[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.

[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.

[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, Sec.Sec. 1783, 1786, 1787.

[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.

[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 Archaelogia Aeliana, N.S., vii. 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.

[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.

[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.

[515] Sir Henry Piers, Description of the County of Westmeath, written in 1682, published by (General) Charles Vallancey, Collectanea de Rebus Hibernieis, 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.

[524] Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland (London, 1887), i. 214 sq.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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 Folklore (Cambridge, 1903), p. 57.

[549] J.G. von Hahn, Albanesische Studien (Jena, 1854), i. 156.

[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.

[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," Folklore, 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[563] G. F. Abbott, Macedonian Folklore (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.

[565] See The Scapegoat, pp. 166 sq.

[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.

[569] Above, pp. 146 sqq.; The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 59 sqq.

[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).

[575] E. J. Guthrie, Old Scottish Customs (London and Glasgow, 1885), p. 68.

[576] A. Goodrich-Freer, "More Folklore from the Hebrides," Folk-lore, xiii. (1902) p. 53.

[577] (Sir) Jolin 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.

[582] Douglas Hyde, Beside the Fire, a Collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories (London, 1890), pp. 104, 105, 121-128.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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," Folklore, xiii. (1902) p. 54.

[604] Rev. J.G. Campbell, op. cit. p. 283.

[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.

[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 Folklore from the Hebrides," Folk-lore, xiii. (1902) p. 55.

[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.

[619] Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), pp. 254 sq.

[620] (General) Charles Vallancey, Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, iii. (Dublin, 1786), pp. 459-461.

[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.

[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.

[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 Aevi 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.

[631] The evidence for the solar origin of Christmas is given in Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 254-256.

[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).

[634] "Et arborem in nativitate domini ad festivum ignem suum adducendam esse dicebat" (quoted by Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, i. 522).

[635] Montanus, Die deutschen Volksfeste, Volksbrauche 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. Sec. 319, pp. 103 sq.

[638] A. Kuhn, op. cit. ii. Sec. 523, p. 187.

[639] August Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Thueringen (Vienna, 1878), p. 172.

[640] K. Hoffmann-Krayer, Feste und Braeuche des Schweizervolkes (Zurich, 1913), pp. 108 sq.

[641] Le Baron de Reinsberg-Dueringsfeld, Calendrier Belge (Brussels, 1861-1862), ii. 326 sq. Compare J.W. Wolf, Beitraegezur deutschen Mythologie (Goettingen, 1852-1858), i. 117.

[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.

[643] J.B. Thiers, Traite des Superstitions (Paris, 1679), p. 323.

[644] Aubin-Louis Millin, Voyage dans les Departemens 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 Centres de la France (Paris, 1875), i. 1-3.

[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 M'elle Amelie Bosquet, La Normandie 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.

[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.

[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.

[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 neiv 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.

[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 Folklore 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.

[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 Zadroega" (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. Demelic, 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).

[671] Chedo Mijatovich, Servia and the Servians (London, 1908), pp. 98-105.

[672] Baron Rajacsich, Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebraeuche der im Kaiserthume Oesterreich lebenden Suedslaven (Vienna, 1873), pp. 122-128.

[673] Baron Rajacsich, Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebrauche 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.

[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.

[680] August Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus Thueringen (Vienna, 1878), pp. 171 sq.

[681] Jules Lecoeur, Esquisses du Bocage Normand (Conde-sur-Noireau, 1883-1887), ii. 289 sq.

[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 Gumming 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 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.

[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.

[687] Thomas Hyde, Historia Religionis veterum Persarum (Oxford, 1700), pp. 255-257.

[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 Herabkunjt 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 interpretion 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 Volkskuende, xi. (1907) p. 245.

[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.

[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.

[694] J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, *[4] i. 503 sq.

[695] J. Grimm, op. cit. i. 504.

[696] Adalbert Kuhn, Maerkische Sagen und Maerchen (Berlin, 1843), p. 369.

[697] Karl Bartsch, Sagen, Maerchen und Gebraeuche aus Mecklenburg (Vienna, 1879-1880), ii. 149-151.

[698] Carl und Theodor Colshorn, Maerchen und Sagen (Hanover, 1854), pp. 234-236, from the description of an eye-witness.

[699] Heinrich Proehle, Harzbilder, Sitten und Gebraeuche aus dem Harz-gebirge (Leipsic, 1855), pp. 74 sq. The date of this need-fire is not given; probably it was about the middle of the nineteenth century.

[700] R. Andree, Braunschweiger Volkskunde (Brunswick, 1896), pp. 313 sq.

[701] R. Andree, op. cit. pp. 314 sq.

[702] Montanus, Die deutschen Volks-feste, Volksbraeuche und deutscher Volksglaube (Iserlohn, N.D.), p. 127.

[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.

[707] E. Hoffmann-Krayer, "Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen Volksbrauch," Schweizerisches Archiv fur Volkskunde, xi. (1907) pp. 244-246.

[708] E. Hoffmann-Krayer, op. cit. p. 246.

[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."

[711] Prof. VI. Titelbach, "Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven," Inter-nationales 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.

[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.

[716] Prof. Vl. Titelbach, "Das heilige Feuer bei den Balkanslaven," Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, xiii. (1900) p. 3.

[717] See below, vol. ii. pp. 168 sqq.

[718] Adolf Strausz, Die Bulgaren (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 194-199.

[719] Wissenschaftliche Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina, redigirt von Moriz Hoernes, iii. (Vienna, 1895) pp. 574 sq.

[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 Goettertranks*[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.

[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 Folklore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (London, 1879), pp. 167 sq. Compare County Folklore, 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.

[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.

[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.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[733] Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica (Edinburgh, 1900), ii. 340 sq.

[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.

[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. ii. 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 forelegs 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.

[737] The Mirror, 24th June, 1826, quoted by J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England (London, 1849), i. 360 note 2.

[738] Leland L. Duncan, "Fairy Beliefs and other Folklore Notes from County Leitrim," Folk-lore, vii. (1896) pp. 181 sq.

[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.

[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.

[742] J.N.B. Hewitt, "New Fire among the Iroquois," The American Anthropologist, ii. (1889) p. 319.

[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 maybe 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.

[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.

[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.

[756] (Sir) John Rhys, "Manx Folklore 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 per formed for the public good.

[757] (Sir) John Rhys, "Manx Folklore and Superstitions," Folk-lore, ii. (1891) pp. 299 sq.; id., Celtic Folklore, 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.

[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 werewolf 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 the 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.

[762] J.J.M. de Groot, The Religious System of China, v. (Leyden, 1907) p. 548.

[763] A. C. Kruijt, "De weerwolf bij de Toradja's van Midden-Celebes," Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Landen 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 1. (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.

[766] Ernst Marno, Reisen im Gebiete des blauen und weissen Nil (Vienna, 1874), pp. 239 sq.

[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.

[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 Sec. 217; L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 327 Sec. 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 Sec. 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.

[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," Folklore, iv. (1893) pp. 183 sq.

[780] L.F. Sauve, Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges (Paris, 1889), p. 176.

[781] L.F. Sauve, op. cit. pp. 176 sq.

[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.

[784] R. Kuehnau, Schlesische Sagen (Berlin, 1910-1913), iii. pp. 23 sq., No. 1375. Compare id., iii. pp. 28 sq., No. 1381.

[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, Sec. 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, Sec. 239.

[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, Sec. 238.

[789] L. Strackerjan, op. cit. i. p. 360, Sec. 238e.

[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.

[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.).

[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 free, 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.



CHAPTER V

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRE-FESTIVALS

Sec. 1. On the Fire-festivals in general

[General resemblance of the European fire-festivals to each other.]

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.

[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.]

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.

[The two explanations are perhaps not mutually exclusive.]

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.

Sec. 2. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals

[Theory that the fire-festivals are charms to ensure a supply of sunshine.]

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.

[Coincidence of two of the festivals with the solstices.]

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.

[Attempt of the Bushmen to warm up the fire of Sirius in midwinter by kindling sticks.]

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.

[The burning wheels and discs of the fire-festivals may be direct imitations of the sun.]

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.

[The wheel sometimes used to kindle the fire by friction may also be an imitation of the sun.]

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 swineherds 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 cartwheel, 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.

[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.]

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.

[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.]

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 midsummer 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.

[The custom of carrying lighted torches about the country at the festival may be explained as an attempt to diffuse the Sun's heat.]

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.