use of
+fire as a charm to produce sunshine appears to be undeniable,(857)
+nevertheless in attempting to explain popular customs we should never have
+recourse to a more recondite idea when a simpler one lies to hand and is
+supported by the explicit testimony of the people themselves. Now in the
+case of the fire-festivals the destructive aspect of fire is one upon
+which the people dwell again and again; and it is highly significant that
+the great evil against which the fire is directed appears to be
+witchcraft. Again and again we are told that the fires are intended to
+burn or repel the witches;(858) and the intention is sometimes graphically
+expressed by burning an effigy of a witch in the fire.(859) Hence, when we
+remember the great hold which the dread of witchcraft has had on the
+popular European mind in all ages, we may suspect that the primary
+intention of all these fire-festivals was simply to destroy or at all
+events get rid of the witches, who were regarded as the causes of nearly
+all the misfortunes and calamities that befall men, their cattle, and
+their crops.(860)
+
+(M302) This suspicion is confirmed when we examine the evils for which the
+bonfires and torches were supposed to provide a remedy. Foremost, perhaps,
+among these evils we may reckon the diseases of cattle; and of all the
+ills that witches are believed to work there is probably none which is so
+constantly insisted on as the harm they do to the herds, particularly by
+stealing the milk from the cows.(861) Now it is significant that the
+need-fire, which may perhaps be regarded as the parent of the periodic
+fire-festivals, is kindled above all as a remedy for a murrain or other
+disease of cattle; and the circumstance suggests, what on general grounds
+seems probable, that the custom of kindling the need-fire goes back to a
+time when the ancestors of the European peoples subsisted chiefly on the
+products of their herds, and when agriculture as yet played a subordinate
+part in their lives. Witches and wolves are the two great foes still
+dreaded by the herdsman in many parts of Europe;(862) and we need not
+wonder that he should resort to fire as a powerful means of banning them
+both. Among Slavonic peoples it appears that the foes whom the need-fire
+is designed to combat are not so much living witches as vampyres and other
+evil spirits,(863) and the ceremony, as we saw, aims rather at repelling
+these baleful beings than at actually consuming them in the flames. But
+for our present purpose these distinctions are immaterial. The important
+thing to observe is that among the Slavs the need-fire, which is probably
+the original of all the ceremonial fires now under consideration, is not a
+sun-charm, but clearly and unmistakably nothing but a means of protecting
+man and beast against the attacks of maleficent creatures, whom the
+peasant thinks to burn or scare by the heat of the fire, just as he might
+burn or scare wild animals.
+
+(M303) Again, the bonfires are often supposed to protect the fields
+against hail(864) and the homestead against thunder and lightning.(865)
+But both hail and thunderstorms are frequently thought to be caused by
+witches;(866) hence the fire which bans the witches necessarily serves at
+the same time as a talisman against hail, thunder, and lightning. Further,
+brands taken from the bonfires are commonly kept in the houses to guard
+them against conflagration;(867) and though this may perhaps be done on
+the principle of homoeopathic magic, one fire being thought to act as a
+preventive of another, it is also possible that the intention may be to
+keep witch-incendiaries at bay. Again, people leap over the bonfires as a
+preventive of colic,(868) and look at the flames steadily in order to
+preserve their eyes in good health;(869) and both colic and sore eyes are
+in Germany, and probably elsewhere, set down to the machinations of
+witches.(870) Once more, to leap over the Midsummer fires or to
+circumambulate them is thought to prevent a person from feeling pains in
+his back at reaping;(871) and in Germany such pains are called
+"witch-shots" and ascribed to witchcraft.(872)
+
+(M304) But if the bonfires and torches of the fire-festivals are to be
+regarded primarily as weapons directed against witches and wizards, it
+becomes probable that the same explanation applies not only to the flaming
+discs which are hurled into the air, but also to the burning wheels which
+are rolled down hill on these occasions; discs and wheels, we may suppose,
+are alike intended to burn the witches who hover invisible in the air or
+haunt unseen the fields, the orchards, and the vineyards on the
+hillside.(873) Certainly witches are constantly thought to ride through
+the air on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they
+do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted
+missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past
+overhead in the gloom? The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches
+ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the
+hags, while he curses them, saying, "Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is
+a heathen, damned of God and fettered through the Redeemer's blood." Also
+he brings out a pot of glowing charcoal on which he has thrown holy oil,
+laurel leaves, and wormwood to make a smoke. The fumes are supposed to
+ascend to the clouds and stupefy the witches, so that they tumble down to
+earth. And in order that they may not fall soft, but may hurt themselves
+very much, the yokel hastily brings out a chair and tilts it bottom up so
+that the witch in falling may break her legs on the legs of the chair.
+Worse than that, he cruelly lays scythes, bill-hooks and other formidable
+weapons edge upwards so as to cut and mangle the poor wretches when they
+drop plump upon them from the clouds.(874)
+
+(M305) On this view the fertility supposed to follow the application of
+fire in the form of bonfires, torches, discs, rolling wheels, and so
+forth, is not conceived as resulting directly from an increase of solar
+heat which the fire has magically generated; it is merely an indirect
+result obtained by freeing the reproductive powers of plants and animals
+from the fatal obstruction of witchcraft. And what is true of the
+reproduction of plants and animals may hold good also of the fertility of
+the human sexes. We have seen that the bonfires are supposed to promote
+marriage and to procure offspring for childless couples. This happy effect
+need not flow directly from any quickening or fertilizing energy in the
+fire; it may follow indirectly from the power of the fire to remove those
+obstacles which the spells of witches and wizards notoriously present to
+the union of man and wife.(875)
+
+(M306) On the whole, then, the theory of the purificatory virtue of the
+ceremonial fires appears more probable and more in accordance with the
+evidence than the opposing theory of their connexion with the sun. But
+Europe is not the only part of the world where ceremonies of this sort
+have been performed; elsewhere the passage through the flames or smoke or
+over the glowing embers of a bonfire, which is the central feature of most
+of the rites, has been employed as a cure or a preventive of various ills.
+We have seen that the midsummer ritual of fire in Morocco is practically
+identical with that of our European peasantry; and customs more or less
+similar have been observed by many races in various parts of the world. A
+consideration of some of them may help us to decide between the
+conflicting claims of the two rival theories, which explain the ceremonies
+as sun-charms or purifications respectively.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+   M1 The priest of Aricia and the Golden Bough.
+
+_    1 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 44.
+
+   M2 What was the Golden Bough?
+   M3 Sacred kings and priests forbidden to touch the ground with their
+      feet.
+
+    2 H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London,
+      1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des Nations
+      civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique-Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859),
+      iii. 29.
+
+_    3 Manuscrit Ramirez, Histoire de l'origine des Indiens_, publie par
+      D. Charnay (Paris, 1903), p. 108; J. de Acosta, _The Natural and
+      Moral History of the Indies_, bk. vii. chap. 22, vol. ii. p. 505 of
+      E. Grimston's translation, edited by (Sir) Clements R. Markham
+      (Hakluyt Society, London, 1880).
+
+_    4 Memorials of the Empire of Japon in the XVI. and XVII. Centuries_,
+      edited by T. Rundall (Hakluyt Society, London, 1850), pp. 14, 141;
+      B. Varenius, _Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam_ (Cambridge, 1673),
+      p. 11; Caron, "Account of Japan," in John Pinkerton's _Voyages and
+      Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), vii. 613; Kaempfer, "History of
+      Japan," in _id._ vii. 716.
+
+    5 W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, Second Edition (London,
+      1832-1836), iii. 102 _sq._; Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage
+      to the Southern Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1799), p. 329.
+
+    6 A. Bastian, _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_ (Leipsic, 1860), iii. 81.
+
+    7 Athenaeus, xii. 8, p. 514 c.
+
+_    8 The Voiages and Travels of John Struys_ (London, 1684), p. 30.
+
+    9 Rev. J. Roscoe, "Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the
+      Baganda," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902)
+      pp. 62, 67; _id._, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 154 _sq._
+      Compare L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p.
+      445 note: "Before horses had been introduced into Uganda the king
+      and his mother never walked, but always went about perched astride
+      the shoulders of a slave--a most ludicrous sight. In this way they
+      often travelled hundreds of miles." The use both of horses and of
+      chariots by royal personages may often have been intended to prevent
+      their sacred feet from touching the ground.
+
+   10 E. Torday et T. A. Joyce, _Les Bushongo_ (Brussels, 1910), p. 61.
+
+   11 Northcote W. Thomas, _Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking
+      Peoples of Nigeria_ (London, 1913), i. 57 _sq._
+
+_   12 Satapatha Brahmana_, translated by Julius Eggeling, Part iii.
+      (Oxford, 1894) pp. 81, 91, 92, 102, 128 _sq._ (_Sacred Books of the
+      East_, vol. xli.).
+
+   M4 Certain persons on certain occasions forbidden to touch the ground
+      with their feet.
+
+   13 A. W. Nieuwenhuis, _Quer durch Borneo_ (Leyden, 1904-1907), i. 172.
+
+   14 Letter of Missionary Krick, in _Annales de la Propagation de la
+      Foi_, xxvi. (1854) pp. 86-88.
+
+   15 Pechuel-Loesche, "Indiscretes aus Loango," _Zeitschrift fuer
+      Ethnologie_, x. (1878) pp. 29 _sq._
+
+   16 Edgar Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_ (Madras,
+      1906), p. 70.
+
+   17 M. C. Schadee, "Het familieleven en familierecht der Dajaks van
+      Landak en Tajan," _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
+      Nederlandsch-Indie_, lxiii. (1910) p. 433.
+
+   18 James Adair, _History of the American Indians_ (London, 1775), p.
+      382; _Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner_
+      (London, 1830), p. 123. As to the taboos to which warriors are
+      subject see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 157 _sqq._
+
+   19 Etienne Aymonier, _Notes sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 26.
+
+_   20 Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_5 (Chemnitz, 1759), pp. 586
+      _sqq._
+
+   M5 Sacred or tabooed persons apparently thought to be charged with a
+      mysterious virtue like a fluid, which will run to waste or explode
+      if it touches the ground.
+   M6 Things as well as persons can be charged with the mysterious quality
+      of holiness or taboo; and when so charged they must be kept from
+      contact with the ground.
+
+   21 Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
+      Australia_ (London, 1899), pp. 364, 370 _sqq._, 629; _id._, _Across
+      Australia_ (London, 1912), ii. 280, 285 _sq._
+
+   M7 Festival of the wild mango tree in British New Guinea.
+   M8 The wild mango tree not allowed to touch the ground.
+   M9 Final disposition of the wild mango tree.
+
+   22 C. G. Seligmann, M.D., _The Melanesians of British New Guinea_
+      (Cambridge, 1910), pp. 589-599.
+
+  M10 The ceremony apparently intended to fertilize the mango trees.
+  M11 Sacred objects of various sorts not allowed to touch the ground.
+
+   23 George Brown, D.D., _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910),
+      pp. 60 _sq._, 64. As to the Duk-duk society, see below, vol. ii. pp.
+      246 _sq._
+
+   24 John Keast Lord, _The Naturalist in Vancouver Island and British
+      Columbia_ (London, 1866), ii. 237.
+
+   25 Edwin James, _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky
+      Mountains_ (London, 1823), ii. 47; Rev. J. Owen Dorsey, "Omaha
+      Sociology," _Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_
+      (Washington, 1884), p. 226.
+
+   26 James Adair, _History of the American Indians_ (London, 1775), pp.
+      161-163.
+
+   27 (Sir) Henry Babington Smith, in _Folk-lore_, v. (1894) p. 340.
+
+   28 Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, _In the Hebrides_ (London, 1883), p. 211.
+
+   29 W. Gregor, "Quelques coutumes du Nord-est du Comte d'Aberdeen,"
+      _Revue des Traditions populaires_, iii. (1888) p. 485 B. Compare
+      _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, i. 158 _sq._
+
+  M12 Sacred food not allowed to touch the earth.
+
+   30 R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne and London,
+      1878), i. 450.
+
+   31 E. Gerard, _The Land beyond the Forest_ (Edinburgh and London,
+      1888), ii. 7.
+
+   32 F. Grabowsky, "Der Distrikt Dusson Timor in Suedost-Borneo und seine
+      Bewohner," _Das Ausland_, 1884, No. 24, p. 470.
+
+_   33 Narrative of the Second Arctic Expedition made by Charles F. Hall_,
+      edited by Prof. J. E. Nourse (Washington, 1879), pp. 110 _sq._
+
+   34 See _Taboo and Perils of the Soul_, pp. 207 _sqq._
+
+  M13 Magical implements and remedies thought to lose their virtue by
+      contact with the ground.
+
+   35 Walter E. Roth, _Ethnological Studies among the North-West-Central
+      Queensland Aborigines_ (Brisbane and London, 1897), p. 156, § 265.
+      The custom of killing a man by pointing a bone or stick at him,
+      while the sorcerer utters appropriate curses, is common among the
+      tribes of Central Australia; but amongst them there seems to be no
+      objection to place the bone or stick on the ground; on the contrary,
+      an Arunta wizard inserts the bone or stick in the ground while he
+      invokes death and destruction on his enemy. See Baldwin Spencer and
+      F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (London, 1899),
+      pp. 534 _sqq._; _id._, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_
+      (London, 1904), pp. 455 _sqq._
+
+   36 Hugh Low, _Sarawak_ (London, 1848), pp. 145 _sq._
+
+   37 Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xxviii. 33 _sq._
+
+   38 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
+      Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 184. As to the superstitions attaching
+      to stone arrow-heads and axeheads (celts), commonly known as
+      "thunderbolts," in the British Islands, see W. W. Skeat,
+      "Snake-stones and Stone Thunderbolts," _Folk-lore_, xxiii. (1912)
+      pp. 60 _sqq._; and as to such superstitions in general, see Chr.
+      Blinkenberg, _The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore_
+      (Cambridge, 1911).
+
+  M14 Serpents' eggs or Snake Stones.
+
+   39 Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xxix. 52-54.
+
+   40 W. Borlase, _Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County
+      of Cornwall_ (London, 1769), pp. 142 _sq._; J. Brand, _Popular
+      Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London, 1882-1883), i. 322; J. G.
+      Dalyell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834), pp.
+      140 _sq._; Daniel Wilson, _The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of
+      Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1851), pp. 303 _sqq._; Lieut.-Col. Forbes
+      Leslie, _The Early Races of Scotland and their Monuments_
+      (Edinburgh, 1866), i. 75 _sqq._; J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and
+      Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow,
+      1902), pp. 84-88; Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of
+      Wales_ (London, 1909), pp. 170 _sq._; J. C. Davies, _Folk-lore of
+      West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76. Compare W. W. Skeat,
+      "Snakestones and Stone Thunderbolts," _Folk-lore_, xxiii. (1912) pp.
+      45 _sqq._ The superstition is described as follows by Edward Lhwyd
+      in a letter quoted by W. Borlase (_op. cit._ p. 142): "In most parts
+      of Wales, and throughout all Scotland, and in Cornwall, we find it a
+      common opinion of the vulgar, that about Midsummer-Eve (though in
+      the time they do not all agree) it is usual for snakes to meet in
+      companies; and that, by joining heads together, and hissing, a kind
+      of bubble is formed, which the rest, by continual hissing, blow on
+      till it passes quite through the body, and then it immediately
+      hardens, and resembles a glass-ring, which whoever finds (as some
+      old women and children are persuaded) shall prosper in all his
+      undertakings. The rings thus generated, are called _Gleineu
+      Nadroeth_; in English, Snake-stones. They are small glass amulets,
+      commonly about half as wide as our finger-rings, but much thicker,
+      of a green colour usually, though sometimes blue, and waved with red
+      and white."
+
+  M15 Medicinal plants, water, etc., not allowed to touch the earth.
+
+   41 Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xxiv. 12 and 68, xxv. 171.
+
+   42 Marcellus, _De medicamentis_, ed. G. Helmreich (Leipsic, 1889),
+      preface, p. i.: "_Nec solum veteres medicinae artis auctores Latino
+      dumtaxat sermone perscriptos ... lectione scrutatus sum, sed etiam
+      ab agrestibus et plebeis remedia fortuita atque simplicia, quae
+      experimentis probaverant didici._" As to Marcellus and his work, see
+      Jacob Grimm, "Ueber Marcellus Burdigalensis," _Abhandlungen der
+      koeniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaft zu Berlin_, 1847, pp. 429-460;
+      _id._, "Ueber die Marcellischen Formeln," _ibid._, 1855, pp. 50-68.
+
+   43 Marcellus, _De medicamentis_, i. 68.
+
+   44 Marcellus, _op. cit._ i. 76.
+
+   45 Marcellus, _op. cit._ xxviii. 28 and 71, xxix. 35.
+
+   46 Marcellus, _op. cit._ xxix. 51.
+
+   47 Edward Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_,
+      xvi. (1905) pp. 32 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected
+      with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather
+      in Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 75 _sq._
+
+   48 E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.
+      (1905) p. 35; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
+      Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in
+      Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 88 _sq._
+
+   49 Matthaeus Praetorius, _Deliciae Prussicae_, herausgegeben von Dr. W.
+      Pierson (Berlin, 1871), p. 54.
+
+  M16 Sacred persons not allowed to see the sun.
+
+   50 H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London,
+      1875-1876), ii. 142; Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Histoire des Nations
+      civilisees du Mexique et de l'Amerique Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859),
+      iii. 29.
+
+   51 Kaempfer, "History of Japan," in J. Pinkerton's _Voyages and
+      Travels_, vii. 717; Caron, "Account of Japan," _ibid._ vii. 613; B.
+      Varenius, _Descriptio regni Japoniae et Siam_ (Cambridge, 1673), p.
+      11: "_Radiis solis caput nunquam illustrabatur: in apertum aerem non
+      procedebat._"
+
+   52 A. de Herrera, _General History of the vast Continent and Islands of
+      America_, trans. by Capt. John Stevens (London, 1725-1726), v. 88.
+
+   53 H. Ternaux-Compans, _Essai sur l'ancien Cundinamarca_ (Paris, N.D.),
+      p. 56; Theodor Waitz, _Anthropologie der Naturvoelker_, iv. (Leipsic,
+      1864) p. 359.
+
+   54 Alonzo de Zurita, "Rapport sur les differentes classes de chefs de
+      la Nouvelle-Espagne," p. 30, in H. Ternaux-Compans's _Voyages,
+      Relations et Memoires originaux, pour servir a l'Histoire de la
+      Decouverte de l'Amerique_ (Paris, 1840); Th. Waitz, _l.c._; A.
+      Bastian, _Die Culturlaender des alten Amerika_ (Berlin, 1878), ii.
+      204.
+
+   55 Cieza de Leon, _Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru_ (Hakluyt
+      Society, London, 1883), p. 18.
+
+_   56 The Grihya Sutras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part ii. (Oxford,
+      1892) pp. 165, 275 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxx.).
+      Umbrellas appear to have been sometimes used in ritual for the
+      purpose of preventing the sunlight from falling on sacred persons or
+      things. See W. Caland, _Altindisches Zauberritual_ (Amsterdam,
+      1900), p. 110 note 12. At an Athenian festival called Scira the
+      priestess of Athena, the priest of Poseidon, and the priest of the
+      Sun walked from the Acropolis under the shade of a huge white
+      umbrella which was borne over their heads by the Eteobutads. See
+      Harpocration and Suidas, _s.v._ {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER SIGMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}; Scholiast on Aristophanes,
+      _Eccles._ 18.
+
+  M17 Tabooed persons not allowed to see the sun. Certain persons
+      forbidden to see fire.
+
+   57 Mrs. Bishop, _Korea and her Neighbours_ (London, 1898), ii. 248.
+
+   58 J. L. van Hasselt, "Eenige aanteekeningen aangaande de bewoners der
+      N. Westkust van Nieuw Guinea," _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-
+      Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxxi. (1886) p. 587.
+
+   59 A. Bastian, _Die Voelker des oestlichen Asien_, v. (Jena, 1869) p.
+      366.
+
+   60 W. M. Gabb, "On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa Rica,"
+      _Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at
+      Philadelphia_, xiv. (Philadelphia, 1876), p. 510.
+
+   61 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), p. 194.
+
+   62 H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_, i. 553. See
+      _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, p. 182.
+
+  M18 The story of Prince Sunless.
+
+   63 L. Heuzey, _Le Mont Olympe et l'Acarnanie_ (Paris, 1860), pp. 458
+      _sq._
+
+  M19 Girls at puberty forbidden to touch the ground and to see the sun.
+      Seclusion of girls at puberty among the A-Kamba. Seclusion of girls
+      at puberty among the Baganda.
+
+   64 Pechuel-Loesche, "Indiscretes aus Loango," _Zeitschrift fuer
+      Ethnologie_, x. (1878) p. 23.
+
+   65 Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, Customs, Superstitions, and Religions
+      of South African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological
+      Institute_, xx. (1891) p. 118.
+
+   66 Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 209. The
+      prohibition to drink milk under such circumstances is also
+      mentioned, though without the reason for it, by L. Alberti (_De
+      Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika_, Amsterdam, 1810, p. 79), George
+      Thompson (_Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa_, London, 1827,
+      ii. 354 _sq._), and Mr. Warner (in Col. Maclean's _Compendium of
+      Kafir Laws and Customs_, Cape Town, 1866, p. 98). As to the reason
+      for the prohibition, see below, p. 80.
+
+   67 C. W. Hobley, _Ethnology of A-Kamba and other East African Tribes_
+      (Cambridge, 1910), p. 65.
+
+   68 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 80. As to the
+      interpretation which the Baganda put on the act of jumping or
+      stepping over a woman, see _id._, pp. 48, 357 note 1. Apparently
+      some of the Lower Congo people interpret the act similarly. See J.
+      H. Weeks, "Notes on some Customs of the Lower Congo People,"
+      _Folk-lore_, xix. (1908) p. 431. Among the Baganda the separation of
+      children from their parents took place after weaning; girls usually
+      went to live either with an elder married brother or (if there was
+      none such) with one of their father's brothers; boys in like manner
+      went to live with one of their father's brothers. See J. Roscoe,
+      _op. cit._ p. 74. As to the prohibition to touch food with the
+      hands, see _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 138 _sqq._, 146
+      _sqq._, etc.
+
+   69 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 80.
+
+   70 De la Loubere, _Du royaume de Siam_ (Amsterdam, 1691), i. 203. In
+      Travancore it is believed that women at puberty and after childbirth
+      are peculiarly liable to be attacked by demons. See S. Mateer, _The
+      Land of Charity_ (London, 1871), p. 208.
+
+   71 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 80.
+
+  M20 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of the Tanganyika
+      plateau.
+
+   72 C. Gouldsbury and H. Sheane, _The Great Plateau of Northern Nigeria_
+      (London, 1911), pp. 158-160.
+
+  M21 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of British Central
+      Africa.
+
+   73 R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs in
+      Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), pp. 102-105.
+
+  M22 Abstinence from salt associated with a rule of chastity in many
+      tribes.
+
+   74 Rev. H. Cole, "Notes on the Wagogo of German East Africa," _Journal
+      of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) pp. 309 _sq._
+
+   75 R. Sutherland Rattray, _op. cit._ pp. 191 _sq._
+
+_   76 The Grihya Sutras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part i. p. 357,
+      Part ii. p. 267 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vols. xxix., xxx.).
+
+   77 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), pp. 393 sq., compare
+      pp. 396, 398.
+
+   78 See _Totemism and Exogamy_, iv. 224 _sqq._
+
+  M23 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes about Lake Nyassa and
+      on the Zambesi.
+
+   79 Sir Harry H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_ (London, 1897), p.
+      411.
+
+   80 Oscar Baumann, _Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle_ (Berlin, 1894), p.
+      178.
+
+   81 Lionel Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p. 78.
+      Compare E. Jacottet, _Etudes sur les Langues du Haut-Zambeze_,
+      Troisieme Partie (Paris, 1901), pp. 174 _sq._ (as to the A-Louyi).
+
+   82 E. Beguin, _Les Ma-rotse_ (Lausanne and Fontaines, 1903), p. 113.
+
+  M24 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thonga of Delagoa Bay.
+
+   83 Henri A. Junod, _The Life of a South African Tribe_ (Neuchatel,
+      1912-1913), i. 178 _sq._
+
+  M25 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Caffre tribes of South
+      Africa.
+
+   84 G. McCall Theal, _Kaffir Folk-lore_ (London, 1886), p. 218.
+
+   85 L. Alberti, _De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika_ (Amsterdam,
+      1810), pp. 79 _sq._; H. Lichtenstein, _Reisen im suedlichen Africa_
+      (Berlin, 1811-1812), i. 428.
+
+   86 Gustav Fritsch, _Die Eingeborenen Sued-Afrika's_ (Breslau, 1872), p.
+      112. This statement applies especially to the Ama-Xosa.
+
+   87 G. McCall Theal, _Kaffir Folk-lore_, p. 218.
+
+   88 Rev. Canon Henry Callaway, _Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories
+      of the Zulus_ (Natal and London, 1868), p. 182, note 20. From one of
+      the Zulu texts which the author edits and translates (p. 189) we may
+      infer that during the period of her seclusion a Zulu girl may not
+      light a fire. Compare above, p. 28.
+
+   89 E. Casalis, _The Basutos_ (London, 1861), p. 268.
+
+  M26 Seclusion of girls at puberty on the Lower Congo.
+
+   90 J. Merolla, "Voyage to Congo," in J. Pinkerton's _Voyages and
+      Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), xvi. 238; Father Campana, "Congo;
+      Mission Catholique de Landana," _Les Missions Catholiques_, xxvii.
+      (1895) p. 161; R. E. Dennett, _At the Back of the Black Man's Mind_
+      (London, 1906), pp. 69 _sq._ According to Merolla, it is thought
+      that if girls did not go through these ceremonies, they would "never
+      be fit for procreation." The other consequences supposed to flow
+      from the omission of the rites are mentioned by Father Campana. From
+      Mr. Dennett's account (_op. cit._ pp. 53, 67-71) we gather that
+      drought and famine are thought to result from the intercourse of a
+      man with a girl who has not yet passed through the "paint-house," as
+      the hut is called where the young women live in seclusion. According
+      to O. Dapper, the women of Loango paint themselves red on every
+      recurrence of their monthly sickness; also they tie a cord tightly
+      round their heads and take care neither to touch their husband's
+      food nor to appear before him (_Description de l'Afrique_,
+      Amsterdam, 1686, p. 326).
+
+  M27 Seclusion of girls at puberty in New Ireland.
+
+   91 The Rev. G. Brown, quoted by the Rev. B. Danks, "Marriage Customs of
+      the New Britain Group," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
+      xviii. (1889) pp. 284 _sq._; _id._, _Melanesians and Polynesians_
+      (London, 1910), pp. 105-107. Compare _id._, "Notes on the Duke of
+      York Group, New Britain, and New Ireland," _Journal of the Royal
+      Geographical Society_, xlvii. (1877) pp. 142 _sq._; A. Hahl, "Das
+      mittlere Neumecklenburg," _Globus_, xci. (1907) p. 313. Wilfred
+      Powell's description of the New Ireland custom is similar
+      (_Wanderings in a Wild Country_, London, 1883, p. 249). According to
+      him, the girls wear wreaths of scented herbs round the waist and
+      neck; an old woman or a little child occupies the lower floor of the
+      cage; and the confinement lasts only a month. Probably the long
+      period mentioned by Dr. Brown is that prescribed for chiefs'
+      daughters. Poor people could not afford to keep their children so
+      long idle. This distinction is sometimes expressly stated. See
+      above, p. 30. Among the Goajiras of Colombia rich people keep their
+      daughters shut up in separate huts at puberty for periods varying
+      from one to four years, but poor people cannot afford to do so for
+      more than a fortnight or a month. See F. A. Simons, "An Exploration
+      of the Goajira Peninsula," _Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
+      Society_, N.S., vii. (1885) p. 791. In Fiji, brides who were being
+      tattooed were kept from the sun (Thomas Williams, _Fiji and the
+      Fijians_, Second Edition, London, 1860, i. 170). This was perhaps a
+      modification of the Melanesian custom of secluding girls at puberty.
+      The reason mentioned by Mr. Williams, "to improve her complexion,"
+      can hardly have been the original one.
+
+   92 Rev. R. H. Rickard, quoted by Dr. George Brown, _Melanesians and
+      Polynesians_, pp. 107 _sq._ His observations were made in 1892.
+
+   93 R. Parkinson, _Dreissig Jahre in der Suedsee_ (Stuttgart, 1907), p.
+      272. The natives told Mr. Parkinson that the confinement of the
+      girls lasts from twelve to twenty months. The length of it may have
+      been reduced since Dr. George Brown described the custom in 1876.
+
+  M28 Seclusion of girls at puberty in New Guinea, Borneo, Ceram, and Yap.
+
+   94 J. Chalmers and W. Wyatt Gill, _Work and Adventure in New Guinea_
+      (London, 1885), p. 159.
+
+   95 H. Zahn and S. Lehner, in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch Neu-Guinea_
+      (Berlin, 1911), iii. 298, 418-420. The customs of the two tribes
+      seem to be in substantial agreement, and the accounts of them
+      supplement each other. The description of the Bukaua practice is the
+      fuller.
+
+   96 C. A. L. M. Schwaner, _Borneo, Beschrijving van het stroomgebied van
+      den Barito_ (Amsterdam, 1853-1854), ii. 77 _sq._; W. F. A.
+      Zimmermann, _Die Inseln des Indischen und Stillen Meeres_ (Berlin,
+      1864-1865), ii. 632 _sq._; Otto Finsch, _Neu Guinea und seine
+      Bewohner_ (Bremen, 1865), pp. 116 _sq._
+
+   97 J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes
+      en Papua_ (The Hague, 1886), p. 138.
+
+   98 A. Senfft, "Ethnographische Beitraege ueber die Karolineninsel Yap,"
+      _Petermanns Mitteilungen_, xlix. (1903) p. 53; _id._, "Die
+      Rechtssitten der Jap-Eingeborenen," _Globus_, xci. (1907) pp. 142
+      _sq._
+
+  M29 Seclusion of girls at puberty in Mabuiag, Torres Straits.
+
+   99 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
+      xxix. (1899) pp. 212 _sq._; _id._, in _Reports of the Cambridge
+      Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904)
+      pp. 203 _sq._
+
+  M30 Seclusion of girls at puberty in Northern Australia.
+
+  100 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Reports of the Cambridge Expedition to
+      Torres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904) p. 205.
+
+  101 L. Crauford, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxiv.
+      (1895) p. 181.
+
+  102 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, _op. cit._ v. 206.
+
+  103 Walter E. Roth, _North Queensland Ethnography, Bulletin No. 5,
+      Superstition, Magic, and Medicine_ (Brisbane, 1903), pp. 24 _sq._
+
+  104 Walter E. Roth, _op. cit._ p. 25.
+
+  M31 Seclusion of girls at puberty in the islands of Torres Straits.
+
+  105 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
+      Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904), p. 205.
+
+  106 From notes kindly sent me by Dr. C. G. Seligmann. The practice of
+      burying a girl at puberty was observed also by some Indian tribes of
+      California, but apparently rather for the purpose of producing a
+      sweat than for the sake of concealment. The treatment lasted only
+      twenty-four hours, during which the patient was removed from the
+      ground and washed three or four times, to be afterwards reimbedded.
+      Dancing was kept up the whole time by the women. See H. R.
+      Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_ (Philadelphia,
+      1853-1856), v. 215.
+
+  107 Dr. C. G. Seligmann, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological
+      Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 201 _sq._
+
+  M32 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of California.
+
+  108 A. L. Kroeber, "The Religion of the Indians of California,"
+      _University of California Publications in American Archaeology and
+      Ethnology_, vol. iv. No. 6 (September, 1907), p. 324.
+
+  109 Roland B. Dixon, "The Northern Maidu," _Bulletin of the American
+      Museum of Natural History_, vol. xvii. Part iii. (May, 1905) pp. 232
+      _sq._, compare pp. 233-238.
+
+  110 Stephen Powers, _Tribes of California_ (Washington, 1877), p. 85
+      (_Contributions to North American Ethnology_, vol. iii.).
+
+  111 Stephen Powers, _op. cit._ p. 235.
+
+  M33 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of Washington State.
+
+  112 Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
+      Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iv. 456.
+
+  113 Franz Boas, _Chinook Texts_ (Washington, 1894), pp. 246 _sq._ The
+      account, taken down from the lips of a Chinook Indian, is not
+      perfectly clear; some of the restrictions were prolonged after the
+      girl's second monthly period.
+
+  M34 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Nootka Indians of Vancouver
+      Island.
+
+  114 G. M. Sproat, _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_ (London, 1868),
+      pp. 93 _sq._
+
+  115 Franz Boas, in _Sixth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_,
+      pp. 40-42 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
+      Association for the Advancement of Science_, Leeds meeting, 1890).
+      The rule not to lie down is observed also during their seclusion at
+      puberty by Tsimshian girls, who always sit propped up between boxes
+      and mats; their heads are covered with small mats, and they may not
+      look at men nor at fresh salmon and olachen. See Franz Boas, in
+      _Fifth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada_, p. 41
+      (separate reprint from the _Report of the British Association for
+      the Advancement of Science_, Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889); G.
+      M. Dawson, _Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878_ (Montreal,
+      1880), pp. 130 B _sq._ Some divine kings are not allowed to lie
+      down. See _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, p. 5.
+
+  M35 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Haida Indians of the Queen
+      Charlotte Islands.
+
+  116 George M. Dawson, _Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878_
+      (Montreal, 1880), p. 130 B; J. R. Swanton, _Contributions to the
+      Ethnology of the Haida_ (Leyden and New York, 1905), pp. 48-50 (_The
+      Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of
+      Natural History_, New York). Speaking of the customs observed at
+      Kloo, where the girls had to abstain from salmon for five years, Mr.
+      Swanton says (p. 49): "When five years had passed, the girl came
+      out, and could do as she pleased." This seems to imply that the girl
+      was secluded in the house for five years. We have seen (above, p.
+      32) that in New Ireland the girls used sometimes to be secluded for
+      the same period.
+
+  M36 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tlingit Indians of Alaska.
+
+  117 G. H. von Langsdorff, _Reise um die Welt_ (Frankfort, 1812), ii. 114
+      _sq._; H. J. Holmberg, "Ethnographische Skizzen ueber die Voelker des
+      Russischen Amerika," _Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae_, iv.
+      (Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 319 _sq._; T. de Pauly, _Description
+      Ethnographique des Peuples de la Russie_ (St. Petersburg, 1862),
+      _Peuples de l'Amerique Russe_, p. 13; A. Erman, "Ethnographische
+      Wahrnehmungen und Erfahrungen an den Kuesten des Berings-Meeres,"
+      _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, ii. (1870) pp. 318 _sq._; H. H.
+      Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States_ (London, 1875-1876),
+      i. 110 _sq._; Rev. Sheldon Jackson, "Alaska and its Inhabitants,"
+      _The American Antiquarian_, ii. (Chicago, 1879-1880) pp. 111 _sq._;
+      A. Woldt, _Captain Jacobsen's Reise an der Nordwestkueste Americas,
+      1881-1883_ (Leipsic, 1884), p. 393; Aurel Krause, _Die
+      Tlinkit-Indianer_ (Jena, 1885), pp. 217 _sq._; W. M. Grant, in
+      _Journal of American Folk-lore_, i. (1888) p. 169; John R. Swanton,
+      "Social Conditions, Beliefs, and Linguistic Relationship of the
+      Tlingit Indians," _Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of
+      American Ethnology_ (Washington, 1908), p. 428.
+
+  M37 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tsetsaut and Bella Coola
+      Indians of British Columbia.
+
+  118 Franz Boas, in _Tenth Report of the Committee on the North-Western
+      Tribes of Canada_, p. 45 (separate reprint from the _Report of the
+      British Association for the Advancement of Science_, Ipswich
+      meeting, 1895).
+
+  119 Franz Boas, in _Fifth Report of the Committee on the North-Western
+      Tribes of Canada_, p. 42 (separate reprint from the _Report of the
+      British Association for the Advancement of Science_,
+      Newcastle-upon-Tyne meeting, 1889); _id._, in _Seventh Report_,
+      etc., p. 12 (separate reprint from the _Report of the British
+      Association for the Advancement of Science_, Cardiff meeting, 1891).
+
+  M38 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tinneh Indians of British
+      Columbia.
+
+  120 "Customs of the New Caledonian women belonging to the Nancaushy
+      Tine, or Stuart's Lake Indians, Natotin Tine, or Babine's and
+      Nantley Tine, or Fraser Lake Tribes," from information supplied by
+      Gavin Hamilton, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company's service,
+      who has been for many years among these Indians, both he and his
+      wife speaking their languages fluently (communicated by Dr. John
+      Rae), _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vii. (1878) pp.
+      206 _sq._
+
+  M39 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Tinneh Indians of Alaska.
+
+  121 Emile Petitot, _Traditions Indiennes du Canada Nord-ouest_ (Paris,
+      1886), pp. 257 _sq._
+
+  122 Fr. Julius Jette, S.J., "On the Superstitions of the Ten'a Indians,"
+      _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp. 700-702.
+
+  123 Compare _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 70 _sqq._
+
+  M40 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thompson Indians of British
+      Columbia.
+
+  124 James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, pp. 311-317
+      (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum
+      of Natural History_, New York, April, 1900). As to the customs
+      observed among these Indians by the father of a girl at such times
+      in order not to lose his luck in hunting, see _Spirits of the Corn
+      and of the Wild_, ii. 268.
+
+  M41 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Lillooet Indians of British
+      Columbia.
+
+  125 James Teit, _The Lillooet Indians_ (Leyden and New York, 1906), pp.
+      263-265 (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American
+      Museum of Natural History_, New York). Compare C. Hill Tout, "Report
+      on the Ethnology of the Stlatlumh of British Columbia," _Journal of
+      the Anthropological Institute_, xxxv. (1905) p. 136.
+
+  M42 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Shuswap Indians of British
+      Columbia.
+
+  126 Franz Boas, in _Sixth Report of the Committee on the North-Western
+      Tribes of Canada_, pp. 89 _sq._ (separate reprint from the _Report
+      of the British Association for the Advancement of Science_, Leeds
+      meeting, 1890).
+
+  127 James Teit, _The Shuswap_ (Leyden and New York, 1909), pp. 587 _sq._
+      (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum
+      of Natural History_, New York).
+
+  M43 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Delaware and Cheyenne
+      Indians.
+
+  128 G. H. Loskiel, _History of the Mission of the United Brethren among
+      the Indians of North America_ (London, 1794), Part i. pp. 56 _sq._
+
+  129 G. B. Grinnell, "Cheyenne Woman Customs," _American Anthropologist_,
+      New Series, iv. (New York, 1902) pp. 13 _sq._ The Cheyennes appear
+      to have been at first settled on the Mississippi, from which they
+      were driven westward to the Missouri. See _Handbook of American
+      Indians north of Mexico_, edited by F. W. Hodge (Washington,
+      1907-1910), i. 250 _sqq._
+
+  M44 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Esquimaux.
+
+  130 H. J. Holmberg, "Ueber die Voelker des Russischen Amerika," _Acta
+      Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae_, iv. (Helsingfors, 1856) pp. 401
+      _sq._; Ivan Petroff, _Report on the Population, Industries and
+      Resources of Alaska_, p. 143.
+
+  131 E. W. Nelson, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait," _Eighteenth Annual
+      Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington,
+      1899) p. 291.
+
+  M45 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Guaranis, Chiriguanos, and
+      Lengua Indians of South America.
+
+  132 Jose Guevara, "Historia del Paraguay, Rio de la Plata, y Tucuman,"
+      pp. 16 _sq._, in Pedro de Angelis, _Coleccion de Obras y Documentos
+      relativos a la Historia antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Rio
+      de la Plata_, vol. ii. (Buenos-Ayres, 1836); J. F. Lafitau, _Moeurs
+      des Sauvages Ameriquains_ (Paris, 1724), i. 262 _sq._
+
+  133 Father Ignace Chome, in _Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses_, Nouvelle
+      Edition (Paris, 1780-1783), viii. 333. As to the Chiriguanos, see C.
+      F. Phil. von Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerika's, zumal Brasiliens_
+      (Leipsic, 1867), pp. 212 _sqq._; Colonel G. E. Church, _Aborigines
+      of South America_ (London, 1912), pp. 207-227.
+
+  134 A. Thouar, _Explorations dans l'Amerique du Sud_ (Paris, 1891), pp.
+      48 _sq._; G. Kurze, "Sitten und Gebraeuche der Lengua-Indianer,"
+      _Mitteilungen der Geographischen Gesellschaft zu Jena_, xxiii.
+      (1905) pp. 26 _sq._ The two accounts appear to be identical; but the
+      former attributes the custom to the Chiriguanos, the latter to the
+      Lenguas. As the latter account is based on the reports of the Rev.
+      W. B. Grubb, a missionary who has been settled among the Indians of
+      the Chaco for many years and is our principal authority on them, I
+      assume that the ascription of the custom to the Lenguas is correct.
+      However, in the volume on the Lengua Indians, which has been edited
+      from Mr. Grubb's papers (_An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_,
+      London, 1911), these details as to the seclusion of girls at puberty
+      are not mentioned, though what seems to be the final ceremony is
+      described (_op. cit._ pp. 177 _sq._). From the description we learn
+      that boys dressed in ostrich feathers and wearing masks circle round
+      the girl with shrill cries, but are repelled by the women.
+
+  M46 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Yuracares of Bolivia.
+
+  135 Alcide d'Orbigny, _Voyage dans l'Amerique Meridionale_, vol. iii.
+      1re Partie (Paris and Strasburg, 1844), pp. 205 _sq._
+
+  M47 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of the Gran Chaco,
+      and Brazil.
+
+  136 A. Thouar, _Explorations dans l'Amerique du Sud_ (Paris, 1891) pp.
+      56 _sq._; Father Cardus, quoted in J. Pelleschi's _Los Indios
+      Matacos_ (Buenos Ayres, 1897), pp. 47 _sq._
+
+  137 A. Thouar, _op. cit._ p. 63.
+
+  138 Francis de Castelnau, _Expedition dans les parties centrales de
+      l'Amerique du Sud_ (Paris, 1850-1851), v. 25.
+
+  139 D. Luis de la Cruz, "Descripcion de la Naturaleza de los Terrenos
+      que se comprenden en los Andes, poseidos por los Peguenches y los
+      demas espacios hasta el rio de Chadileuba," p. 62, in Pedro de
+      Angelis, _Coleccion de Obras y Documentos relativos a la Historia
+      antigua y moderna de las Provincias del Rio de la Plata_, vol. i.
+      (Buenos-Ayres, 1836). Apparently the Peguenches are an Indian tribe
+      of Chili.
+
+  140 J. B. von Spix und C. F. Ph. von Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_
+      (Munich, 1823-1831), iii. 1186, 1187, 1318.
+
+  141 Andre Thevet, _Cosmographie Universelle_ (Paris, 1575), ii. 946 B
+      [980] _sq._; _id._, _Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique,
+      autrement nommee Amerique_ (Antwerp, 1558), p. 76; J. F. Lafitau,
+      _Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains_ (Paris, 1724), i. 290 _sqq._,
+
+  M48 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Indians of Guiana. Custom of
+      beating the girls and of causing them to be stung by ants.
+
+  142 R. Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch Guiana_ (Leipsic, 1847-1848), ii.
+      315 _sq._; C. F. Ph. von Martius, _Zur Ethnographie Amerika's, zumal
+      Brasiliens_ (Leipsic, 1867), p. 644.
+
+  143 Labat, _Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais en Guinee, Isles voisines,
+      et a Cayenne_, iv. 365 _sq._ (Paris, 1730), pp. 17 _sq._ (Amsterdam,
+      1731).
+
+  144 A. Caulin, _Historia Coro-graphica natural y evangelica dela Nueva
+      Andalucia_ (1779), p. 93. A similar custom, with the omission of the
+      stinging, is reported of the Tamanaks in the region of the Orinoco.
+      See F. S. Gilij, _Saggio di Storia Americana_, ii. (Rome, 1781), p.
+      133.
+
+  145 A. R. Wallace, _Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro_,
+      p. 496 (p. 345 of the Minerva Library edition, London, 1889).
+
+  M49 Custom in South America of causing young men to be stung with ants
+      as an initiatory rite.
+
+_  146 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 105 _sqq._; _The Scapegoat_,
+      pp. 259 _sqq._
+
+  147 J. B. von Spix and C. F. Ph. von Martius, _Reise in Brasilien_
+      (Munich, 1823-1831), iii. 1320.
+
+  148 W. Lewis Herndon, _Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon_
+      (Washington, 1854), pp. 319 _sq._ The scene was described to Mr.
+      Herndon by a French engineer and architect, M. de Lincourt, who
+      witnessed it at Manduassu, a village on the Tapajos river. Mr.
+      Herndon adds: "The _Tocandeira_ ants not only bite, but are also
+      armed with a sting like the wasp; but the pain felt from it is more
+      violent. I think it equal to that occasioned by the sting of the
+      black scorpion." He gives the name of the Indians as Mahues, but I
+      assume that they are the same as the Mauhes described by Spix and
+      Martius.
+
+  149 Francis de Castelnau, _Expedition dans les parties centrales de
+      l'Amerique du Sud_ (Paris, 1850-1851), v. 46.
+
+  150 L'Abbe Durand, "Le Rio Negro du Nord et son bassin," _Bulletin de la
+      Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), vi. Serie, iii. (1872) pp. 21 _sq._
+      The writer says that the candidate has to keep his arms plunged up
+      to the shoulders in vessels full of ants, "as in a bath of vitriol,"
+      for hours. He gives the native name of the ant as _issauba_.
+
+  151 J. Crevaux, _Voyages dans l'Amerique du Sud_ (Paris, 1883), pp.
+      245-250.
+
+  M50 Custom of causing men and women to be stung with ants to improve
+      their character and health or to render them invulnerable.
+
+  152 H. Coudreau, _Chez nos Indiens: quatre annees dans la Guyane
+      Francaise_ (Paris, 1895), p. 228. For details as to the different
+      modes of administering the _marake_, see _ibid._ pp. 228-235.
+
+  153 Father Geronimo Boscana, "Chinigchinich," in _Life in California by
+      an American_ [A. Robinson] (New York, 1846), pp. 273 _sq._
+
+  154 F. Stuhlmann, _Mit Emin Pascha ins Herz von Afrika_ (Berlin, 1894),
+      p. 506.
+
+  M51 In such cases the beating or stinging was originally a purification;
+      at a later time it is interpreted as a test of courage and
+      endurance.
+
+  155 As a confirmation of this view it may be pointed out that beating or
+      scourging is inflicted on inanimate objects expressly for the
+      purpose indicated in the text. Thus the Indians of Costa Rica hold
+      that there are two kinds of ceremonial uncleanness, _nya_ and
+      _bu-ku-ru_. Anything that has been connected with a death is _nya_.
+      But _bu-ku-ru_ is much more virulent. It can not only make one sick
+      but kill. "_Bu-ku-ru_ emanates in a variety of ways; arms, utensils,
+      even houses become affected by it after long disuse, and before they
+      can be used again must be purified. In the case of portable objects
+      left undisturbed for a long time, the custom is to beat them with a
+      stick before touching them. I have seen a woman take a long
+      walking-stick and beat a basket hanging from the roof of a house by
+      a cord. On asking what that was for, I was told that the basket
+      contained her treasures, that she would probably want to take
+      something out the next day, and that she was driving off the
+      _bu-ku-ru_. A house long unused must be swept, and then the person
+      who is purifying it must take a stick and beat not only the movable
+      objects, but the beds, posts, and in short every accessible part of
+      the interior. The next day it is fit for occupation. A place not
+      visited for a long time or reached for the first time is _bu-ku-ru_.
+      On our return from the ascent of Pico Blanco, nearly all the party
+      suffered from little calenturas, the result of extraordinary
+      exposure to wet and cold and of want of food. The Indians said that
+      the peak was especially _bu-ku-ru_, since nobody had ever been on it
+      before." One day Mr. Gabb took down some dusty blow-guns amid cries
+      of _bu-ku-ru_ from the Indians. Some weeks afterwards a boy died,
+      and the Indians firmly believed that the _bu-ku-ru_ of the blow-guns
+      had killed him. "From all the foregoing, it would seem that
+      _bu-ku-ru_ is a sort of evil spirit that takes possession of the
+      object, and resents being disturbed; but I have never been able to
+      learn from the Indians that they consider it so. They seem to think
+      of it as a property the object acquires. But the worst _bu-ku-ru_ of
+      all, is that of a young woman in her first pregnancy. She infects
+      the whole neighbourhood. Persons going from the house where she
+      lives, carry the infection with them to a distance, and all the
+      deaths or other serious misfortunes in the vicinity are laid to her
+      charge. In the old times, when the savage laws and customs were in
+      full force, it was not an uncommon thing for the husband of such a
+      woman to pay damages for casualties thus caused by his unfortunate
+      wife." See Wm. M. Gabb, "On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa
+      Rica," _Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at
+      Philadelphia_, xiv. (Philadelphia, 1876) pp. 504 _sq._
+
+  M52 This explanation confirmed with reference to the beating of girls at
+      puberty among the South American Indians. Treatment of a girl at
+      puberty among the Banivas of the Orinoco. Symptoms of puberty in a
+      girl regarded as wounds inflicted by a demon.
+
+  156 J. Chaffanjon, _L'Orenoque et le Caura_ (Paris, 1889), pp. 213-215.
+
+  M53 Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Hindoos, in Southern India.
+
+  157 Shib Chunder Bose, _The Hindoos as they are_ (London and Calcutta,
+      1881), p. 86. Similarly, after a Brahman boy has been invested with
+      the sacred thread, he is for three days strictly forbidden to see
+      the sun. He may not eat salt, and he is enjoined to sleep either on
+      a carpet or a deer's skin, without a mattress or mosquito curtain
+      (_ibid._ p. 186). In Bali, boys who have had their teeth filed, as a
+      preliminary to marriage, are kept shut up in a dark room for three
+      days (R. Van Eck, "Schetsen van het eiland Bali," _Tijdschrift voor
+      Nederlandsch Indie_, N.S., ix. (1880) pp. 428 _sq._).
+
+  158 (Sir) H. H. Risley, _Tribes and Castes of Bengal, Ethnographic
+      Glossary_ (Calcutta, 1891-1892), i. 152.
+
+  159 Edgar Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern India_ (Madras,
+      1909), vii. 63 _sq._
+
+  160 Edgar Thurston, _op. cit._ iii. 218.
+
+  161 Edgar Thurston, _op. cit._ vi. 157.
+
+  162 S. Mateer, _Native Life in Travancore_ (London, 1883), p. 45.
+
+  163 Arthur A. Perera, "Glimpses of Singhalese Social Life," _Indian
+      Antiquary_, xxxi. (1902) p. 380.
+
+  M54 Seclusion of girls at puberty in Cambodia.
+
+  164 J. Moura, _Le Royaume du Cambodge_ (Paris, 1883), i. 377.
+
+  165 Etienne Aymonier, "Notes sur les coutumes et croyances
+      superstitieuses des Cambodgiens," _Cochinchine Francaise: Excursions
+      et Reconnaissances_, No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), pp. 193 _sq._ Compare
+      _id._,_ Notice sur le Cambodge_ (Paris, 1875), p. 50; _id._, _Notes
+      sur le Laos_ (Saigon, 1885), p. 177.
+
+  M55 Traces of the seclusion of girls at puberty in folk-tales. Danish
+      story of the girl who might not see the sun.
+
+  166 Svend Grundtvig, _Daenische Volksmaerchen_, uebersetzt von A.
+      Strodtmann, Zweite Sammlung (Leipsic, 1879), pp. 199 _sqq._
+
+  M56 Tyrolese story of the girl who might not see the sun.
+
+  167 Christian Schneller, _Maerchen und Sagen aus Waelschtirol_ (Innsbruck,
+      1867), No. 22, pp. 51 _sqq._
+
+  M57 Modern Greek stories of the maid who might not see the sun.
+
+  168 Bernhard Schmidt, _Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder_
+      (Leipsic, 1877), p. 98.
+
+  169 J. G. von Hahn, _Griechische und albanesische Maerchen_ (Leipsic,
+      1864), No. 41, vol. i. pp. 245 _sqq._
+
+  170 Laura Gonzenbach, _Sicilianische Maerchen_ (Leipsic, 1870), No. 28,
+      vol. i. pp. 177 _sqq._ The incident of the bone occurs in other
+      folk-tales. A prince or princess is shut up for safety in a tower
+      and makes his or her escape by scraping a hole in the wall with a
+      bone which has been accidentally conveyed into the tower; sometimes
+      it is expressly said that care was taken to let the princess have no
+      bones with her meat (J. G. von Hahn, _op. cit._ No. 15; L.
+      Gonzenbach, _op. cit._ Nos. 26, 27; _Der Pentamerone, aus dem
+      Neapolitanischen uebertragen_ von Felix Liebrecht (Breslau, 1846),
+      No. 23, vol. i. pp. 294 _sqq._). From this we should infer that it
+      is a rule with savages not to let women handle the bones of animals
+      during their monthly seclusions. We have already seen the great
+      respect with which the savage treats the bones of game (_Spirits of
+      the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 238 _sqq._, 256 _sqq._); and women in
+      their courses are specially forbidden to meddle with the hunter or
+      fisher, as their contact or neighbourhood would spoil his sport (see
+      below, pp. 77, 78 _sq._, 87, 89 _sqq._). In folk-tales the hero who
+      uses the bone is sometimes a boy; but the incident might easily be
+      transferred from a girl to a boy after its real meaning had been
+      forgotten. Amongst the Tinneh Indians a girl at puberty is forbidden
+      to break the bones of hares (above, p. 48). On the other hand, she
+      drinks out of a tube made of a swan's bone (above, pp. 48, 49), and
+      the same instrument is used for the same purpose by girls of the
+      Carrier tribe of Indians (see below, p. 92). We have seen that a
+      Tlingit (Thlinkeet) girl in the same circumstances used to drink out
+      of the wing-bone of a white-headed eagle (above, p. 45), and that
+      among the Nootka and Shuswap tribes girls at puberty are provided
+      with bones or combs with which to scratch themselves, because they
+      may not use their fingers for this purpose (above, pp. 44, 53).
+
+  M58 The story of Danae and its parallel in a Kirghiz legend.
+
+  171 Sophocles, Antigone, 944 _sqq._; Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, ii. 4.
+      1; Horace, _Odes_, iii. 16. 1. _sqq._; Pausanias, ii. 23. 7.
+
+  172 W. Radloff, _Proben der Volkslitteratur der tuerkischen Staemme
+      Sued-Sibiriens_, iii. (St. Petersburg, 1870) pp. 82 _sq._
+
+  M59 Impregnation of women by the sun in legends.
+
+  173 H. Ternaux-Compans, _Essai sur l'ancien Cundinamarca_ (Paris, N.D.),
+      p. 18.
+
+  174 George Turner, LL.D., _Samoa, a Hundred Years ago and long before_
+      (London, 1884), p. 200. For other examples of such tales, see Adolph
+      Bastian, _Die Voelker des Oestlichen Asien_, i. 416, vi. 25; _Panjab
+      Notes and Queries_, ii. p. 148, § 797 (June, 1885); A. Pfizmaier,
+      "Nachrichten von den alten Bewohnern des heutigen Corea,"
+      _Sitzungsberichte der philosoph. histor. Classe der kaiser. Akademie
+      der Wissenschaften_ (Vienna), lvii. (1868) pp. 495 _sq._
+
+  M60 Traces in marriage customs of the belief that women can be
+      impregnated by the sun. Belief in the impregnation of women by the
+      moon.
+
+  175 Thomas J. Hutchinson, "On the Chaco and other Indians of South
+      America," _Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London_, N.S.
+      iii. (1865) p. 327. Amongst the Lengua Indians of the Paraguayan
+      Chaco the marriage feast is now apparently extinct. See W. Barbrooke
+      Grubb, _An Unknown People in an Unknown Land_ (London, 1911), p.
+      179.
+
+  176 Monier Williams, _Religious Thought and Life in India_ (London,
+      1883), p. 354.
+
+  177 H. Vambery, _Das Tuerkenvolk_ (Leipsic, 1885), p. 112.
+
+  178 Hans Egede, _A Description of Greenland_ (London, 1818), p. 209.
+
+_  179 Revue des Traditions Populaires_, xv. (1900) p. 471.
+
+  M61 The reason for the seclusion of women at puberty is the dread of
+      menstruous blood.
+
+_  180 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 145 _sqq._
+
+  M62 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the aborigines of
+      Australia.
+
+  181 H. E. A. Meyer, "Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the
+      Encounter Bay Tribe, South Australia," _The Native Tribes of South
+      Australia_ (Adelaide, 1879), p. 186.
+
+  182 E. J. Eyre, _Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central
+      Australia_ (London, 1845), ii. 304.
+
+  183 E. J. Eyre, _op. cit._ ii. 295.
+
+  184 R. Brough Smyth, _The Aborigines of Victoria_ (Melbourne and London,
+      1878), i. 236.
+
+  185 Samuel Gason, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxiv.
+      (1895) p. 171.
+
+  186 Baldwin Spencer and F. J. Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central
+      Australia_ (London, 1899), p. 473; _idem_, _Northern Tribes of
+      Central Australia_ (London, 1904), p. 615.
+
+  187 James Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_ (Melbourne, Sydney, and
+      Adelaide, 1881), pp. ci. _sq._
+
+  M63 Severe penalties inflicted for breaches of the custom of seclusion.
+
+  188 Rev. William Ridley, "Report on Australian Languages and
+      Traditions," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, ii. (1873)
+      p. 268. Compare _id._, _Kamilaroi and other Australian Languages_
+      (Sydney, 1875), p. 157.
+
+  189 A. W. Howitt, _The Native Tribes of South-East Australia_ (London,
+      1904), pp. 776 _sq._, on the authority of Mr. J. C. Muirhead. The
+      Wakelbura are in Central Queensland. Compare Captain W. E. Armit,
+      quoted in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, ix. (1880) pp.
+      459 _sq._
+
+  M64 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women in the Torres Straits
+      Islands, New Guinea, Galela, and Sumatra.
+
+_  190 Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres
+      Straits_, v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 196, 207.
+
+  191 Ch. Keysser, "Aus dem Leben der Kaileute," in R. Neuhauss's _Deutsch
+      Neu-Guinea_ (Berlin, 1911), iii. 91.
+
+  192 M. J. van Baarda, "Fabelen, Verhalen en Overleveringen der
+      Galelareezen," _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
+      Nederlandsch-Indie_, xlv. (1895) p. 489.
+
+  193 J. L. van der Toorn, "Het animisme bij den Minangkabauer der
+      Padangsche Bovenlanden," _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en
+      Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie_, xxxix. (1890) p. 66.
+
+  M65 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of South
+      Africa, Central and East Africa.
+
+  194 W. H. I. Bleek, _A Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore_ (London,
+      1875), p. 14; compare _ibid._, p. 10.
+
+  195 Rev. James Macdonald, "Manners, Customs, Superstitions and Religions
+      of South African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological
+      Institute_, xx. (1891) p. 138; _id._, _Light in Africa_, Second
+      Edition (London, 1890), p. 221.
+
+  196 Dudley Kidd, _The Essential Kafir_ (London, 1904), p. 238; Mr.
+      Warren's Notes, in Col. Maclean's _Compendium of Kafir Laws and
+      Customs_ (Cape Town, 1866), p. 93; Rev. J. Macdonald, _Light in
+      Africa_, p. 221; _id._, _Religion and Myth_ (London, 1893), p. 198.
+      Compare Henri A. Junod, "Les conceptions physiologiques des Bantou
+      Sud-Africains et leurs tabous," _Revue d'Ethnographie et de
+      Sociologie_, i. (1910) p. 139. The danger of death to the cattle
+      from the blood of women is mentioned only by Mr. Kidd. The part of
+      the village which is frequented by the cattle, and which accordingly
+      must be shunned by women, has a special name, _inkundhla_ (Mr.
+      Warner's Notes, _l.c._).
+
+  197 Rev. J. Roscoe, "The Bahima, a Cow Tribe of Enkole," _Journal of the
+      Royal Anthropological Institute_, xxxvii. (1907) p. 106.
+
+  198 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_ (London, 1911), p. 419.
+
+  199 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 96.
+
+  200 Rev. J. Roscoe, "Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,"
+      _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxi. (1901) p. 121;
+      _id._, "Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda,"
+      _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 39;
+      _id._, _The Baganda_, p. 352.
+
+  201 Rev. J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, p. 459.
+
+  202 C. W. Hobley, "Further Researches into Kikuyu and Kamba Religious
+      Beliefs and Customs," _Journal of the Royal Anthropological
+      Institute_, xli. (1911) p. 409.
+
+  203 Mervyn W. H. Beech, _The Suk, their Language and Folklore_ (Oxford,
+      1911), p. 11.
+
+  204 H. S. Stannus, "Notes on some Tribes of British Central Africa,"
+      _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, xl. (1910) p. 305;
+      R. Sutherland Rattray, _Some Folk-lore Stories and Songs in
+      Chinyanja_ (London, 1907), p. 191. See above, p. 27.
+
+  M66 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the tribes of West
+      Africa.
+
+  205 Jakob Spieth, _Die Ewe-Staemme_ (Berlin, 1906), p. 192.
+
+  206 Anton Witte, "Menstruation und Pubertaetsfeier der Maedchen in
+      Kpandugebiet Togo," _Baessler-Archiv_, i. (1911) p. 279.
+
+  M67 Powerful influence ascribed to menstruous blood in Arab legend.
+
+  207 Th. Noeldeke, _Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur Zeit der
+      Sassaniden, aus der arabischen Chronik des Tabari uebersetzt_
+      (Leyden, 1879), pp. 33-38. I have to thank my friend Professor A. A.
+      Bevan for pointing out to me this passage. Many ancient cities had
+      talismans on the preservation of which their safety was believed to
+      depend. The Palladium of Troy is the most familiar instance. See
+      Chr. A. Lobeck, _Aglaophamus_ (Koenigsberg, 1829), pp. 278 _sqq._,
+      and my note on Pausanias, viii. 47. 5 (vol. iv. pp. 433 _sq._).
+
+  M68 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Jews, in Syria,
+      India, and Annam.
+
+  208 J. Mergel, _Die Medezin der Talmudisten_ (Leipsic and Berlin, 1885),
+      pp. 15 _sq._
+
+  209 Maimonides, quoted by D. Chwolsohn, _Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_
+      (St. Petersburg, 1856), ii. 483. According to the editor (p. 735) by
+      the East Maimonides means India and eastern countries generally.
+
+  210 L'abbe Bechara Chemali, "Naissance et premier age au Liban,"
+      _Anthropos_, v. (1910) p. 735.
+
+  211 Eijub Abela, "Beitraege zur Kenntniss aberglaeubischer Gebraeuche in
+      Syrien," _Zeitschrift des deutschen Palaestina-Vereins_, vii. (1884)
+      p. 111.
+
+  212 J. Chalmers, "Toaripi," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
+      xxvii. (1898) p. 328.
+
+  213 W. Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and
+      Oudh_ (Calcutta, 1896), ii. 87.
+
+  214 W. Crooke, _in North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. p. 67, § 467
+      (July, 1891).
+
+  215 L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, _The Cochin Tribes and Castes_, i.
+      (Madras, 1909) pp. 201-203. As to the seclusion of menstruous women
+      among the Hindoos, see also Sonnerat, _Voyage aux Indes Orientales
+      et a la Chine_ (Paris, 1782), i. 31; J. A. Dubois, _Moeurs,
+      Institutions et Ceremonies des Peuples de l'Inde_ (Paris, 1825), i.
+      245 _sq._ Nair women in Malabar seclude themselves for three days at
+      menstruation and prepare their food in separate pots and pans. See
+      Duarte Barbosa, _Description of the Coasts of East Africa and
+      Malabar in the beginning of the Sixteenth Century_ (Hakluyt Society,
+      London, 1866), pp. 132 _sq._
+
+  216 G. Hoffman, _Auszuege aus Syrischen Akten persisischer Martyrer
+      uebersetzt_ (Leipsic, 1880), p. 99. This passage was pointed out to
+      me by my friend Professor A. A. Bevan.
+
+  217 J. B. Tavernier, _Voyages en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes_ (The
+      Hague, 1718), i. 488.
+
+  218 Paul Giran, _Magie et Religion Annamites_ (Paris, 1912), pp. 107
+      _sq._, 112.
+
+  M69 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of South
+      and Central America.
+
+  219 Joseph Gumilla, _Histoire Naturelle, Civile, et Geographique de
+      l'Orenoque_ (Avignon, 1758), i. 249.
+
+  220 Dr. Louis Plassard, "Les Guaraunos et le delta de l'Orenoque,"
+      _Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), v. Serie, xv. (1868)
+      p. 584.
+
+  221 J. Crevaux, _Voyages dans l'Amerique du Sud_ (Paris, 1883), p. 526.
+      As to the customs observed at menstruation by Indian women in South
+      America, see further A. d'Orbigny, _L'Homme Americain_ (Paris,
+      1839), i. 237.
+
+  222 Chas. N. Bell, "The Mosquito Territory," _Journal of the Royal
+      Geographical Society_, xxxii. (1862) p. 254.
+
+  223 H. Pittier de Fabrega, "Die Sprache der Bribri-Indianer in Costa
+      Rica," _Sitzungsberichte der philosophischen-historischen Classe der
+      Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften_ (Vienna), cxxxviii. (1898)
+      pp. 19 _sq._
+
+  M70 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of North
+      America.
+
+  224 Gabriel Sagard, _Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons_, Nouvelle
+      Edition (Paris, 1865), p. 54 (original edition, Paris, 1632); J. F.
+      Lafitau, _Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains_ (Paris, 1724), i. 262;
+      Charlevoix, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_ (Paris, 1744), v. 423
+      sq.; Captain Jonathan Carver, _Travels through the Interior Parts of
+      North America_, Third Edition (London, 1781), pp. 236 _sq._;
+      Captains Lewis and Clark, _Expedition to the Sources of the
+      Missouri_, etc. (London, 1905), iii. 90 (original edition, 1814);
+      Rev. Jedidiah Morse, _Report to the Secretary of War of the United
+      States on Indian Affairs_ (New Haven, 1822), pp. 136 _sq._; _Annales
+      de l'Association de la Propagation de la Foi_, iv. (Paris and Lyons,
+      1830) pp. 483, 494 _sq._; George Catlin, _Letters and Notes on the
+      Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians_,
+      Fourth Edition (London, 1844), ii. 233; H. R. Schoolcraft, _Indian
+      Tribes of the United States_ (Philadelphia, 1853-1856), v. 70; A. L.
+      Kroeber, "The Religion of the Indians of California," _University of
+      California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology_, vol.
+      iv. No. 6 (Berkeley, September, 1907), pp. 323 _sq._; Frank G.
+      Speck, _Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians_ (Philadelphia, 1909), p. 96.
+      Among the Hurons of Canada women at their periods did not retire
+      from the house or village, but they ate from small dishes apart from
+      the rest of the family at these times (Gabriel Sagard, _l.c._).
+
+  M71 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Creek, Choctaw,
+      Omaha, and Cheyenne Indians.
+
+  225 James Adair, _History of the American Indians_ (London, 1775), pp.
+      123 _sq._
+
+  226 Bossu, _Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales_ (Paris, 1768), ii.
+      105.
+
+  227 Edwin James, _Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky
+      Mountains_ (London, 1823), i. 214.
+
+  228 William H. Keating, _Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St.
+      Peter's River_ (London, 1825), i. 132.
+
+  229 G. B. Grinnell, "Cheyenne Woman Customs," _American Anthropologist_,
+      New Series, iv. (New York, 1902) p. 14.
+
+  M72 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians of British
+      Columbia.
+
+  230 C. Hill Tout, "Ethnological Report on the Stseelis and Skaulits
+      Tribes of the Halokmelem Division of the Salish of British
+      Columbia," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxiv. (1904)
+      p. 320.
+
+  231 James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, pp. 326
+      _sq._ (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American
+      Museum of Natural History_, New York, April, 1900).
+
+  M73 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Chippeway Indians.
+
+  232 Samuel Hearne, _Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay
+      to the Northern Ocean_ (London, 1795), pp. 314 _sq._; Alex.
+      Mackenzie, _Voyages through the Continent of North America_ (London,
+      1801), p. cxxiii.; E. Petitot, _Monographie des Dene-Dindjie_
+      (Paris, 1876), pp. 75 _sq._
+
+  233 C. Leemius, _De Lapponibus Finmarchiae eorumque lingua vita et
+      religione pristina_ (Copenhagen, 1767), p. 494.
+
+  234 E. W. Nelson, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait," _Eighteenth Annual
+      Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington,
+      1899) p. 440.
+
+  M74 Dread and seclusion of menstruous women among the Tinneh or Dene
+      Indians. Customs and beliefs of the Carrier Indians in regard to
+      menstruous women.
+
+  235 The Carriers are a tribe of Dene or Tinneh Indians who get their
+      name from a custom observed among them by widows, who carry, or
+      rather used to carry, the charred bones of their dead husbands about
+      with them in bundles.
+
+  M75 Seclusion of Carrier girls at puberty.
+
+  236 Hence we may conjecture that the similar ornaments worn by Mabuiag
+      girls in similar circumstances are also amulets. See above, p. 36.
+      Among the aborigines of the Upper Yarra river in Victoria, a girl at
+      puberty used to have cords tied very tightly round several parts of
+      her body. The cords were worn for several days, causing the whole
+      body to swell very much and inflicting great pain. The girl might
+      not remove them till she was clean. See R. Brough Smyth, _Aborigines
+      of Victoria_ (Melbourne and London, 1878), i. 65. Perhaps the cords
+      were intended to arrest the flow of blood.
+
+  M76 Seclusion of Carrier women at their monthly periods. Reasons for the
+      seclusion of menstruous women among the Indians.
+
+  237 Rev. Father A.G. Morice, "The Western Denes, their Manners and
+      Customs," _Proceedings of the Canadian Institute_, Toronto, Third
+      Series, vii. (1888-89) pp. 162-164. The writer has repeated the
+      substance of this account in a later work, _Au pays de l'Ours Noir:
+      chez les sauvages de la Colombie Britannique_ (Paris and Lyons,
+      1897), pp. 72 _sq._
+
+  238 A. G. Morice, "Notes, Archaeological, Industrial, and Sociological,
+      on the Western Denes," _Transactions of the Canadian Institute_, iv.
+      (1892-93) pp. 106 _sq._ Compare Rev. Father Julius Jette, "On the
+      Superstitions of the Ten'a Indians," _Anthropos_, vi. (1911) pp. 703
+      _sq._, who tells us that Tinneh women at these times may not lift
+      their own nets, may not step over other people's nets, and may not
+      pass in a boat or canoe near a place where nets are being set.
+
+  239 A. G. Morice, in _Transactions of the Canadian Institute_, iv.
+      (1892-93) pp. 107, 110.
+
+  240 James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, p. 327 (_The
+      Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of
+      Natural History_, New York, April 1900).
+
+  241 See above, p. 53.
+
+  M77 Similar rules of seclusion enjoined on menstruous women in ancient
+      Hindoo, Persian, and Hebrew codes.
+
+_  242 Laws of Manu_, translated by G. Buehler (Oxford, 1886), ch. iv. 41
+      sq., p. 135 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxv.).
+
+_  243 The Zend-Avesta_, translated by J. Darmesteter, i. (Oxford, 1880)
+      p. xcii. (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. iv.). See _id._, pp. 9,
+      181-185, _Fargard_, i. 18 and 19, xvi. 1-18.
+
+  M78 Superstitions as to menstruous women in ancient and modern Europe.
+
+  244 Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ vii. 64 _sq._, xxviii. 77 _sqq._ Compare
+      _Geoponica_, xii. 20. 5 and 25. 2; Columella, _De re rustica_, xi.
+      357 _sqq._
+
+  245 August Schleicher, _Volkstuemliches ans Sonnenberg_ (Weimar, 1858),
+      p. 134; B. Souche, _Croyances, Presages et Traditions diverses_
+      (Niort, 1880), p. 11; A. Meyrac, _Traditions, Coutumes, Legendes et
+      Contes des Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), p. 171; V. Fossel,
+      _Volksmedicin und medicinischer Aberglaube in Steiermark_2 (Graz,
+      1886), p. 124. A correspondent, who withholds her name, writes to me
+      that in a Suffolk village, where she used to live some twenty or
+      thirty years ago, "every one pickled their own beef, and it was held
+      that if the pickling were performed by a woman during her menstrual
+      period the meat would not keep. If the cook were incapacitated at
+      the time when the pickling was due, another woman was sent for out
+      of the village rather than risk what was considered a certainty."
+      Another correspondent informs me that in some of the dales in the
+      north of Yorkshire a similar belief prevailed down to recent years
+      with regard to the salting of pork. Another correspondent writes to
+      me: "The prohibition that a menstruating woman must not touch meat
+      that is intended for keeping appears to be common all over the
+      country; at least I have met with it as a confirmed and active
+      custom in widely separated parts of England.... It is in regard to
+      the salting of meat for bacon that the prohibition is most usual,
+      because that is the commonest process; but it exists in regard to
+      any meat food that is required to be kept."
+
+  246 R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 291.
+
+  247 W. R. Paton, in _Folk-lore_, i. (1890) p. 524.
+
+  M79 The intention of secluding menstruous women is to neutralize the
+      dangerous influences which are thought to emanate from them in that
+      condition. Suspension between heaven and earth.
+  M80 The same explanation applies to the similar rules of seclusion
+      observed by divine kings and priests. Suspension between heaven and
+      earth.
+
+  248 The Greeks and Romans thought that a field was completely protected
+      against insects if a menstruous woman walked round it with bare feet
+      and streaming hair (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ xvii. 266, xxviii. 78;
+      Columella, _De re rustica_, x. 358 sq., xi. 3. 64; Palladius, _De re
+      rustica_, i. 35. 3; _Geoponica_, xii. 8. 5 _sq._; Aelian, _Nat.
+      Anim._ vi. 36). A similar preventive is employed for the same
+      purpose by North American Indians and European peasants. See H. R.
+      Schoolcraft, _Indian Tribes of the United States_ (Philadelphia,
+      1853-1856), v. 70; F. J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren und aeussern
+      Leben der Ehsten_ (St. Petersburg, 1876), p. 484. Compare J.
+      Haltrich, _Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbuerger Sachsen_ (Vienna, 1885),
+      p. 280; Adolph Heinrich, _Agrarische Sitten und Gebraeuche unter den
+      Sachsen Siebenbuergens_ (Hermannstadt, 1880), p. 14; J. Grimm,
+      _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 iii. 468; G. Lammert, _Volksmedizin und
+      medizinischer Aberglaube aus Bayern_ (Wuerzburg, 1869), p. 147. Among
+      the Western Denes it is believed that one or two transverse lines
+      tattooed on the arms or legs of a young man by a pubescent girl are
+      a specific against premature weakness of these limbs. See A. G.
+      Morice, "Notes, Archaeological, Industrial, and Sociological, on the
+      Western Denes," _Transactions of the Canadian Institute_, iv.
+      (1892-93) p. 182. The Thompson Indians of British Columbia thought
+      that the Dawn of Day could and would cure hernia if only an
+      adolescent girl prayed to it to do so. Just before daybreak the girl
+      would put some charcoal in her mouth, chew it fine, and spit it out
+      four times on the diseased place. Then she prayed: "O Day-dawn! thy
+      child relies on me to obtain healing from thee, who art mystery.
+      Remove thou the swelling of thy child. Pity thou him, Day-Dawn!" See
+      James Teit, _The Thompson Indians of British Columbia_, pp. 345
+      _sq._ (_The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American
+      Museum of Natural History_, New York, April, 1900). To cure the
+      painful and dangerous wound inflicted by a ray-fish, the Indians of
+      the Gran Chaco smoke the wounded limb and then cause a woman in her
+      courses to sit astride of it. See G. Pelleschi, _Eight Months on the
+      Gran Chaco of the Argentine Republic_ (London, 1886), p. 106. An
+      ancient Hindoo method of securing prosperity was to swallow a
+      portion of the menstruous fluid. See W. Caland, _Altindisches
+      Zauberritual_ (Amsterdam, 1900), pp. 57 _sq._ To preserve a new cow
+      from the evil eye Scottish Highlanders used to sprinkle menstruous
+      blood on the animal; and at certain seasons of the year, especially
+      at Beltane (the first of May) and Lammas (the first of August) it
+      was their custom to sprinkle the same potent liquid on the doorposts
+      and houses all round to guard them from harm. The fluid was applied
+      by means of a wisp of straw, and the person who discharged this
+      salutary office went round the house in the direction of the sun.
+      See J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of
+      Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), p. 248. These are examples of the
+      beneficent application of the menstruous energy.
+
+_  249 Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 1 _sqq._
+
+  250 For a similar reason, perhaps, ancient Hindoo ritual prescribed that
+      when the hair of a child's head was shorn in the third year, the
+      clippings should be buried in a cow-stable, or near an _udumbara_
+      tree, or in a clump of _darbha_ grass, with the words, "Where
+      Pushan, Brihaspati, Savitri, Soma, Agni dwell, they have in many
+      ways searched where they should deposit it, between heaven and
+      earth, the waters and heaven." See _The Grihya-Sutras_, translated
+      by H. Oldenberg, Part ii. (Oxford, 1892) p. 218 (_Sacred Books of
+      the East_, vol. xxx.).
+
+  M81 Stories of immortality attained by suspension between heaven and
+      earth.
+
+  251 Petronius, _Sat._ 48; Pausanias, x. 12. 8; Justin Martyr, _Cohort ad
+      Graecos_, 37, p. 34 c (ed. 1742). According to another account, the
+      remains of the Sibyl were enclosed in an iron cage which hung from a
+      pillar in an ancient temple of Hercules at Argyrus (Ampelius, _Liber
+      Memorialis_, viii. 16).
+
+  252 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Maerchen und Gebraeuche_
+      (Leipsic, 1848), p. 70, No. 72. 1. This and the following German
+      parallels to the story of the Sibyl's wish were first indicated by
+      Dr. M. R. James (_Classical Review_, vi. (1892) p. 74). I have
+      already given the stories at length in a note on Pausanias, x. 12. 8
+      (vol. v. pp. 292 _sq._).
+
+  253 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ pp. 70 _sq._, No. 72. 2.
+
+  254 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ p. 71, No. 72. 3.
+
+  255 Karl Muellenhoff, _Sagen, Maerchen und Lieder der Herzogthuemer
+      Holstein und Lauenburg_ (Kiel, 1845), pp. 158 _sq._, No. 217.
+
+  M82 How Balder, the good and beautiful god, was done to death by a
+      stroke of the mistletoe.
+
+_  256 Die Edda_, uebersetzt von K. Simrock8 (Stuttgart, 1882), pp.
+      286-288. Compare pp. 8, 34, 264. Balder's story is told in a
+      professedly historical form by the old Danish historian Saxo
+      Grammaticus in his third book. See below, p. 103. In English the
+      story is told at length by Professor (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic
+      Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 529 _sqq._ It is
+      elaborately discussed by Professor F. Kauffmann in a learned
+      monograph, _Balder, Mythus und Sage_ (Strasburg, 1902).
+
+  M83 Tale of Balder in the older _Edda_.
+
+  257 Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powell, _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, i.
+      (Oxford, 1883) p. 197. Compare _Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo
+      Saemundina dicta_, Pars iii. (Copenhagen, 1828) pp. 39 _sq._; _Die
+      Edda_, uebersetzt von K. Simrock8 (Stuttgart, 1882), p. 8; K.
+      Muellenhoff, _Deutsche Altertumskunde_, v. Zweite Abteilung (Berlin,
+      1891), pp. 78 _sq._; Fr. Kauffmann, _Balder, Mythus und Sage_, pp.
+      20 _sq._ In this passage the words translated "bloody victim"
+      (_blauþom tivor_) and "fate looming" (_orlog folgen_) are somewhat
+      uncertain and have been variously interpreted. The word _tivor_,
+      usually understood to mean "god," seems to be found nowhere else.
+      Professor H. M. Chadwick has kindly furnished me with the following
+      literal translation of the passage: "I saw (or 'have seen') held in
+      safe keeping the life of Balder, the bloody god, Othin's son. High
+      above the fields (_i.e._ the surface of the earth) grew a mistletoe,
+      slender and very beautiful. From a shaft (or 'stem') which appeared
+      slender, came a dangerous sorrow-bringing missile (_i.e._ the shaft
+      became a ... missile); Hodr proceeded to shoot. Soon was a brother
+      of Balder born. He, Othin's son, proceeded to do battle when one day
+      old. He did not wash his hands or comb his head before he brought
+      Balder's antagonist on to the pyre. But Frigg in Fen-salir (_i.e._
+      the Fen-abode) lamented the trouble of Valholl." In translating the
+      words _orlog folgen_ "held in safe keeping the life" Professor
+      Chadwick follows Professor F. Kauffmann's rendering ("_das Leben
+      verwahrt_"); but he writes to me that he is not quite confident
+      about it, as the word _orlog_ usually means "fate" rather than
+      "life." Several sentences translated by Professor Chadwick ("Soon
+      was a brother of Balder born ... he brought Balder's antagonist on
+      the pyre") are omitted by some editors and translators of the
+      _Edda_.
+
+  258 G. Vigfusson and F. York Powell, _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_, i. 200
+      _sq._; _Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo Saemundina dicta_, Pars
+      iii. pp. 51-54; _Die Edda_, uebersetzt von K. Simrock8 pp. 10 _sq._;
+      K. Muellenhoff, _Deutsche Altertumskunde_, v. Zweite Abteilung, pp.
+      84 _sq._
+
+  M84 The story of Balder as related by Saxo Grammaticus.
+
+  259 Saxo Grammaticus, _Historia Danica_, ed. P. E. Mueller (Copenhagen,
+      1839-1858), _lib._ iii. vol. i. pp. 110 _sqq._; _The First Nine
+      Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus_, translated by
+      Oliver Elton (London, 1894), pp. 83-93.
+
+  M85 Balder worshipped in Norway.
+
+_  260 Fridthjofs Saga, aus dem Altislaendischen_, von J. C. Poestion
+      (Vienna, 1879), pp. 3 _sq._, 14-17, 45-52.
+
+  M86 The legendary death of Balder resembles the legendary death of the
+      Persian hero Isfendiyar in the epic of Firdusi.
+
+_  261 The Epic of Kings, Stories retold from Firdusi_, by Helen Zimmern
+      (London, 1883), pp. 325-331. The parallel between Balder and
+      Isfendiyar was pointed out in the "Lexicon Mythologicum" appended to
+      the _Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo Saemundina dicta_, Pars
+      iii. (Copenhagen, 1828) p. 513 note, with a reference to _Schah
+      Nameh, verdeutscht von Goerres_, ii. 324, 327 _sq._ It is briefly
+      mentioned by Dr. P. Wagler, _Die Eiche in alter und neuer Zeit_, ii.
+      Teil (Berlin, 1891), p. 40.
+
+  M87 The myth of Balder was perhaps acted as a magical ceremony. The two
+      chief incidents of the myth, namely the pulling of the mistletoe and
+      the death and burning of the god, have perhaps their counterparts in
+      popular ritual.
+  M88 European custom of kindling bonfires on certain days of the year,
+      dancing round them and leaping over them. Effigies are sometimes
+      burnt in the fires.
+
+  262 See Jacob Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_4 (Berlin, 1875-1878), i. 502,
+      510, 516.
+
+  263 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstaemme_
+      (Berlin, 1875), pp. 518 _sq._
+
+  264 In the following survey of these fire-customs I follow chiefly W.
+      Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, kap. vi. pp. 497 _sqq._ Compare also J.
+      Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 500 _sqq._; Walter K. Kelly,
+      _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore_ (London,
+      1863), pp. 46 _sqq._; F. Vogt, "Scheibentreiben und Fruehlingsfeuer,"
+      _Zeitschrift des Vereins fuer Volkskunde_, iii. (1893) pp. 349-369;
+      _ibid._ iv. (1894) pp. 195-197.
+
+  M89 Seasons of the year at which the bonfires are lit.
+
+_  265 The Scapegoat_, pp. 316 _sqq._
+
+  266 The first Sunday in Lent is known as _Invocavit_ from the first word
+      of the mass for the day (O. Frh. von Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld,
+      _Fest-Kalender aus Boehmen_, p. 67).
+
+  M90 Custom of kindling bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in the
+      Belgian Ardennes.
+
+  267 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels,
+      1861-1862), i. 141-143; E. Monseur, _Le Folklore Wallon_ (Brussels,
+      N.D.), pp. 124 _sq._
+
+  268 Emile Hublard, _Fetes du Temps Jadis, les Feux du Careme_ (Mons,
+      1899), pp. 25. For the loan of this work I am indebted to Mrs.
+      Wherry of St. Peter's Terrace, Cambridge.
+
+  269 E. Hublard, _op. cit._ pp. 27 _sq._
+
+  M91 Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in the French department of the
+      Ardennes.
+
+  270 A. Meyrac, _Traditions, coutumes, legendes et contes des Ardennes_
+      (Charleville, 1890), p. 68.
+
+  271 L. F. Sauve, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 56.
+      The popular name for the bonfires in the Upper Vosges
+      (_Hautes-Vosges_) is _chavandes_.
+
+  272 E. Cortet, _Essai sur les fetes religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 101
+      _sq._ The local name for these bonfires is _bures_.
+
+  M92 Bonfires on the First Sunday of Lent in Franche-Comte.
+
+  273 Charles Beauquier, _Les mois en Franche-Comte_ (Paris, 1900), pp. 33
+      sq. In Bresse the custom was similar. See _La Bresse Louhannaise,
+      Bulletin Mensuel, Organe de la Societe d'Agriculture et
+      d'Horticulture de l'Arrondissement de Louhans_, Mars, 1906, pp. 111
+      _sq._; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ p. 100. The usual name for the bonfires
+      is _chevannes_ or _schvannes_; but in some places they are called
+      _fouleres_, _foualeres_, _failles_, or _bourdifailles_ (Ch.
+      Beauquier, _op. cit._ p. 34). But the Sunday is called the Sunday of
+      the _brandons_, _bures_, _bordes_, or _boides_, according to the
+      place. The _brandons_ are the torches which are carried about the
+      streets and the fields; the bonfires, as we have seen, bear another
+      name. A curious custom, observed on the same Sunday in
+      Franche-Comte, requires that couples married within the year should
+      distribute boiled peas to all the young folks of both sexes who
+      demand them at the door. The lads and lasses go about from house to
+      house, making the customary request; in some places they wear masks
+      or are otherwise disguised. See Ch. Beauquier, _op. cit._ pp. 31-33.
+
+  M93 Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in Auvergne. The Granno invoked
+      at these bonfires may be the old Celtic god Grannus, who was
+      identified with Apollo.
+
+  274 Curiously enough, while the singular is _granno-mio_, the plural is
+      _grannas-mias_.
+
+  275 Dr. Pommerol, "La fete des Brandons et le dieu Gaulois Grannus,"
+      _Bulletins et Memoires de la Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris_, v.
+      Serie, ii. (1901) pp. 427-429.
+
+_  276 Op. cit._ pp. 428 _sq._
+
+  277 H. Dessau, _Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae_, vol. ii. Pars i.
+      (Berlin, 1902) pp. 216 _sq._, Nos. 4646-4652.
+
+  278 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London, 1888), pp. 22-25.
+
+  M94 French custom of carrying lighted torches (_brandons_) about the
+      orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent.
+
+  279 Emile Hublard, _Fetes du Temps Jadis, les Feux du Careme_ (Mons,
+      1899), p. 38, quoting Dom Grenier, _Histoire de la Province de
+      Picardie_.
+
+  280 E. Hublard, _op. cit._ p. 39, quoting Dom Grenier.
+
+  281 M. Desgranges, "Usages du Canton de Bonneval," _Memoires de la
+      Societe Royale des Antiquaires de France_, i. (Paris, 1817) pp.
+      236-238; Felix Chapiseau, _Le folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_
+      (Paris, 1902), i. 315 _sq._
+
+  282 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 100.
+
+  283 E. Cortet, _Essai sur les fetes religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 99
+      _sq._; _La Bresse Louhannaise_, Mars, 1906, p. 111.
+
+  284 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, mythes et traditions des provinces de France_
+      (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 283 sq. A similar, though not
+      identical, custom prevailed at Valenciennes (_ibid._ p. 338).
+
+  285 A. de Nore, _op. cit._ p. 302.
+
+  286 Desire Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparees_ (Paris, 1854), pp.
+      191 _sq._
+
+  287 Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et legendes du centre de la France_
+      (Paris, 1875), i. 35 _sqq._
+
+  288 Jules Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Conde-sur-Noireau,
+      1887), ii. 131 _sq._ For more evidence of customs of this sort
+      observed in various parts of France on the first Sunday in Lent, see
+      Madame Clement, _Histoire des Fetes civiles et religieuses, etc., du
+      Departement du Nord_2 (Cambrai, 1836), pp. 351 _sqq._; Emile
+      Hublard, _Fetes du Temps Jadis, les Feux du Careme_ (Mons, 1899),
+      pp. 33 _sqq._
+
+  M95 Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in Germany and Austria.
+      "Burning the witch." Burning discs thrown into the air. Burning
+      wheels rolled down hill.
+
+  289 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Spruechwoerter und Raethsel
+      des Eifler Volkes_ (Treves, 1856-1858), i. 21-25; N. Hocker, in
+      _Zeitschrift fuer deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853) p.
+      90; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer
+      Nachbarstaemme_ (Berlin, 1875), p. 501.
+
+  290 N. Hocker, _op. cit._ pp. 89 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _l.c._
+
+  291 F. J. Vonbun, _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Chur, 1862), p.
+      20; W. Mannhardt, _l.c._
+
+  292 Ernst Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Schwaben_
+      (Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 380 _sqq._; Anton Birlinger, _Volksthuemliches
+      aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), ii. 56 _sqq._, 66
+      _sqq._; _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Koenigreichs Bayern_
+      (Munich, 1860-1867), ii. 2, pp. 838 _sq._; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur
+      deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), i. 211, § 232; W.
+      Mannhardt, _l.c._ One of the popular German names for the first
+      Sunday in Lent is White Sunday, which is not to be confused with the
+      first Sunday after Easter, which also goes by the name of White
+      Sunday (E. Meier, _op. cit._ p. 380; A. Birlinger, _op. cit._ ii.
+      56).
+
+  293 H. Gaidoz, "Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme de la roue,"
+      _Revue Archeologique_, iii. serie, iv. (1884) pp. 139 _sq._
+
+  294 August Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Thueringen_
+      (Vienna, 1878), p. 189; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen
+      Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 207; W. Mannhardt, _Der
+      Baumkultus_, pp. 500 _sq_.
+
+  295 W. Kolbe, _Hessiche Volks-Sitten und Gebraeuche_2 (Marburg, 1888), p.
+      36.
+
+  296 Adalbert Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Goettertranks_2
+      (Guetersloh, 1886), p. 86, quoting Hocker, _Des Mosellandes
+      Geschichten, Sagen und Legenden_ (Trier, 1852), pp. 415 _sqq._
+      Compare W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 501; and below, pp. 163
+      _sq._ Thus it appears that the ceremony of rolling the fiery wheel
+      down hill was observed twice a year at Konz, once on the first
+      Sunday in Lent, and once at Midsummer.
+
+  M96 Bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Switzerland. Burning discs
+      thrown into the air.
+
+  297 H. Herzog, _Schweizerische Volksfeste, Sitten und Gebraeuche_ (Aarau,
+      1884), pp. 214-216; E. Hoffmann-Krayer, "Fruchtbarkeitsriten im
+      schweizerischen Volksbrauch," _Schweizerisches Archiv fuer
+      Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) pp. 247-249; _id._, _Feste und Braeuche des
+      Schweizervolkes_ (Zurich, 1913), pp. 135 _sq._
+
+  M97 Connexion of these bonfires with the custom of "carrying out Death."
+      Effigies burnt on Shrove Tuesday.
+
+  298 Theodor Vernaleken, _Mythen und Braeuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_
+      (Vienna, 1859), pp. 293 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p.
+      498. See _The Dying God_, p. 250.
+
+  299 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Spruechwoerter und Raethsel
+      des Eifler Volkes_ (Treves, 1856-1858), i. 20; W. Mannhardt, _Der
+      Baumkultus_, p. 499.
+
+  300 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
+      (Oldenburg, 1867), ii. 39, § 306; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p.
+      498.
+
+  301 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 499.
+
+  302 W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ pp. 498 _sq._
+
+  303 W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ p. 499.
+
+  304 Christian Schneller, _Maerchen und Sagen aus Waelschtirol_ (Innsbruck,
+      1867), pp. 234 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _op. cit._ pp. 499 _sq._
+
+  M98 Fire-festivals on Easter Eve. Custom in Catholic countries of
+      kindling a holy new fire at the church on Easter Saturday;
+      marvellous properties ascribed to the embers of the fire. The
+      burning of Judas.
+
+  305 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 157 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, pp.
+      502-505; Karl Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_ (Munich,
+      1855), pp. 172 _sq._; Anton Birlinger, _Volksthuemliches aus
+      Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), i. 472 _sq._; Montanus,
+      _Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbraeuche und deutscher Volksglaube_
+      (Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 26; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen
+      Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 241 _sq._; Ernst Meier,
+      _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Schwaben_ (Stuttgart,
+      1852), pp. 139 _sq._; _Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des
+      Koenigreichs Bayern_ (Munich, 1860-1867), i. 371; A. Wuttke, _Der
+      deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), pp. 68 _sq._, § 81; Ignaz
+      V. Zingerle, _Sitten, Braeuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes_2
+      (Innsbruck, 1871), p. 149, §§ 1286-1289; W. Kolbe, _Hessische
+      Volks-Sitten und Gebraeuche_2 (Marburg, 1888), pp. 44 _sqq._; _County
+      Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, Leicestershire and Rutland_, collected
+      by C. J. Billson (London, 1895), pp. 75 _sq._; A. Tiraboschi, "Usi
+      pasquali nel Bergamasco," _Archivio per lo Studio delle Tradizione
+      Popolari_, i. (1892) pp. 442 _sq._ The ecclesiastical custom of
+      lighting the Paschal or Easter candle is very fully described by Mr.
+      H. J. Feasey, _Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial_ (London, 1897),
+      pp. 179 _sqq._ These candles were sometimes of prodigious size; in
+      the cathedrals of Norwich and Durham, for example, they reached
+      almost to the roof, from which they had to be lighted. Often they
+      went by the name of the Judas Light or the Judas Candle; and
+      sometimes small waxen figures of Judas were hung on them. See H. J.
+      Feasey, _op. cit._ pp. 193, 213 _sqq._ As to the ritual of the new
+      fire at St. Peter's in Rome, see R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_
+      (London and Edinburgh, 1886), i. 421; and as to the early history of
+      the rite in the Catholic church, see Mgr. L. Duchesne, _Origines du
+      Culte Chretien_3 (Paris, 1903), pp. 250-257.
+
+  M99 Easter fires in Bavaria and the Abruzzi.
+
+_  306 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Koenigreichs Bayern_ (Munich,
+      1860-1867), i. 1002 _sq._
+
+  307 Gennaro Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_ (Palermo,
+      1890), pp. 122 _sq._
+
+ M100 Water as well as fire consecrated in the Abruzzi on Easter Saturday.
+      Water consecrated in Calabria on Easter Saturday. Water and fire
+      consecrated on Easter Saturday among the Germans of Bohemia. Easter
+      rites of fire and water at Hildesheim.
+
+  308 G. Finamore, _op. cit._ pp. 123 _sq._
+
+  309 Vincenzo Dorsa, _La Tradizione Greco-Latina negli Usi e nelle
+      Credenze Popolari della Calabria Citeriore_ (Cosenza, 1884), pp. 48
+      _sq._
+
+  310 Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch, und Volksglaube im deutschen Westboehmen_
+      (Prague, 1905), pp. 62 _sq._
+
+  311 K. Seifart, _Sagen, Maerchen, Schwaenke und Gebraeuche aus Stadt und
+      Stift Hildesheim_2 (Hildesheim, 1889), pp. 177 sq., 179 _sq._
+
+ M101 New fire at Easter in Carinthia. Consecration of fire and water by
+      the Catholic Church at Easter.
+
+  312 M. Lexer, "Volksueberlieferungen aus dem Lesachthal in Kaernten,"
+      _Zeitschrift fuer deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, iii. (1855)
+      p. 31.
+
+_  313 The Popish Kingdome or reigne of Antichrist, written in Latin verse
+      by Thomas Naogeorgus and Englyshed by Barnabe Googe, 1570_, edited
+      by R. C. Hope (London, 1880), p. 52, _recto_. The title of the
+      original poem was _Regnum Papisticum_. The author, Thomas Kirchmeyer
+      (Naogeorgus, as he called himself), died in 1577. The book is a
+      satire on the abuses and superstitions of the Catholic Church. Only
+      one perfect copy of Googe's translation is known to exist: it is in
+      the University Library at Cambridge. See Mr. R. C. Hope's
+      introduction to his reprint of this rare work, pp. xv. _sq._ The
+      words, "Then Clappers ceasse, and belles are set againe at
+      libertee," refer to the custom in Catholic countries of silencing
+      the church bells for two days from noon on Maundy Thursday to noon
+      on Easter Saturday and substituting for their music the harsh
+      clatter of wooden rattles. See R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_
+      (London and Edinburgh, 1886), i. 412 _sq._ According to another
+      account the church bells are silent from midnight on the Wednesday
+      preceding Maundy Thursday till matins on Easter Day. See W. Smith
+      and S. Cheetham, _Dictionary of Christian Antiquities_ (London,
+      1875-1880), ii. 1161, referring to _Ordo Roman_. i. _u.s._
+
+  314 R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_ (London and Edinburgh, 1886), i.
+      421.
+
+ M102 The new fire on Easter Saturday at Florence.
+
+  315 Miss Jessie L. Weston, "The _Scoppio del Carro_ at Florence,"
+      _Folk-lore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 182-184; "Lo Scoppio del Carro,"
+      _Resurrezione, Numero Unico del Sabato Santo_ (Florence, April,
+      1906), p. 1 (giving a picture of the car with its pyramid of
+      fire-works). The latter paper was kindly sent to me from Florence by
+      my friend Professor W. J. Lewis. I have also received a letter on
+      the subject from Signor Carlo Placci, dated 4 (or 7) September,
+      1905, 1 Via Alfieri, Firenze.
+
+ M103 The new fire and the burning of Judas on Easter Saturday in Mexico.
+
+  316 Frederick Starr, "Holy Week in Mexico," _The Journal of American
+      Folk-lore_, xii. (1899) pp. 164 _sq._; C. Boyson Taylor, "Easter in
+      Many Lands," _Everybody's Magazine_, New York, 1903, p. 293. I have
+      to thank Mr. S. S. Cohen, of 1525 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, for
+      sending me a cutting from the latter magazine.
+
+ M104 The burning of Judas at Easter in South America.
+
+  317 K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvoelkern Zentral-Brasiliens_
+      (Berlin, 1894), pp. 458 _sq._; E. Montet, "Religion et Superstition
+      dans l'Amerique du Sud," _Revue de l'Histoire des Religions_, xxxii.
+      (1895) p. 145.
+
+  318 J. J. von Tschudi, _Peru, Reiseskizzen aus den Jahren 1838-1842_
+      (St. Gallen, 1846), ii. 189 _sq._
+
+  319 H. Candelier, _Rio-Hacha et les Indiens Goajires_ (Paris, 1893), p.
+      85.
+
+ M105 The new fire on Easter Saturday in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
+      at Jerusalem.
+
+  320 Henry Maundrell, "A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter, A.D.
+      1697," in Bohn's _Early Travellers in Palestine_ (London, 1848), pp.
+      462-465; Mgr. Auvergne, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, x.
+      (1837) pp. 23 _sq._; A. P. Stanley, _Sinai and Palestine_, Second
+      Edition (London, 1856), pp. 460-465; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes
+      Religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), pp. 137-139; A. W. Kinglake, _Eothen_,
+      chapter xvi. pp. 158-163 (Temple Classics edition); Father X.
+      Abougit, S.J., "Le feu du Saint-Sepulcre," _Les Missions
+      Catholiques_, viii. (1876) pp. 518 _sq._; Rev. C. T. Wilson,
+      _Peasant Life in the Holy Land_ (London, 1906), pp. 45 _sq._; P.
+      Saint-yves, "Le Renouvellement du Feu Sacre," _Revue des Traditions
+      Populaires_, xxvii. (1912) pp. 449 _sqq._ The distribution of the
+      new fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the subject of a
+      picture by Holman Hunt. From some printed notes on the picture, with
+      which Mrs. Holman Hunt was so kind as to furnish me, it appears that
+      the new fire is carried by horsemen to Bethlehem and Jaffa, and that
+      a Russian ship conveys it from Jaffa to Odessa, whence it is
+      distributed all over the country.
+
+  321 Father X. Abougit, S.J., "Le feu du Saint-Sepulcre," _Les Missions
+      Catholiques_, viii. (1876) pp. 165-168.
+
+ M106 The new fire and the burning of Judas on Easter Saturday in Greece.
+
+  322 I have described the ceremony as I witnessed it at Athens, on April
+      13th, 1890. Compare _Folk-lore_, i. (1890) p. 275. Having been
+      honoured, like other strangers, with a place on the platform, I did
+      not myself detect Lucifer at work among the multitude below; I
+      merely suspected his insidious presence.
+
+  323 W. H. D. Rouse, "Folk-lore from the Southern Sporades," _Folk-lore_,
+      x. (1899) p. 178.
+
+  324 Mrs. A. E. Gardner was so kind as to send me a photograph of a
+      Theban Judas dangling from a gallows and partially enveloped in
+      smoke. The photograph was taken at Thebes during the Easter
+      celebration of 1891.
+
+  325 G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folk-lore_ (Cambridge, 1903) p. 37.
+
+ M107 The new fire at Candlemas in Armenia.
+
+  326 Cirbied, "Memoire sur le gouvernment et sur la religion des anciens
+      Armeniens," _Memoires publiees par la Societe Royaledes Antiquaires
+      de France_, ii. (1820) pp. 285-287; Manuk Abeghian, _Der armenische
+      Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), pp. 72-74. The ceremony is said to be
+      merely a continuation of an old heathen festival which was held at
+      the beginning of spring in honour of the fire-god Mihr. A bonfire
+      was made in a public place, and lamps kindled at it were kept
+      burning throughout the year in each of the fire-god's temples.
+
+ M108 The new fire and the burning of Judas at Easter are probably relics
+      of paganism.
+
+_  327 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 32, ii. 243; _Spirits
+      of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 65, 74, 75, 78, 136.
+
+ M109 The new fire at the summer solstice among the Incas of Peru. The new
+      fire among the Indians of Mexico and New Mexico. The new fire among
+      the Esquimaux.
+
+  328 Garcilasso de la Vega, _Royal Commentaries of the Yncas_, translated
+      by (Sir) Clements R. Markham (Hakluyt Society, London, 1869-1871),
+      vol. ii. pp. 155-163. Compare Juan de Velasco, "Histoire du Royaume
+      de Quito," in H. Ternaux-Compans's _Voyages, Relations et Memoires
+      originaux pour servir a l'Histoire de la Decouverte de l'Amerique_,
+      xviii. (Paris, 1840) p. 140.
+
+  329 B. de Sahagun, _Histoire Generale des Choses de la Nouvelle
+      Espagne_, traduite par D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), bk.
+      ii. chapters 18 and 37, pp. 76, 161; Brasseur de Bourbourg,
+      _Histoire des Nations civilisees du Mexique et de
+      l'Amerique-Centrale_ (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 136.
+
+  330 Mrs. Matilda Coxe Stevenson, "The Zuni Indians," _Twenty-third
+      Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington,
+      1904), pp. 108-141, 148-162, especially pp. 108, 109, 114 _sq._, 120
+      _sq._, 130 _sq._, 132, 148 _sq._, 157 _sq._ I have already described
+      these ceremonies in _Totemism and Exogamy_, iii. 237 _sq._ Among the
+      Hopi (Moqui) Indians of Walpi, another pueblo village of this
+      region, new fire is ceremonially kindled by friction in November.
+      See Jesse Walter Fewkes, "The Tusayan New Fire Ceremony,"
+      _Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History_, xxvi.
+      422-458; _id._, "The Group of Tusayan Ceremonials called
+      _Katcinas_," _Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_
+      (Washington, 1897), p. 263; _id._, "Hopi _Katcinas_," _Twenty-first
+      Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_ (Washington,
+      1903), p. 24.
+
+  331 Henry R. Schoolcraft, _Notes on the Iroquois_ (Albany, 1847), p.
+      137. Schoolcraft did not know the date of the ceremony, but he
+      conjectured that it fell at the end of the Iroquois year, which was
+      a lunar year of twelve or thirteen months. He says: "That the close
+      of the lunar series should have been the period of putting out the
+      fire, and the beginning of the next, the time of relumination, from
+      new fire, is so consonant to analogy in the tropical tribes, as to
+      be probable" (_op. cit._ p. 138).
+
+  332 C. F. Hall, _Life with the Esquimaux_ (London, 1864), ii. 323.
+
+  333 Franz Boas, "The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay," _Bulletin of
+      the American Museum of Natural History_, xv. Part i. (New York,
+      1901) p. 151.
+
+ M110 The new fire in Wadai, among the Swahili, and in other parts of
+      Africa.
+
+  334 G. Nachtigal, _Sahara und Sudan_, iii. (Leipsic, 1889) p. 251.
+
+  335 Major C. Percival, "Tropical Africa, on the Border Line of Mohamedan
+      Civilization," _The Geographical Journal_, xlii. (1913) pp. 253
+      _sq._
+
+  336 Adrien Germain, "Note sur Zanzibar et la cote orientale de
+      l'Afrique," _Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie_ (Paris), v. Serie
+      xvi. (1868) p. 557; _Les Missions Catholiques_, iii. (1870) p. 270;
+      Charles New, _Life, Wanderings, and Labours in Eastern Africa_
+      (London, 1873), p. 65; Jerome Becker, _La Vie en Afrique_ (Paris and
+      Brussels, 1887), ii. 36; O. Baumann, _Usambara und seine
+      Nachbargebiete_ (Berlin, 1891), pp. 55 _sq._; C. Velten, _Sitten und
+      Gebraeuche der Suaheli_ (Goettingen, 1903), pp. 342-344.
+
+  337 Duarte Barbosa, _Description of the Coasts of East Africa and
+      Malabar_ (Hakluyt Society, London, 1866), p. 8; _id._, in _Records
+      of South-Eastern Africa_, collected by G. McCall Theal, vol. i.
+      (1898) p. 96; Damiao de Goes, "Chronicle of the Most Fortunate King
+      Dom Emanuel," in _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, collected by G.
+      McCall Theal, vol. iii. (1899) pp. 130 _sq._ The name Benametapa
+      (more correctly _monomotapa_) appears to have been the regular title
+      of the paramount chief, which the Portuguese took to be the name of
+      the country. The people over whom he ruled seem to have been the
+      Bantu tribe of the Makalanga in the neighbourhood of Sofala. See G.
+      McCall Theal, _Records of South-Eastern Africa_, vii. (1901) pp.
+      481-484. It is to their custom of annually extinguishing and
+      relighting the fire that Montaigne refers in his essay (i. 22, vol.
+      i. p. 140 of Charpentier's edition), though he mentions no names.
+
+  338 Sir H. H. Johnson, _British Central Africa_ (London, 1897), pp. 426,
+      439.
+
+ M111 The new fire among the Todas of Southern India and among the Nagas
+      of North-Eastern India.
+
+  339 W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_ (London, 1906), pp. 290-292.
+
+  340 Lieut. R. Stewart, "Notes on Northern Cachar," _Journal of the
+      Asiatic Society of Bengal_, xxiv. (1855) p. 612.
+
+  341 A. Bastian, _Die Voelker des oestlichen Asien_, ii. (Leipsic, 1866)
+      pp. 49 _sq._; Shway Yoe, _The Burman_ (London, 1882), ii. 325 _sq._
+
+ M112 The new fire in China and Japan.
+
+  342 G. Schlegel, _Uranographie Chinoise_ (The Hague and Leyden, 1875),
+      pp. 139-143; C. Puini, "Il fuoco nella tradizione degli antichi
+      Cinesi," _Giornale della Societa Asiatica Italiana_, i. (1887) pp.
+      20-23; J. J. M. de Groot, _Les Fetes annuellement celebrees a Emoui
+      (Amoy)_ (Paris, 1886), i. 208 _sqq._ The notion that fire can be
+      worn out with age meets us also in Brahman ritual. See the
+      _Satapatha Brahmana_, translated by Julius Eggeling, Part i.
+      (Oxford, 1882) p. 230 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xii.).
+
+  343 W. G. Aston, _Shinto, The Way of the Gods_ (London, 1905), pp. 258
+      _sq._, compare p. 193. The wands in question are sticks whittled
+      near the top into a mass of adherent shavings; they go by the name
+      of _kedzurikake_ ("part-shaved"), and resemble the sacred _inao_ of
+      the Aino. See W. G. Aston, _op. cit._ p. 191; and as to the _inao_,
+      see _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 185, with note 2.
+
+ M113 The new fire in ancient Greece and Rome.
+
+  344 Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 82; Homer, _Iliad_, i. 590, _sqq._
+
+  345 Philostratus, _Heroica_, xx. 24.
+
+  346 Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 143 _sq._; Macrobius, _Saturn._ i. 12. 6.
+
+  347 Festus, ed. C. O. Mueller (Leipsic, 1839), p. 106, _s.v._ "Ignis."
+      Plutarch describes a method of rekindling the sacred fire by means
+      of the sun's rays reflected from a hollow mirror (_Numa_, 9); but he
+      seems to be referring to a Greek rather than to the Roman custom.
+      The rule of celibacy imposed on the Vestals, whose duty it was to
+      relight the sacred fire as well as to preserve it when it was once
+      made, is perhaps explained by a superstition current among French
+      peasants that if a girl can blow up a smouldering candle into a
+      flame she is a virgin, but that if she fails to do so, she is not.
+      See Jules Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Conde-sur-Noireau,
+      1883-1887), ii. 27; B. Souche, _Croyances, Presages et Traditions
+      diverses_ (Niort, 1880), p. 12. At least it seems more likely that
+      the rule sprang from a superstition of this sort than from a simple
+      calculation of expediency, as I formerly suggested (_Journal of
+      Philology_, xiv. (1885) p. 158). Compare _The Magic Art and the
+      Evolution of Kings_, ii. 234 _sqq._
+
+ M114 The new fire at Hallow E'en among the old Celts of Ireland. The new
+      fire on September 1st among the Russian peasants.
+
+  348 Geoffrey Keating, D.D., _The History of Ireland, translated from the
+      original Gaelic, and copiously annotated_, by John O'Mahony (New
+      York, 1857), p. 300, with the translator's note. Compare (Sir) John
+      Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London, 1888), pp. 514 _sq._
+
+  349 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, Second Edition
+      (London, 1872), pp. 254 _sq._
+
+ M115 Thus the ceremony of the new fire in the Eastern and Western Church
+      is probably a relic of an old heathen rite.
+ M116 The pagan character of the Easter fire appears from the
+      superstitions associated with it, such as the belief that the fire
+      fertilizes the fields and protects houses from conflagration and
+      sickness.
+
+  350 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Maerchen und Gebraeuche_
+      (Leipsic, 1848), p. 373; A. Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebraeuche und Maerchen aus
+      Westfalen_ (Leipsic, 1859), ii. 134 _sqq._; _id._, _Maerkische Sagen
+      und Maerchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 312 _sq._; J. D. H. Temme, _Die
+      Volkssagen der Altmark_ (Berlin, 1839), pp. 75 _sq._; K. Lynker,
+      _Deutsche Sagen und Sitten in hessischen Gauen_2 (Cassel and
+      Goettingen, 1860), p. 240; H. Proehle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855),
+      p. 63; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), pp.
+      240-242; W. Kolbe, _Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebraeuche_ (Marburg,
+      1888), pp. 44-47; F. A. Reimann, _Deutsche Volksfeste_ (Weimar,
+      1839), p. 37; "Sitten und Gebraeuche in Duderstadt," _Zeitschrift fuer
+      deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, ii. (1855) p. 107; K. Seifart,
+      _Sagen, Maerchen, Schwaenke und Gebraeuche aus Stadt und Stift
+      Hildesheim_2 (Hildesheim, 1889), pp. 177, 180; O. Hartung, "Zur
+      Volkskunde aus Anhalt," _Zeitschrift des Vereins fuer Volkskunde_,
+      vii. (1897) p. 76.
+
+ M117 The Easter fires in Muensterland, Oldenburg, the Harz Mountains, and
+      the Altmark.
+
+  351 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
+      (Oldenburg, 1867), ii. pp. 43 _sq._, § 313; W. Mannhardt, _Der
+      Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstaemme_ (Berlin, 1875), pp.
+      505 _sq._
+
+  352 L. Strackerjan, _op. cit._ ii. p. 43, § 313.
+
+  353 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 (Berlin, 1875-1878), i. 512; W.
+      Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstaemme_,
+      pp. 506 _sq._
+
+  354 H. Proehle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855), p. 63; _id._, in
+      _Zeitschrift fuer deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853) p.
+      79; A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Maerchen und
+      Gebraeuche_ (Leipsic, 1848), p. 373; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_,
+      p. 507.
+
+  355 A. Kuhn, _Maerkische Sagen und Maerchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 312
+      _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _l.c._
+
+  356 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 508. Compare J. W. Wolf,
+      _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Goettingen, 1852-1857), i. 74;
+      J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 512. The two latter writers
+      only state that before the fires were kindled it was customary to
+      hunt squirrels in the woods.
+
+  357 A. Kuhn, _l.c._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 508.
+
+ M118 The Easter fires in Bavaria. The burning of Judas. Burning the
+      Easter Man.
+
+_  358 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Koenigreichs Bayern_ (Munich,
+      1860-1867), iii. 956.
+
+  359 See above, pp. 116 _sq._, 119.
+
+  360 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
+      i. pp. 211 _sq._, § 233; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, pp. 507
+      _sq._
+
+_  361 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Koenigreichs Bayern_, iii. 357.
+
+  362 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
+      i. pp. 212 _sq._, § 236.
+
+  363 F. Panzer, _op. cit._ ii. pp. 78 _sq._, §§ 114, 115. The customs
+      observed at these places and at Althenneberg are described together
+      by W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 505.
+
+  364 A. Birlinger, _Volksthuemliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
+      1861-1862), ii. p. 82, § 106; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p.
+      508.
+
+ M119 The Easter fires in Baden. "Thunder poles."
+
+  365 Elard Hugo Meyer, _Badisches Volksleben_ (Strasburg, 1900), pp. 97
+      _sq._
+
+_  366 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 349 _sqq._ See
+      further below, vol. ii. pp. 298 _sqq._
+
+ M120 Easter fires in Holland and Sweden. The burning of Judas in Bohemia.
+
+  367 J. W. Wolf, _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_, i. 75 _sq._; W.
+      Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 506.
+
+  368 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), p. 228.
+
+  369 W. Mueller, _Beitraege zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Maehren_ (Vienna
+      and Olmuetz, 1893), pp. 321, 397 _sq._ In Wagstadt, a town of
+      Austrian Silesia, a boy in a red waistcoat used to play the part of
+      Judas on the Wednesday before Good Friday. He was chased from before
+      the church door by the other school children, who pursued him
+      through the streets with shouts and the noise of rattles and
+      clappers till they reached a certain suburb, where they always
+      caught and beat him because he had betrayed the Redeemer. See Anton
+      Peter, _Volksthuemliches aus oesterreichisch-Schlesien_ (Troppau,
+      1865-1867), ii. 282 _sq._; Paul Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und
+      Volksglaube in Schlesien_ (Leipsic, 1903-1906), i. 77 _sq._
+
+ M121 The Beltane fires on the first of May in the Highlands of Scotland.
+      Description of the Beltane fires by John Ramsay of Ochtertyre in the
+      eighteenth century.
+ M122 Need-fire.
+ M123 Need-fire kindled by the friction of oak wood.
+ M124 The Beltane cake and the Beltane carline (_cailleach_).
+ M125 Local differences in the Beltane cakes.
+ M126 Evidence of two fires at Beltane.
+
+_  370 Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, from the MSS. of
+      John Ramsay, Esq., of Ochtertyre, edited by Alexander Allardyce
+      (Edinburgh and London, 1888), ii. 439-445. As to the _tein-eigin_ or
+      need-fire, see below, pp. 269 _sqq._ The etymology of the word
+      Beltane is uncertain; the popular derivation of the first part from
+      the Phoenician Baal is absurd. See, for example, John Graham
+      Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834),
+      pp. 176 _sq._: "The recognition of the pagan divinity Baal, or Bel,
+      the Sun, is discovered through innumerable etymological sources. In
+      the records of Scottish history, down to the sixteenth or
+      seventeenth centuries, multiplied prohibitions were issued from the
+      fountains of ecclesiastical ordinances, against kindling
+      _Bailfires_, of which the origin cannot be mistaken. The festival of
+      this divinity was commemorated in Scotland until the latest date."
+      Modern scholars are not agreed as to the derivation of the name
+      Beltane. See Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second
+      Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp.
+      268 _sq._; J. A. MacCulloch, _The Religion of the Ancient Celts_
+      (Edinburgh, 1911), p. 264.
+
+ M127 Beltane fires and cakes in the parish of Callander.
+
+  371 "_Bal-tein_ signifies the _fire of Baal_. _Baal_ or _Ball_ is the
+      only word in Gaelic for _a globe_. This festival was probably in
+      honour of the sun, whose return, in his apparent annual course, they
+      celebrated, on account of his having such a visible influence, by
+      his genial warmth, on the productions of the earth. That the
+      Caledonians paid a superstitious respect to the sun, as was the
+      practice among many other nations, is evident, not only by the
+      sacrifice at Baltein, but upon many other occasions. When a
+      Highlander goes to bathe, or to drink waters out of a consecrated
+      fountain, he must always approach by going round the place, _from
+      east to west on the south side_, in imitation of the apparent
+      diurnal motion of the sun. When the dead are laid in the earth, the
+      grave is approached by going round in the same manner. The bride is
+      conducted to her future spouse, in the presence of the minister, and
+      the glass goes round a company, in the course of the sun. This is
+      called, in Gaelic, going round the right, or the _lucky way_. The
+      opposite course is the wrong, or the _unlucky_ way. And if a
+      person's meat or drink were to affect the wind-pipe, or come against
+      his breath, they instantly cry out _deisheal!_ which is an
+      ejaculation praying that it may go by the right way" (Rev. J.
+      Robertson, in Sir John Sinclair's _Statistical Account of Scotland_,
+      xi. 621 note). Compare J. G. Campbell, _Superstitions of the
+      Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 229 _sq._:
+      "_The Right-hand Turn_ (_Deiseal_).--This was the most important of
+      all the observances. The rule is '_Deiseal_ (_i.e._ the right-hand
+      turn) for everything,' and consists in doing all things with a
+      motion corresponding to the course of the sun, or from left to
+      right. This is the manner in which screw-nails are driven, and is
+      common with many for no reason but its convenience. Old men in the
+      Highlands were very particular about it. The coffin was taken
+      _deiseal_ about the grave, when about to be lowered; boats were
+      turned to sea according to it, and drams are given to the present
+      day to a company. When putting a straw rope on a house or
+      corn-stack, if the assistant went _tuaitheal_ (_i.e._ against the
+      course of the sun), the old man was ready to come down and thrash
+      him. On coming to a house the visitor should go round it _deiseal_
+      to secure luck in the object of his visit. After milking a cow the
+      dairy-maid should strike it _deiseal_ with the shackle, saying 'out
+      and home' (_mach 'us dachaigh_). This secures its safe return. The
+      word is from _deas_, right-hand, and _iul_, direction, and of itself
+      contains no allusion to the sun." Compare M. Martin, "Description of
+      the Western Islands of Scotland," in J. Pinkerton's _Voyages and
+      Travels_, iii. 612 _sq._: "There was an ancient custom in the island
+      of Lewis, to make a fiery circle about the houses, corn, cattle,
+      etc., belonging to each particular family: a man carried fire in his
+      right hand, and went round, and it was called _dessil_, from the
+      right hand, which in the ancient language is called _dess_.... There
+      is another way of the _dessil_, or carrying fire round about women
+      before they are churched, after child-bearing; and it is used
+      likewise about children until they are christened; both which are
+      performed in the morning and at night. This is only practised now by
+      some of the ancient midwives: I enquired their reason for this
+      custom, which I told them was altogether unlawful; this disobliged
+      them mightily, insomuch that they would give me no satisfaction. But
+      others, that were of a more agreeable temper, told me that
+      fire-round was an effectual means to preserve both the mother and
+      the infant from the power of evil spirits, who are ready at such
+      times to do mischief, and sometimes carry away the infant; and when
+      they get them once in their possession, return them poor meagre
+      skeletons; and these infants are said to have voracious appetites,
+      constantly craving for meat. In this case it was usual with those
+      who believed that their children were thus taken away, to dig a
+      grave in the fields upon quarter-day, and there to lay the fairy
+      skeleton till next morning; at which time the parents went to the
+      place, where they doubted not to find their own child instead of
+      this skeleton. Some of the poorer sort of people in these islands
+      retain the custom of performing these rounds sun-ways about the
+      persons of their benefactors three times, when they bless them, and
+      wish good success to all their enterprizes. Some are very careful
+      when they set out to sea that the boat be first rowed about
+      sun-ways; and if this be neglected, they are afraid their voyage may
+      prove unfortunate." Probably the superstition was based entirely on
+      the supposed luckiness of the right hand, which accordingly, in
+      making a circuit round an object, is kept towards the centre. As to
+      a supposed worship of the sun among the Scottish Highlanders,
+      compare J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the
+      Highlands and Islands of Scotland_, p. 304: "Both the sun (_a
+      Ghrian_) and moon (_a Ghealach_) are feminine in Gaelic, and the
+      names are simply descriptive of their appearance. There is no trace
+      of a Sun-God or Moon-Goddess." As to the etymology of Beltane, see
+      above, p. 149 note.
+
+  372 Rev. James Robertson (Parish Minister of Callander), in Sir John
+      Sinclair's _Statistical Account of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1791-1799),
+      xi. 620 _sq._
+
+ M128 Pennant's description of the Beltane fires and cakes in Perthshire.
+
+  373 Pennant's "Tour in Scotland," in John Pinkerton's _Voyages and
+      Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), iii. 49.
+
+ M129 Beltane cakes and fires in the parishes of Logierait and
+      Kirkmichael. Omens drawn from the cakes.
+
+  374 Rev. Dr. Thomas Bisset, in Sir John Sinclair's _Statistical Account
+      of Scotland_, v. 84.
+
+  375 Rev. Allan Stewart, in Sir John Sinclair's _Statistical Account of
+      Scotland_, xv. 517 note.
+
+  376 Rev. Walter Gregor, "Notes on Beltane Cakes," _Folk-lore_, vi.
+      (1895) pp. 2 _sq._ The Beltane cakes with the nine knobs on them
+      remind us of the cakes with twelve knobs which the Athenians offered
+      to Cronus and other deities (see _The Scapegoat_, p. 351). The King
+      of the Bean on Twelfth Night was chosen by means of a cake, which
+      was broken in as many pieces as there were persons present, and the
+      person who received the piece containing a bean or a coin became
+      king. See J. Boemus, _Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium_ (Lyons,
+      1541), p. 222; John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_
+      (London, 1882-1883), i. 22 _sq._; _The Scapegoat_, pp. 313 _sqq._
+
+ M130 Beltane fires in the north-east of Scotland to burn the witches.
+      Burning the witches. The Beltane cake.
+
+  377 Shaw, in Pennant's "Tour in Scotland," printed in J. Pinkerton's
+      _Voyages and Travels_, iii. 136. The part of Scotland to which
+      Shaw's description applies is what he calls the province or country
+      of Murray, extending from the river Spey on the east to the river
+      Beauly on the west, and south-west to Loch Lochy.
+
+  378 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
+      Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 167.
+
+ M131 Beltane cakes and fires in the Hebrides.
+
+  379 A. Goodrich-Freer, "More Folk-lore from the Hebrides," _Folk-lore_,
+      xiii. (1902) p. 41. The St. Michael's cake (_Struthan na h'eill
+      Micheil_), referred to in the text, is described as "the size of a
+      quern" in circumference. "It is kneaded simply with water, and
+      marked across like a scone, dividing it into four equal parts, and
+      then placed in front of the fire resting on a quern. It is not
+      polished with dry meal as is usual in making a cake, but when it is
+      cooked a thin coating of eggs (four in number), mixed with
+      buttermilk, is spread first on one side, then on the other, and it
+      is put before the fire again. An earlier shape, still in use, which
+      tradition associates with the female sex, is that of a triangle with
+      the corners cut off. A _struthan_ or _strudhan_ (the word seems to
+      be used for no other kind of cake) is made for each member of the
+      household, including servants and herds. When harvest is late, an
+      early patch of corn is mown on purpose for the _struthan_" (A.
+      Goodrich-Freer, _op. cit._ pp. 44 _sq._).
+
+ M132 Beltane fires and cakes in Wales.
+
+  380 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
+      1909), pp. 22-24.
+
+ M133 Welsh belief that passage over or between the fires ensured good
+      crops.
+
+  381 Jonathan Ceredig Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_
+      (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76.
+
+ M134 Beltane fires in the Isle of Man to burn the witches. Beltane fires
+      in Nottinghamshire.
+
+  382 Joseph Train, _An Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of
+      Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), i. 314 _sq._
+
+  383 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901),
+      i. 309; _id._, "The Coligny Calendar," _Proceedings of the British
+      Academy, 1909-1910_, pp. 261 _sq._ See further _The Magic Art and
+      the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 53 _sq._
+
+  384 Professor Frank Granger, "Early Man," in _The Victoria History of
+      the County of Nottingham_, edited by William Page, i. (London, 1906)
+      pp. 186 _sq._
+
+ M135 Beltane fires in Ireland.
+
+  385 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901),
+      i. 310; _id._, "Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions," _Folk-lore_, ii.
+      (1891) pp. 303 _sq._
+
+  386 P. W. Joyce, _A Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903),
+      i. 290 _sq._, referring to Kuno Meyer, _Hibernia Minora_, p. 49 and
+      _Glossary_, 23.
+
+  387 J. B. Bury, _The Life of St. Patrick_ (London, 1905), pp. 104 _sqq._
+
+  388 Above, p. 147.
+
+  389 Geoffrey Keating, D.D., _The History of Ireland_, translated by John
+      O'Mahony (New York, 1857), pp. 300 _sq._
+
+  390 (Sir) John Rhys, "Manx Folk-lore and Superstition," _Folk-lore_, ii.
+      (1891) p. 303; _id._, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford,
+      1901), i. 309. Compare P. W. Joyce, _A Social History of Ancient
+      Ireland_ (London, 1903), i. 291: "The custom of driving cattle
+      through fires against disease on the eve of the 1st of May, and on
+      the eve of the 24th June (St. John's Day), continued in Ireland, as
+      well as in the Scottish Highlands, to a period within living
+      memory." In a footnote Mr. Joyce refers to Carmichael, _Carmina
+      Gadelica_, ii. 340, for Scotland, and adds, "I saw it done in
+      Ireland."
+
+ M136 Fires on the Eve of May Day in Sweden. Fires on the Eve of May Day
+      in Austria and Saxony for the purpose of burning the witches.
+
+  391 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), pp. 233 _sq._
+
+  392 Reinsberg - Dueringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Boehmen_ (Prague, N.D.),
+      pp. 211 _sq._; Br. Jelinek, "Materialien zur Vorgeschichte und
+      Volkskunde Boehmens," _Mittheilungen der anthropologischen
+      Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxi. (1891) p. 13; Alois John, _Sitte,
+      Brauch, und Volksglaube im deutschen Westboehmen_ (Prague, 1905), p.
+      71.
+
+  393 J. A. E. Koehler, _Volksbrauch, Aberglauben, Sagen und andre alte
+      Ueberlieferungen im Voigtlande_ (Leipsic, 1867), p. 373. The
+      superstitions relating to witches at this season are legion. For
+      instance, in Saxony and Thuringia any one who labours under a
+      physical blemish can easily rid himself of it by transferring it to
+      the witches on Walpurgis Night. He has only to go out to a
+      cross-road, make three crosses on the blemish, and say, "In the name
+      of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Thus the blemish,
+      whatever it may be, is left behind him at the cross-road, and when
+      the witches sweep by on their way to the Brocken, they must take it
+      with them, and it sticks to them henceforth. Moreover, three crosses
+      chalked up on the doors of houses and cattle-stalls on Walpurgis
+      Night will effectually prevent any of the infernal crew from
+      entering and doing harm to man or beast. See E. Sommer, _Sagen,
+      Maerchen und Gebraeuche aus Sachsen und Thueringen_ (Halle, 1846), pp.
+      148 _sq._; _Die gestriegelte Rockenphilosophie_ (Chemnitz, 1759), p.
+      116.
+
+  394 See _The Scapegoat_, pp. 158 _sqq._
+
+ M137 The great season for fire-festivals in Europe is the summer
+      solstice, Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, which the church has
+      dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The bonfires, the torches, and
+      the burning wheels of the festival.
+
+  395 As to the Midsummer Festival of Europe in general see the evidence
+      collected in the "Specimen Calendarii Gentilis," appended to the
+      _Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo Saemundina dicta_, Pars iii.
+      (Copenhagen, 1828) pp. 1086-1097.
+
+  396 John Mitchell Kemble, _The Saxons in England_, New Edition (London,
+      1876), i. 361 _sq._, quoting "an ancient MS. written in England, and
+      now in the Harleian Collection, No. 2345, fol. 50." The passage is
+      quoted in part by J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_
+      (London, 1882-1883), i. 298 _sq._, by R. T. Hampson, _Medii Aevi
+      Kalendarium_ (London, 1841), i. 300, and by W. Mannhardt, _Der
+      Baumkultus_, p. 509. The same explanations of the Midsummer fires
+      and of the custom of trundling a burning wheel on Midsummer Eve are
+      given also by John Beleth, a writer of the twelfth century. See his
+      _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ (appended to the _Rationale
+      Divinorum Officiorum_ of G. [W.] Durandus, Lyons, 1584), p. 556
+      _recto_: "_Solent porro hoc tempore_ [the Eve of St. John the
+      Baptist] _ex veteri consuetudine mortuorum animalium ossa comburi,
+      quod hujusmodi habet originem. Sunt enim animalia, quae dracones
+      appellamus.... Haec inquam animalia in aere volant, in aquis natant,
+      in terra ambulant. Sed quando in aere ad libidinem concitantur (quod
+      fere fit) saepe ipsum sperma vel in puteos, vel in aquas fluviales
+      ejiciunt ex quo lethalis sequitur annus. Adversus haec ergo
+      hujusmodi inventum est remedium, ut videlicet rogus ex ossibus
+      construeretur, et ita fumus hujusmodi animalia fugaret. Et quia
+      istud maxime hoc tempore fiebat, idemetiam modo ab omnibus
+      observatur.... Consuetum item est hac vigilia ardentes deferri
+      faculas quod Johannes fuerit ardens lucerna, et qui vias Domini
+      praeparaverit. Sed quod etiam rota vertatur hinc esse putant quia in
+      eum circulum tunc Sol descenderit ultra quem progredi nequit, a quo
+      cogitur paulatim descendere._" The substance of the passage is
+      repeated in other words by G. Durandus (Wilh. Durantis), a writer of
+      the thirteenth century, in his _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_,
+      lib. vii. cap. 14 (p. 442 _verso_, ed. Lyons, 1584). Compare J.
+      Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 516.
+
+      With the notion that the air is poisoned at midsummer we may compare
+      the popular belief that it is similarly infected at an eclipse. Thus
+      among the Esquimaux on the Lower Yukon river in Alaska "it is
+      believed that a subtle essence or unclean influence descends to the
+      earth during an eclipse, and if any of it is caught in utensils of
+      any kind it will produce sickness. As a result, immediately on the
+      commencement of an eclipse, every woman turns bottom side up all her
+      pots, wooden buckets, and dishes" (E. W. Nelson, "The Eskimo about
+      Bering Strait," _Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
+      Ethnology_, Part i. (Washington, 1899) p. 431). Similar notions and
+      practices prevail among the peasantry of southern Germany. Thus the
+      Swabian peasants think that during an eclipse of the sun poison
+      falls on the earth; hence at such a time they will not sow, mow,
+      gather fruit or eat it, they bring the cattle into the stalls, and
+      refrain from business of every kind. If the eclipse lasts long, the
+      people get very anxious, set a burning candle on the mantel-shelf of
+      the stove, and pray to be delivered from the danger. See Anton
+      Birlinger, _Volksthuemliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
+      1861-1862), i. 189. Similarly Bavarian peasants imagine that water
+      is poisoned during a solar eclipse (F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur
+      deutschen Mythologie_, ii. 297); and Thuringian bumpkins cover up
+      the wells and bring the cattle home from pasture during an eclipse
+      either of the sun or of the moon; an eclipse is particularly
+      poisonous when it happens to fall on a Wednesday. See August
+      Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Thueringen_ (Vienna,
+      1878), p. 287. As eclipses are commonly supposed by the ignorant to
+      be caused by a monster attacking the sun or moon (E. B. Tylor,
+      _Primitive Culture_,2 London, 1873, i. 328 _sqq._), we may surmise,
+      on the analogy of the explanation given of the Midsummer fires, that
+      the unclean influence which is thought to descend on the earth at
+      such times is popularly attributed to seed discharged by the monster
+      or possibly by the sun or moon then in conjunction with each other.
+
+ M138 Th. Kirchmeyer's description of the Midsummer festival.
+
+_  397 The Popish Kingdome or reigne of Antichrist, written in Latin verse
+      by Thomas Naogeorgus and Englyshed by Barnabe Googe, 1570_, edited
+      by R. C. Hope (London, 1880), p. 54 _verso_. As to this work see
+      above, p. 125 note 1.
+
+ M139 The Midsummer fires in Germany. The celebration at Konz on the
+      Moselle: the rolling of a burning wheel down hill.
+
+  398 J. Boemus, _Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium_ (Lyons, 1541), pp.
+      225 _sq._
+
+  399 Tessier, "Sur la fete annuelle de la roue flamboyante de la
+      Saint-Jean, a Basse-Kontz, arrondissement de Thionville," _Memoires
+      et dissertations publies par la Societe Royale des Antiquaires de
+      France_, v. (1823) pp. 379-393. Tessier witnessed the ceremony, 23rd
+      June 1822 (not 1823, as is sometimes stated). His account has been
+      reproduced more or less fully by J. Grimm (_Deutsche Mythologie_,4
+      i. 515 _sq._), W. Mannhardt (_Der Baumkultus_, pp. 510 _sq._), and
+      H. Gaidoz ("Le dieu gaulois du Soleil et le symbolisme de la Roue,"
+      _Revue Archeologique_, iii. Serie, iv. (1884) pp. 24 _sq._).
+
+ M140 The Midsummer fires in Bavaria. Cattle driven through the fire. The
+      new fire. Omens of the harvest drawn from the fires. Burning discs
+      thrown into the air.
+
+_  400 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Koenigreichs Bayern_ (Munich,
+      1860-1867), i. 373 _sq._; compare _id._, iii. 327 _sq._ As to the
+      burning discs at the spring festivals, see above, pp. 116 _sq._,
+      119, 143.
+
+_  401 Op. cit._ ii. 260 _sq._, iii. 936, 956, iv. 2. p. 360.
+
+_  402 Op. cit._ ii. 260.
+
+_  403 Op. cit._ iv. 1. p. 242. We have seen (p. 163) that in the
+      sixteenth century these customs and beliefs were common in Germany.
+      It is also a German superstition that a house which contains a brand
+      from the midsummer bonfire will not be struck by lightning (J. W.
+      Wolf, _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_, i. p. 217, § 185).
+
+  404 J. Boemus, _Mores, leges et ritus omnium gentium_ (Lyons, 1541), p.
+      226.
+
+ M141 The Midsummer fires in Swabia. Omens drawn from the leaps over the
+      fires. Burning wheels rolled down hill. Burning the Angel-Man at
+      Rottenburg.
+
+  405 Karl Freiherr von Leoprechting, _Aus dem Lechrain_ (Munich, 1855),
+      pp. 181 _sqq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 510.
+
+  406 A. Birlinger, _Volksthuemliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
+      1861-1862), ii. pp. 96 _sqq._, § 128, pp. 103 _sq._, § 129; _id._,
+      _Aus Schwaben_ (Wiesbaden, 1874), ii. 116-120; E. Meier, _Deutsche
+      Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Schwaben_ (Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 423
+      _sqq._; W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 510.
+
+  407 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
+      i. pp. 215 _sq._, § 242; _id._, ii. 549.
+
+  408 A. Birlinger, _Volksthuemliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
+      1861-1862), ii. 99-101.
+
+ M142 The Midsummer fires in Baden. Omens drawn from leaps over the fires.
+      Burning discs thrown into the air. Midsummer fires in Alsace,
+      Lorraine, the Eifel, the Harz districts and Thuringia. Burning
+      barrel swung round a pole.
+
+  409 Elard Hugo Mayer, _Badisches Volksleben_ (Strasburg, 1900), pp. 103
+      _sq._, 225 _sq._
+
+  410 W. von Schulenberg, in _Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft fuer
+      Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, Jahrgang 1897_, pp. 494
+      _sq._ (bound up with _Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie_, xxix. 1897).
+
+  411 H. Gaidoz, "Le dieu Gaulois du Soleil et le symbolisme de la Roue,"
+      _Revue Archeologique_, iii. Serie, iv. (1884) pp. 29 _sq._
+
+  412 Bruno Stehle, "Volksglauben, Sitten und Gebraeuche in Lothringen,"
+      _Globus_, lix. (1891) pp. 378 _sq._; "Die Sommerwendfeier im St.
+      Amarinthale," _Der Urquell_, N.F., i. (1897) pp. 181 _sqq._
+
+  413 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Spruechwoerter und Raethsel
+      des Eifler Volkes_ (Treves, 1856-1858), i. 40 _sq._ According to one
+      writer, the garlands are composed of St. John's wort (Montanus, _Die
+      deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbraeuche und deutscher Volksglaube_,
+      Iserlohn, N.D., p. 33). As to the use of St. John's wort at
+      Midsummer, see below, vol. ii. pp. 54 _sqq._
+
+  414 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Maerchen und Gebraeuche_
+      (Leipsic, 1848), p. 390.
+
+ M143 Midsummer fires kindled by the friction of wood in Germany and
+      Switzerland. Driving away demons and witches.
+
+  415 Montanus, _Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbraeuche und deutscher
+      Volksglaube_ (Iserlohn, N.D.), pp. 33 _sq._
+
+  416 C. L. Rochholz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii.
+      144 _sqq._
+
+ M144 Midsummer fires in Silesia. Scaring away the witches.
+
+  417 Philo vom Walde, _Schlesien in Sage und Brauch_ (Berlin, N.D.), p.
+      124; Paul Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch, und Volksglaube in Schlesien_
+      (Leipsic, 1903-1906), i. 136 _sq._
+
+ M145 The Midsummer fires in Denmark and Norway. Keeping off the witches.
+      The Midsummer fires in Sweden.
+
+  418 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 517 _sq._
+
+  419 From information supplied by Mr. Sigurd K. Heiberg, engineer, of
+      Bergen, Norway, who in his boyhood regularly collected fuel for the
+      fires. I have to thank Miss Anderson, of Barskimming, Mauchline,
+      Ayrshire, for kindly procuring the information for me from Mr.
+      Heiberg.
+
+      The Blocksberg, where German as well as Norwegian witches gather for
+      their great Sabbaths on the Eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) and
+      Midsummer Eve, is commonly identified with the Brocken, the highest
+      peak of the Harz mountains. But in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and
+      probably elsewhere, villages have their own local Blocksberg, which
+      is generally a hill or open place in the neighbourhood; a number of
+      places in Pomerania go by the name of the Blocksberg. See J. Grimm,
+      _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 878 _sq._; Ulrich Jahn, _Hexenwesen und
+      Zauberei in Pommern_ (Breslau, 1886), pp. 4 _sq._; _id._,
+      _Volkssagen aus Pommern und Ruegen_ (Stettin, 1886), p. 329.
+
+  420 L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), pp. 259, 265.
+
+  421 L. Lloyd, _op. cit._ pp. 261 _sq._ These springs are called
+      "sacrificial fonts" (_Offer kaellor_) and are "so named because in
+      heathen times the limbs of the slaughtered victim, whether man or
+      beast, were here washed prior to immolation" (L. Lloyd, _op. cit._
+      p. 261).
+
+ M146 The Midsummer fires in Switzerland and Austria. Effigies burnt in
+      the fires. Burning wheels rolled down hill.
+
+  422 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, _Feste und Braeuche des Schweizervolkes_ (Zurich,
+      1913), p. 164.
+
+  423 Ignaz V. Zingerle, _Sitten, Braeuche und Meinungen des Tiroler
+      Volkes_2 (Innsbruck, 1871), ii. p. 159, § 1354.
+
+  424 I. V. Zingerle, _op. cit._ p. 159, §§ 1353, 1355, 1356; W.
+      Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 513.
+
+  425 W. Mannhardt, _l.c._
+
+  426 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
+      i. p. 210, § 231.
+
+  427 Theodor Vernaleken, _Mythen und Braeuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_
+      (Vienna, 1859), pp. 307 _sq._
+
+ M147 Midsummer fires in Bohemia. Wreaths thrown across the fire. Uses
+      made of the singed wreaths. Burning wheels rolled down hill. Embers
+      of the fire stuck in fields, gardens, and houses as a talisman
+      against lightning and conflagration. Use of mugwort. Cattle
+      protected against witchcraft.
+
+  428 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519; Theodor Vernaleken,
+      _Mythen und Braeuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_ (Vienna, 1859), p.
+      308; Joseph Virgil Grohmann, _Aberglauben und Gebraeuche aus Boehmen
+      und Maehren_ (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 80, § 636;
+      Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Boehmen_ (Prague, N.D.),
+      pp. 306-311; Br. Jelinek, "Materialien zur Vorgeschichte und
+      Volkskunde Boehmens," _Mittheilungen der anthropologischen
+      Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxi. (1891) p. 13; Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch
+      und Volksglaube im deutschen Westboehmen_ (Prague, 1905), pp. 84-86.
+
+ M148 The Midsummer fires in Moravia, Austrian Silesia, and the district
+      of Cracow. Fire kindled by the friction of wood.
+
+  429 Willibald Mueller, _Beitraege zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Maehren_
+      (Vienna and Olmutz, 1893), pp. 263-265.
+
+  430 Anton Peter, _Volksthuemliches aus Oesterreichisch-Schlesien_
+      (Troppau, 1865-1867), ii. 287.
+
+  431 Th. Vernaleken, _Mythen und Braeuche des Volkes in Oesterreich_
+      (Vienna, 1859), pp. 308 _sq._
+
+ M149 The Midsummer fires among the Slavs of Russia. Cattle protected
+      against witchcraft. The fires lighted by the friction of wood.
+
+_  432 The Dying God_, p. 262. Compare M. Kowalewsky, in _Folk-lore_, i.
+      (1890) p. 467.
+
+  433 W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, Second Edition
+      (London, 1872), p. 240.
+
+  434 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519; W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs
+      of the Russian People_ (London, 1872), pp. 240, 391.
+
+  435 W. R. S. Ralston, _op. cit._ p. 240.
+
+  436 W. R. S. Ralston, _l.c._
+
+ M150 The Midsummer fires in Prussia and Lithuania thought to protect
+      against witchcraft, thunder, hail, and cattle disease. The fire
+      kindled by the friction of wood.
+
+  437 W. J. A. von Tettau und J. D. H. Temme, _Die Volkssagen
+      Ostpreussens, Litthauens und Westpreussens_ (Berlin, 1837), p. 277.
+
+  438 M. Toeppen, _Aberglauben aus Masuren_2 (Danzig, 1867), p. 71.
+
+  439 F. S. Krauss, "Altslavische Feuergewinnung," _Globus_, lix. (1891)
+      p. 318.
+
+ M151 The Midsummer fires among the Letts of Russia. Midsummer Day in
+      ancient Rome.
+
+  440 J. G. Kohl, Die _deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_ (Dresden and
+      Leipsic, 1841), i. 178-180, ii. 24 _sq._ Ligho was an old heathen
+      deity, whose joyous festival used to fall in spring.
+
+  441 Ovid, _Fasti_, vi. 775 _sqq._
+
+ M152 The Midsummer fires among the South Slavs.
+
+  442 Friederich S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Suedslaven_ (Vienna,
+      1885), pp. 176 _sq._
+
+  443 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519.
+
+ M153 The Midsummer fires among the Magyars of Hungary.
+
+  444 H. von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube und religioeser Brauch der Magyar_
+      (Muenster i. W., 1893), pp. 40-44.
+
+  445 A. von Ipolyi, "Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie aus Ungarn,"
+      _Zeitschrift fuer deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853) pp.
+      270 _sq._
+
+ M154 The Midsummer fires among the Esthonians. The Midsummer fires in
+      Oesel.
+
+  446 J.G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_, ii. 268 sq.; F.
+      J. Wiedemann, _Aus dem inneren und aeusseren Leben der Ehsten_ (St.
+      Petersburg, 1876), p. 362. The word which I have translated "weeds"
+      is in Esthonian _kaste-heinad_, in German _Thaugras_. Apparently it
+      is the name of a special kind of weed.
+
+  447 Fr. Kreutzwald und H. Neus, _Mythische und Magische Lieder der
+      Ehsten_ (St. Petersburg, 1854), p. 62.
+
+  448 J. B. Holzmayer, "Osiliana," _Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen
+      Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. (1872) pp. 62 _sq._ Wiedemann also
+      observes that the sports in which young couples engage in the woods
+      on this evening are not always decorous (_Aus dem inneren und
+      aeusseren Leben der Ehsten_, p. 362).
+
+ M155 The Midsummer fires among the Finns and Cheremiss of Russia.
+
+  449 J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_, ii. 447 _sq._
+
+  450 J. G. Georgi, _Beschreibung aller Nationen des russischen Reichs_
+      (St. Petersburg, 1776), p. 36; August Freiherr von Haxthausen,
+      _Studien ueber die innere Zustaende das Volksleben und insbesondere
+      die laendlichen Einrichtungen Russlands_ (Hanover, 1847), i. 446
+      _sqq._
+
+ M156 The Midsummer fires in France. Bossuet on the Midsummer festival.
+
+  451 Alfred de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
+      France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 19.
+
+  452 It is notable that St. John is the only saint whose birthday the
+      Church celebrates with honours like those which she accords to the
+      nativity of Christ. Compare Edmond Doutte, _Magie et Religion dans
+      l'Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers, 1908), p. 571 note 1.
+
+  453 Bossuet, _OEuvres_ (Versailles, 1815-1819), vi. 276 ("Catechisme du
+      diocese de Meaux"). His description of the superstitions is, in his
+      own words, as follows: "_Danser a l'entour du feu, jouer, faire des
+      festins, chanter des chansons deshonnetes, jeter des herbes
+      par-dessus le feu, en cueillir avant midi ou a jeun, en porter sur
+      soi, les conserver le long de l'annee, garder des tisons ou des
+      charbons du feu, et autres semblables._" This and other evidence of
+      the custom of kindling Midsummer bonfires in France is cited by Ch.
+      Cuissard in his tract _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884).
+
+  454 Ch. Cuissard, _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884), pp. 40
+      _sq._
+
+ M157 The Midsummer fires in Brittany. Uses made of the charred sticks and
+      flowers.
+
+  455 A. Le Braz, _La Legende de la Mort en Basse-Bretagne_ (Paris, 1893),
+      p. 279. For an explanation of the custom of throwing a pebble into
+      the fire, see below, p. 240.
+
+  456 M. Quellien, quoted by Alexandre Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois_
+      (Paris, 1897), pp. 116 _sq._
+
+  457 Collin de Plancy, _Dictionnaire Infernal_ (Paris, 1825-1826), iii.
+      40; J. W. Wolf, _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Goettingen,
+      1852-1857), i. p. 217, § 185; A. Breuil, "Du Culte de St. Jean
+      Baptiste," _Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie_,
+      viii. (Amiens, 1845) pp. 189 _sq._
+
+  458 Eugene Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes Religieuses_ (Paris, 1867), p.
+      216; Ch. Cuissard, _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884), p.
+      24.
+
+  459 Paul Sebillot, _Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne_ (Paris,
+      1886), pp. 192-195. In Upper Brittany these bonfires are called
+      _rieux_ or _raviers_.
+
+  460 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de France_
+      (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 219; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes
+      Religieuses_, p. 216.
+
+  461 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
+      France_, pp. 219, 228, 231; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ pp. 215 _sq._
+
+ M158 The Midsummer fires in Normandy. The fires as a protection against
+      witchcraft. The Brotherhood of the Green Wolf at Jumieges. Pretence
+      of throwing the Green Wolf into the fire.
+
+  462 J. Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Conde-sur-Noireau,
+      1883-1887), ii. 219-224.
+
+  463 This description is quoted by Madame Clement (_Histoire des fetes
+      civiles et religieuses_, etc., _de la Belgique Meridionale_,
+      Avesnes, 1846, pp. 394-396); F. Liebrecht (_Des Gervasius von
+      Tilbury Otia Imperialia_, Hanover, 1856, pp. 209 _sq._); and W.
+      Mannhardt (_Antike Wald und Feldkulte_, Berlin, 1877, pp. 323
+      _sqq._) from the _Magazin pittoresque_, Paris, viii. (1840) pp. 287
+      _sqq._ A slightly condensed account is given, from the same source,
+      by E. Cortet (_Essai sur les Fetes Religieuses_, pp. 221 _sq._).
+
+ M159 The Midsummer fires in Picardy.
+
+  464 Bazin, quoted by Breuil, in _Memoires de la Societe d'Antiquaires de
+      Picardie_, viii. (1845) p. 191 note.
+
+  465 Correspondents quoted by A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois_
+      (Paris, 1897), pp. 118, 406.
+
+  466 Correspondent quoted by A. Bertrand, _op. cit._ p. 407.
+
+ M160 The Midsummer fires in Beauce and Perche. The fires as a protection
+      against witchcraft.
+
+  467 Felix Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris,
+      1902), i. 318-320. In Perche the midsummer bonfires were called
+      _marolles_. As to the custom formerly observed at Bullou, near
+      Chateaudun, see a correspondent quoted by A. Bertrand, _La Religion
+      des Gaulois_ (Paris, 1897), p. 117.
+
+ M161 The Midsummer fires in the Ardennes, the Vosges, and the Jura. The
+      Midsummer fires in Franche-Comte. The Midsummer fires in Berry and
+      other parts of Central France.
+
+  468 Albert Meyrac, _Traditions, Coutumes, Legendes, et Contes des
+      Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), pp. 88 _sq._
+
+  469 L. F. Sauve, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 186.
+
+  470 Desire Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparees_ (Paris, 1854), pp.
+      207 sqq.; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes Religieuses_, pp. 217
+      _sq._
+
+  471 Berenger-Feraud, _Reminiscences populaires de la Provence_ (Paris,
+      1885), p. 142.
+
+  472 Charles Beauquier, _Les Mois en Franche-Comte_ (Paris, 1900), p. 89.
+      The names of the bonfires vary with the place; among them are
+      _failles_, _bourdifailles_, _bas_ or _baux_, _feuleres_ or
+      _folieres_, and _chavannes_.
+
+_  473 La Bresse Louhannaise_, Juin, 1906, p. 207.
+
+  474 Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et Legendes du Centre de la France_
+      (Paris, 1875), i. 78 _sqq._ The writer adopts the absurd derivation
+      of _jonee_ from Janus. Needless to say that our old friend Baal,
+      Bel, or Belus figures prominently in this and many other accounts of
+      the European fire-festivals.
+
+  475 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de France_
+      (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 150.
+
+  476 Correspondent, quoted by A. Bertrand, _La Religion des Gaulois_
+      (Paris, 1897), p. 408.
+
+ M162 The Midsummer fires in Poitou.
+
+  477 Guerry, "Sur les usages et traditions du Poitou," _Memoires et
+      dissertations publies par la Societe Royale des Antiquaires de
+      France_, viii. (1829) pp. 451 _sq._
+
+  478 Breuil, in _Memoires de la Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie_,
+      viii. (1845) p. 206; E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes Religieuses_,
+      p. 216; Laisnel de la Salle, _Croyances et Legendes du Centre de la
+      France_, i. 83; J. Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_, ii. 225.
+
+  479 H. Gaidoz, "Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme de la roue,"
+      _Revue Archeologique_, iii. Serie, iv. (1884) p. 26, note 3.
+
+  480 L. Pineau, _Le Folk-lore du Poitou_ (Paris, 1892), pp. 499 _sq._ In
+      Perigord the ashes of the midsummer bonfire are searched for the
+      hair of the Virgin (E. Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes Religieuses_, p.
+      219).
+
+ M163 The Midsummer fires in the departments of Vienne and Deux-Sevres and
+      in the provinces of Saintonge and Aunis.
+
+  481 A. de Nore, _Coutumes Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de France_,
+      pp. 149 _sq._; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ pp. 218 _sq._
+
+  482 Dupin, "Notice sur quelques fetes et divertissemens populaires du
+      departement des Deux-Sevres," _Memoires et Dissertations publies par
+      la Societe Royale des Antiquaires de France_, iv. (1823) p. 110.
+
+  483 J. L. M. Nogues, _Les moeurs d'autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_
+      (Saintes, 1891), pp. 72, 178 _sq._
+
+ M164 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 Marseilles.
+
+  484 H. Gaidoz, "Le dieu soleil et le symbolisme de la roue," _Revue
+      Archeologique_, iii. Serie, iv. (1884) p. 30.
+
+  485 Ch. Cuissard, _Les Feux de la Saint-Jean_ (Orleans, 1884), pp. 22
+      _sq._
+
+  486 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
+      France_, p. 127.
+
+  487 Aubin-Louis Millin, _Voyage dans les Departemens du Midi de la
+      France_ (Paris, 1807-1811), iii. 341 _sq._
+
+  488 Aubin-Louis Millin, _op. cit._ iii. 28.
+
+  489 A. de Nore, _op. cit._ pp. 19 _sq._; Berenger-Feraud, _Reminiscences
+      populaires de la Provence_ (Paris, 1885), pp. 135-141. As to the
+      custom at Toulon, see Poncy, quoted by Breuil, _Memoires de la
+      Societe des Antiquaires de Picardie_, viii. (1845) p. 190 note. The
+      custom of drenching people on this occasion with water used to
+      prevail in Toulon, as well as in Marseilles and other towns in the
+      south of France. The water was squirted from syringes, poured on the
+      heads of passers-by from windows, and so on. See Breuil, _op. cit._
+      pp. 237 _sq._
+
+  490 A. de Nore, _op. cit._ pp. 20 _sq._; E. Cortet, _op. cit._ pp. 218,
+      219 _sq._
+
+ M165 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.
+
+  491 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels,
+      1861-1862), i. 416 _sq._, 439.
+
+  492 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld, _op. cit._ i. 439-442.
+
+  493 Madame Clement, _Histoire des fetes civiles et religieuses_, etc.,
+      _du Departement du Nord_ (Cambrai, 1836), p. 364; J. W. Wolf,
+      _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Goettingen, 1852-1857), ii. 392;
+      W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 513.
+
+  494 E. Monseur, _Folklore Wallon_ (Brussels, N.D.), p. 130, §§ 1783,
+      1786, 1787.
+
+ M166 The Midsummer fires in England. Stow's description of the Midsummer
+      fires in London. The Midsummer fires at Eton.
+
+  495 Joseph Strutt, _The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England_,
+      New Edition, by W. Hone (London, 1834), p. 359.
+
+  496 John Stow, _A Survay of London_, edited by Henry Morley (London,
+      N.D.), pp. 126 _sq._ Stow's _Survay_ was written in 1598.
+
+  497 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 338; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_
+      (London, 1876), p. 331. Both writers refer to _Status Scholae
+      Etonensis_ (A.D. 1560).
+
+  498 John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881),
+      p. 26.
+
+ M167 The Midsummer fires in the north of England. The Midsummer fires in
+      Northumberland. The Midsummer fires at Whalton in Northumberland.
+
+  499 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 300 _sq._, 318, compare pp. 305, 306, 308 _sq._; W.
+      Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus_, p. 512. Compare W. Hutchinson, _View of
+      Northumberland_, vol. ii. (Newcastle, 1778), Appendix, p. (15),
+      under the head "Midsummer":--"It is usual to raise fires on the tops
+      of high hills and in the villages, and sport and danse around them;
+      this is of very remote antiquity, and the first cause lost in the
+      distance of time."
+
+  500 Dr. Lyttelton, Bishop of Carlisle, quoted by William Borlase,
+      _Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall_
+      (London, 1769), p. 135 note.
+
+_  501 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
+      Balfour (London, 1904), p. 76, quoting E. Mackenzie, _An Historical,
+      Topographical, and Descriptive View of the County of
+      Northumberland_, Second Edition (Newcastle, 1825), i. 217.
+
+_  502 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
+      Balfour, p. 75.
+
+_  503 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
+      Balfour, p. 75.
+
+_  504 The Denham Tracts_, edited by J. Hardy (London, 1892-1895), ii. 342
+      _sq._, quoting _Archaeologia Aeliana_, N.S., viii. 73, and the
+      _Proceedings_ of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, vi. 242 _sq._;
+      _County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
+      Balfour (London, 1904), pp. 75 _sq._ Whalton is a village of
+      Northumberland, not far from Morpeth.
+
+_  505 County Folk-lore_, vol. vi. _East Riding of Yorkshire_, collected
+      and edited by Mrs. Gutch (London, 1912), p. 102.
+
+ M168 The Midsummer fires in Herefordshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, and
+      Cornwall. The Cornish fires on Midsummer Eve and St. Peter's Eve.
+
+  506 John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881),
+      p. 96, compare _id._, p. 26.
+
+  507 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 311.
+
+  508 William Borlase, LL.D., _Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of
+      the County of Cornwall_ (London, 1769), pp. 135 _sq._ The Eve of St.
+      Peter is June 28th. Bonfires have been lit elsewhere on the Eve or
+      the day of St. Peter. See above, pp. 194 _sq._, 196 _sq._, and
+      below, pp. 199 _sq._, 202, 207.
+
+  509 J. Brand, _op. cit._ i. 318, 319; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British
+      Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), p. 315.
+
+  510 William Bottrell, _Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West
+      Cornwall_ (Penzance, 1870), pp. 8 _sq._, 55 _sq._; James Napier,
+      _Folk-lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland_
+      (Paisley, 1879), p. 173.
+
+  511 Richard Edmonds, _The Land's End District_ (London, 1862), pp. 66
+      _sq._; Robert Hunt, _Popular Romances of the West of England_, Third
+      Edition (London, 1881), pp. 207 _sq._
+
+ M169 The Midsummer fires in Wales and the Isle of Man. Burning wheel
+      rolled down hill.
+
+  512 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
+      1909), pp. 27 _sq._ Compare Jonathan Ceredig Davies, _Folk-lore of
+      West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 76.
+
+  513 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 318.
+
+  514 Joseph Train, _Account of the Isle of Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man,
+      1845), ii. 120.
+
+ M170 The Midsummer fires in Ireland. Passage 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.
+
+  515 Sir Henry Piers, _Description of the County of Westmeath_, written
+      in 1682, published by (General) Charles Vallancey, _Collectanea de
+      Rebus Hibernicis_, i. (Dublin, 1786) pp. 123 _sq._
+
+  516 J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 303, quoting the author of the _Survey of the South
+      of Ireland_, p. 232.
+
+  517 J. Brand, _op. cit._ i. 305, quoting the author of the _Comical
+      Pilgrim's Pilgrimage into Ireland_ (1723), p. 92.
+
+_  518 The Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. lxv. (London, 1795) pp. 124 _sq._
+      The writer dates the festival on June 21st, which is probably a
+      mistake.
+
+  519 T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), pp.
+      321 _sq._, quoting the _Liverpool Mercury_ of June 29th, 1867.
+
+  520 L. L. Duncan, "Further Notes from County Leitrim," _Folk-lore_, v.
+      (1894) p. 193.
+
+  521 A. C. Haddon, "A Batch of Irish Folk-lore," _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893)
+      pp. 351, 359.
+
+  522 G. H. Kinahan, "Notes on Irish Folk-lore," _Folk-lore Record_, iv.
+      (1881) p. 97.
+
+  523 Charlotte Elizabeth, _Personal Recollections_, quoted by Rev.
+      Alexander Hislop, _The Two Babylons_ (Edinburgh, 1853), p. 53.
+
+ M171 Lady Wilde's account of the Midsummer fires in Ireland.
+
+  524 Lady Wilde, _Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of
+      Ireland_, (London, 1887), i. 214 _sq._
+
+ M172 Holy wells resorted to on Midsummer Eve in Ireland.
+
+  525 T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), pp.
+      322 _sq._, quoting the _Hibernian Magazine_, July 1817. As to the
+      worship of wells in ancient Ireland, see P. W. Joyce, _A Social
+      History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903), i. 288 _sq._, 366 _sqq._
+
+ M173 The Midsummer fires in Scotland. Fires on St. Peter's Day (the
+      twenty-ninth of June).
+
+  526 Rev. A. Johnstone, describing the parish of Monquhitter in
+      Perthshire, in Sir John Sinclair's _Statistical Account of Scotland_
+      (Edinburgh, 1791-1799), xxi. 145. Mr. W. Warde Fowler writes that in
+      Scotland "before the bonfires were kindled on midsummer eve, the
+      houses were decorated with foliage brought from the woods" (_Roman
+      Festivals of the Period of the Republic_, London, 1899, pp. 80
+      _sq._). For his authority he refers to _Chambers' Journal_, July,
+      1842.
+
+  527 John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
+      Century_, edited by A. Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), ii. 436.
+
+  528 Rev. Mr. Shaw, Minister of Elgin, in Pennant's "Tour in Scotland,"
+      printed in John Pinkerton's _Voyages and Travels_ (London,
+      1808-1814), iii. 136.
+
+  529 A. Macdonald, "Midsummer Bonfires," _Folk-lore_, xv. (1904) pp. 105
+      _sq._
+
+  530 From notes kindly furnished to me by the Rev. J. C. Higgins, parish
+      minister of Tarbolton. Mr. Higgins adds that he knows of no
+      superstition connected with the fire, and no tradition of its
+      origin. I visited the scene of the bonfire in 1898, but, as
+      Pausanias says (viii. 41. 6) in similar circumstances, "I did not
+      happen to arrive at the season of the festival." Indeed the snow was
+      falling thick as I trudged to the village through the beautiful
+      woods of "the Castle o' Montgomery" immortalized by Burns. From a
+      notice in _The Scotsman_ of 26th June, 1906 (p. 8) it appears that
+      the old custom was observed as usual that year.
+
+  531 Thomas Moresinus, _Papatus seu Depravatae Religionis Origo et
+      Incrementum_ (Edinburgh, 1594), p. 56.
+
+  532 Rev. Dr. George Lawrie, in Sir John Sinclair's _Statistical Account
+      of Scotland_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1792) p. 105.
+
+ M174 The Midsummer fires in Spain and the Azores. Divination on Midsummer
+      Eve in the Azores. The Midsummer fires in Corsica and Sardinia.
+
+  533 Letter from Dr. Otero Acevado of Madrid, published in _Le Temps_,
+      September 1898. An extract from the newspaper was sent me, but
+      without mention of the day of the month when it appeared. The fires
+      on St. John's Eve in Spain are mentioned also by J. Brand, _Popular
+      Antiquities of Great Britain_, i. 317. Jacob Grimm inferred the
+      custom from a passage in a romance (_Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 518).
+      The custom of washing or bathing on the morning of St. John's Day is
+      mentioned by the Spanish historian Diego Duran, _Historia de las
+      Indias de Nueva Espana_, edited by J. F. Ramirez (Mexico,
+      1867-1880), vol. ii. p. 293. To roll in the dew on the morning of
+      St. John's Day is a cure for diseases of the skin in Normandy,
+      Perigord, and the Abruzzi, as well as in Spain. See J. Lecoeur,
+      _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_, ii. 8; A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes
+      et Traditions des Provinces de France_, p. 150; Gennaro Finamore,
+      _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890), p. 157.
+
+  534 M. Longworth Dames and Mrs. E. Seemann, "Folklore of the Azores,"
+      _Folk-lore_, xiv. (1903) pp. 142 _sq._; Theophilo Braga, _O Povo
+      Portuguez nos seus Costumes, Crencas e Tradicoes_ (Lisbon, 1885),
+      ii. 304 _sq._, 307 _sq._
+
+  535 See below, pp. 234 _sqq._
+
+  536 Angelo de Gubernatis, _Mythologie des Plantes_ (Paris, 1878-1882),
+      i. 185 note 1.
+
+_  537 Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 202 _sq._
+
+ M175 The Midsummer fires in the Abruzzi. Bathing on Midsummer Eve in the
+      Abruzzi. The Midsummer fires in Sicily. The witches at Midsummer.
+
+  538 G. Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_ (Palermo, 1890),
+      pp. 154 _sq._
+
+  539 G. Finamore, _Credenze, Usi e Costumi Abruzzesi_, pp. 158-160. We
+      may compare the Provencal and Spanish customs of bathing and
+      splashing water at midsummer. See above, pp. 193 _sq._, 208.
+
+  540 Giuseppe Pitre, _Spettacoli e Feste Popolari Siciliane_ (Palermo,
+      1881), pp. 246, 308 _sq._; _id._, _Usi e Costumi, Credenze e
+      Pregiudizi del Popolo Siciliano_ (Palermo, 1889), pp. 146 _sq._
+
+  541 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 518.
+
+ M176 The Midsummer fires in Malta.
+
+  542 V. Busuttil, _Holiday Customs in Malta, and Sports, Usages,
+      Ceremonies, Omens, and Superstitions of the Maltese People_ (Malta,
+      1894), pp. 56 _sqq._ The extract was kindly sent to me by Mr. H. W.
+      Underwood (letter dated 14th November, 1902, Birbeck Bank Chambers,
+      Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, W.C.). See _Folk-lore_, xiv.
+      (1903) pp. 77 _sq._
+
+ M177 The Midsummer fires in Greece. The Midsummer fires in Macedonia and
+      Albania.
+
+  543 W. R. Paton, in _Folk-lore_, ii. (1891) p. 128. The custom was
+      reported to me when I was in Greece in 1890 (_Folk-lore_, i. (1890)
+      p. 520).
+
+  544 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 519.
+
+  545 G. Georgeakis et L. Pineau, _Le Folk-lore de Lesbos_ (Paris, 1894),
+      pp. 308 _sq._
+
+  546 W. R. Paton, in _Folk-lore_, vi. (1895) p. 94. From the stones cast
+      into the fire omens may perhaps be drawn, as in Scotland, Wales, and
+      probably Brittany. See above, p. 183, and below, pp. 230 _sq._, 239,
+      240.
+
+  547 W. H. D. Rouse, "Folklore from the Southern Sporades," _Folk-lore_,
+      x. (1899) p. 179.
+
+  548 Lucy M. J. Garnett, _The Women of Turkey and their Folk-lore, the
+      Christian Women_ (London, 1890), p. 122; G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian
+      Folk-lore_ (Cambridge, 1903), p. 57.
+
+  549 J. G. von Hahn, _Albanesische Studien_ (Jena, 1854), i. 156.
+
+ M178 The Midsummer fires in America.
+
+  550 K. von den Steinen, _Unter den Natur-Voelkern Zentral-Brasiliens_
+      (Berlin, 1894), p. 561.
+
+  551 Alcide d'Orbigny, _Voyage dans l'Amerique Meridionale_, ii. (Paris
+      and Strasbourg, 1839-1843), p. 420; D. Forbes, "On the Aymara
+      Indians of Bolivia and Peru," _Journal of the Ethnological Society
+      of London_, ii. (1870) p. 235.
+
+ M179 The Midsummer fires among the Mohammedans of Morocco and Algeria.
+
+  552 Edmond Doutte, _Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
+      1908), pp. 566 _sq._ For an older but briefer notice of the
+      Midsummer fires in North Africa, see Giuseppe Ferraro,
+      _Superstizioni, Usi e Proverbi Monferrini_ (Palermo, 1886), pp. 34
+      _sq._: "Also in Algeria, among the Mussalmans, and in Morocco, as
+      Alvise da Cadamosto reports in his _Relazione dei viaggi d'Africa_,
+      which may be read in Ramusio, people used to hold great festivities
+      on St. John's Night; they kindled everywhere huge fires of straw
+      (the _Palilia_ of the Romans), in which they threw incense and
+      perfumes the whole night long in order to invoke the divine blessing
+      on the fruit-trees." See also Budgett Meakin, _The Moors_ (London,
+      1902), p. 394: "The Berber festivals are mainly those of Islam,
+      though a few traces of their predecessors are observable. Of these
+      the most noteworthy is Midsummer or St. John's Day, still celebrated
+      in a special manner, and styled _El 'Ansarah_. In the Rif it is
+      celebrated by the lighting of bonfires only, but in other parts
+      there is a special dish prepared of wheat, raisins, etc., resembling
+      the frumenty consumed at the New Year. It is worthy of remark that
+      the Old Style Gregorian calendar is maintained among them, with
+      corruptions of Latin names."
+
+  553 Edward Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_,
+      xvi. (1905) pp. 28-30; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
+      Agriculture, Certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather_
+      (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 79-83.
+
+ M180 Beneficial effect ascribed to the smoke of the fires. Ill luck
+      supposed to be burnt in the Midsummer fires.
+
+  554 E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.
+      (1905) pp. 30 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
+      Agriculture_, etc., pp. 83 _sq._
+
+ M181 The Midsummer festival in North Africa comprises rites concerned
+      with water as well as with fire.
+
+  555 Edmond Doutte, _Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
+      1908), pp. 567 _sq._
+
+  556 E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.
+      (1905) pp. 31 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
+      Agriculture_, etc., pp. 84-86.
+
+ M182 The Midsummer festival in North Africa is probably older than
+      Mohammedanism. Some Mohammedans of North Africa kindle fires and
+      observe water ceremonies at their movable New Year. Water ceremonies
+      at New Year in Morocco.
+
+  557 See K. Vollers, in Dr. James Hastings's _Encyclopaedia of Religion
+      and Ethics_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1910) _s.v._ "Calendar (Muslim)," pp.
+      126 _sq._ However, L. Ideler held that even before the time of
+      Mohammed the Arab year was lunar and vague, and that intercalation
+      was only employed in order to fix the pilgrimage month in autumn,
+      which, on account of the milder weather and the abundance of food,
+      is the best time for pilgrims to go to Mecca. See L. Ideler,
+      _Handbuch der mathematischen und techischen Chronologie_ (Berlin,
+      1825-1826), ii. 495 _sqq._
+
+  558 E. Doutte, _Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord_, pp. 496, 509,
+      532, 543, 569. It is somewhat remarkable that the tenth, not the
+      first, day of the first month should be reckoned New Year's Day.
+
+  559 E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.
+      (1905) pp. 40-42.
+
+ M183 The rites of fire and water at Midsummer and New Year in Morocco
+      seem to be identical in character; the duplication of the festival
+      is probably due to a conflict between the solar calendar of the
+      Romans and the lunar calendar of the Arabs. The Midsummer festival
+      in Morocco seems to be of Berber origin.
+
+  560 E. Doutte, _Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
+      1908), pp. 541 _sq._
+
+  561 E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.
+      (1905) p. 42; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with
+      Agriculture, Certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in
+      Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), p. 101.
+
+  562 E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.
+      (1905), pp. 42 _sq._, 46 _sq._; _id._, _Ceremonies and Beliefs
+      connected with Agriculture, etc., in Morocco_, pp. 99 _sqq._
+
+ M184 Festivals of fire in August. Russian feast of Florus and Laurus on
+      August 18th. "Living fire" made by the friction of wood.
+
+  563 G. F. Abbott, _Macedonian Folk-lore_ (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 60 _sq._
+
+  564 "Narrative of the Adventures of four Russian Sailors, who were cast
+      in a storm upon the uncultivated island of East Spitzbergen,"
+      translated from the German of P. L. Le Roy, in John Pinkerton's
+      _Voyages and Travels_ (London, 1808-1814), i. 603. This passage is
+      quoted from the original by (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, _Researches into
+      the Early History of Mankind_, Third Edition (London, 1878), pp. 259
+      _sq._
+
+ M185 Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on the eighth of September at
+      Capri and Naples.
+ M186 The Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin may have replaced a pagan
+      festival.
+
+  565 See _The Scapegoat_, pp. 166 _sq._
+
+ M187 The coincidence of the Midsummer festival with the summer solstice
+      implies that the founders of the festival regulated their calendar
+      by observation of the sun.
+ M188 On the other hand the Celts divided their year, not by the
+      solstices, but by the beginning of summer (the first of May) and the
+      beginning of winter (the first of November). The division seems to
+      have been neither astronomical nor agricultural but pastoral, being
+      determined by the times when cattle are driven to and from their
+      summer pasture.
+
+  566 E. K. Chambers, _The Mediaeval Stage_ (Oxford, 1903), i. 110 _sqq._
+
+  567 In Eastern Europe to this day the great season for driving out the
+      cattle to pasture for the first time in spring is St. George's Day,
+      the twenty-third of April, which is not far removed from May Day.
+      See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 324 _sqq._ As to
+      the bisection of the Celtic year, see the old authority quoted by P.
+      W. Joyce, _The Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903),
+      ii. 390: "The whole year was [originally] divided into two
+      parts--Summer from 1st May to 1st November, and Winter from 1st
+      November to 1st May." On this subject compare (Sir) John Rhys,
+      _Celtic Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 460, 514
+      _sqq._; _id._, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901), i.
+      315 _sqq._; J. A. MacCulloch, in Dr. James Hastings's _Encyclopaedia
+      of Religion and Ethics_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1910) p. 80.
+
+  568 See below, p. 225.
+
+ M189 The two great Celtic festivals, Beltane and Hallowe'en.
+
+  569 Above, pp. 146 _sqq._; _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
+      ii. 59 _sqq._
+
+ M190 Hallowe'en (the evening of October 31st) seems to have marked the
+      beginning of the Celtic year. The many forms of divination resorted
+      to at Hallowe'en are appropriate to the beginning of a New Year.
+      Hallowe'en also a festival of the dead.
+
+  570 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Manx and Welsh_ (Oxford, 1901),
+      i. 316, 317 _sq._; J. A. MacCulloch, in Dr. James Hastings's
+      _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_, iii. (Edinburgh, 1910)
+      _s.v._ "Calendar," p. 80, referring to Kelly, _English and Manx
+      Dictionary_ (Douglas, 1866), _s.v._ "Blein." Hogmanay is the popular
+      Scotch name for the last day of the year. See Dr. J. Jamieson,
+      _Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language_, New Edition
+      (Paisley, 1879-1882), ii. 602 _sq._
+
+  571 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_, i. 316 _sq._
+
+  572 Above, p. 139.
+
+  573 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 309-318. As I have
+      there pointed out, the Catholic Church succeeded in altering the
+      date of the festival by one day, but not in changing the character
+      of the festival. All Souls' Day is now the second instead of the
+      first of November. But we can hardly doubt that the Saints, who have
+      taken possession of the first of November, wrested it from the Souls
+      of the Dead, the original proprietors. After all, the Saints are
+      only one particular class of the Souls of the Dead; so that the
+      change which the Church effected, no doubt for the purpose of
+      disguising the heathen character of the festival, is less great than
+      appears at first sight.
+
+  574 In Wales "it was firmly believed in former times that on All
+      Hallows' Eve the spirit of a departed person was to be seen at
+      midnight on every cross-road and on every stile" (Marie Trevelyan,
+      _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_, London, 1909, p. 254).
+
+ M191 Fairies and hobgoblins let loose at Hallowe'en. Dancing with the
+      fairies at Hallowe'en.
+
+  575 E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow, 1885), p.
+      68.
+
+  576 A. Goodrich-Freer, "More Folk-lore from the Hebrides," _Folk-lore_,
+      xiii. (1902) p. 53.
+
+  577 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888),
+      p. 516.
+
+  578 P. W. Joyce, _A Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903),
+      i. 264 _sq._, ii. 556.
+
+  579 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 516.
+
+  580 Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Superstitions of the Highlands and
+      Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1900), pp. 61 _sq._
+
+  581 Ch. Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1884-1886), iii.
+      258-260.
+
+ M192 Guleesh and the revels of the fairies at Hallowe'en.
+
+  582 Douglas Hyde, _Beside the Fire, a Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk
+      Stories_ (London, 1890), pp. 104, 105, 121-128.
+
+ M193 Divination resorted to in Celtic countries at Hallowe'en.
+
+  583 P. W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_, i. 229.
+
+  584 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
+      1909), p. 254.
+
+  585 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_, pp. 514 _sq._ In order to see
+      the apparitions all you had to do was to run thrice round the parish
+      church and then peep through the key-hole of the door. See Marie
+      Trevelyan, _op. cit._ p. 254; J. C. Davies, _Folk-lore of West and
+      Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p. 77.
+
+  586 Miss E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow,
+      1885), p. 75.
+
+ M194 Hallowe'en bonfires in the Highlands of Scotland. John Ramsay's
+      account of the Hallowe'en bonfires. Divination from stones at the
+      fire. Hallowe'en fires in the parishes of Callander and Logierait.
+      Divination from stones.
+
+  587 Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the
+      Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 282.
+
+  588 Thomas Pennant, "Tour in Scotland, and Voyage to the Hebrides in
+      1772," in John Pinkerton's _Voyages and Travels_, iii. (London,
+      1809) pp. 383 _sq._ In quoting the passage I have corrected what
+      seem to be two misprints.
+
+  589 John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
+      Century_, edited by Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh and London,
+      1888), ii. 437 _sq._ This account was written in the eighteenth
+      century.
+
+  590 Rev. James Robertson, Parish minister of Callander, in Sir John
+      Sinclair's _Statistical Account of Scotland_, xi. (Edinburgh, 1794),
+      pp. 621 _sq._
+
+  591 Rev. Dr. Thomas Bisset, in Sir John Sinclair's _Statistical Account
+      of Scotland_, v. (Edinburgh, 1793) pp. 84 _sq._
+
+ M195 Hallowe'en fires on Loch Tay. Hallowe'en fires at Balquhidder.
+
+  592 Miss E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow,
+      1885), p. 67.
+
+  593 James Napier, _Folk Lore, or Superstitious Beliefs in the West of
+      Scotland within this Century_ (Paisley, 1879), p. 179.
+
+  594 J. G. Frazer, "Folk-lore at Balquhidder," _The Folk-lore Journal_,
+      vi. (1888) p. 270.
+
+ M196 Hallowe'en fires in Buchan to burn the witches. Processions with
+      torches at Hallowe'en in the Braemar Highlands.
+
+  595 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
+      Scotland_ (London, 1881), pp. 167 _sq._
+
+  596 Rev. A. Johnstone, as to the parish of Monquhitter, in Sir John
+      Sinclair's _Statistical Account of Scotland_, xxi. (Edinburgh, 1799)
+      pp. 145 _sq._
+
+  597 A. Macdonald, "Some former Customs of the Royal Parish of Crathie,
+      Scotland," _Folk-lore_, xviii. (1907) p. 85. The writer adds: "In
+      this way the 'faulds' were purged of evil spirits." But it does not
+      appear whether this expresses the belief of the people or only the
+      interpretation of the writer.
+
+ M197 Divination at Hallowe'en in the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland.
+      The stolen kail. Sowing hemp seed. The clue of blue yarn. The
+      winnowing basket. The wet shirt. The thrown shoe.
+
+  598 Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the
+      Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 282 _sq._
+
+  599 Robert Burns, _Hallowe'en_, with the poet's note; Rev. Walter
+      Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 84; Miss E. J. Guthrie, _op. cit._ p. 69; Rev.
+      J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 287.
+
+  600 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. Walter Gregor, _l.c._; Miss E. J. Guthrie,
+      _op. cit._ pp. 70 _sq._; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 286.
+
+  601 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _l.c._; Miss E. J. Guthrie, _op.
+      cit._ p. 73; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 285; A.
+      Goodrich-Freer, "More Folklore from the Hebrides," _Folk-lore_,
+      xiii. (1902) pp. 54 _sq._
+
+  602 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 85; Miss E. J.
+      Guthrie, _op. cit._ p. 71; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 285.
+      According to the last of these writers, the winnowing had to be done
+      in the devil's name.
+
+  603 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _l.c._; Miss E. J. Guthrie, _op.
+      cit._ p. 72; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 286; A.
+      Goodrich-Freer, "More Folklore from the Hebrides," _Folk-lore_,
+      xiii. (1902) p. 54.
+
+  604 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 283.
+
+ M198 The white of eggs in water. The names on the chimney-piece. The nuts
+      in the fire. The milk and meal. The apples in the water. The three
+      plates.
+
+  605 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ pp. 283 _sq._; A. Goodrich-Freer,
+      _l.c._
+
+  606 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 284.
+
+  607 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 85; Miss E. J.
+      Guthrie, _op. cit._ p. 70; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 284.
+      Where nuts were not to be had, peas were substituted.
+
+  608 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 284.
+
+  609 Rev. J. G. Campbell, _l.c._ According to my recollection of
+      Hallowe'en customs observed in my boyhood at Helensburgh, in
+      Dumbartonshire, another way was to stir the floating apples and then
+      drop a fork on them as they bobbed about in the water. Success
+      consisted in pinning one of the apples with the fork.
+
+  610 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ pp. 85 _sq._; Miss E. J
+      Guthrie, _op. cit._ pp. 72 _sq._; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p.
+      287.
+
+ M199 The sliced apple. The white of egg in water. The salt cake or salt
+      herring.
+
+  611 R. Burns, _l.c._; Rev. W. Gregor, _op. cit._ p. 85; Miss E. J.
+      Guthrie, _op. cit._ pp. 69 _sq._; Rev. J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p.
+      285. It is the last of these writers who gives what may be called
+      the Trinitarian form of the divination.
+
+  612 Miss E. J. Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow,
+      1885), pp. 74 _sq._
+
+  613 A. Goodrich-Freer, "More Folk-lore from the Hebrides," _Folk-lore_,
+      xiii. (1902) p. 55.
+
+ M200 Hallowe'en fires in Wales. Omens drawn from stones thrown into the
+      fire. Divination by stones in the ashes.
+
+  614 Pennant's manuscript, quoted by J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of
+      Great Britain_ (London, 1882-1883), i. 389 _sq._
+
+  615 Sir Richard Colt Hoare, _The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through
+      Wales __A.D.__ MCLXXXVIII. by Giraldus de Barri_ (London, 1806), ii.
+      315; J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, i. 390. The passage quoted in
+      the text occurs in one of Hoare's notes on the Itinerary. The
+      dipping for apples, burning of nuts, and so forth, are mentioned
+      also by Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_
+      (London, 1909), pp. 253, 255.
+
+  616 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Heathendom_ (London and Edinburgh, 1888),
+      pp. 515 _sq._ As to the Hallowe'en bonfires in Wales compare J. C.
+      Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p.
+      77.
+
+  617 See above, p. 183.
+
+  618 See above, p. 231.
+
+ M201 Divination as to love and marriage at Hallowe'en in Wales.
+
+  619 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
+      1909), pp. 254 _sq._
+
+ M202 Divination at Hallowe'en in Ireland.
+
+  620 (General) Charles Vallancey, _Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis_, iii.
+      (Dublin, 1786), pp. 459-461.
+
+ M203 Divination at Hallowe'en in Queen's County. Divination at Hallowe'en
+      in County Leitrim. Divination at Hallowe'en in County Roscommon.
+
+  621 Miss A. Watson, quoted by A. C. Haddon, "A Batch of Irish
+      Folk-lore," _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) pp. 361 _sq._
+
+  622 Leland L. Duncan, "Further Notes from County Leitrim," _Folk-lore_,
+      v. (1894) pp. 195-197.
+
+  623 H. J. Byrne, "All Hallows Eve and other Festivals in Connaught,"
+      _Folk-lore_, xviii. (1907) pp. 437 _sq._
+
+ M204 Hallowe'en fires in the Isle of Man. Divination at Hallowe'en in the
+      Isle of Man.
+
+  624 Joseph Train, _Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of
+      Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), ii. 123; (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic
+      Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901), i. 315 _sqq._
+
+  625 (Sir) John Rhys, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_ (Oxford, 1901),
+      i. 318-321.
+
+ M205 Hallowe'en fires and divination in Lancashire. Candles lighted to
+      keep off the witches. Divination at Hallowe'en in Northumberland.
+      Hallowe'en fires in France.
+
+  626 John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, _Lancashire Folk-lore_ (Manchester
+      and London, 1882), pp. 3 _sq._
+
+  627 J. Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, _op. cit._ p. 140.
+
+  628 Annie Milner, in William Hone's _Year Book_ (London, preface dated
+      January, 1832), coll. 1276-1279 (letter dated June, 1831); R. T.
+      Hampson, _Medii Acvi Kalendarium_ (London, 1841), i. 365; T. F.
+      Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), p. 395.
+
+_  629 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
+      Balfour (London, 1904), p. 78. Compare W. Henderson, _Notes on the
+      Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England_ (London, 1879), pp.
+      96 _sq._
+
+  630 Baron Dupin, in _Memoires publiees par la Societe Royale des
+      Antiquaires de France_, iv. (1823) p. 108.
+
+ M206 A Midwinter festival of fire. Christmas the continuation of an old
+      heathen festival of the sun.
+
+  631 The evidence for the solar origin of Christmas is given in _Adonis,
+      Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp 254-256.
+
+ M207 The Yule log is the Midwinter counterpart of the Midsummer bonfire.
+
+  632 For the various names (Yu-batch, Yu-block, Yule-log, etc.) see
+      Francis Grose, _Provincial Glossary_, New Edition (London, 1811), p.
+      141; Joseph Wright, _The English Dialect Dictionary_ (London,
+      1898-1905), vi. 593, _s.v._ "Yule."
+
+  633 "I am pretty confident that the Yule block will be found, in its
+      first use, to have been only a counterpart of the Midsummer fires,
+      made within doors because of the cold weather at this winter
+      solstice, as those in the hot season, at the summer one, are kindled
+      in the open air" (John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great
+      Britain_, London, 1882-1883, i. 471). His opinion is approved by W.
+      Mannhardt (_Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstaemme_, p.
+      236).
+
+ M208 The Yule log in Germany and Switzerland.
+
+  634 "_Et arborem in nativitate domini ad festivum ignem suum adducendam
+      esse dicebat_" (quoted by Jacob Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i.
+      522).
+
+  635 Montanus, _Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbraeuche und deutscher
+      Volksglaube_ (Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 12. The Sieg and Lahn are two
+      rivers of Central Germany, between Siegen and Marburg.
+
+  636 J. H. Schmitz, _Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Spruechwoerter und Raethsel
+      des Eifler Volkes_ (Treves, 1856-1858), i. 4.
+
+  637 Adalbert Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebraeuche und Maerchen aus Westfalen_
+      (Leipsic, 1859), ii. § 319, pp. 103 sq.
+
+  638 A. Kuhn, _op. cit._ ii. § 523, p. 187.
+
+  639 August Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Thueringen_
+      (Vienna, 1878), p. 172.
+
+  640 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, _Feste und Braeuche des Schweizervolkes_ (Zurich,
+      1913), pp. 108 _sq._
+
+ M209 The Yule log in Belgium.
+
+  641 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld, _Calendrier Belge_ (Brussels,
+      1861-1862), ii. 326 _sq._ Compare J. W. Wolf, _Beitraege zur
+      deutschen Mythologie_ (Goettingen, 1852-1858), i. 117.
+
+ M210 The Yule log in France.
+
+  642 J. B. Thiers, _Traite des Superstitions_5 (Paris, 1741), i. 302
+      _sq._; Eugene Cortet, _Essai sur les Fetes Religieuses_ (Paris,
+      1867), pp. 266 _sq._
+
+ M211 French superstitions as to the Yule log.
+
+  643 J. B. Thiers, _Traite des Superstitions_ (Paris, 1679), p 323.
+
+ M212 The Yule log at Marseilles and in Perigord. Virtues ascribed to the
+      charcoal and ashes of the burnt log. The Yule log in Berry.
+
+  644 Aubin-Louis Millin, _Voyage dans les Departements du Midi de la
+      France_ (Paris, 1807-1811), iii. 336 _sq._ The fire so kindled was
+      called _caco fuech_.
+
+  645 Alfred de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de
+      France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 151 _sq._ The three festivals
+      during which the Yule log is expected to burn are probably Christmas
+      Day (December 25th), St. Stephen's Day (December 26th), and St. John
+      the Evangelist's Day (December 27th). Compare J. L. M. Nogues, _Les
+      Moeurs d'autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_ (Saintes, 1891), pp.
+      45-47. According to the latter writer, in Saintonge it was the
+      mistress of the house who blessed the Yule log, sprinkling salt and
+      holy water on it; in Poitou it was the eldest male who officiated.
+      The log was called the _cosse de No_.
+
+  646 Laisnel de Salle, _Croyances et Legendes du Centre de la France_
+      (Paris, 1875), i. 1-3.
+
+ M213 The Yule log in Normandy and Brittany.
+
+  647 Jules Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Conde-sur-Noireau,
+      1883-1887), ii. 291. The author speaks of the custom as still
+      practised in out-of-the-way villages at the time when he wrote. The
+      usage of preserving the remains of the Yule-log (called _trefouet_)
+      in Normandy is mentioned also by Melle Amelie Bosquet, _La
+      Nortnandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse_ (Paris and Rouen, 1845), p.
+      294.
+
+  648 A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes, et Traditions des Provinces de
+      France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 256.
+
+  649 Paul Sebillot, _Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne_ (Paris,
+      1886), pp. 217 sq.
+
+ M214 The Yule log in the Ardennes.
+
+  650 Albert Meyrac, _Traditions, Coutumes, Legendes et Contes des
+      Ardennes_ (Charleville, 1890), pp. 96 _sq._
+
+  651 See above, p. 251.
+
+  652 Lerouze, in _Memoires de l'Academie Celtique_, iii. (1809) p. 441,
+      quoted by J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 469 note.
+
+ M215 The Yule log in the Vosges. The Yule log in Franche-Comte and
+      Burgundy.
+
+  653 L. F. Sauve, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), pp. 370
+      _sq._
+
+  654 Charles Beauquier, _Les Mois en Franche-Comte_ (Paris, 1900), p.
+      183.
+
+  655 A. de Nore, Coutumes, _Mythes, et Traditions des Provinces de
+      France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 302 _sq._
+
+ M216 The Yule log and the Yule candle in England.
+
+  656 John Brand, _Popular Antiquities of Great Britain_ (London,
+      1882-1883), i. 467.
+
+  657 J. Brand, _op. cit._ i. 455; _The Denham Tracts_, edited by Dr.
+      James Hardy (London, 1892-1895), ii. 25 _sq._
+
+  658 Herrick, _Hesperides_, "Ceremonies for Christmasse":
+
+      "_Come, bring with a noise,_
+      _ My merrie merrie boyes,_
+      _ The Christmas log to the firing; ..._
+      _ With the last yeeres brand_
+      _ Light the new block._"
+
+      And, again, in his verses, "Ceremonies for Candlemasse Day":
+
+      "_Kindle the Christmas brand, and then_
+      _ Till sunne-set let it burne;_
+      _ Which quencht, then lay it up agen,_
+      _ Till Christmas next returne._
+      _ Part must be kept, wherewith to teend_
+      _ The Christmas log next yeare;_
+      _ And where 'tis safely kept, the fiend_
+      _ Can do no mischiefe there._"
+
+      See _The Works of Robert Herrick_ (Edinburgh, 1823), vol. ii. pp.
+      91, 124. From these latter verses it seems that the Yule log was
+      replaced on the fire on Candlemas (the second of February).
+
+  659 Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-lore_
+      (London, 1883), p. 398 note 2. See also below, pp. 257, 258, as to
+      the Lincolnshire, Herefordshire, and Welsh practice.
+
+ M217 The Yule log in the North of England, in Lincolnshire, Warwickshire,
+      Shropshire, Herefordshire. The Yule log in Wales.
+
+  660 Francis Grose, _Provincial Glossary_, Second Edition (London, 1811),
+      pp. 141 _sq._; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_
+      (London, 1876), p. 466.
+
+_  661 County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
+      Balfour and edited by Northcote W. Thomas (London, 1904), p. 79.
+
+_  662 County Folk-lore_, vol. ii. _North Riding of Yorkshire, York and
+      the Ainsty_, collected and edited by Mrs. Gutch (London, 1901), pp.
+      273, 274, 275 _sq._
+
+_  663 County Folk-lore_, vol. vi. _East Riding of Yorkshire_, collected
+      and edited by Mrs. Gutch (London, 1912), pp. 23, 118, compare p.
+      114.
+
+  664 John Aubrey, _Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme_ (London, 1881),
+      p. 5.
+
+_  665 County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by Mrs. Gutch
+      and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 219. Elsewhere in Lincolnshire
+      the Yule-log seems to have been called the Yule-clog (_op. cit._ pp.
+      215, 216).
+
+  666 Mrs. Samuel Chandler (Sarah Whateley), quoted in _The Folk-lore
+      Journal_, i. (1883), pp. 351 _sq._
+
+  667 Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire Folk-lore_
+      (London, 1883), pp. 397 _sq._ One of the informants of these writers
+      says (_op. cit._ p. 399): "In 1845 I was at the Vessons farmhouse,
+      near the Eastbridge Coppice (at the northern end of the
+      Stiperstones). The floor was of flags, an unusual thing in this
+      part. Observing a sort of roadway through the kitchen, and the flags
+      much broken, I enquired what caused it, and was told it was from the
+      horses' hoofs drawing in the 'Christmas Brund.' "
+
+  668 Mrs. Ella Mary Leather, _The Folk-lore of Herefordshire_ (Hereford
+      and London, 1912), p. 109. Compare Miss C. S. Burne, "Herefordshire
+      Notes," _The Folk-lore Journal_, iv. (1886) p. 167.
+
+  669 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
+      1909), p. 28.
+
+ M218 The Yule log in Servia. The cutting of the oak tree to form the Yule
+      log.
+ M219 Prayers to Colleda.
+ M220 The bringing in of the Yule log.
+
+  670 "In earlier ages, and even so late as towards the middle of the
+      nineteenth century, the Servian village organisation and the Servian
+      agriculture had yet another distinguishing feature. The dangers from
+      wild beasts in old time, the want of security for life and property
+      during the Turkish rule, or rather misrule, the natural difficulties
+      of the agriculture, more especially the lack in agricultural
+      labourers, induced the Servian peasants not to leave the parental
+      house but to remain together on the family's property. In the same
+      yard, within the same fence, one could see around the ancestral
+      house a number of wooden huts which contained one or two rooms, and
+      were used as sleeping places for the sons, nephews and grandsons and
+      their wives. Men and women of three generations could be often seen
+      living in that way together, and working together the land which was
+      considered as common property of the whole family. This expanded
+      family, remaining with all its branches together, and, so to say,
+      under the same roof, working together, dividing the fruits of their
+      joint labours together, this family and an agricultural association
+      in one, was called _Zadrooga_ (The Association). This combination of
+      family and agricultural association has morally, economically,
+      socially, and politically rendered very important services to the
+      Servians. The headman or chief (called _Stareshina_) of such family
+      association is generally the oldest male member of the family. He is
+      the administrator of the common property and director of work. He is
+      the executive chairman of the association. Generally he does not
+      give any order without having consulted all the grown-up male
+      members of the _Zadrooga_" (Chedo Mijatovich, _Servia and the
+      Servians_, London, 1908, pp. 237 _sq._). As to the house-communities
+      of the South Slavs see further Og. M. Utiesenovic, _Die
+      Hauskommunionen der Suedslaven_ (Vienna, 1859); F. Demelie, _Le Droit
+      Coutumier des Slaves Meridionaux_ (Paris, 1876), pp. 23 _sqq._; F.
+      S. Krauss, _Sitte und Brauch der Suedslaven_ (Vienna, 1885), pp. 64
+      _sqq._ Since Servia, freed from Turkish oppression, has become a
+      well-regulated European state, with laws borrowed from the codes of
+      France and Germany, the old house-communities have been rapidly
+      disappearing (Chedo Mijatovich, _op. cit._ p. 240).
+
+ M221 The ceremony with the straw. The Yule candle.
+ M222 The roast pig. The drawing of the water.
+ M223 The Christmas visiter (_polaznik_).
+
+  671 Chedo Mijatovich, _Servia and the Servians_ (London, 1908), pp.
+      98-105.
+
+ M224 The Yule log among the Servians of Slavonia. The Christmas visiter
+      (_polazenik_).
+
+  672 Baron Rajacsich, _Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebraeuche der im
+      Kaiserthume Oesterreich lebenden Suedslaven_ (Vienna, 1873), pp.
+      122-128.
+
+ M225 The Yule log among the Servians of Dalmatia, Herzegovina, and
+      Montenegro. The Yule log in Albania.
+
+  673 Baron Rajacsich, _Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebraeuche der im
+      Kaiserthume Oesterreich lebenden Suedslaven_ (Vienna, 1873), pp.
+      129-131. The Yule log (_badnyak_) is also known in Bulgaria, where
+      the women place it on the hearth on Christmas Eve. See A. Strausz,
+      _Die Bulgaren_ (Leipsic, 1898), p. 361.
+
+  674 M. Edith Durham, _High Albania_ (London, 1909), p. 129.
+
+  675 R. F. Kaindl, _Die Huzulen_ (Vienna, 1894) p. 71.
+
+ M226 Belief that the Yule log protects against fire and lightning.
+
+  676 See above, pp. 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 258.
+      Similarly at Candlemas people lighted candles in the churches, then
+      took them home and kept them, and thought that by lighting them at
+      any time they could keep off thunder, storm, and tempest. See
+      Barnabe Googe, _The Popish Kingdom_ (reprinted London, 1880), p. 48
+      _verso_.
+
+  677 See above, pp. 248, 250, 251, 257, 258, 263.
+
+  678 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 356 _sqq._
+
+  679 See above, pp. 248, 249, 250, 251, 264.
+
+ M227 Public celebrations of the fire-festival at Midwinter. The bonfire
+      on Christmas Eve at Schweina in Thuringia.
+
+  680 August Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Thueringen_
+      (Vienna, 1878), pp. 171 _sq._
+
+ M228 Bonfires on Christmas Eve in Normandy.
+
+  681 Jules Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage Normand_ (Conde-sur-Noireau,
+      1883-1887), ii. 289 _sq._
+
+ M229 Bonfires on St. Thomas's Day in the Isle of Man. The "Burning of the
+      Clavie" at Burghead on the last day of December. The old rampart at
+      Burghead.
+
+  682 Joseph Train, _Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of
+      Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), ii. 124, referring to Cregeen's
+      _Manx Dictionary_, p. 67.
+
+  683 R. Chambers, _The Book of Days_ (London and Edinburgh, 1886), ii.
+      789-791, quoting _The Banffshire Journal_; Miss C. F. Gordon
+      Cumming, _In the Hebrides_ (London, 1883), p. 226; Miss E. J.
+      Guthrie, _Old Scottish Customs_ (London and Glasgow, 1885), pp.
+      223-225; Ch. Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_ (Edinburgh,
+      1884-1886), iii. 244 _sq._; _The Folk-lore Journal_, vii. (1889) pp.
+      11-14, 46. Miss Gordon Cumming and Miss Guthrie say that the burning
+      of the Clavie took place upon Yule Night; but this seems to be a
+      mistake.
+
+  684 Caesar, _De bello Gallico_, vii. 23.
+
+  685 Hugh W. Young, F.S.A. Scot., _Notes on the Ramparts of Burghead as
+      revealed by recent Excavations_ (Edinburgh, 1892), pp. 3 _sqq._;
+      _Notes on further Excavations at Burghead_ (Edinburgh, 1893), pp. 7
+      _sqq._ These papers are reprinted from the _Proceedings of the
+      Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vols. xxv., xxvii. Mr. Young
+      concludes as follows: "It is proved that the fort at Burghead was
+      raised by a people skilled in engineering; who used square-headed
+      nails, axes and chisels of iron; who shot balista stones over 20
+      lbs. in weight; and whose daily food was the _bos longifrons_. A
+      people who made paved roads, and sunk artesian wells, and used Roman
+      beads and pins. The riddle of Burghead should not now be very
+      difficult to read" (_Notes on further Excavations at Burghead_, pp.
+      14 _sq._). For a loan of Mr. Young's pamphlets I am indebted to the
+      kindness of Sheriff-Substitute David J. Mackenzie of Kilmarnock.
+
+ M230 Procession with burning tar-barrels on Christmas Eve (Old Style) at
+      Lerwick.
+
+  686 Robert Cowie, M.A., M.D., _Shetland, Descriptive and Historical_
+      (Aberdeen, 1871), pp. 127 _sq._; _County Folk-lore_, vol. iii.
+      _Orkney and Shetland Islands_, collected by G. F. Black and edited
+      by Northcote W. Thomas (London, 1903), pp. 203 _sq._ A similar
+      celebration, known as Up-helly-a', takes place at Lerwick on the
+      29th of January, twenty-four days after Old Christmas. See _The
+      Scapegoat_, pp. 167-169. Perhaps the popular festival of Up-helly-a'
+      has absorbed some of the features of the Christmas Eve celebration.
+
+ M231 Persian festival of fire at the winter solstice.
+
+  687 Thomas Hyde, _Historia Religionis veterum Persarum_ (Oxford, 1700),
+      pp. 255-257.
+
+ M232 European festivals of fire in seasons of distress and calamity. The
+      need-fire.
+
+  688 On the need-fire see Jacob Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 501
+      _sqq._; J. W. Wolf, _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Goettingen
+      and Leipsic, 1852-1857), i. 116 _sq._, ii. 378 _sqq._; Adalbert
+      Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Goettertranks_2 (Guetersloh,
+      1886), pp. 41 _sqq._; Walter K. Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European
+      Tradition and Folk-lore_ (London, 1863), pp. 48 _sqq._; W.
+      Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstaemme_
+      (Berlin, 1875), pp. 518 _sqq._; Charles Elton, _Origins of English
+      History_ (London, 1882), pp. 293 _sqq._; Ulrich Jahn, _Die deutschen
+      Opfergebraeuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht_ (Breslau, 1884), pp. 26
+      _sqq._ Grimm would derive the name _need_-fire (German, _niedfyr_,
+      _nodfyr_, _nodfeur_, _nothfeur_) from _need_ (German, _noth_),
+      "necessity," so that the phrase need-fire would mean "a forced
+      fire." This is the sense attached to it in Lindenbrog's glossary on
+      the capitularies, quoted by Grimm, _op. cit._ i. p. 502: "_Eum ergo
+      ignem_ nodfeur _et nodfyr, quasi necessarium ignem vocant._" C. L.
+      Rochholz would connect _need_ with a verb _nieten_ "to churn," so
+      that need-fire would mean "churned fire." See C. L. Rochholz,
+      _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii. 149 _sq._ This
+      interpretation is confirmed by the name _ankenmilch bohren_, which
+      is given to the need-fire in some parts of Switzerland. See E.
+      Hoffmann-Krayer, "Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
+      Volksbrauch," _Schweizerisches Archiv fuer Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) p.
+      245.
+
+ M233 The need-fire in the Middle Ages. The need-fire at Neustadt in 1598.
+
+  689 "_Illos sacrilegos ignes, quos_ niedfyr _vocant_," quoted by J.
+      Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 502; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger
+      Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 312.
+
+_  690 Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganiarum_, No. XV., "De _igne fricato
+      de ligno_ _i.e._ nodfyr." A convenient edition of the _Indiculus_
+      has been published with a commentary by H. A. Saupe (Leipsic, 1891).
+      As to the date of the work, see the editor's introduction, pp. 4
+      _sq._
+
+  691 Karl Lynker, _Deutsche Sagen und Sitten in hessischen Gauen_2
+      (Cassel and Goettingen, 1860), pp. 252 _sq._, quoting a letter of the
+      mayor (_Schultheiss_) of Neustadt to the mayor of Marburg dated 12th
+      December 1605.
+
+  692 Bartholomaeus Carrichter, _Der Teutschen Speisskammer_ (Strasburg,
+      1614), Fol. pag. 17 and 18, quoted by C. L. Rochholz, _Deutscher
+      Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii. 148 _sq._
+
+ M234 Method of kindling the need-fire.
+
+  693 Joh. Reiskius, _Untersuchung des Notfeuers_ (Frankfort and Leipsic,
+      1696), p. 51, quoted by J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 502
+      sq.; R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p.
+      313.
+
+ M235 The mode of kindling the need-fire about Hildesheim.
+
+  694 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 503 _sq._
+
+  695 J. Grimm, _op. cit._ i. 504.
+
+ M236 The mode of kindling the need-fire in the Mark.
+
+  696 Adalbert Kuhn, _Maerkische Sagen und Maerchen_ (Berlin, 1843), p. 369.
+
+ M237 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Mecklenburg.
+
+  697 Karl Bartsch, _Sagen, Maerchen und Gebraeuche aus Mecklenburg_
+      (Vienna, 1879-1880), ii. 149-151.
+
+ M238 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Hanover.
+
+  698 Carl und Theodor Colshorn, _Maerchen und Sagen_ (Hanover, 1854), pp.
+      234-236, from the description of an eye-witness.
+
+ M239 The mode of kindling the need-fire in the Harz Mountains.
+
+  699 Heinrich Proehle, _Harzbilder, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus dem
+      Harzgebirge_ (Leipsic, 1855), pp. 74 _sq._ The date of this
+      need-fire is not given; probably it was about the middle of the
+      nineteenth century.
+
+ M240 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Brunswick.
+
+  700 R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), pp. 313
+      _sq._
+
+  701 R. Andree, _op. cit._ pp. 314 _sq._
+
+  702 Montanus, _Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbraeuche und deutscher
+      Volksglaube_ (Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 127.
+
+ M241 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Silesia and Bohemia.
+
+  703 Paul Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_
+      (Leipsic, 1903-1906), ii. 204.
+
+  704 Anton Peter, _Volksthuemliches aus Oesterreichisch - Schlesien_
+      (Troppau, 1865-1867), ii. 250.
+
+  705 Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube im deutschen Westboehmen_
+      (Prague, 1905), p. 209.
+
+  706 C. L. Rochholz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_ (Berlin, 1867), ii.
+      149.
+
+ M242 The use of the need-fire in Switzerland.
+
+  707 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, "Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
+      Volksbrauch," _Schweizerisches Archiv fuer Volkskunde_, xi. (1907)
+      pp. 244-246.
+
+  708 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, _op. cit._ p. 246.
+
+ M243 The mode of kindling the need-fire in Sweden and Norway. The
+      need-fire as a protection against witchcraft.
+
+  709 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 505.
+
+  710 "Old-time Survivals in remote Norwegian Dales," _Folk-lore_, xx.
+      (1909) pp. 314, 322 _sq._ This record of Norwegian folk-lore is
+      translated from a little work _Sundalen og Oeksendalens Beskrivelse_
+      written by Pastor Chr. Gluekstad and published at Christiania "about
+      twenty years ago."
+
+ M244 The need-fire among the Slavonic peoples.
+
+  711 Prof. Vl. Titelbach, "Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,"
+      _Internationales Archiv fuer Ethnographie_, xiii. (1900) pp. 2 _sq._
+      We have seen (above, p. 220) that in Russia the need-fire is, or
+      used to be, annually kindled on the eighteenth of August. As to the
+      need fire in Bulgaria see also below, pp. 284 _sq._
+
+  712 F. S. Krauss, "Altslavische Feuergewinnung," _Globus_, lix. (1891)
+      p. 318, quoting P. Ljiebenov, _Baba Ega_ (Trnovo, 1887), p. 44.
+
+ M245 The need-fire in Russia, Poland, and Slavonia..
+
+  713 F. S. Krauss, _op. cit._ p. 319, quoting _Wisla_, vol. iv. pp. 1,
+      244 _sqq._
+
+  714 F. S. Krauss, _op. cit._ p. 318, quoting Oskar Kolberg, in
+      _Mazowsze_, vol. iv. p. 138.
+
+  715 F. S. Krauss, "Slavische Feuerbohrer," _Globus_, lix. (1891) p. 140.
+      The evidence quoted by Dr. Krauss is that of his father, who often
+      told of his experience to his son.
+
+ M246 The need-fire in Servia.
+
+  716 Prof. Vl. Titelbach, "Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven,"
+      _Internationales Archiv fuer Ethnographie_, xiii. (1900) p. 3.
+
+  717 See below, vol. ii. pp. 168 _sqq._
+
+ M247 The need-fire in Bulgaria.
+
+  718 Adolf Strausz, _Die Bulgaren_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 194-199.
+
+ M248 The need-fire in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
+
+_  719 Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina_,
+      redigirt von Moriz Hoernes, iii. (Vienna, 1895) pp. 574 _sq._
+
+ M249 The need-fire in England, in Yorkshire.
+
+  720 "_Pro fidei divinae integritate servanda recolat lector quod, cum
+      hoc anno in Laodonia pestis grassaretur in pecudes armenti, quam
+      vocant usitate Lungessouth, quidam bestiales, habitu claustrales non
+      animo, docebant idiotas patriae ignem confrictione de lignis educere
+      et simulachrum Priapi statuere, et per haec bestiis succurrere_,"
+      quoted by J. M. Kemble, _The Saxons in England_ (London, 1849), i.
+      358 _sq._; A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des
+      Guettertranks_2 (Guetersloh, 1886), p. 43; Ulrich Jahn, _Die deutschen
+      Opfergebraeuche bei Ackerbau und Viehzucht_ (Breslau, 1884) p. 31.
+
+  721 W. G. M. Jones Barker, _The Three Days of Wensleydale_ (London,
+      1854), pp. 90 _sq._; _County Folk-lore_, vol. ii., _North Riding of
+      Yorkshire, York and the Ainsty_, collected and edited by Mrs. Gutch
+      (London, 1901), p. 181.
+
+_  722 The Denham Tracts, a Collection of Folklore by Michael Aislabie
+      Denham_, edited by Dr. James Hardy (London, 1892-1895), ii. 50.
+
+  723 Harry Speight, _Tramps and Drives in the Craven Highlands_ (London,
+      1895), p. 162. Compare, _id._, _The Craven and North-West Yorkshire
+      Highlands_ (London, 1892), pp. 206 _sq._
+
+  724 J. M. Kemble, _The Saxons in England_ (London, 1849), i. 361 note.
+
+ M250 The need-fire in Northumberland.
+
+  725 E. Mackenzie, _An Historical, Topographical and Descriptive View of
+      the County of Northumberland_, Second Edition (Newcastle, 1825), i.
+      218, quoted in _County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_,
+      collected by M. C. Balfour (London, 1904), p. 45. Compare J. T.
+      Brockett, _Glossary of North Country Words_, p. 147, quoted by Mrs.
+      M. C. Balfour, _l.c._: "_Need-fire_ ... an ignition produced by the
+      friction of two pieces of dried wood. The vulgar opinion is, that an
+      angel strikes a tree, and that the fire is thereby obtained.
+      Need-fire, I am told, is still employed in the case of cattle
+      infected with the murrain. They were formerly driven through the
+      smoke of a fire made of straw, etc." The first edition of Brockett's
+      _Glossary_ was published in 1825.
+
+  726 W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of
+      England and the Borders_ (London, 1879), pp. 167 _sq._ Compare
+      _County Folk-lore_, vol. iv. _Northumberland_, collected by M. C.
+      Balfour (London, 1904), p. 45. Stamfordham is in Northumberland. The
+      vicar's testimony seems to have referred to the first half of the
+      nineteenth century.
+
+ M251 Martin's account of the need-fire in the Highlands of Scotland.
+
+  727 M. Martin, "Description of the Western Islands of Scotland," in J.
+      Pinkerton's _General Collection of Voyages and Travels_, iii.
+      (London, 1809), p. 611. The second edition of Martin's book, which
+      Pinkerton reprints, was published at London in 1716. For John
+      Ramsay's account of the need-fire, see above, pp. 147 _sq._
+
+ M252 The need-fire in the island of Mull. Sacrifice of a heifer.
+
+  728 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 506, referring to Miss Austin
+      as his authority.
+
+  729 As to the custom of sacrificing one of a plague-stricken herd or
+      flock for the purpose of saving the rest, see below, pp. 300 _sqq._
+
+ M253 The need-fire in Caithness.
+
+  730 John Jamieson, _Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language_,
+      New Edition, revised by J. Longmuir and D. Donaldson, iii. (Paisley,
+      1880) pp. 349 _sq._, referring to "Agr. Surv. Caithn., pp. 200,
+      201."
+
+ M254 The need-fire in Caithness.
+
+  731 R. C. Maclagan, "Sacred Fire," _Folk-lore_, ix. (1898) pp. 280 _sq._
+      As to the fire-drill see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
+      ii. 207 _sqq._
+
+ M255 Another account of the need-fire in the Highlands.
+
+  732 W. Grant Stewart, _The Popular Superstitions and Festive Amusements
+      of the Highlanders of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1823), pp. 214-216;
+      Walter K. Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and
+      Folk-lore_ (London, 1863), pp. 53 _sq._
+
+ M256 Alexander Carmichael's account of the need-fire in the Highlands of
+      Scotland during the nineteenth century.
+ M257 The need-fire in Arran.
+ M258 The need-fire in North Uist.
+ M259 The need-fire in Reay, Sutherland.
+
+  733 Alexander Carmichael, _Carmina Gadelica_ (Edinburgh, 1900), ii. 340
+      _sq._
+
+ M260 The Beltane fires a precaution against witchcraft.
+
+  734 See above, pp. 154, 156, 157, 159 _sq._
+
+_  735 Census of India, 1911_, vol. xiv. _Punjab_, Part i. _Report_, by
+      Pandit Harikishan Kaul (Lahore, 1912), p. 302. So in the north-east
+      of Scotland "those who were born with their feet first possessed
+      great power to heal all kinds of sprains, lumbago, and rheumatism,
+      either by rubbing the affected part, or by trampling on it. The
+      chief virtue lay in the feet. Those who came into the world in this
+      fashion often exercised their power to their own profit." See Rev.
+      Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
+      Scotland_ (London, 1881), pp. 45 _sq._
+
+ M261 The need-fire in Aberdeenshire.
+
+  736 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
+      Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 186. The fumigation of the byres with
+      juniper is a charm against witchcraft. See J. G. Campbell,
+      _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of
+      Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 11. The "quarter-ill" is a disease of
+      cattle, which affects the animals only in one limb or quarter. "A
+      very gross superstition is observed by some people in Angus, as an
+      antidote against this ill. A piece is cut out of the thigh of one of
+      the cattle that has died of it. This they hang up within the
+      chimney, in order to preserve the rest of the cattle from being
+      infected. It is believed that as long as it hangs there, it will
+      prevent the disease from approaching the place. It is therefore
+      carefully preserved; and in case of the family removing, transported
+      to the new farm, as one of their valuable effects. It is handed down
+      from one generation to another" (J. Jamieson, _Etymological
+      Dictionary of the Scottish Language_, revised by J. Longmuir and D.
+      Donaldson, iii. 575, _s.v._ "Quarter-ill"). See further Rev. W.
+      Gregor, _op. cit._ pp. 186 _sq._: "The fore-legs of one of the
+      animals that had died were cut off a little above the knee, and hung
+      over the fire-place in the kitchen. It was thought sufficient by
+      some if they were placed over the door of the byre, in the 'crap o'
+      the wa'.' Sometimes the heart and part of the liver and lungs were
+      cut out, and hung over the fireplace instead of the fore-feet.
+      Boiling them was at times substituted for hanging them over the
+      hearth." Compare W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the
+      Northern Counties of England and the Borders_ (London, 1879), p.
+      167: "A curious aid to the rearing of cattle came lately to the
+      knowledge of Mr. George Walker, a gentleman of the city of Durham.
+      During an excursion of a few miles into the country, he observed a
+      sort of rigging attached to the chimney of a farmhouse well known to
+      him, and asked what it meant. The good wife told him that they had
+      experienced great difficulty that year in rearing their calves; the
+      poor little creatures all died off, so they had taken the leg and
+      thigh of one of the dead calves, and hung it in a chimney by a rope,
+      since which they had not lost another calf." In the light of facts
+      cited below (pp. 315 _sqq._) we may conjecture that the intention of
+      cutting off the legs or cutting out the heart, liver, and lungs of
+      the animals and hanging them up or boiling them, is by means of
+      homoeopathic magic to inflict corresponding injuries on the witch
+      who cast the fatal spell on the cattle.
+
+ M262 The need-fire in Perthshire.
+
+_  737 The Mirror_, 24th June, 1826, quoted by J. M. Kemble, _The Saxons
+      in England_ (London, 1849), i. 360 note 2.
+
+ M263 The need-fire in Ireland.
+
+  738 Leland L. Duncan, "Fairy Beliefs and other Folklore Notes from
+      County Leitrim," _Folk-lore_, vii. (1896) pp. 181 _sq._
+
+ M264 The use of the need-fire a relic of a time when all fires were
+      kindled by the friction of wood.
+
+  739 (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, _Researches into the Early History of
+      Mankind_, Third Edition (London, 1878), pp. 237 _sqq._; _The Magic
+      Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 207 _sqq._
+
+ M265 The belief that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other fire
+      remains alight in the neighbourhood.
+
+  740 For some examples of such extinctions, see _The Magic Art and the
+      Evolution of Kings_, ii. 261 _sqq._, 267 _sq._; _Spirits of the Corn
+      and of the Wild_, i. 311, ii. 73 _sq._; and above, pp. 124 _sq._,
+      132-139. The reasons for extinguishing fires ceremonially appear to
+      vary with the occasion. Sometimes the motive seems to be a fear of
+      burning or at least singeing a ghost, who is hovering invisible in
+      the air; sometimes it is apparently an idea that a fire is old and
+      tired with burning so long, and that it must be relieved of the
+      fatiguing duty by a young and vigorous flame.
+
+  741 Above, pp. 147, 154. The same custom appears to have been observed
+      in Ireland. See above, p. 158.
+
+ M266 The need-fire among the Iroquois of North America.
+
+  742 J. N. B. Hewitt, "New Fire among the Iroquois," _The American
+      Anthropologist_, ii. (1889) p. 319.
+
+ M267 The burnt sacrifice of a calf in England and Wales. Burnt sacrifice
+      of a pig in Scotland.
+
+  743 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 507.
+
+  744 See above, p. 290.
+
+  745 William Hone, _Every-day Book_ (London, preface dated 1827), i.
+      coll. 853 _sq._ (June 24th), quoting Hitchin's _History of
+      Cornwall_.
+
+  746 Hunt, _Romances and Drolls of the West of England_, 1st series, p.
+      237, quoted by W. Henderson, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern
+      Counties of England and the Borders_ (London, 1879), p. 149. Compare
+      J. G. Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh,
+      1834), p. 184: "Here also may be found a solution of that recent
+      expedient so ignorantly practised in the neighbouring kingdom, where
+      one having lost many of his herd by witchcraft, as he concluded,
+      burnt a living calf to break the spell and preserve the remainder."
+
+  747 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
+      1909), p. 23.
+
+  748 W. Henderson, _op. cit._ pp. 148 _sq._
+
+  749 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
+      Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 186.
+
+  750 R. N. Worth, _History of Devonshire_, Second Edition (London, 1886),
+      p. 339. The diabolical nature of the toad probably explains why
+      people in Herefordshire think that if you wear a toad's heart
+      concealed about your person you can steal to your heart's content
+      without being found out. A suspected thief was overheard boasting,
+      "They never catches _me_: and they never ooll neither. I allus wears
+      a toad's heart round my neck, _I_ does." See Mrs. Ella M. Leather,
+      in _Folk-lore_, xxiv. (1913) p. 238.
+
+ M268 The calf is burnt in order to break a spell which has been cast on
+      the herd.
+
+  751 Above, p. 301.
+
+  752 Robert Hunt, _Popular Romances of the West of England_, Third
+      Edition (London, 1881), p. 320. The writer does not say where this
+      took place; probably it was in Cornwall or Devonshire.
+
+  753 Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of
+      Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 184.
+
+ M269 Mode in which the burning of a bewitched animal is supposed to break
+      the spell.
+
+_  754 County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk_, collected and
+      edited by the Lady Eveline Camilla Gurdon (London, 1893), pp. 190
+      _sq._, quoting _Some Materials for the History of Wherstead_ by F.
+      Barham Zincke (Ipswich, 1887), p. 168.
+
+_  755 County Folk-lore, Printed Extracts, No. 2, Suffolk_, p. 191,
+      referring to Murray's _Handbook for Essex, Suffolk_, etc., p. 109.
+
+ M270 In burning the bewitched animal you burn the witch herself.
+ M271 Practice of burning cattle and sheep as sacrifices in the Isle of
+      Man.
+
+  756 (Sir) John Rhys, "Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions," _Folk-lore_,
+      ii. (1891) pp. 300-302; repeated in his _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and
+      Manx_ (Oxford, 1901), i. 306 _sq._ Sir John Rhys does not doubt that
+      the old woman saw, as she said, a live sheep being burnt on old
+      May-day; but he doubts whether it was done as a sacrifice. He adds:
+      "I have failed to find anybody else in Andreas or Bride, or indeed
+      in the whole island, who will now confess to having ever heard of
+      the sheep sacrifice on old May-day." However, the evidence I have
+      adduced of a custom of burnt sacrifice among English rustics tends
+      to confirm the old woman's statement, that the burning of the live
+      sheep which she witnessed was not an act of wanton cruelty but a
+      sacrifice performed for the public good.
+
+ M272 By burning a bewitched animal you compel the witch to appear.
+
+  757 (Sir) John Rhys, "Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions," _Folk-lore_,
+      ii. (1891) pp. 299 _sq._; _id._, _Celtic Folk-lore, Welsh and Manx_
+      (Oxford, 1901), i. 304 _sq._ We have seen that by burning the blood
+      of a bewitched bullock a farmer expected to compel the witch to
+      appear. See above, p. 303.
+
+ M273 Magic sympathy between the witch and the bewitched animal.
+ M274 Parallel belief in magic sympathy between the animal shape of a
+      were-wolf and his or her ordinary human shape: by wounding the wolf
+      you simultaneously wound the man or woman.
+
+  758 Olaus Magnus, _Historia de Gentium Septentrionalium Conditionibus_,
+      lib xviii. cap. 47, p. 713 (ed. Bale, 1567).
+
+  759 Collin de Plancy, _Dictionnaire Infernal_ (Paris, 1825-1826), iii.
+      473 _sq._, referring to Boguet.
+
+  760 Collin de Plancy, _op. cit._ iii. 473.
+
+  761 Felix Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris,
+      1902), i. 239 _sq._ The same story is told in Upper Brittany. See
+      Paul Sebillot, _Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne_
+      (Paris, 1882), i. 292. It is a common belief that a man who has once
+      been transformed into a were-wolf must remain a were-wolf for seven
+      years unless blood is drawn from him in his animal shape, upon which
+      he at once recovers his human form and is delivered from the bondage
+      and misery of being a were-wolf. See F. Chapiseau, _op. cit._ i.
+      218-220; Amelie Bosquet, _La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse_
+      (Paris and Rouen, 1845), p. 233. On belief in were-wolves in
+      general, see W. Hertz, _Der Werwolf_ (Stuttgart, 1862); J. Grimm,
+      _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 915 _sqq._; (Sir) Edward B. Tylor,
+      _Primitive Culture_2 (London, 1873), i. 308 _sqq._; R. Andree,
+      _Ethnographische Parallelen und Vergleiche_ (Stuttgart, 1878), pp.
+      62-80. In North Germany it is believed that a man can turn himself
+      into a wolf by girding himself with a strap made out of a wolf's
+      hide. Some say that the strap must have nine, others say twelve,
+      holes and a buckle; and that according to the number of the hole
+      through which the man inserts the tongue of the buckle will be the
+      length of time of his transformation. For example, if he puts the
+      tongue of the buckle through the first hole, he will be a wolf for
+      one hour; if he puts it through the second, he will be a wolf for
+      two days; and so on, up to the last hole, which entails a
+      transformation for a full year. But by putting off the girdle the
+      man can resume his human form. The time when were-wolves are most
+      about is the period of the Twelve Nights between Christmas and
+      Epiphany; hence cautious German farmers will not remove the dung
+      from the cattle-stalls at that season for fear of attracting the
+      were-wolves to the cattle. See Adalbert Kuhn, _Maerkische Sagen und
+      Maerchen_ (Berlin, 1843), p. 375; Ulrich Jahn, _Volkssagen aus
+      Pommern und Ruegen_ (Stettin, 1886), pp. 384, 386, Nos. 491, 495.
+      Down to the time of Elizabeth it was reported that in the county of
+      Tipperary certain men were annually turned into wolves. See W.
+      Camden, _Britain_, translated into English by Philemon Holland
+      (London, 1610), "Ireland," p. 83.
+
+ M275 Were-wolves in China.
+
+  762 J. J. M. de Groot, _The Religious System of China_, v. (Leyden,
+      1907) P. 548.
+
+ M276 Were-wolves among the Toradjas of Central Celebes. The were-wolf in
+      human shape.
+
+  763 A. C. Kruijt, "De weerwolf bij de Toradja's van Midden-Celebes,"
+      _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xli. (1899)
+      pp. 548-551, 557-560.
+
+  764 A. C. Kruijt, _op. cit._ pp. 552 _sq._
+
+  765 A. C. Kruijt, _op. cit._ pp. 553. For more evidence of the belief in
+      were-wolves, or rather in were-animals of various sorts,
+      particularly were-tigers, in the East Indies, see J. J. M. de Groot,
+      "De Weertijger in onze Kolonien en op het oostaziatische Vasteland,"
+      _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
+      Nederlandsch-Indie_, xlix. (1898) pp. 549-585; G. P. Rouffaer,
+      "Matjan Gadoengan," _Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van
+      Nederlandsch-Indie_, l. (1899) pp. 67-75; J. Knebel, "De Weertijger
+      op Midden-Java, den Javaan naverteld," _Tijdschrift voor Indische
+      Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xli. (1899) pp. 568-587; L. M. F.
+      Plate, "Bijdrage tot de kennis van de lykanthropie bij de Sasaksche
+      bevolking in Oost-Lombok," _Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en
+      Volkenkunde_, liv. (1912) pp. 458-469; G. A. Wilken, "Het animisme
+      bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel," _Verspreide Geschriften_
+      (The Hague, 1912), iii. 25-30.
+
+ M277 Were-wolves in the Egyptian Sudan.
+
+  766 Ernst Marno, _Reisen im Gebiete des blauen und weissen Nil_ (Vienna,
+      1874), pp. 239 _sq._
+
+ M278 The were-wolf story in Petronius.
+
+  767 Petronius, _Sat._ 61 _sq._ (pp. 40 _sq._, ed. Fr. Buecheler,3
+      Berlin, 1882). The Latin word for a were-wolf (_versipellis_) is
+      expressive: it means literally "skin-shifter," and is equally
+      appropriate whatever the particular animal may be into which the
+      wizard transforms himself. It is to be regretted that we have no
+      such general term in English.
+
+      The bright moonlight which figures in some of these were-wolf
+      stories is perhaps not a mere embellishment of the tale but has its
+      own significance; for in some places it is believed that the
+      transformation of were-wolves into their bestial shape takes place
+      particularly at full moon. See A. de Nore, _Coutumes, Mythes et
+      Traditions des Provinces de France_ (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 99,
+      157; J. L. M. Nogues, _Les Moeurs d'autrefois en Saintonge et en
+      Aunis_ (Saintes, 1891), p. 141.
+
+ M279 Witches like were-wolves can temporarily transform themselves into
+      animals.
+
+  768 J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
+      Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 6: "In carrying out their
+      unhallowed cantrips, witches assumed various shapes. They became
+      gulls, cormorants, ravens, rats, mice, black sheep, swelling waves,
+      whales, and very frequently cats and hares." To this list of animals
+      into which witches can turn themselves may be added horses, dogs,
+      wolves, foxes, pigs, owls, magpies, wild geese, ducks, serpents,
+      toads, lizards, flies, wasps, and butterflies. See A. Wuttke, _Der
+      deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 150 § 217; L.
+      Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
+      (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 327 § 220; Ulrich Jahn, _Hexenwesen und
+      Zauberei in Pommern_ (Breslau, 1886), p. 7. In his _Topography of
+      Ireland_ (chap. 19), a work completed in 1187 A.D., Giraldus
+      Cambrensis records that "it has also been a frequent complaint, from
+      old times as well as in the present, that certain hags in Wales, as
+      well as in Ireland and Scotland, changed themselves into the shape
+      of hares, that, sucking teats under this counterfeit form, they
+      might stealthily rob other people's milk." See _The Historical Works
+      of Giraldus Cambrensis_, revised and edited by Thomas Wright
+      (London, 1887), p. 83.
+
+_  769 The Folk-lore Journal_, iv. (1886) p. 266; Collin de Plancy,
+      _Dictionnaire Infernal_ (Paris, 1825-1826), iii. 475; J. L. M.
+      Nogues, _Les Moeurs d'autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_ (Saintes,
+      1891), p. 141. In Scotland the cut was known as "scoring above the
+      breath." It consisted of two incisions made crosswise on the witch's
+      forehead, and was "confided in all throughout Scotland as the most
+      powerful counter-charm." See Sir Walter Scott, _Letters on
+      Demonology and Witchcraft_ (London, 1884), p. 272; J. G. Dalyell,
+      _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834), pp. 531
+      _sq._; M. M. Banks, "Scoring a Witch above the Breath," _Folk-lore_,
+      xxiii. (1912) p. 490.
+
+  770 J. L. M. Nogues, _l.c._; L. F. Sauve, _Le Folk-lore des
+      Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 187.
+
+  771 M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_ (Leipsic, 1899), p. 117.
+      The wolf-skin is supposed to fall down from heaven and to return to
+      heaven after seven years, if the were-wolf has not been delivered
+      from her unhappy state in the meantime by the burning of the skin.
+
+  772 J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
+      Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), p. 8; compare A. Wuttke, _Der
+      deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 150 § 217. Some think
+      that the sixpence should be crooked. See Rev. W. Gregor, _Notes on
+      the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland_ (London, 1881), pp. 71
+      _sq._, 128; _County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by
+      Mrs. Gutch and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 75.
+
+  773 J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 30.
+
+ M280 Wounds inflicted on an animal into which a witch has transformed
+      herself are inflicted on the witch herself.
+
+  774 J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 33.
+
+  775 (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_2 (London, 1873), i. 314.
+
+  776 Joseph Glanvil, _Saducismus Triumphatus or Full and Plain Evidence
+      concerning Witches and Apparitions_ (London, 1681), Part ii. p. 205.
+
+  777 Rev. J. C. Atkinson, _Forty Years in a Moorland Parish_ (London,
+      1891), pp. 82-84.
+
+_  778 County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by Mrs. Gutch
+      and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), pp. 79, 80.
+
+  779 Leland L. Duncan, "Folk-lore Gleanings from County Leitrim,"
+      _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) pp. 183 _sq._
+
+ M281 Wounded witches in the Vosges.
+
+  780 L. F. Sauve, _Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_ (Paris, 1889), p. 176.
+
+  781 L. F. Sauve, _op. cit._ pp. 176 _sq._
+
+ M282 Wounded witches in Swabia.
+
+  782 Ernst Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Schwaben_
+      (Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 184 _sq._, No. 203.
+
+  783 E. Meier, _op. cit._ pp. 191 _sq._, No. 215. A similar story of the
+      shoeing of a woman in the shape of a horse is reported from Silesia.
+      See R. Kuehnau, _Schlesische Sagen_ (Berlin, 1910-1913), iii. pp. 27
+      _sq._, No. 1380.
+
+ M283 The miller's wife and the two grey cats.
+
+  784 R. Kuehnau, _Schlesische Sagen_ (Berlin, 1910-1913), iii. pp. 23
+      _sq._, No. 1375. Compare _id._, iii. pp. 28 _sq._, No. 1381.
+
+ M284 The analogy of were-wolves confirms the view that the reason for
+      burning bewitched animals is either to burn the witch or to compel
+      her to appear.
+
+  785 See for example L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem
+      Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. pp. 328, 329, 334, 339;
+      W. von Schulenburg, _Wendische Volkssagen und Gebraeuche aus dem
+      Spreewald_ (Leipsic, 1880), pp. 164, 165 _sq._; H. Proehle,
+      _Harzsagen_ (Leipsic, 1859), i. 100 _sq._ The belief in such things
+      is said to be universal among the ignorant and superstitious in
+      Germany. See A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin,
+      1869), p. 150, § 217. In Wales, also, "the possibility of injuring
+      or marking the witch in her assumed shape so deeply that the bruise
+      remained a mark on her in her natural form was a common belief" (J.
+      Ceredig Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_, Aberystwyth,
+      1911, p. 243). For Welsh stories of this sort, see J. Ceredig
+      Davies, _l.c._; Rev. Elias Owen, _Welsh Folk-lore_ (Oswestry and
+      Wrexham, N.D., preface dated 1896), pp. 228 _sq._; M. Trevelyan,
+      _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London, 1909), p. 214.
+
+  786 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
+      (Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 361, § 239.
+
+ M285 There is the same reason for burning bewitched things.
+
+  787 Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London,
+      1909), p. 210.
+
+  788 L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
+      (Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 358, § 238.
+
+  789 L. Strackerjan, _op. cit._ i. p. 360, § 238e.
+
+ M286 Similarly by burning alive a person whose form a witch has assumed,
+      you compel the witch to disclose herself. The burning alive of a
+      supposed witch in Ireland in 1895.
+
+  790 "The 'Witch-burning' at Clonmell," _Folk-lore_, vi. (1895) pp.
+      373-384. The account there printed is based on the reports of the
+      judicial proceedings before the magistrates and the judge, which
+      were published in _The Irish Times_ for March 26th, 27th, and 28th,
+      April 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 8th, and July 6th, 1895.
+
+ M287 Sometimes bewitched animals are buried alive instead of being
+      burned.
+
+  791 John Graham Dalyell, _The Darker Superstitions of Scotland_
+      (Edinburgh, 1834), p. 185. In this passage "quick" is used in the
+      old sense of "living," as in the phrase "the quick and the dead."
+      _Nois_ is "nose," _hoill_ is "hole," _quhilk_ (_whilk_) is "which,"
+      and _be_ is "by."
+
+  792 J. G. Dalyell, _op. cit._ p. 186. _Bestiall_ = animals; _seik_ =
+      sick; _calling_ = driving; _guidis_ = cattle.
+
+  793 John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
+      Century_, edited by Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh and London,
+      1888), ii. 446 _sq._ As to the custom of cutting off the leg of a
+      diseased animal and hanging it up in the house, see above, p. 296,
+      note 1.
+
+  794 (Sir) Arthur Mitchell, A.M., M.D., _On Various Superstitions in the
+      North-West Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1862), p.
+      12 (reprinted from the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
+      Scotland_, vol. iv.).
+
+ M288 Calves killed and buried to save the rest of the herd.
+
+_  795 County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_, collected by Mrs. Gutch
+      and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 75, quoting Rev. R. M. Heanley,
+      "The Vikings: traces of their Folklore in Marshland," a paper read
+      before the Viking Club, London, and printed in its _Saga-Book_, vol.
+      iii. Part i. Jan. 1902. The wicken-tree is the mountain-ash or rowan
+      tree, which is a very efficient, or at all events a very popular
+      protective against witchcraft. See _County Folk-lore_, vol. v.
+      _Lincolnshire_, pp. 26 _sq._, 98 _sq._; Mabel Peacock, "The Folklore
+      of Lincolnshire," _Folk-lore_, xii. (1901) p. 175; J. G. Campbell,
+      _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of
+      Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 11 _sq._; Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes
+      on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland_ (London, 1881), p.
+      188. See further _The Scapegoat_, pp. 266 _sq._
+
+ M289 General resemblance of the European fire-festivals to each other.
+
+  796 Above, pp. 116 _sq._, 119, 143, 165, 166, 168 _sq._, 172.
+
+  797 Above, pp. 116, 117 _sq._, 119, 141, 143, 161, 162 _sq._, 163 _sq._,
+      166, 173, 191, 201.
+
+ M290 Two explanations suggested of the fire-festivals. According to W.
+      Mannhardt, they are charms to secure a supply of sunshine; according
+      to Dr. E. Westermarck they are purificatory, being intended to burn
+      and destroy all harmful influences.
+
+  798 W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstaemme_
+      (Berlin, 1875), pp. 521 _sqq._
+
+  799 E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.
+      (1905) pp. 44 _sqq._; _id._, _The Origin and Development of the
+      Moral Ideas_ (London, 1906-1908), i. 56; _id._, _Ceremonies and
+      Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year,
+      and the Weather in Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 93-102.
+
+  800 E. Mogk, "Sitten und Gebraeuche im Kreislauf des Jahres," in R.
+      Wuttke's _Saechsische Volkskunde_2 (Dresden, 1901), pp. 310 _sq._
+
+ M291 The two explanations are perhaps not mutually exclusive.
+
+_  801 The Golden Bough_, Second Edition (London, 1900), iii. 312: "The
+      custom of leaping over the fire and driving cattle through it may be
+      intended, on the one hand, to secure for man and beast a share of
+      the vital energy of the sun, and, on the other hand, to purge them
+      of all evil influences; for to the primitive mind fire is the most
+      powerful of all purificatory agents"; and again, _id._ iii. 314: "It
+      is quite possible that in these customs the idea of the quickening
+      power of fire may be combined with the conception of it as a
+      purgative agent for the expulsion or destruction of evil beings,
+      such as witches and the vermin that destroy the fruits of the earth.
+      Certainly the fires are often interpreted in the latter way by the
+      persons who light them; and this purgative use of the element comes
+      out very prominently, as we have seen, in the general expulsion of
+      demons from towns and villages. But in the present class of cases
+      this aspect of fire may be secondary, if indeed it is more than a
+      later misinterpretation of the custom."
+
+ M292 Theory that the fire-festivals are charms to ensure a supply of
+      sunshine.
+
+_  802 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 311 _sqq._
+
+ M293 Coincidence of two of the festivals with the solstices.
+
+  803 See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 254 _sqq._
+
+ M294 Attempt of the Bushmen to warm up the fire of Sirius in midwinter by
+      kindling sticks.
+
+  804 Manilius, _Astronom._ v. 206 _sqq._:
+
+      "_Cum vero in vastos surget Nemeaeus hiatus,_
+      _ Exoriturque Canis, latratque Canicula flammas_
+      _ Et rabit igne suo geminatque incendia solis,_
+      _ Qua subdente facem terris radiosque movente_," etc.
+
+      Pliny, _Naturalis Historia_, xviii. 269 _sq._: "_Exoritur dein post
+      triduum fere ubique confessum inter omnes sidus ingens quod canis
+      ortum vocamus, sole partem primam leonis ingresso. Hoc fit post
+      solstitium XXIII. die. Sentiunt id maria et terrae, multae vero et
+      ferae, ut suis locis diximus. Neque est minor ei veneratio quam
+      descriptis in deos stellis, accenditque solem et magnam aestus
+      obtinet causam._"
+
+_  805 Specimens of Bushman Folklore_, collected by the late W. H. I.
+      Bleek, Ph.D., and L. C. Lloyd (London, 1911), pp. 339, 341. In
+      quoting the passage I have omitted the brackets which the editors
+      print for the purpose of indicating the words which are implied, but
+      not expressed, in the original Bushman text.
+
+  806 "The sun is a little warm, when this star appears in winter"
+      (Editors of _Specimens of Bushman Folklore_).
+
+  807 "With the stick that he had held in the fire, moving it up and down
+      quickly" (Editors).
+
+  808 "They take one arm out of the kaross, thereby exposing one shoulder
+      blade to the sun" (Editors).
+
+ M295 The burning wheels and discs of the fire-festivals may be direct
+      imitations of the sun.
+
+  809 See above, pp. 161, 162 _sq._ On the wheel as an emblem of the sun,
+      see J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 585; A. Kuhn, _Die
+      Herabkunft des Feuers und des Goettertranks_2 (Guetersloh, 1886), pp.
+      45 _sqq._; H. Gaidoz, "Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme de
+      la roue," _Revue Archeologique_, iii. Serie, iv. (1884) pp. 14
+      _sqq._; William Simpson, _The Buddhist Praying Wheel_ (London,
+      1896), pp. 87 _sqq._ It is a popular Armenian idea that "the body of
+      the sun has the shape of the wheel of a water-mill; it revolves and
+      moves forward. As drops of water sputter from the mill-wheel, so
+      sunbeams shoot out from the spokes of the sun-wheel" (M. Abeghian,
+      _Der armenische Volksglaube_, Leipsic, 1899, p. 41). In the old
+      Mexican picture-books the usual representation of the sun is "a
+      wheel, often brilliant with many colours, the rays of which are so
+      many blood-stained tongues, by means of which the Sun receives his
+      nourishment" (E. J. Payne, _History of the New World called
+      America_, Oxford, 1892, i. 521).
+
+  810 Above, p. 169.
+
+  811 Ernst Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Schwaben_
+      (Stuttgart, 1852), p. 225; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen
+      Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 240; Anton Birlinger,
+      _Volksthuemliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862),
+      ii. 57, 97; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 510.
+
+ M296 The wheel sometimes used to kindle the fire by friction may also be
+      an imitation of the sun.
+
+  812 Compare J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 521; J. W. Wolf,
+      _Beitraege zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Goettingen und Leipsic,
+      1852-1857), ii. 389; Adalbert Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und
+      des Goettertranks_2 (Guetersloh, 1886), pp. 41 _sq._, 47; W.
+      Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 521. Lindenbrog in his Glossary on the
+      Capitularies (quoted by J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 502)
+      expressly says: "The rustics in many parts of Germany, particularly
+      on the festival of St. John the Baptist, wrench a stake from a
+      fence, wind a rope round it, and pull it to and fro till it catches
+      fire. This fire they carefully feed with straw and dry sticks and
+      scatter the ashes over the vegetable gardens, foolishly and
+      superstitiously imagining that in this way the caterpillar can be
+      kept off. They call such a fire _nodfeur_ or _nodfyr_, that is to
+      say need-fire."
+
+  813 Above, pp. 144 _sq._, 147 _sq._, 155, 169 _sq._, 175, 177, 179.
+
+  814 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 i. 509; J. W. Wolf, _Beitraege zur
+      deutschen Mythologie_, i. 117; A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des
+      Feuers_,2 pp. 47 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 521; W. E.
+      Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore_
+      (London, 1863), p. 49.
+
+  815 A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Goettertranks_2
+      (Guetersloh, 1886), p. 47.
+
+  816 Above, p. 179.
+
+  817 F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855),
+      ii. 240, § 443.
+
+  818 Above, p. 177.
+
+ M297 The influence which the fires are supposed to exert on the weather
+      and vegetation may be thought to be due to an increase of solar heat
+      produced by the fires.
+
+  819 Above, pp. 187 _sq._
+
+  820 Above, pp. 279 _sq._
+
+  821 Above, p. 188.
+
+  822 Above, p. 159.
+
+  823 Above, p. 116.
+
+  824 Above, p. 201.
+
+  825 L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), pp. 160
+      _sq._
+
+  826 Rev. J. Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu Country_ (London,
+      1857), p. 18.
+
+  827 Above, pp. 140, 142.
+
+  828 Above, pp. 119, 165, 166, 173, 203.
+
+  829 Above, p. 140.
+
+  830 Above, p. 121.
+
+  831 Above, pp. 141, 170, 190, 203, 248, 250, 264.
+
+  832 Above, p. 251.
+
+  833 Above, pp. 119, 165, 166, 168, 173, 174.
+
+  834 Above, pp. 118, 163 _sq._
+
+  835 Above, p. 201.
+
+ M298 The effect which the bonfires are supposed to have in fertilizing
+      cattle and women may also be attributed to an increase of solar heat
+      produced by the fires.
+
+  836 Above, p. 203.
+
+  837 Above, p. 250.
+
+  838 Above, pp. 251, 262, 263, 264.
+
+  839 Above, p. 112.
+
+  840 Above, p. 141.
+
+  841 Above, p. 214.
+
+  842 Above, p. 204.
+
+  843 Above, p. 194.
+
+  844 Above, pp. 185, 189; compare p. 174.
+
+  845 Above, p. 166.
+
+  846 Above, pp. 249, 250.
+
+  847 Above, pp. 107, 109, 111, 119; compare pp. 116, 192, 193.
+
+  848 Above, p. 115.
+
+  849 Above, p. 180.
+
+ M299 The custom of carrying lighted torches about the country at the
+      festivals may be explained as an attempt to diffuse the sun's heat.
+
+  850 Above, pp. 113, 142, 170, 233. The torches of Demeter, which figure
+      so largely in her myth and on her monuments, are perhaps to be
+      explained by this custom. See _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_,
+      i. 57. W. Mannhardt thought (_Baumkultus_, p. 536) that the torches
+      in the modern European customs are imitations of lightning. At some
+      of their ceremonies the Indians of North-West America imitate
+      lightning by means of pitch-wood torches which are flashed through
+      the roof of the house. See J. G. Swan, quoted by Franz Boas, "The
+      Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl
+      Indians," _Report of the United States National Museum for 1895_
+      (Washington, 1897), p. 639.
+
+  851 Above, p. 203.
+
+  852 Amelie Bosquet, _La Normandie Romanesque et Merveilleuse_ (Paris and
+      Rouen, 1845), pp. 295 _sq._; Jules Lecoeur, _Esquisses du Bocage
+      Normand_ (Conde-sur-Noireau, 1883-1887), ii. 126-129. See _The
+      Scapegoat_, pp. 316 _sq._
+
+  853 Br. Jelinek, "Materialen zur Vorgeschichte und Volkskunde Boehmens,"
+      _Mittheilungen der anthropolog. Gesellschaft in Wien_, xxi. (1891)
+      p. 13 note.
+
+  854 Mrs. Bishop, _Korea and her Neighbours_ (London, 1898), ii. 56 _sq._
+
+  855 Above, pp. 190 _sq._
+
+  856 Above, pp. 178, 205, 206.
+
+ M300 Theory that the fires at the festivals are purificatory, being
+      intended to burn up all harmful things.
+ M301 The purificatory or destructive effect of the fires is often alleged
+      by the people who light them. The great evil against which the fire
+      at the festivals is directed appears to be witchcraft.
+
+  857 See _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 311 _sqq._
+
+  858 Above, pp. 108, 109, 116, 118 _sq._, 121, 148, 154, 156, 157, 159,
+      160, 170, 171, 174, 175, 176, 180, 183, 185, 188, 232 _sq._, 245,
+      252, 253, 280, 292, 293, 295, 297. For more evidence of the use of
+      fire to burn or expel witches on certain days of the year, see _The
+      Scapegoat_, pp. 158 _sqq._ Less often the fires are thought to burn
+      or repel evil spirits and vampyres. See above, pp. 146, 170, 172,
+      202, 252, 282, 285. Sometimes the purpose of the fires is to drive
+      away dragons (above, pp. 161, 195).
+
+  859 Above, pp. 107, 116, 118 _sq._, 159.
+
+  860 "In short, of all the ills incident to the life of man, none are so
+      formidable as witchcraft, before the combined influence of which, to
+      use the language of an honest man who had himself severely suffered
+      from its effects, the great laird of Grant himself could not stand
+      them if they should fairly yoke upon him" (W. Grant Stewart, _The
+      Popular Superstitions and Festive Amusements of the Highlanders of
+      Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1823, pp. 202 _sq._). "Every misfortune and
+      calamity that took place in the parish, such as ill-health, the
+      death of friends, the loss of stock, and the failure of crops; yea
+      to such a length did they carry their superstition, that even the
+      inclemency of the seasons, were attributed to the influence of
+      certain old women who were supposed to be in league, and had
+      dealings with the Devil. These the common people thought had the
+      power and too often the inclination to injure their property, and
+      torment their persons" (_County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolnshire_,
+      collected by Mrs. Gutch and Mabel Peacock, London, 1908, p. 76).
+      "The county of Salop is no exception to the rule of superstition.
+      The late vicar of a parish on the Clee Hills, startled to find that
+      his parishioners still believed in witchcraft, once proposed to
+      preach a sermon against it, but he was dissuaded from doing so by
+      the parish schoolmaster, who assured him that the belief was so
+      deeply rooted in the people's minds that he would be more likely to
+      alienate them from the Church than to weaken their faith in
+      witchcraft" (Miss C. F. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, _Shropshire
+      Folk-lore_, London, 1883, p. 145). "Wherever a man or any living
+      creature falls sick, or a misfortune of any kind happens, without
+      any natural cause being discoverable or rather lying on the surface,
+      there in all probability witchcraft is at work. The sudden stiffness
+      in the small of the back, which few people can account for at the
+      time, is therefore called a 'witch-shot' and is really ascribed to
+      witchcraft" (L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem
+      Herzogthum Oldenburg_, Oldenburg, 1867, i. p. 298, § 209). What Sir
+      Walter Scott said less than a hundred years ago is probably still
+      true: "The remains of the superstition sometimes occur; there can be
+      no doubt that the vulgar are still addicted to the custom of scoring
+      above the breath (as it is termed), and other counter-spells,
+      evincing that the belief in witchcraft is only asleep, and might in
+      remote corners be again awakened to deeds of blood" (_Letters on
+      Demonology and Witchcraft_, London, 1884, p. 272). Compare L.
+      Strackerjan, _op. cit._ i. p. 340, § 221: "The great power, the
+      malicious wickedness of the witches, cause them to be feared and
+      hated by everybody. The hatred goes so far that still at the present
+      day you may hear it said right out that it is a pity burning has
+      gone out of fashion, for the evil crew deserve nothing else. Perhaps
+      the hatred might find vent yet more openly, if the fear were not so
+      great."
+
+ M302 Amongst the evils for which the fire-festivals are deemed remedies
+      the fore-most is cattle-disease, and cattle-disease is often
+      supposed to be an effect of witchcraft.
+
+  861 For some evidence, see _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_,
+      ii. 52-55, 330 _sqq._ It is a popular belief, universally diffused
+      in Germany, that cattle-plagues are caused by witches (A. Wuttke,
+      _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_,2 Berlin, 1869, p. 149 § 216). The
+      Scotch Highlanders thought that a witch could destroy the whole of a
+      farmer's live stock by hiding a small bag, stuffed with charms, in a
+      cleft of the stable or byre (W. Grant Stewart, _The Popular
+      Superstitions and Festive Amusements of the Highlanders of
+      Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1823, pp. 201 _sq._).
+
+_  862 The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 330 _sqq._
+
+  863 Above, pp. 282, 284 _sq._
+
+ M303 Again, the bonfires are thought to avert hail, thunder, lightning,
+      and other maladies, all of which are attributed to the maleficent
+      arts of witches.
+
+  864 Above, pp. 118, 121, 144, 145, 176.
+
+  865 Above, pp. 121, 122, 124, 140 _sq._, 145, 146, 174, 176, 183, 184,
+      187, 188, 190, 191, 192, 249, 250, 252, 253, 254, 258.
+
+  866 J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 908 _sqq._; J. V. Grohmann,
+      _Aberglauben und. Gebraeuche aus Boehmen und Maehren_ (Prague and
+      Leipsic, 1864), p. 32 § 182; A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche
+      Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), pp. 149 _sq._, § 216; J. Ceredig
+      Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_ (Aberystwyth, 1911), p.
+      230; Alois John, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube im deutschen
+      Westboehmen_ (Prague, 1905), p. 202.
+
+  867 Above, pp. 108, 121, 140, 146, 165, 183, 188, 196, 250, 255, 256,
+      258.
+
+  868 Above, pp. 107, 195 _sq._
+
+  869 Above, pp. 162, 163, 166, 171, 174.
+
+  870 A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 351, §
+      395.
+
+  871 Above, pp. 165, 168, 189, compare 190.
+
+  872 A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 351, §
+      395; L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum
+      Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 298, § 209. See above, p. 343
+      note.
+
+ M304 The burning wheels rolled down hills and the burning discs and
+      brooms thrown into the air may be intended to burn the invisible
+      witches.
+
+  873 In the Ammerland, a district of Oldenburg, you may sometimes see an
+      old cart-wheel fixed over the principal door or on the gable of a
+      house; it serves as a charm against witchcraft and is especially
+      intended to protect the cattle as they are driven out and in. See L.
+      Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_
+      (Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 357, § 236. Can this use of a wheel as a
+      talisman against witchcraft be derived from the practice of rolling
+      fiery wheels down hill for a similar purpose?
+
+  874 F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religioeser Brauch der Suedslaven_
+      (Muenster i. W., 1890), pp. 118 _sq._
+
+ M305 On this view the fertility supposed to follow the use of fire
+      results indirectly from breaking the spells of witches.
+
+  875 In German such spells are called _Nestelknuepfen_; in French, _nouer
+      l'aiguilette_. See J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,4 ii. 897, 983;
+      A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 252 §
+      396; E. Doutte, _Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord_ (Algiers,
+      1908), pp. 87 _sq._, 294 _sqq._; J.L.M. Nogues, _Les Moeurs
+      d'autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis_ (Saintes, 1891), pp. 171 _sq._
+
+ M306 On the whole the theory of the purificatory or destructive intention
+      of the fire-festivals seems the more probable.
+
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN BOUGH: A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION (THIRD EDITION, VOL. 10 OF 12)***
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