Chapter 20

We have a fuller description of a Midsummer fire made in 1823 at Konz, a Lorrainian but still German village on the Moselle, near Sierk and Thionville. Every house delivers a truss of straw on the top of the Stromberg, where men and youths assemble towards evening; women and girls are stationed by the Burbach spring. Then a huge wheel is wrapt round with straw, so that none of the wood is left in sight, a strong pole is passed through the middle, which sticks out a yard on each side, and is grasped by the guiders of the wheel; the remainder of the straw is tied up into a number of small torches. At a signal given by the Maire of Sierk (who, according to ancient custom, earns a basket of cherries by the service), the wheel is lighted with a torch, and set rapidly in motion, a shout of joy is raised, all wave their torches on high, part of the men stay on the hill, part follow the rolling globe of fire as it is guided downhill to the Moselle. It often goes out first; but if alight when it touches the river, it prognosticates an abundant vintage, and the Konz people have a right to levy a tun of white wine from the adjacent vineyards. Whilst the wheel is rushing past the women and girls, they break out into cries of joy, answered by the men on the hill; and inhabitants of neighbouring villages, who have flocked to the river side, mingle their voices in the universal rejoicing. (76)

In the same way the butchers of Treves are said to have yearly sent down a wheel of fire into the Moselle from the top of the Paulsberg (see Suppl.). (77)

The custom of Midsummer fires and wheels in France is attested even by writers of the 12^th and 13^th centuries, John Beleth, a Parisian divine, who wrote about 1162 a Summa de divinis officiis, and William Durantis, b. near Beziers in Languedoc, about 1237, d. 1296, the well-known author of the Rationale divinor. offic. (written 1286; conf. viii. 2, 3 de epacta). In the Summa (printed at Dillingen, 1572) cap. 137, fol. 256, and thence extracted in the Rationale vii. 14, we find: 'Feruntur quoque (in festo Joh. bapt.) brandae sue faces ardentes et fiunt ignes, qui significant S. Johannem, qui fuit lumen et lucerna ardens, praecedens et praecursor verae lucis.....; Rota in quibusdam locis volvitur, ad significandum, quod sicut sol ad altiora sui circuli pervenit, nec altius potest progredi, sed tunc sol descendit in circulo, sic et fama Johannis, qui putabatur Christus, descendit secundum quod ipse testimonium perhibet, dicens: me oportet minui, illum autem crescere.' Much older, but somewhat vague, is the testimony of Eligius: 'Nullus in festivitate S. Johannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemnitatibus solstitia (?) aut vallationes vel saltationes aut casaulas aut cantica diabolica exerceat.' (78)

In great cities, Paris, Metz, and many more, as late as the 15-16-17th centuries, the pile of wood was reared in the public square before the town hall, decorated with flowers and foliage, and set on fire by the Maire himself. (79) many districts in the south have retained the custom to this day. At Aix, at Marseille, all the streets and squares are cleaned up on St. John's Day, early in the morning the country folk bring flowers into the town, and everybody buys some, every house is decked with greenery, to which a healing virtue is ascribed if plucked before sunrise: 'aco soun dherbas de san Jean.' Some of the plants are thrown into the flame, the young people jump over it, jokes are played on passers-by with powder trains and hidden fireworks, or they are squirted at and soused with water from the windows. In the villages they ride on mules and donkeys, carrying lighted branches of fir in their hands. (80)

In many places they drag som of the charred brands and charcoal to their homes: salutary and even magical effects are supposed to flow from these (Superst. French 27. 30. 34).

In Poitou, they jump three times round the fire with a branch of walnut in their hands (Mém. des antiq. 8, 451). Fathers of families whisk a bunch of white mullein (bouillon blanc) and a leafy spray of walnut through the flame, and both are afterwards nailed up over the cowhouse door; while the youth dance and sing, old men put some of the coal in their wooden shoes as a safeguard against innumerable woes (ibid. 4, 110).

In the department of Hautes Pyrénées, on the 1^st of May, every commune looks out the tallest and slenderest tree, a pine or fir on the hills, a popular in the plains; when they have lopped all the boughs off, they drive into it a number of wedges a foot long, and keep it till the 23^rd of June. Meanwhile it splits diamond-shape where the wedges were inserted, and is now rolled and dragged up a mountain or hill. There the priest gives it his blessing, they plant it upright in the ground, and set it on fire (ibid. 5, 387).

Strutt (81) speaks of Midsummer fires in England: they were lighted on Midsummer Eve, and kept up till midnight, often till cock-crow; the youth danced round the flame, in garlands of motherwort and vervain, with violets in their hands. In Denmark they are called Sanct Hans aftens blus, but also gadeild (street-fire), because they are lighted in public streets or squares, and on hills. [Is not gade conn. with sunna-gaht, p. 617?] Imagining that all poisonous plants came up out of the ground that night, people avoided lingering on the grass; but wholesome plants (Chamaemelum and bardanum) they hung up in their houses. Some however shift these street-fires to May-day eve. (82) Norway also knows the custom: 'S. Hans aften brändes der baal ved alle griner (hedged country-lanes), hvilket skal fordrive ondt (harm) fra creaturerne,' Sommerfeldt's Saltdalen, p. 121. But some words quoted by Hallager p. 13 are worth noting, viz. brandskat for the wood burnt in the fields, and brising for the kindled fire; the latter reminds us of the gleaming necklace of Freyja (p. 306-7), and may have been transferred from the flame to the jewel, as well as from the jewel to the flame.

There is no doubt that some parts of Italy had Midsummer fires: at Orvieto they were exempted from the restrictions laid on other fires. (83) Italian sailors lighted them on board ship out at sea, Fel. Fabri Evagat. 1, 170. And Spain is perhaps to be included on the strength of a passage in the Romance de Guarinos (Silva, p. 113):

Vance dias, vienen dias, venido era el de Sant Juan,

donde Christianos y Moros hazen gran solenidad:

los Christianos echan juncia, y los Moros arrayhan,

los Judios echan eneas, por la fiesta mas honrar.
Here nothing is said of fire, (84) but we are told that the Christians strew rushes, the Moors myrtle, the Jews reeds; and the throwing of flowers and herbs into the flame seems an essential part of the celebration, e.g. mugwort, monks-hood, larkspur (p. 618), mullein and walnut leaves (p. 621). Hence the collecting of all such John's-herbs in Germany (Superst. I, 157. 189. 190), and of S. Hans urter (worts) in Denmark (K, 126), and the like in France (L, 4). According to Casp. Zeumer's De igne in festo S. Joh. accendi solito, Jenae 1699, the herb alidma (?) was diligently sought on that day and hung up over doors.

In Greece the women make a fire on Midsummer Eve, and jump over it, crying, 'I leave my sins.' In Servia they think the feast is so venerable, that the sun halts three times in reverence. (85) On the day before it, the herdsmen tie birchbark into torches, and having lighted them, they first march round the sheepfolds and cattle-pens, then go up the hills and let them burn out (Vuk sub v. Ivan dan). Other Slav countries have similar observances. In Sartori's Journey through Carinthia 3, 349-50, we find the rolling of St. John's fiery wheel fully described. Midsummerday or the solstice itself is called by the Slovèns kres, by the Croats kresz, i.e. striking of light, from kresáti (ignem elicere), Pol. krzesac; and as May is in Irish mi-na-bealtine (fire-month), so June in Slovenic is kresnik. At the kres there were leaps of joy performed at night; of lighting by friction I find no mention. Poles and Bohemians called the Midsummer fire sobótka, i.e. little Saturday, as compared with the great sobóta (Easter Eve); the Bohemians used to lead their cows over it to protect them from witchcraft. The Russian name was kupálo, which some explain by a god of harvest, Kupalo: youths and maidens, garlanded with flowers and girt with holy herbs, assembled on the 24^th June, lighted a fire, leapt and led their flocks over it, singing hymns the while in praise of the god. They thought thereby to shield their cattle from the lèshis or woodsprites. At times a white cock is said to have been burnt in the fire amid dance and song. Even now the female saint, whose feast the Greek ritual keeps on this day [Agrippina], has the by-name kupálnitsa; a burning pile of wood is called the same, and so, according to Karamzín, is the flower that is strewn on St. John's Day [ranunculus, crowfoot]. (86) This fire seems to have extended to the Lithuanians too: I find that with them kupóles is the name of a St. John's herb. Tettau and Temme p. 277 report, that in Prussia and Lithuania, on Midsummer Eve fires blaze on all the heights, as far as the eye can reach. The next morning they drive their cattle to pasture over the remains of these fires, as a specific against murrain, magic and milk-draught, yet also against hailstroke and lightning. The lads who lighted the fires go from house to house collecting milk. On the same Midsummer Eve they fasten large burs and mugwort (that is to say, kupóles) over the gate or gap through which the cattle always pass.

Now at a bird's-eye view we perceive that these fires cover nearly all Europe, and have done from time immemorial. About them it might seem a great deal more doubtful than about water-lustration (pp. 585. 590), whether they are of heathen or of Christian origin. The church had appropriated them so very early to herself, and as Beleth and Durantis show, had made them point to John; the clergy took some part in their celebration, though it never passed entirely into their hands, but was mainly conducted by the secular authorities and the people itself (see Suppl.).




ENDNOTES:

76. Other derivations have been attempted, Hanusch 192-3. [See note, p. 627, on Lith. kalledos.] [Back]

77. A similar throwing backwards of an emptied glass on other occasions, Sup. I, 514. 707. [Back]

78. Haus und kinderm. 2, 20. 3, 221. Deutsche sagen no. 513. A children's game has the rhyme: 'Dear good oven, I pray to thee, As thou hast a wife, send a husband to me!' In the comedy 'Life and death of honest Madam Slut (Schlampampe),' Leipz. 1696 and 1750, act 3, sc. 8: 'Come, let us go and kneel to the oven, maybe the gods will hear our prayer.' In 1558 one who had been robbed, but had sworn secrecy, told his story to the Dutch-tile oven at the inn. Rommell's Hess. gesch. 4, note p. 420. Joh. Müller's Hist. Switz. 2, 92 (A.D. 1333). 'Nota est in eligiis Tibulli Januae personificatio, cui amantes dolores suos narrant, quam orant, quam increpant; erat enim daemoniaca quaedam vis januarum ex opinione veterum,' Dissen's Tib. 1, clxxix. Conf. Hartung's Rel. der Röm. 2, 218 seq. [Back]

79. Our luft I include under the root liuban, no. 530, whose primacy meaning is still obscure; conf. kliuban kluft, skiuban skuft. [Back]

80. And therefore ôstrôni, westrôni, sundrôni, nordrôni are masc. nouns; the Gothic forms would be áustrôneis, etc. [Back]

81. Russ. volksmärchen, Leipz. 1831. p. 119. [Back]

82. 'Vètre vètrilo gospodine,' Hanka's ed. pp. 12. 36. [Back]

83. E.g. in Nalus, p. 180 (Bopp's 2 ed.). Kinderm. nos. 15. 88. [Back]

84. Orithyria carried off by Boreas (Ov. Met. 6, 710) could with perfect justice be named windesbrût by Albrecht. [Back]

85. Two Pol. tales in Woycicki 1, 81 and 89: When the whirlwind (vikher) sweeps up the loose sand, it is the evil spirit dancing; throw a sharp new knife into the middle of it, and you wound him. A magician plunged such a knife into his threshold, and condemned his man, with whom he was angry, for seven years to ride round the world on the swift stormwind. Then the whirlwind lifted the man, who was making haycocks in a meadow, and bore him away into the air. This knife-throwing is also known to Germ. superstition everywhere (I, 554). [Back]

86. The giants often put on the arnar ham (erne's coat): Thiazi in Sn. 80. 82, Suttûngr in Sn. 86. [Back]