Chapter 20

If the majority of the accounts quoted limit the use of needfire to an outbreak of murrain, yet some of them expressly inform us that it was resorted to at stated times of the year, especially Midsummer, and that the cattle were driven through the flames to guard them beforehand against future sicknesses. Nicolaus Gryse (Rostock 1593, liiiª) mentions as a regular practice on St. John's day: 'Toward nightfall they warmed them by St. John's blaze and needfire (nodfür) that they sawed out of wood, kindling the same not in God's name but St. John's; leapt and ran and drave the cattle therethro', and were fulfilled of thousand joys whenas they had passed the night in great sins, shames and harms.'

Of this yearly recurrence we are assured both by the Lemnian worship, and more especially by the Celtic. (60) It was in the great gatherings at annual feasts that needfire was lighted. These the Celtic nations kept at the beginning of May and of November. The grand hightide was the Mayday; I find it falling mostly on the 1^st of May, yet sometimes on the 2^nd or 3^rd. This day is called in Irish and Gaelic la bealtine or beiltine, otherwise spelt beltein, and corrupted into belton, beltim, beltam. Lá means day, teine or tine fire, and beal, beil, is understood to be the name of a god, not directly connected with the Asiatic Belus, (61) but a deity of light peculiar to the Celts. This Irish Beal, Beil, Gaelic Beal, appears in the Welsh dialect as Beli, and his O. Celtic name of Belenus, Belinus is preserved in Ausonius, Tertullian and numerous inscriptions (Forcellini sub v.). The present custom is thus described by Armstrong sub v. bealtainn: 'In some parts of the Highlands the young folks of a hamlet meet in the moors on the first of May. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by cutting a trench in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole company. They then 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 in 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 with charcoal until it is perfectly black. They then put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet, and every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. The bonnet-holder is entitled to the last bit. Whoever draws the black bit is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal, whose favour they mean to implore in rendering the year productive. The devoted person is compelled to leap three times over the flames.' Here the reference to the worship of a deity is too plain to be mistaken: we see by the leaping over the flame, that the main point was, to select a human being to propitiate the god and make him merciful, that afterwards as an animal sacrifice was substituted for him, and finally, nothing remained of the body immolation but a leap through the fire for man and beast. The holy rite of friction is not mentioned here, but as it was necessary for the needfire that purged pestilence, it must originally have been much more in requisition at the great yearly festival.

The earliest mention of the beiltine is found in Cormac, archbishop of Cashel (d. 908). Two fires were lighted side by side, and to pass unhurt between them was wholesome for men and cattle. Hence the phrase, to express a great danger: 'itir dha theinne beil,' i.e. between two fires. (62) That the sacrifice was strictly superintended by priests, we are expressely assured by Usher (Trias thaumat. p. 125), who founds on Evinus: Lege etiam severissima cavebatur, ut omnes ignes per universas regiones ista nocte exstinguerentur, et nulli liceat ignem reaccendere nisi prius Temoriae (Tighmora, whom we know from Ossian) a magis rogus sacrificiorum exstrueretur, et quicunque hanc legem in aliquo transgrederetur non alia mulcta quam capitis supplicio commissi delicti poenam luebat. (63)

Leo (Malb. gl. i, 35) has ingeniously put forward an antithesis between a god of war Beal or Bael, and a god of peace Sighe or Sithich; nay, by this distinction he explains the brothers Bellovesus and Sigovesus in Livy 5, 34 as servants (vesus = Gaelic uis, uais, minister) of Beal and Sighe, connecting Sighe with that silent peaceful folk the elves, who are called sighe (supra, p. 444n): to Beal were offered the May fires, bealtine, to Sighe the November fires, samhtheine (peace-fire). In Wales too they lighted fires on May 1 and Nov. 1, both being called coelcerth (see Suppl.).

I still hesitate to accept all the inferences, but undoubtedly Beal must be taken for a divine being, whose worship is likely to have extended beyond the Celtic nations. At p. 228 I identified him with the German Phol; and it is of extraordinary value to our research, that in the Rhine districts we come upon a Pfultag, Pulletag (P.'s day), which fell precisely on the 2^nd of May (Weisth. 2, 8. 3, 748). We know that our forefathers very generally kept the beginning of May as a great festival, and it is still regarded as the trysting-time of witches, i.e. once of wise-women and fays; who can doubt that heathen sacrifices blazed that day? Pholtag then answers to Bealteine, (64) and moreover Baldag is the Saxon form for Paltar (p. 229).

Were the German May-fires, after the conversion, shifted to Easter and Midsummer, to adapt them to Christian worship? Or, as the summer solstice was itself deeply rooted in heathenism, is it Eastertide alone that represents the ancient May-fires? For, as to the Celtic November, the German Yule or Midwinter might easily stand for that, even in heathen times.

Whichever way we settle that, our very next investigations will show, that beside both needfire and bealtine, other fires are to be found almost all over Europe.

It is not unimportant to observe, that in the north of Germany they take place at Easter, in the south at Midsummer. There they betoken the entrance of spring, here the longest day; as before, it all turns upon whether the people are Saxon or Frank. All Lower Saxony, Westphalia, and Lower Hesse, Gelders, Holland, Friesland, Jutland, and Zealand have Easter fires; up the Rhine in Franconia, Thuringia, Swabia, Bavaria, Austria, and Silesia, Midsummer fires carry the day. Some countries, however, seem to do homage to both, as Denmark and Carinthia.

Easter Fires.----At all the cities, towns and villages of a country, towards evening on the first (or third) day of Easter, there is lighted every year on mountain and hill a great fire of straw, turf, and wood, amidst a concourse and jubilation, not only of the young, but of many grown-up people. On the Weser, especially in Schaumburg, they tie up a tar-barrel on a fir-tree wrapt round with straw, and set it on fire at night. Men and maids, and all who come, dance exulting and singing, hats are waved, handkerchiefs thrown into the fire. The mountains all round are lighted up, and it is an elevating spectacle, scarcely paralleled by anything else, to survey the country for many miles round from one of the higher points, and in every direction at once to see a vast number of these bonfires, brighter or fainter, blazing up to heaven. In some places they marched up the hill in stately procession, carrying white rods; by turns they sang Easter hymns, grasping each other's hands, and at the Hallelujah clashed their rods together. They liked to carry some of the fire home with them. (65)

No doubt we still lack many details as to the manner of keeping Easter fires in various localities. It is worth nothing, that at Bräunrode in the Harz the fires are lighted at evening twilight of the first Easter day, but before that, old and young sally out of that village and Griefenhagen into the nearest woodlands to hunt up the squirrels. These they chase by thowing stones and cudgels, till at last the animals drop exhausted into their hands, dead or alive. This is said to be an old-established custom. (66)

For these ignes paschales there is no authority reaching beyond the 16^th century; but they must be a great deal older, if only for the contrast with Midsummer fires, which never could penetrate into North Germany, because the people there held fast by their Easter fires. Now, seeing that the fires of St. John, as we shall presently show, are more immediately connected with the Christian church than those of Easter, it is not unreasonable to trace these all the way back to the worship of the goddess Ostarâ or Eástre (p. 291), who seems to have been more a Saxon and Anglian divinity than one revered all over Germany. Her name and her fires, which are likely to have come at the beginning of May, would after the conversion of the Saxons be shifted back to the Christian feast. (67) Those mountain fires of the people are scarcely derivable from the taper lighted in the church the same day: it is true that Boniface, ep. 87 (Würdtw.), calls it ignis paschalis, (68) and such Easter lights are still mentioned in the 16^th century. (69) Even now in the Hildesheim country they light the lamp on Maundy Thursday, and that on Easterday, at an Easter fire which has been struck with a steel. The people flock to this fire, carrying oaken crosses or simply crossed sticks, which they set on fire and then preserve for a whole year. But the common folk distinguish between this fire and the wild fire elicited by rubbing wood. Jäger (Ulm, p. 521) speaks of a consecration of fire and of logs.

Almost everywhere during the last hundred years the feebleness of governments has deprived the people of their Easter fires (see Suppl.). (70)

Midsummer Fires. (71)----In our older speech, the most festive season of the year, when the sun has reached his greatest height and must thence decline again, is named sunewende = sunnewende (sun's wending, solstice), commonly in the plural, because this high position of the sun last several days: 'ze einen sunewenden,' Nib. 32, 4; 'zen næhsten sunewenden,' Nib. 1424, 4. Wigal. 1717; 'vor disen sunewenden,' Nib. 678, 3. 694, 3; 'ze sunewenden,' Trist. 5987 (the true reading comes out in Groot's variants); 'an sunewenden âbent,' Nib. 1754, 1; 'nâch sunewenden,' Iw. 2941. (72) Now, as Midsummer or St. John's day (June 24), 'sant Johans sunewenden tac,' Ls. 2, 708, coincides with this, the fires in question are called in Up. German documents of the 14-15th century sunwentfeuer, sunbentfewr, (73) and even now among the Austrian and Bavarian peasantry sunäwetsfoir, sunwentsfeuer. H. Sachs 1, 423d: 'auch schürn die bubn (lads poke) sunwentfeuer.' At this season were held great gatherings of the people: 'die nativitatis S. Johannis baptistae in conventu populi maximo' (Pertz 2, 386); this was in 860. In 801Charles the Great kept this festival at Eporedia, now Ivrea (Pertz 1, 190. 223); and Lewis the Pious held assemblies of the Empire on the same day in 824 and 831. Descriptions of Midsummer fires agree with those of Easter fires, with of course some divergences. At Gernsheim in the Mentz country, the fire when lighted is blessed by the priest, and there is singing and prayer so long as it burns; when the flame goes out, the children jump over the glimmering coals; formerly grown-up people did the same. In Superst. I, 848 we are told how a garland is plaited of nine sorts of flowers. Reiske (ut supra, p. 77) says: 'the fire is made under the open sky, the youth and the meaner folk leap over it, and all manner of herbs are cast into it: like these, may all their troubles go off in fire and smoke! In some places they light laterns outside their chambers at night, and dress them with red poppies or anemones, so as to make a bright glitter.' At Nürnberg the lads go about begging billets of wood, cart them to the Bleacher's pond by the Spital-gate, make a fire of them, and jump over it; this keeps them in health the whole year (conf. Sup. I, 918). They invite passers by to have a leap, who pay a few kreuzers for the privilege. In the Fulda country also the boys beg for wood to burn at night, and other presents, while they sing a rhyme: 'Da kommen wir her gegangen Mit spiessen und mit stangen, Und wollen die eier (eggs) langen. Feuerrothe blümelein, An der erde springt der wein, Gebt ihr uns der eier ein Zum Johannisfeuer, Der haber is gar theuer (oats are so dear). Haberje, haberju! fri fre frid! Gebt unds doch ein schiet (scheit, billet)!' (J. v. u. f. Deutschl. 1790. 1, 313.) Similar rhymes from Franconia and Bavaria, in Schm. 3, 262. In the Austrian Donauländchen on St. John's eve they light fires on the hill, lads and lasses jump over the flames amid the joyful cries and songs of the spectators (Reil, p. 41). 'Everywhere on St. John's eve there was merry leaping over the sonnenwendefeuer, and mead was drunk over it,' is Denis's recollection of his youthful days (Lesefr. 1, 130). At Ebingen in Swabia they boiled pease over the fire, which were laid by and esteemed wholesome for bruises and wounds (Schmid's Schwäb. id. 167); conf. the boiling over need-fires (p. 610). Greg. Strigenitius (b. 1548, d. 1603), in a sermon preached on St. John's day and quoted in Ecc. Fr. or. i. 425, observes, that the people (in Meissen or Thuringia) dance and sing round the Midsummer fires; that one man threw a horse's head into the flame, meaning thereby to force the witches to fetch some of the fire for themselves. Seb. Frank in his Weltbuch 51b: 'On St. John's day they make a simet fire [corrupt. of sunwent], and moreover wear upon them, I know not from what superstition, quaint wreaths of mugwort and monks-hood; nigh every one hath a blue plant named larkspur in hand, and whoso looketh into the fire thro' the same, hath never a sore eye all that year; he that would depart home unto his house, casteth this his plant into the fire, saying, So depart all mine ill-fortune and be burnt up with this herb!' (74) So, on the same day, were the waves of water to wash away with them all misfortune (p. 589). But in earlier times the polite world, even princes and kings, took part in these bonfires. Peter Herp's Ann. francof. tell us, ad an. 1489 (Senkenb. Sel. 2, 22): 'In vigilia S. Joh. bapt. rogus ingens fuit factus ante domum consulum in foro (francofurtensi), fueruntque multa vexilla depicta posita in struem lignorum, et vexillum regis in supremo positum, et circa ligna rami virentes positi, fuitque magna chorea dominorum, rege inspiciente.' At Augsburg in 1497, in the Emp. Maximilian's presence, the fair Susanna Neithard kindled the Midsummer fire with a torch, and with Philip the Handsome led the first ring-dance round the fire. (75) A Munich voucher of 1401 renders account: 'umb gras und knechten, die dy pänk ab dem haws auf den margt trugen (carried benches to the market-place) an der sunbentnacht, da herzog Stephan und sein gemachel (consort) und das frawel auf dem margt tanzten mit den purgerinen bei dem sunbentfwr,' (Sutner's Berichtig. p. 107). On St. John's eve 1578, the Duke of Liegnitz had a bonfire made on the Gredisberg, as herr Gotsch did on the Kynast, at which the Duke himself was present with his court (Schweinichen 2, 347).




ENDNOTES:

60. 'In memory of the hermit Paulus, who in the mid. of the 7^th cent. hurled the idol Apollo from Mt. Gebenna, near Treves, into the Moselle,' thinks the writer of the article on Konz, pp. 387-8. If Trithem's De viris illustr. ord. S. Bened. 4, 201, is to vouch for this, I at least can only find at p. 142 of Opp. pia et spirit. Mogunt. 1605, that Paulus lived opposite Treves, on Cevenna, named Mons Pauli after him; but of Apollo and the firewheel not a word [and other authorities are equally silent]. [Back]

61. The Kaiserchronik (Cod. pal. 361, 1b) on the celebration of the Sunday:

Swenne in kom der sunnintac,

sô vlîzete sich Rôme al diu stat (all R. bestirred itself),

wie si den got mohten geêren (to honour the god),

die allirwîsisten hêrren (wisest lords)

vuorten einiz al umbe die stat (carried a thing round the city)

daz was geschaffen same ein rat (shapen like a wheel)

mit brinnenden liehten (with burning lights);

ô wie grôze sie den got zierten (greatly glorified the god)! [Back]

62. Mém. de l'acad. celt. 2, 77-8. 3, 447. [Back]

63. Millin's Voyage dans le midi 3, 28. 341-5. [Back]

64. Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, by Jos. Strutt. New ed. by WHone. Lond. 1830, p. 359. [Back]

65. Molbech's Dialect. Lex. 150. Lyngbye's Nord. tidskr. for oldk. 2, 352-9. Finn Magn. Lex. myth. 1091-4. Arndt's Reise durch Schweden 3, 72-3. [Back]

66. Statuta urbevetana, an. 1491. 3, 51: Quicunque sine licentia officialis fecerit ignem in aliqua festivitate de nocte in civitate, in xl sol. denarior. puniatur, excepta festivitate S. Johannis bapt. de mense Junii, et qui in illa nocte furatus fuerit vel abstulerit ligna vel tabulas alterius in lib. x den. puniatur. [Back]

67. It is spoken of more definitely by Martinus de Arles, canonicus of Pampeluna (cir. 1510), in his treatise De superstitionibus (Tract. tractatuum, ed. Lugd. 1544. 9, 133): Cum in die S. Johannis propter jucunditatem multa pie aguntur a fidelibus, puta pulsatio campanarum et ignes jucunditatis, similiter summo mane exeunt ad colligendas herbas odoriferas et optimas et medicinales ex sua natura et ex plenitudine virtutum propter tempus.......quidam ignes accendunt in compitis viarum, in agris, ne inde sortilegae et maleficae illa nocte transitum faciant, ut ego propriis oculis vidi. Alii herbas collectas in die S. Johannis incendentes contra fulgura, tonitrua et tempestates credunt suis fumigationibus arcere daemones et tempestates. [Back]

68. As he is supposed to leap three times at Easter (p. 291). [Back]

69. Karamzîn 1. 73. 81. 284. Götze's Russ. volksl. p. 230-2. Dobrovsky denies a god Kupalo, and derives the feast from kúpa (haycock); Hanusch p. 201 from kupel, kaupel, kupadlo (bath, pond), because acc. to Slav notions the sun rises out of his bath, or because pouring of water may have been practised at the festival. [Back]

70. De cultu S. Johannis baptistae, Romae 1755, dissert. 8, cap. 1. 2. [Back]

71. Opp., ed. Sirmond, Paris, 1642. 1, 352. [Back]

72. The masc. Pales, which also occurs, may remind us of the Slav god of shepherds, Russ. Volos, Boh. Weles. [Back]

73. Conf. the superstitious 'filium in fornacem ponere pro sanitate febrium,' and 'ponere infantem juxta ignem,' Superst. B, 10, 14, and p. 200ª. [Back]

74. 'So the Lith. kalledos = Christmas, from kalada, a log.'---Suppl. [Back]

75. Sup. K, 16. Mém. des antiquaires 1, 236. 4, 371. [Back]