Balder the Beautiful Part 12

In the French department of the Ardennes the whole village used to dance and sing round the bonfires which were lighted on the first Sunday in Lent. Here, too, it was the person last married, sometimes a man and sometimes a woman, who put the match to the fire. The custom is still kept up very commonly in the district. Cats used to be burnt in the fire or roasted to death by being held over it; and while they were burning the shepherds drove their flocks through the smoke and flames as a sure means of guarding them against sickness and witchcraft. In some communes it was believed that the livelier the dance round the fire, the better would be the crops that year.[270] In the Vosges Mountains it is still customary to light great fires on the heights and around the villages on the first Sunday in Lent; and at Rupt and elsewhere the right of kindling them belongs to the person who was last married. Round the fires the people dance and sing merrily till the flames have died out.

Then the master of the fire, as they call the man who kindled it, invites all who contributed to the erection of the pile to follow him to the nearest tavern, where they partake of good cheer. At Dommartin they say that, if you would have the hemp tall, it is absolutely necessary that the women should be tipsy on the evening of this day.[271] At epinal in the Vosges, on the first Sunday in Lent, bonfires used to be kindled at various places both in the town and on the banks of the Moselle. They consisted of pyramids of sticks and f.a.ggots, which had been collected some days earlier by young folks going from door to door.

When the flames blazed up, the names of various couples, whether young or old, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, were called out, and the persons thus linked in mock marriage were forced, whether they liked it or not, to march arm in arm round the fire amid the laughter and jests of the crowd. The festivity lasted till the fire died out, and then the spectators dispersed through the streets, stopping under the windows of the houses and proclaiming the names of the _fechenots_ and _fechenottes_ or Valentines whom the popular voice had a.s.signed to each other. These couples had to exchange presents; the mock bridegroom gave his mock bride something for her toilet, while she in turn presented him with a c.o.c.kade of coloured ribbon. Next Sunday, if the weather allowed it, all the couples, arrayed in their best attire and attended by their relations, repaired to the wood of Saint Antony, where they mounted a famous stone called the _danserosse_ or _danseresse_. Here they found cakes and refreshments of all sorts, and danced to the music of a couple of fiddlers. The evening bell, ringing the Angelus, gave the signal to depart. As soon as its solemn chime was heard, every one quitted the forest and returned home. The exchange of presents between the Valentines went by the name of ransom or redemption (_rachat_), because it was supposed to redeem the couple from the flames of the bonfire. Any pair who failed thus to ransom themselves were not suffered to share the merrymaking at the great stone in the forest; and a pretence was made of burning them in small fires kindled before their own doors.[272]

[Bonfires on the First Sunday of Lent in Franche-Comte.]

In the French province of Franche-Comte, to the west of the Jura Mountains, the first Sunday of Lent is known as the Sunday of the Firebrands (_Brandons_), on account of the fires which it is customary to kindle on that day. On the Sat.u.r.day or the Sunday the village lads harness themselves to a cart and drag it about the streets, stopping at the doors of the houses where there are girls and begging for a f.a.ggot.

When they have got enough, they cart the fuel to a spot at some little distance from the village, pile it up, and set it on fire. All the people of the parish come out to see the bonfire. In some villages, when the bells have rung the Angelus, the signal for the observance is given by cries of, "To the fire! to the fire!" Lads, la.s.ses, and children dance round the blaze, and when the flames have died down they vie with each other in leaping over the red embers. He or she who does so without singeing his or her garments will be married within the year. Young folk also carry lighted torches about the streets or the fields, and when they pa.s.s an orchard they cry out, "More fruit than leaves!" Down to recent years at Laviron, in the department of Doubs, it was the young married couples of the year who had charge of the bonfires. In the midst of the bonfire a pole was planted with a wooden figure of a c.o.c.k fastened to the top. Then there were races, and the winner received the c.o.c.k as a prize.[273]

[Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in Auvergne; the Granno invoked at these bonfires may be the old Celtic G.o.d Grannus, who was identified with Apollo.]

In Auvergne fires are everywhere kindled on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent. Every village, every hamlet, even every ward, every isolated farm has its bonfire or _figo_, as it is called, which blazes up as the shades of night are falling. The fires may be seen flaring on the heights and in the plains; the people dance and sing round about them and leap through the flames. Then they proceed to the ceremony of the _Grannas-mias_. A _granno-mio_[274] is a torch of straw fastened to the top of a pole. When the pyre is half consumed, the bystanders kindle the torches at the expiring flames and carry them into the neighbouring orchards, fields, and gardens, wherever there are fruit-trees. As they march they sing at the top of their voices,

"_Granno, mo mio, Granno, mon pouere, Granno, mo mouere!_"

that is, "Grannus my friend, Grannus my father, Grannus my mother." Then they pa.s.s the burning torches under the branches of every tree, singing,

"_Brando, brandounci Tsaque brantso, in plan panei!_"

that is, "Firebrand burn; every branch a basketful!" In some villages the people also run across the sown fields and shake the ashes of the torches on the ground; also they put some of the ashes in the fowls'

nests, in order that the hens may lay plenty of eggs throughout the year. When all these ceremonies have been performed, everybody goes home and feasts; the special dishes of the evening are fritters and pancakes.[275] Here the application of the fire to the fruit-trees, to the sown fields, and to the nests of the poultry is clearly a charm intended to ensure fertility; and the Granno to whom the invocations are addressed, and who gives his name to the torches, may possibly be, as Dr. Pommerol suggests,[276] no other than the ancient Celtic G.o.d Grannus, whom the Romans identified with Apollo, and whose worship is attested by inscriptions found not only in France but in Scotland and on the Danube.[277] If the name Grannus is derived, as the learned tell us, from a root meaning "to glow, burn, shine,"[278] the deity who bore the name and was identified with Apollo may well have been a sun-G.o.d; and in that case the prayers addressed to him by the peasants of the Auvergne, while they wave the blazing, crackling torches about the fruit-trees, would be eminently appropriate. For who could ripen the fruit so well as the sun-G.o.d? and what better process could be devised to draw the blossoms from the bare boughs than the application to them of that genial warmth which is ultimately derived from the solar beams? Thus the fire-festival of the first Sunday in Lent, as it is observed in Auvergne, may be interpreted very naturally and simply as a religious or rather perhaps magical ceremony designed to procure a due supply of the sun's heat for plants and animals. At the same time we should remember that the employment of fire in this and kindred ceremonies may have been designed originally, not so much to stimulate growth and reproduction, as to burn and destroy all agencies, whether in the shape of vermin, witches, or what not, which threatened or were supposed to threaten the growth of the crops and the multiplication of animals. It is often difficult to decide between these two different interpretations of the use of fire in agricultural rites. In any case the fire-festival of Auvergne on the first Sunday in Lent may date from Druidical times.

[French custom of carrying lighted torches (_brandons_) about the orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent.]

The custom of carrying lighted torches of straw (_brandons_) about the orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent seems to have been common in France, whether it was accompanied with the practice of kindling bonfires or not. Thus in the province of Picardy "on the first Sunday of Lent people carried torches through the fields, exorcising the field-mice, the darnel, and the s.m.u.t. They imagined that they did much good to the gardens and caused the onions to grow large.

Children ran about the fields, torch in hand, to make the land more fertile. All that was done habitually in Picardy, and the ceremony of the torches is not entirely forgotten, especially in the villages on both sides the Somme as far as Saint-Valery."[279] "A very agreeable spectacle, said the curate of l'etoile, is to survey from the portal of the church, situated almost on the top of the mountain, the vast plains of Vimeux all illuminated by these wandering fires. The same pastime is observed at Poix, at Conty, and in all the villages round about."[280]

Again, in the district of Beauce a festival of torches (_brandons_ or _brandelons_) used to be held both on the first and on the second Sunday in Lent; the first was called "the Great Torches" and the second "the Little Torches." The torches were, as usual, bundles of straw wrapt round poles. In the evening the village lads carried the burning brands through the country, running about in disorder and singing,

"_Torches burn At these vines, at this wheat_; _Torches burn For the maidens that shall wed_!"

From time to time the bearers would stand still and smite the earth all together with the blazing straw of the torches, while they cried, "A sheaf of a peck and a half!" (_Gearbe a boissiaux_). If two torchbearers happened to meet each other on their rounds, they performed the same ceremony and uttered the same words. When the straw was burnt out, the poles were collected and a great bonfire made of them. Lads and la.s.ses danced round the flames, and the lads leaped over them. Afterwards it was customary to eat a special sort of hasty-pudding made of wheaten flour. These usages were still in vogue at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but they have now almost disappeared. The peasants believed that by carrying lighted torches through the fields they protected the crops from field-mice, darnel, and s.m.u.t.[281] "At Dijon, in Burgundy, it is the custom upon the first Sunday in Lent to make large fires in the streets, whence it is called Firebrand Sunday. This practice originated in the processions formerly made on that day by the peasants with lighted torches of straw, to drive away, as they called it, the bad air from the earth."[282] In some parts of France, while the people scoured the country with burning brands on the first Sunday in Lent, they warned the fruit-trees that if they did not take heed and bear fruit they would surely be cut down and cast into the fire.[283] On the same day peasants in the department of Loiret used to run about the sowed fields with burning torches in their hands, while they adjured the field-mice to quit the wheat on pain of having their whiskers burned.[284] In the department of Ain the great fires of straw and f.a.ggots which are kindled in the fields at this time are or were supposed to destroy the nests of the caterpillars.[285] At Verges, a lonely village surrounded by forests between the Jura and the Combe d'Ain, the torches used at this season were kindled in a peculiar manner. The young people climbed to the top of a mountain, where they placed three nests of straw in three trees. These nests being then set on fire, torches made of dry lime-wood were lighted at them, and the merry troop descended the mountain to their flickering light, and went to every house in the village, demanding roasted peas and obliging all couples who had been married within the year to dance.[286] In Berry, a district of central France, it appears that bonfires are not lighted on this day, but when the sun has set the whole population of the villages, armed with blazing torches of straw, disperse over the country and scour the fields, the vineyards, and the orchards. Seen from afar, the mult.i.tude of moving lights, twinkling in the darkness, appear like will-o'-the-wisps chasing each other across the plains, along the hillsides, and down the valleys. While the men wave their flambeaus about the branches of the fruit-trees, the women and children tie bands of wheaten-straw round the tree-trunks. The effect of the ceremony is supposed to be to avert the various plagues from which the fruits of the earth are apt to suffer; and the bands of straw fastened round the stems of the trees are believed to render them fruitful.[287] In the peninsula of La Manche the Norman peasants used to spend almost the whole night of the first Sunday in Lent rushing about the country with lighted torches for the purpose, as they supposed, of driving away the moles and field-mice; fires were also kindled on some of the dolmens.[288]

[Bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Germany and Austria; burning the witch; burning discs thrown into the air; burning wheels rolled down hill; bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Switzerland.]

In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the same season similar customs have prevailed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on the first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood from house to house. These they carried to an eminence and piled up round a tall, slim beech-tree, to which a piece of wood was fastened at right angles to form a cross. The structure was known as the "hut" or "castle." Fire was set to it and the young people marched round the blazing "castle" bareheaded, each carrying a lighted torch and praying aloud. Sometimes a straw-man was burned in the "hut." People observed the direction in which the smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards the corn-fields, it was a sign that the harvest would be abundant. On the same day, in some parts of the Eifel, a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three horses to the top of a hill. Thither the village boys marched at nightfall, set fire to the wheel, and sent it rolling down the slope. Two lads followed it with levers to set it in motion again, in case it should anywhere meet with a check. At Oberstattfeld the wheel had to be provided by the young man who was last married.[289] About Echternach in Luxemburg the same ceremony is called "burning the witch"; while it is going on, the older men ascend the heights and observe what wind is blowing, for that is the wind which will prevail the whole year.[290] At Voralberg in the Tyrol, on the first Sunday in Lent, a slender young fir-tree is surrounded with a pile of straw and firewood. To the top of the tree is fastened a human figure called the "witch," made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder. At night the whole is set on fire and boys and girls dance round it, swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words "corn in the winnowing-basket, the plough in the earth" may be distinguished.[291] In Swabia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the "witch" or the "old wife" or "winter's grandmother" is made up of clothes and fastened to a pole. This is stuck in the middle of a pile of wood, to which fire is applied. While the "witch" is burning, the young people throw blazing discs into the air. The discs are thin round pieces of wood, a few inches in diameter, with notched edges to imitate the rays of the sun or stars. They have a hole in the middle, by which they are attached to the end of a wand. Before the disc is thrown it is set on fire, the wand is swung to and fro, and the impetus thus communicated to the disc is augmented by dashing the rod sharply against a sloping board. The burning disc is thus thrown off, and mounting high into the air, describes a long fiery curve before it reaches the ground. A single lad may fling up forty or fifty of these discs, one after the other. The object is to throw them as high as possible. The wand by which they are hurled must, at least in some parts of Swabia, be of hazel. Sometimes the lads also leap over the fire brandishing lighted torches of pine-wood. The charred embers of the burned "witch" and discs are taken home and planted in the flaxfields the same night, in the belief that they will keep vermin from the fields.[292] At w.a.n.gen, near Molsheim in Baden, a like custom is observed on the first Sunday in Lent. The young people kindle a bonfire on the crest of the mountain above the village; and the burning discs which they hurl into the air are said to present in the darkness the aspect of a continual shower of falling stars. When the supply of discs is exhausted and the bonfire begins to burn low, the boys light torches and run with them at full speed down one or other of the three steep and winding paths that descend the mountain-side to the village. b.u.mps, bruises, and scratches are often the result of their efforts to outstrip each other in the headlong race.[293] In the Rhon Mountains, situated on the borders of Hesse and Bavaria, the people used to march to the top of a hill or eminence on the first Sunday in Lent.

Children and lads carried torches, brooms daubed with tar, and poles swathed in straw. A wheel, wrapt in combustibles, was kindled and rolled down the hill; and the young people rushed about the fields with their burning torches and brooms, till at last they flung them in a heap, and standing round them, struck up a hymn or a popular song. The object of running about the fields with the blazing torches was to "drive away the wicked sower." Or it was done in honour of the Virgin, that she might preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and bless them.[294] In neighbouring villages of Hesse, between the Rhon and the Vogel Mountains, it is thought that wherever the burning wheels roll, the fields will be safe from hail and storm.[295] At Konz on the Moselle, on the Thursday before the first Sunday in Lent, the two guilds of the butchers and the weavers used to repair to the Marxberg and there set up an oak-tree with a wheel fastened to it. On the following Sunday the people ascended the hill, cut down the oak, set fire to the wheel, and sent both oak and wheel rolling down the hillside, while a guard of butchers, mounted on horses, fired at the flaming wheel in its descent.

If the wheel rolled down into the Moselle, the butchers were rewarded with a waggon-load of wine by the archbishop of Treves.[296]

[Burning discs thrown into the air.]

In Switzerland, also, it is or used to be customary to kindle bonfires on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent, and the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. The custom prevailed, for example, throughout the canton of Lucerne. Boys went about from house to house begging for wood and straw, then piled the fuel on a conspicuous mountain or hill round about a pole, which bore a straw effigy called "the witch." At nightfall the pile was set on fire, and the young folks danced wildly round it, some of them cracking whips or ringing bells; and when the fire burned low enough, they leaped over it. This was called "burning the witch." In some parts of the canton also they used to wrap old wheels in straw and thorns, put a light to them, and send them rolling and blazing down hill. The same custom of rolling lighted wheels down hill is attested by old authorities for the cantons of Aargau and Bale. The more bonfires could be seen sparkling and flaring in the darkness, the more fruitful was the year expected to be; and the higher the dancers leaped beside or over the fire, the higher, it was thought, would grow the flax. In the district of Freiburg and at Birseck in the district of Bale it was the last married man or woman who must kindle the bonfire. While the bonfires blazed up, it was customary in some parts of Switzerland to propel burning discs of wood through the air by means of the same simple machinery which is used for the purpose in Swabia. Each lad tried to send his disc fizzing and flaring through the darkness as far as possible, and in discharging it he mentioned the name of the person to whose honour it was dedicated. But in Prattigau the words uttered in launching the fiery discs referred to the abundance which was apparently expected to follow the performance of the ceremony.

Among them were, "Grease in the pan, corn in the fan, and the plough in the earth!"[297]

[Connexion of these bonfires with the custom of "carrying out Death;"

effigies burnt on Shrove Tuesday.]

It seems hardly possible to separate from these bonfires, kindled on the first Sunday in Lent, the fires in which, about the same season, the effigy called Death is burned as part of the ceremony of "carrying out Death." We have seen that at s.p.a.chendorf, in Austrian Silesia, on the morning of Rupert's Day (Shrove Tuesday?), a straw-man, dressed in a fur coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to s.n.a.t.c.h a fragment of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow better. The ceremony is known as the "burying of Death."[298]

Even when the straw-man is not designated as Death, the meaning of the observance is probably the same; for the name Death, as I have tried to shew, does not express the original intention of the ceremony. At Cobern in the Eifel Mountains the lads make up a straw-man on Shrove Tuesday.

The effigy is formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have been committed in the neighbourhood throughout the year. Being condemned to death, the straw-man is led through the village, shot, and burned upon a pyre. They dance round the blazing pile, and the last bride must leap over it.[299] In Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to make long bundles of straw, which they set on fire, and then ran about the fields waving them, shrieking, and singing wild songs. Finally they burned a straw-man on the field.[300] In the district of Dusseldorf the straw-man burned on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn.[301] On the first Monday after the spring equinox the urchins of Zurich drag a straw-man on a little cart through the streets, while at the same time the girls carry about a May-tree. When vespers ring, the straw-man is burned.[302] In the district of Aachen on Ash Wednesday a man used to be encased in peas-straw and taken to an appointed place. Here he slipped quietly out of his straw casing, which was then burned, the children thinking that it was the man who was being burned.[303] In the Val di Ledro (Tyrol) on the last day of the Carnival a figure is made up of straw and brushwood and then burned. The figure is called the Old Woman, and the ceremony "burning the Old Woman."[304]

-- 2. _The Easter Fires_

[Fire-festivals on Easter Eve. Custom in Catholic countries of kindling a holy new fire at the church on Easter Sat.u.r.day; marvellous properties ascribed to the embers of the fire; the burning of Judas.]

Another occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is Easter Eve, the Sat.u.r.day before Easter Sunday. On that day it has been customary in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches, and then to make a new fire, sometimes with flint and steel, sometimes with a burning-gla.s.s. At this fire is lit the great Paschal or Easter candle, which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church. In many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled, by means of the new fire, on some open s.p.a.ce near the church. It is consecrated, and the people bring sticks of oak, walnut, and beech, which they char in the fire, and then take home with them. Some of these charred sticks are thereupon burned at home in a newly-kindled fire, with a prayer that G.o.d will preserve the homestead from fire, lightning, and hail. Thus every house receives "new fire." Some of the sticks are kept throughout the year and laid on the hearth-fire during heavy thunder-storms to prevent the house from being struck by lightning, or they are inserted in the roof with the like intention. Others are placed in the fields, gardens, and meadows, with a prayer that G.o.d will keep them from blight and hail.

Such fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others; the corn and the plants that grow in them are not beaten down by hail, nor devoured by mice, vermin, and beetles; no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand close and full. The charred sticks are also applied to the plough. The ashes of the Easter bonfire, together with the ashes of the consecrated palm-branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing. A wooden figure called Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire, and even where this custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some places goes by the name of "the burning of Judas."[305]

[Easter fires in Bavaria and the Abruzzi.]

In the Hollertau, Bavaria, the young men used to light their lanterns at the newly-kindled Easter candle in the church and then race to the bonfire; he who reached it first set fire to the pile, and next day, Easter Sunday, was rewarded at the church-door by the housewives, who presented him with red eggs. Great was the jubilation while the effigy of the traitor was being consumed in the flames. The ashes were carefully collected and thrown away at sunrise in running water.[306] In many parts of the Abruzzi, also, pious people kindle their fires on Easter Sat.u.r.day with a brand brought from the sacred new fire in the church. When the brand has thus served to bless the fire on the domestic hearth, it is extinguished, and the remainder is preserved, partly in a cranny of the outer wall of the house, partly on a tree to which it is tied. This is done for the purpose of guarding the homestead against injury by storms. At Campo di Giove the people say that if you can get a piece of one of the three holy candles which the priest lights from the new fire, you should allow a few drops of the wax to fall into the crown of your hat; for after that, if it should thunder and lighten, you have nothing to do but to clap the hat on your head, and no flash of lightning can possibly strike you.[307]

[Water as well as fire consecrated in the Abruzzi on Easter Sat.u.r.day; water consecrated in Calabria on Easter Sat.u.r.day; water and fire consecrated on Easter Sat.u.r.day among the Germans of Bohemia; Easter rites of fire and water at Hildesheim.]

Further, it deserves to be noted that in the Abruzzi water as well as fire is, as it were, renewed and consecrated on Easter Sat.u.r.day. Most people fetch holy water on that day from the churches, and every member of the family drinks a little of it, believing that it has power to protect him or her against witchcraft, fever, and stomach-aches of all sorts. And when the church bells ring again after their enforced silence, the water is sprinkled about the house, and especially under the beds, with the help of a palm-branch. Some of this blessed water is also kept in the house for use in great emergencies, when there is no time to fetch a priest; thus it may be employed to baptize a newborn infant gasping for life or to sprinkle a sick man in the last agony; such a sprinkling is reckoned equal to priestly absolution.[308] In Calabria the customs with regard to the new water, as it is called, on Easter Sat.u.r.day are similar; it is poured into a new vessel, adorned with ribbons and flowers, is blessed by the priest, and is tasted by every one of the household, beginning with the parents. And when the air vibrates with the glad music of the church bells announcing the resurrection, the people sprinkle the holy water about the houses, bidding in a loud voice all evil things to go forth and all good things to come in. At the same time, to emphasize the exorcism, they knock on doors, window-shutters, chests, and other domestic articles of furniture. At Cetraro people who suffer from diseases of the skin bathe in the sea at this propitious moment; at Pietro in Guarano they plunge into the river on the night of Easter Sat.u.r.day before Easter Sunday dawns, and while they bathe they utter never a word. Moreover, the Calabrians keep the "new water" as a sacred thing. They believe that it serves as a protection against witchcraft if it is sprinkled on a fire or a lamp, when the wood crackles or the wick sputters; for they regard it as a bad omen when the fire talks, as they say.[309] Among the Germans of Western Bohemia, also, water as well as fire is consecrated by the priest in front of the church on Easter Sat.u.r.day. People bring jugs full of water to the church and set them beside the holy fire; afterwards they use the water to sprinkle on the palm-branches which are stuck in the fields. Charred sticks of the Judas fire, as it is popularly called, are supposed to possess a magical and healing virtue; hence the people take them home with them, and even scuffle with each other for the still glowing embers in order to carry them, still glimmering, to their houses and so obtain "the light" or "the holy light."[310] At Hildesheim, also, and the neighbouring villages of central Germany rites both of fire and water are or were till lately observed at Easter. Thus on Easter night many people fetch water from the Innerste river and keep it carefully, believing it to be a remedy for many sorts of ailments both of man and beast. In the villages on the Leine river servant men and maids used to go silently on Easter night between the hours of eleven and twelve and silently draw water in buckets from the river; they mixed the water with the fodder and the drink of the cattle to make the animals thrive, and they imagined that to wash in it was good for human beings. Many were also of opinion that at the same mystic hour the water turned to wine as far as the crowing of a c.o.c.k could be heard, and in this belief they laid themselves flat on their stomachs and kept their tongues in the water till the miraculous change occurred, when they took a great gulp of the transformed water. At Hildesheim, too, and the neighbouring villages fires used to blaze on all the heights on Easter Eve; and embers taken from the bonfires were dipped in the cattle troughs to benefit the beasts and were kept in the houses to avert lightning.[311]

[New fire at Easter in Carinthia; consecration of fire and water by the Catholic Church at Easter.]

In the Lesachthal, Carinthia, all the fires in the houses used to be extinguished on Easter Sat.u.r.day, and rekindled with a fresh fire brought from the churchyard, where the priest had lit it by the friction of flint and steel and had bestowed his blessing on it.[312] Such customs were probably widespread. In a Latin poem of the sixteenth century, written by a certain Thomas Kirchmeyer and translated into English by Barnabe Googe, we read:--

"_On Easter Eve the fire all is quencht in every place, And fresh againe from out the flint is fetcht with solemne grace: The priest doth halow this against great daungers many one, A brande whereof doth every man with greedie mind take home, That when the fearefull storme appeares, or tempest black arise, By lighting this he safe may be from stroke of hurtful skies: A taper great, the Paschall namde, with musicke then they blesse, And franckensence herein they p.r.i.c.ke, for greater holynesse: This burneth night and day as signe of Christ that conquerde h.e.l.l, As if so be this foolish toye suffiseth this to tell.

Then doth the Bishop or the Priest, the water halow straight, That for their baptisme is reservde: for now no more of waight Is that they usde the yeare before, nor can they any more, Yong children christen with the same, as they have done before.

With wondrous pompe and furniture, amid the Church they go, With candles, crosses, banners, Chrisme, and oyle appoynted tho: Nine times about the font they marche, and on the saintes doe call, Then still at length they stande, and straight the Priest begins withall, And thrise the water doth he touche, and crosses thereon make, Here bigge and barbrous wordes he speakes, to make the devill quake: And holsome waters conjureth, and foolishly doth dresse, Supposing holyar that to make, which G.o.d before did blesse: And after this his candle than, he thrusteth in the floode, And thrise he breathes thereon with breath, that stinkes of former foode: And making here an ende, his Chrisme he poureth thereupon, The people staring hereat stande, amazed every one; Beleeving that great powre is given to this water here, By gaping of these learned men, and such like trifling gere.

Therefore in vessels brought they draw, and home they carie some, Against the grieves that to themselves, or to their beastes may come.

Then Clappers cea.s.se, and belles are set againe at libertee, And herewithall the hungrie times of fasting ended bee."_[313]

It is said that formerly all the fires in Rome were lighted afresh from the holy fire kindled in St. Peter's on Easter Sat.u.r.day.[314]

[The new fire on Easter Sat.u.r.day at Florence.]

In Florence the ceremony of kindling the new fire on Easter Eve is peculiar. The holy flame is elicited from certain flints which are said to have been brought by a member of the Pazzi family from the Holy Land.

They are kept in the church of the Holy Apostles on the Piazza del Limbo, and on the morning of Easter Sat.u.r.day the prior strikes fire from them and lights a candle from the new flame. The burning candle is then carried in solemn procession by the clergy and members of the munic.i.p.ality to the high altar in the cathedral. A vast crowd has meanwhile a.s.sembled in the cathedral and the neighbouring square to witness the ceremony; amongst the spectators are many peasants drawn from the surrounding country, for it is commonly believed that on the success or failure of the ceremony depends the fate of the crops for the year. Outside the door of the cathedral stands a festal car drawn by two fine white oxen with gilded horns. The body of the car is loaded with a pyramid of squibs and crackers and is connected by a wire with a pillar set up in front of the high altar. The wire extends down the middle of the nave at a height of about six feet from the ground. Beneath it a clear pa.s.sage is left, the spectators being ranged on either side and crowding the vast interior from wall to wall. When all is ready, High Ma.s.s is celebrated, and precisely at noon, when the first words of the _Gloria_ are being chanted, the sacred fire is applied to the pillar, which like the car is wreathed with fireworks. A moment more and a fiery dove comes flying down the nave, with a hissing sound and a sputter of sparks, between the two hedges of eager spectators. If all goes well, the bird pursues its course along the wire and out at the door, and in another moment a prolonged series of fizzes, pops and bangs announces to the excited crowd in the cathedral that the fireworks on the car are going off. Great is the joy accordingly, especially among the b.u.mpkins, who are now sure of an abundant harvest. But if, as sometimes happens, the dove stops short in its career and fizzles out, revealing itself as a stuffed bird with a packet of squibs tied to its tail, great is the consternation, and deep the curses that issue from between the set teeth of the clodhoppers, who now give up the harvest for lost. Formerly the unskilful mechanician who was responsible for the failure would have been clapped into gaol; but nowadays he is thought sufficiently punished by the storm of public indignation and the loss of his pay. The disaster is announced by placards posted about the streets in the evening; and next morning the newspapers are full of gloomy prognostications.[315]

[The new fire and burning of Judas on Easter Sat.u.r.day in Mexico.]

Some of these customs have been transported by the Catholic Church to the New World. Thus in Mexico the new fire is struck from a flint early in the morning of Easter Sat.u.r.day, and a candle which has been lighted at the sacred flame is carried through the church by a deacon shouting "_Lumen Christi_." Meantime the whole city, we are informed, has been converted into a vast place of execution. Ropes stretch across the streets from house to house, and from every house dangles an effigy of Judas, made of paper pulp. Scores or hundreds of them may adorn a single street. They are of all shapes and sizes, grotesque in form and garbed in strange attire, stuffed with gunpowder, squibs and crackers, sometimes, too, with meat, bread, soap, candy, and clothing, for which the crowd will scramble and scuffle while the effigies are burning.

There they hang grim, black, and sullen in the strong sunshine, greeted with a roar of execration by the pious mob. A peal of bells from the cathedral tower on the stroke of noon gives the signal for the execution. At the sound a frenzy seizes the crowd. They throw themselves furiously on the figures of the detested traitor, cut them down, hurl them with curses into the fire, and fight and struggle with each other in their efforts to tear the effigies to tatters and appropriate their contents. Smoke, stink, sputter of crackers, oaths, curses, yells are now the order of the day. But the traitor does not perish unavenged. For the anatomy of his frame has been cunningly contrived so as in burning to discharge volleys of squibs into his a.s.sailants; and the wounds and burns with which their piety is rewarded form a feature of the morning's entertainment. The English Jockey Club in Mexico used to improve on this popular pastime by suspending huge figures of Judas, stuffed with copper coins, from ropes in front of their clubhouse. These were ignited at the proper moment and lowered within reach of the expectant rabble, and it was the privilege of members of the club, seated in the balcony, to watch the grimaces and to hear the shrieks of the victims, as they stamped and capered about with the hot coppers sticking to their hands, divided in their minds between an acute sense of pain and a thirst for filthy lucre.[316]

[The burning of Judas at Easter in South America.]

Scenes of the same sort, though on a less ambitious scale, are witnessed among the Catholics of South America on the same day. In Brazil the mourning for the death of Christ ceases at noon on Easter Sat.u.r.day and gives place to an extravagant burst of joy at his resurrection. Shots are fired everywhere, and effigies of Judas are hung on trees or dragged about the streets, to be finally burned or otherwise destroyed.[317] In the Indian villages scattered among the wild valleys of the Peruvian Andes figures of the traitor, made of pasteboard and stuffed with squibs and crackers, are hanged on gibbets before the door of the church on Easter Sat.u.r.day. Fire is set to them, and while they crackle and explode, the Indians dance and shout for joy at the destruction of their hated enemy.[318] Similarly at Rio Hacha, in Colombia, Judas is represented during Holy Week by life-sized effigies, and the people fire at them as if they were discharging a sacred duty.[319]

[The new fire on Easter Sat.u.r.day in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem.]

But usages of this sort are not confined to the Latin Church; they are common to the Greek Church also. Every year on the Sat.u.r.day before Easter Sunday a new fire is miraculously kindled at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It descends from heaven and ignites the candles which the patriarch holds in his hands, while with closed eyes he wrestles in prayer all alone in the chapel of the Angel. The worshippers meanwhile wait anxiously in the body of the church, and great are their transports of joy when at one of the windows of the chapel, which had been all dark a minute before, there suddenly appears the hand of an angel, or of the patriarch, holding a lighted taper. This is the sacred new fire; it is pa.s.sed out to the expectant believers, and the desperate struggle which ensues among them to get a share of its blessed influence is only terminated by the intervention of the Turkish soldiery, who restore peace and order by hustling the whole mult.i.tude impartially out of the church. In days gone by many lives were often lost in these holy scrimmages. For example, in the year 1834, the famous Ibrahim Pasha witnessed the frantic scene from one of the galleries, and, being moved with compa.s.sion at the sight, descended with a few guards into the arena in the chimerical hope of restoring peace and order among the contending Christians. He contrived to force his way into the midst of the dense crowd, but there the heat and pressure were so great that he fainted away; a body of soldiers, seeing his danger, charged straight into the throng and carried him out of it in their arms, trampling under foot the dying and dead in their pa.s.sage. Nearly two hundred people were killed that day in the church. The fortunate survivors on these occasions who succeeded in obtaining a portion of the coveted fire applied it freely to their faces, their beards, and their garments. The theory was that the fire, being miraculous, could only bless and not burn them; but the practical results of the experiment were often disappointing, for while the blessings were more or less dubious, there could be no doubt whatever about the burns.[320] The history of the miracle has been carefully investigated by a Jesuit father. The conclusions at which he arrives are that the miracle was a miracle indeed so long as the Catholics had the management of it; but that since it fell into the hands of the heretics it has been nothing but a barefaced trick and imposture.[321] Many people will be disposed to agree with the latter conclusion who might hesitate to accept the former.

[The new fire and the burning of Judas on Easter Sat.u.r.day in Greece.]