Balder the Beautiful Part 13

At Athens the new fire is kindled in the cathedral at midnight on Holy Sat.u.r.day. A dense crowd with unlit candles in their hands fills the square in front of the cathedral; the king, the archbishop, and the highest dignitaries of the church, arrayed in their gorgeous robes, occupy a platform; and at the exact moment of the resurrection the bells ring out, and the whole square bursts as by magic into a blaze of light.

Theoretically all the candles are lit from the sacred new fire in the cathedral, but practically it may be suspected that the matches which bear the name of Lucifer have some share in the sudden illumination.[322] Effigies of Judas used to be burned at Athens on Easter Sat.u.r.day, but the custom has been forbidden by the Government.

However, firing goes on more or less continuously all over the city both on Easter Sat.u.r.day and Easter Sunday, and the cartridges used on this occasion are not always blank. The shots are aimed at Judas, but sometimes they miss him and hit other people. Outside of Athens the practice of burning Judas in effigy still survives in some places. For example, in Cos a straw image of the traitor is made on Easter Day, and after being hung up and shot at it is burned.[323] A similar custom appears to prevail at Thebes;[324] it used to be observed by the Macedonian peasantry, and it is still kept up at Therapia, a fashionable summer resort of Constantinople.[325]

[The new fire at Candlemas in Armenia.]

In the Armenian Church the sacred new fire is kindled not at Easter but at Candlemas, that is, on the second of February, or on the eve of that festival. The materials of the bonfire are piled in an open s.p.a.ce near a church, and they are generally ignited by young couples who have been married within the year. However, it is the bishop or his vicar who lights the candles with which fire is set to the pile. All young married pairs are expected to range themselves about the fire and to dance round it. Young men leap over the flames, but girls and women content themselves with going round them, while they pray to be preserved from the itch and other skin-diseases. When the ceremony is over, the people eagerly pick up charred sticks or ashes of the fire and preserve them or scatter them on the four corners of the roof, in the cattle-stall, in the garden, and on the pastures; for these holy sticks and ashes protect men and cattle against disease, and fruit-trees against worms and caterpillars. Omens, too, are drawn from the direction in which the wind blows the flames and the smoke: if it carries them eastward, there is hope of a good harvest; but if it inclines them westward, the people fear that the crops will fail.[326]

[The new fire and the burning of Judas at Easter are probably relics of paganism.]

In spite of the thin cloak of Christianity thrown over these customs by representing the new fire as an emblem of Christ and the figure burned in it as an effigy of Judas, we can hardly doubt that both practices are of pagan origin. Neither of them has the authority of Christ or of his disciples; but both of them have abundant a.n.a.logies in popular custom and superst.i.tion. Some instances of the practice of annually extinguishing fires and relighting them from a new and sacred flame have already come before us;[327] but a few examples may here be cited for the sake of ill.u.s.trating the wide diffusion of a custom which has found its way into the ritual both of the Eastern and of the Western Church.

[The new fire at the summer solstice among the Incas of Peru; the new fire among the Indians of Mexico and New Mexico; the new fire among the Esquimaux.]

The Incas of Peru celebrated a festival called Raymi, a word which their native historian Garcila.s.so de la Vega tells us was equivalent to our Easter. It was held in honour of the sun at the solstice in June. For three days before the festival the people fasted, men did not sleep with their wives, and no fires were lighted in Cuzco, the capital. The sacred new fire was obtained direct from the sun by concentrating his beams on a highly polished concave plate and reflecting them on a little cotton wool. With this holy fire the sheep and lambs offered to the sun were consumed, and the flesh of such as were to be eaten at the festival was roasted. Portions of the new fire were also conveyed to the temple of the sun and to the convent of the sacred virgins, where they were kept burning all the year, and it was an ill omen if the holy flame went out.[328] At a festival held in the last month of the old Mexican year all the fires both in the temples and in the houses were extinguished, and the priest kindled a new fire by rubbing two sticks against each other before the image of the fire-G.o.d.[329] The Zuni Indians of New Mexico kindle a new fire by the friction of wood both at the winter and the summer solstice. At the winter solstice the chosen fire-maker collects a f.a.ggot of cedar-wood from every house in the village, and each person, as he hands the wood to the fire-maker, prays that the crops may be good in the coming year. For several days before the new fire is kindled, no ashes or sweepings may be removed from the houses and no artificial light may appear outside of them, not even a burning cigarette or the flash of firearms. The Indians believe that no rain will fall on the fields of the man outside whose house a light has been seen at this season. The signal for kindling the new fire is given by the rising of the Morning Star. The flame is produced by twirling an upright stick between the hands on a horizontal stick laid on the floor of a sacred chamber, the sparks being caught by a tinder of cedar-dust.

It is forbidden to blow up the smouldering tinder with the breath, for that would offend the G.o.ds. After the fire has thus been ceremonially kindled, the women and girls of all the families in the village clean out their houses. They carry the sweepings and ashes in baskets or bowls to the fields and leave them there. To the sweepings the woman says: "I now deposit you as sweepings, but in one year you will return to me as corn." And to the ashes she says: "I now deposit you as ashes, but in one year you will return to me as meal." At the summer solstice the sacred fire which has been procured by the friction of wood is used to kindle the gra.s.s and trees, that there may be a great cloud of smoke, while bull-roarers are swung and prayers offered that the Rain-makers up aloft will water the earth.[330] From this account we see how intimately the kindling of a new fire at the two turning-points of the sun's course is a.s.sociated in the minds of these Indians with the fertility of the land, particularly with the growth of the corn. The rolling smoke is apparently an imitation of rain-clouds designed, on the principle of h.o.m.oeopathic magic, to draw showers from the blue sky. Once a year the Iroquois priesthood supplied the people with a new fire. As a preparation for the annual rite the fires in all the huts were extinguished and the ashes scattered about. Then the priest, wearing the insignia of his office, went from hut to hut relighting the fires by means of a flint.[331] Among the Esquimaux with whom C.F. Hall resided, it was the custom that at a certain time, which answered to our New Year's Day, two men went about from house to house blowing out every light in the village. One of the men was dressed to represent a woman.

Afterwards the lights were rekindled from a fresh fire. An Esquimau woman being asked what all this meant, replied, "New sun--new light."[332] Among the Esquimaux of Iglulik, when the sun first rises above the horizon after the long night of the Arctic winter, the children who have watched for his reappearance run into the houses and blow out the lamps. Then they receive from their mothers presents of pieces of wick.[333]

[The new fire in Wadai, among the Swahili, and in other parts of Africa.]

In the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai all the fires in the villages are put out and the ashes removed from the houses on the day which precedes the New Year festival. At the beginning of the new year a new fire is lit by the friction of wood in the great straw hut where the village elders lounge away the sultry hours together; and every man takes thence a burning brand with which he rekindles the fire on his domestic hearth.[334] In the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Egyptian Sudan the people extinguish their old fires at the Arab New Year and bring in new fire. On the same occasion they beat the walls of their huts, the gra.s.s thatches, and the walls of their enclosures in order to drive away the devil or evil spirits. The beating of the walls and roofs is accompanied by the firing of guns, the shouting of men, and the shriller cries of the women.[335] Thus these people combine an annual expulsion of demons with an annual lighting of a new fire. Among the Swahili of East Africa the greatest festival is that of the New Year, which falls in the second half of August. At a given moment all the fires are extinguished with water and afterwards relit by the friction of two dry pieces of wood.

The ashes of the old fires are carried out and deposited at cross-roads.

All the people get up very early in the morning and bathe in the sea or some other water, praying to be kept in good health and to live that they may bathe again next year. Sham-fights form part of the amus.e.m.e.nts of the day; sometimes they pa.s.s into grim reality. Indeed the day was formerly one of general license; every man did that which was good in his own eyes. No awkward questions were asked about any crimes committed on this occasion, so some people improved the shining hour by knocking a few poor devils on the head. Shooting still goes on during the whole day, and at night the proceedings generally wind up with a great dance.[336] The King of Benametapa, as the early Portuguese traders called him, in East Africa used to send commissioners annually to every town in his dominions; on the arrival of one of these officers the inhabitants of each town had to put out all their fires and to receive a new fire from him. Failure to comply with this custom was treated as rebellion.[337] Some tribes of British Central Africa carefully extinguish the fires on the hearths at the beginning of the hoeing season and at harvest; the fires are afterwards rekindled by friction, and the people indulge in dances of various kinds.[338]

[The new fire among the Todas of Southern India and among the Nagas of North-Eastern India.]

The Todas of the Neilgheny Hills, in Southern India, annually kindle a sacred new fire by the friction of wood in the month which begins with the October moon. The ceremony is performed by two holy dairymen at the foot of a high hill. When they have lighted the fire by rubbing two dry sticks together, and it begins to burn well, they stand a little way off and pray, saying, "May the young gra.s.s flower! May honey flourish! May fruit ripen!" The purpose of the ceremony is to make the gra.s.s and honey plentiful. In ancient times the Todas lived largely on wild fruits, and then the rite of the new fire was very important. Now that they subsist chiefly on the milk of their buffaloes, the ceremony has lost much of its old significance.[339] When the Nagas of North-Eastern India have felled the timber and cut down the scrub in those patches of jungle which they propose to cultivate, they put out all the fires in the village and light a new fire by rubbing two dry pieces of wood together.

Then having kindled torches at it they proceed with them to the jungle and ignite the felled timber and brushwood. The flesh of a cow or buffalo is also roasted on the new fire and furnishes a sacrificial meal.[340] Near the small town of Kahma in Burma, between Prome and Thayetmyo, certain gases escape from a hollow in the ground and burn with a steady flame during the dry season of the year. The people regard the flame as the forge of a spectral smith who here carried on his business after death had removed him from his old smithy in the village.

Once a year all the household fires in Kahma are extinguished and then lighted afresh from the ghostly flame.[341]

[The new fire in China and j.a.pan.]

In China every year, about the beginning of April, certain officials, called _Sz'huen_, used of old to go about the country armed with wooden clappers. Their business was to summon the people and command them to put out every fire. This was the beginning of a season called _Han-shih-tsieh_, or "eating cold food." For three days all household fires remained extinct as a preparation for the solemn renewal of the fire, which took place on the fifth or sixth day of April, being the hundred and fifth day after the winter solstice. The ceremony was performed with great pomp by the same officials, who procured the new fire from heaven by reflecting the sun's rays either from a metal mirror or from a crystal on dry moss. Fire thus obtained is called by the Chinese heavenly fire, and its use is enjoined in sacrifices; whereas fire elicited by the friction of wood is termed by them earthly fire, and its use is prescribed for cooking and other domestic purposes. When once the new fire had thus been drawn from the sun, all the people were free to rekindle their domestic hearths; and, as a Chinese distich has it--

"_At the festival of the cold food there are a thousand white stalks among the flowers; On the day Tsing-ming, at sunrise, you may see the smoke of ten thousand houses_."

According to a Chinese philosopher, the reason for thus renewing fire periodically is that the vital principle grows weaker and weaker in old fire, whereas in new fire it is young and vigorous. This annual renewal of fire was a ceremony of very great antiquity in China, since it is known to have been observed in the time of the first dynasty, about two thousand years before Christ. Under the Tcheou dynasty a change in the calendar led to shifting the fire-festival from spring to the summer solstice, but afterwards it was brought back to its original date.

Although the custom appears to have long fallen into disuse, the barbarous inhabitants of Hainan, an island to the south of China, still call a year "a fire," as if in memory of the time when the years were reckoned by the annually recurring ceremony of rekindling the sacred fire.[342] "A j.a.panese book written two centuries ago informs us that sticks resembling the wands used for offerings at the purification ceremony were part shaven and set up in bundles at the four corners of the Gion shrine on the last day of the year. The priests, after prayers were recited, broke up the bundles and set fire to the sticks, which the people then carried home to light their household fires with for the New Year. The object of this ceremony was to avert pestilence."[343]

[The new fire in ancient Greece and Rome.]

In cla.s.sical antiquity the Greek island of Lemnos was devoted to the worship of the smith-G.o.d Hephaestus, who was said to have fallen on it when Zeus hurled him from heaven.[344] Once a year every fire in the island was extinguished and remained extinct for nine days, during which sacrifices were offered to the dead and to the infernal powers. New fire was brought in a ship from the sacred isle of Delos, and with it the fires in the houses and the workshops were relit. The people said that with the new fire they made a new beginning of life. If the ship that bore the sacred flame arrived too soon, it might not put in to sh.o.r.e, but had to cruise in the offing till the nine days were expired.[345] At Rome the sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was kindled anew every year on the first of March, which used to be the beginning of the Roman year;[346] the task of lighting it was entrusted to the Vestal Virgins, and they performed it by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till the flame was elicited by friction. The new fire thus produced was carried into the temple of Vesta by one of the virgins in a bronze sieve.[347]

[The new fire at Hallow E'en among the old Celts of Ireland; the new fire on September 1st among the Russian peasants.]

Among the Celts of Ireland a new fire was annually kindled on Hallowe'en or the Eve of Samhain, as they called it, the last day of October, from which the Irish new year began; and all the hearths throughout the country are said to have been relighted from the fresh fire. The place where this holy flame was lit bore the name of Tlachtga or Tlactga; it has been identified with a rath or native fort on the Hill of Ward near Athboy in the county of Meath. "It was there," says the old Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating, "that the Festival of the Fire of Tlactga was ordered to be held, and it was thither that the Druids of Ireland were wont to repair and to a.s.semble, in solemn meeting, on the eve of Samhain, for the purpose of making a sacrifice to all the G.o.ds. It was in that fire at Tlactga, that their sacrifice was burnt; and it was made obligatory, under pain of punishment, to extinguish all the fires of Ireland, on that eve; and the men of Ireland were allowed to kindle no other fire but that one; and for each of the other fires, which were all to be lighted from it, the king of Munster was to receive a tax of a _sgreball_, that is, of three pence, because the land, upon which Tlactga was built, belongs to the portion of Meath which had been taken from Munster."[348] In the villages near Moscow at the present time the peasants put out all their fires on the eve of the first of September, and next morning at sunrise a wise man or a wise woman rekindles them with the help of muttered incantations and spells.[349]

[Thus the ceremony of the new fire in the Eastern and Western Church is probably a relic of an old heathen rite.]

Instances of such practices might doubtless be multiplied, but the foregoing examples may suffice to render it probable that the ecclesiastical ceremony of lighting a sacred new fire on Easter Sat.u.r.day had originally nothing to do with Christianity, but is merely one case of a world-wide custom which the Church has seen fit to incorporate in its ritual. It might be supposed that in the Western Church the custom was merely a survival of the old Roman usage of renewing the fire on the first of March, were it not that the observance by the Eastern Church of the custom on the same day seems to point back to a still older period when the ceremony of lighting a new fire in spring, perhaps at the vernal equinox, was common to many peoples of the Mediterranean area. We may conjecture that wherever such a ceremony has been observed, it originally marked the beginning of a new year, as it did in ancient Rome and Ireland, and as it still does in the Sudanese kingdom of Wadai and among the Swahili of Eastern Africa.

[The pagan character of the Easter fire appears from the superst.i.tions a.s.sociated with it, such as the belief that the fire fertilizes the fields and protects houses from conflagration and sickness.]

The essentially pagan character of the Easter fire festival appears plainly both from the mode in which it is celebrated by the peasants and from the superst.i.tious beliefs which they a.s.sociate with it. All over northern and central Germany, from Altmark and Anhalt on the east, through Brunswick, Hanover, Oldenburg, the Harz district, and Hesse to Westphalia the Easter bonfires still blaze simultaneously on the hill-tops. As many as forty may sometimes be counted within sight at once. Long before Easter the young people have been busy collecting firewood; every farmer contributes, and tar-barrels, petroleum cases, and so forth go to swell the pile. Neighbouring villages vie with each other as to which shall send up the greatest blaze. The fires are always kindled, year after year, on the same hill, which accordingly often takes the name of Easter Mountain. It is a fine spectacle to watch from some eminence the bonfires flaring up one after another on the neighbouring heights. As far as their light reaches, so far, in the belief of the peasants, the fields will be fruitful, and the houses on which they shine will be safe from conflagration or sickness. At Volkma.r.s.en and other places in Hesse the people used to observe which way the wind blew the flames, and then they sowed flax seed in that direction, confident that it would grow well. Brands taken from the bonfires preserve houses from being struck by lightning; and the ashes increase the fertility of the fields, protect them from mice, and mixed with the drinking-water of cattle make the animals thrive and ensure them against plague. As the flames die down, young and old leap over them, and cattle are sometimes driven through the smouldering embers. In some places tar-barrels or wheels wrapt in straw used to be set on fire, and then sent rolling down the hillside. In others the boys light torches and wisps of straw at the bonfires and rush about brandishing them in their hands. Where the people are divided between Protestantism and Catholicism, as in Hildesheim, it has been observed that among Protestants the Easter bonfires are generally left to the boys, while in Catholic districts they are cared for by grown-up persons, and here the whole population will gather round the blazing pile and join in singing choral hymns, which echo far and wide in the stillness of night.[350]

[The Easter fires in Munsterland, Oldenburg, the Harz Mountains and the Altmark.]

In Munsterland these Easter fires are always kindled upon certain definite hills, which are hence known as Easter or Paschal Mountains.

The whole community a.s.sembles about the fire. Fathers of families form an inner circle round it. An outer circle is composed of the young men and maidens, who, singing Easter hymns, march round and round the fire in the direction of the sun, till the blaze dies down. Then the girls jump over the fire in a line, one after the other, each supported by two young men who hold her hands and run beside her. When the fire has burned out, the whole a.s.sembly marches in solemn procession to the church, singing hymns. They go thrice round the church, and then break up. In the twilight boys with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them fruitful.[351] At Delmenhorst, in Oldenburg, it used to be the custom to cut down two trees, plant them in the ground side by side, and pile twelve tar-barrels, one above the other, against each of the trees. Brushwood was then heaped about the trees, and on the evening of Easter Sat.u.r.day the boys, after rushing about with blazing beanpoles in their hands, set fire to the whole. At the end of the ceremony the urchins tried to blacken each other and the clothes of grown-up people.[352] In Schaumburg the Easter bonfires may be seen blazing on all the mountains around for miles. They are made with a tar-barrel fastened to a pine-tree, which is wrapt in straw. The people dance singing round them.[353] In the Harz Mountains the fire is commonly made by piling brushwood about a tree and setting it on fire. At Osterode every one tries to s.n.a.t.c.h a brand from the bonfire and runs about with it; the better it burns, the more lucky it is. In Grund there are torch-races.[354] In the Altmark the Easter bonfires are composed of tar-barrels, bee-hives, and so forth, piled round a pole. The young folk dance round the fire; and when it has died out, the old folk come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no conflagration will break out.[355] At Braunrode, in the Harz Mountains, it was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.[356] In the Altmark, bones were burned in it.[357]

[The Easter fires in Bavaria; the burning of Judas; burning the Easter Man.]

Further south the Easter fires are, or used to be, lit in many districts of Bavaria. Thus on Easter Monday in some parts of Middle Franken the schoolboys collect all the old worn-out besoms they can lay hands on, and march with them in a long procession to a neighbouring height. When the first chime of the evening bell comes up from the dale they set fire to the brooms, and run along the ridges waving them, so that seen from below the hills appear to be crested with a twinkling and moving chain of fire.[358] In some parts of Upper Bavaria at Easter burning arrows or discs of wood were shot from hill-tops high into the air, as in the Swabian and Swiss customs already described.[359] At Oberau, instead of the discs, an old cart-wheel was sometimes wrapt in straw, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down the mountain. The lads who hurled the discs received painted Easter eggs from the girls.[360] Near Forchheim, in Upper Franken, a straw-man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards on Easter Sat.u.r.day. The whole village contributed wood to the pyre on which he perished, and the charred sticks were afterwards kept and planted in the fields on Walpurgis Day (the first of May) to preserve the wheat from blight and mildew.[361] About a hundred years ago or more the custom at Althenneberg, in Upper Bavaria, used to be as follows. On the afternoon of Easter Sat.u.r.day the lads collected wood, which they piled in a cornfield, while in the middle of the pile they set up a tall wooden cross all swathed in straw. After the evening service they lighted their lanterns at the consecrated candle in the church, and ran with them at full speed to the pyre, each striving to get there first. The first to arrive set fire to the heap. No woman or girl might come near the bonfire, but they were allowed to watch it from a distance. As the flames rose the men and lads rejoiced and made merry, shouting, "We are burning the Judas!" Two of them had to watch the glowing embers the whole night long, lest people should come and steal them. Next morning at sunrise they carefully collected the ashes, and threw them into the running water of the Roten brook. The man who had been the first to reach the pyre and to kindle it was rewarded on Easter Sunday by the women, who gave him coloured eggs at the church door.

Well-to-do women gave him two; poorer women gave him only one. The object of the whole ceremony was to keep off the hail. About a century ago the Judas fire, as it was called, was put down by the police.[362]

At Giggenhausen and Aufkirchen, two other villages of Upper Bavaria, a similar custom prevailed, yet with some interesting differences. Here the ceremony, which took place between nine and ten at night on Easter Sat.u.r.day, was called "burning the Easter Man." On a height about a mile from the village the young fellows set up a tall cross enveloped in straw, so that it looked like a man with his arms stretched out. This was the Easter Man. No lad under eighteen years of age might take part in the ceremony. One of the young men stationed himself beside the Easter Man, holding in his hand a consecrated taper which he had brought from the church and lighted. The rest stood at equal intervals in a great circle round the cross. At a given signal they raced thrice round the circle, and then at a second signal ran straight at the cross and at the lad with the lighted taper beside it; the one who reached the goal first had the right of setting fire to the Easter Man. Great was the jubilation while he was burning. When he had been consumed in the flames, three lads were chosen from among the rest, and each of the three drew a circle on the ground with a stick thrice round the ashes.

Then they all left the spot. On Easter Monday the villagers gathered the ashes and strewed them on their fields; also they planted in the fields palm-branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday, and sticks which had been charred and hallowed on Good Friday, all for the purpose of protecting their fields against showers of hail. The custom of burning an Easter Man made of straw on Easter Sat.u.r.day was observed also at Abensberg, in Lower Bavaria.[363] In some parts of Swabia the Easter fires might not be kindled with iron or steel or flint, but only by the friction of wood.[364]

[The Easter fires in Baden; "Thunder poles."]

In Baden bonfires are still kindled in the churchyards on Easter Sat.u.r.day, and ecclesiastical refuse of various sorts, such as candle-ends, old surplices, and the wool used by the priest in the application of extreme unction, is consumed in the flames. At Zoznegg down to about 1850 the fire was lighted by the priest by means of a flint which had never been used before. People bring sticks, especially oaken sticks, char them in the fire, and then carry them home and keep them in the house as a preservative against lightning. At Zoznegg these oaken sticks were sword-shaped, each about an ell and a half long, and they went by the name of "weather or thunder poles" (_Wetterpfahle_).

When a thunderstorm threatened to break out, one of the sticks was put into a small fire, in order that the hallowed smoke, ascending to the clouds, might ward off the lightning from the house and the hail from the fields and gardens. At Schollbronn the oaken sticks, which are thus charred in the Easter bonfire and kept in the house as a protective against thunder and lightning, are three in number, perhaps with an allusion to the Trinity; they are brought every Easter to be consecrated afresh in the bonfire, till they are quite burnt away. In the lake district of Baden it is also customary to burn one of these holy sticks in the fire when a heavy thunderstorm is raging.[365] Hence it seems that the ancient a.s.sociation of the oak with the thunder[366] persists in the minds of German peasants to the present day.

[Easter fires in Holland and Sweden; the burning of Judas in Bohemia.]

Thus the custom of the Easter fires appears to have prevailed all over central and western Germany from north to south. We find it also in Holland, where the fires were kindled on the highest eminences, and the people danced round them and leaped through the flames or over the glowing embers. Here too, as so often in Germany, the materials for the bonfire were collected by the young folk from door to door.[367] In many parts of Sweden firearms are, as at Athens, discharged in all directions on Easter eve, and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences.

Some people think that the intention is to keep off the Troll and other evil spirits who are especially active at this season.[368] When the afternoon service on Good Friday is over, German children in Bohemia drive Judas out of the church by running about the sacred edifice and even the streets shaking rattles and clappers. Next day, on Easter Sat.u.r.day, the remains of the holy oil are burnt before the church door in a fire which must be kindled with flint and steel. This fire is called "the burning of Judas," but in spite of its evil name a beneficent virtue is ascribed to it, for the people scuffle for the cinders, which they put in the roofs of their houses as a safeguard against fire and lightning.[369]

-- 3. _The Beltane Fires_

[The Beltane fires on the first of May in the Highlands of Scotland; description of the Beltane fires by John Ramsay of Ochtertyre in the eighteenth century.]

In the central Highlands of Scotland bonfires, known as the Beltane fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the first of May, and the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and unequivocal. The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them in the words of their authors. The fullest of the descriptions, so far as I know, is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre, near Crieff, the patron of Burns and the friend of Sir Walter Scott. From his voluminous ma.n.u.scripts, written in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, a selection was published in the latter part of the nineteenth century. The following account of Beltane is extracted from a chapter dealing with Highland superst.i.tions.

Ramsay says: "But the most considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day, which was lately observed in some parts of the Highlands with extraordinary ceremonies. Of later years it is chiefly attended to by young people, persons advanced in years considering it as inconsistent with their gravity to give it any countenance. Yet a number of circ.u.mstances relative to it may be collected from tradition, or the conversation of very old people, who witnessed this feast in their youth, when the ancient rites were better observed.

[Need-fire.]

"This festival is called in Gaelic _Beal-tene_--i.e., the fire of Bel.... Like the other public worship of the Druids, the Beltane feast seems to have been performed on hills or eminences. They thought it degrading to him whose temple is the universe, to suppose that he would dwell in any house made with hands. Their sacrifices were therefore offered in the open air, frequently upon the tops of hills, where they were presented with the grandest views of nature, and were nearest the seat of warmth and order. And, according to tradition, such was the manner of celebrating this festival in the Highlands within the last hundred years. But since the decline of superst.i.tion, it has been celebrated by the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their cattle were pasturing. Thither the young folks repaired in the morning, and cut a trench, on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the company. And in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed, which of old they kindled with _tein-eigin_-- i.e., forced-fire or _need-fire_. Although, for many years past, they have been contented with common fire, yet we shall now describe the process, because it will hereafter appear that recourse is still had to the _tein-eigin_ upon extraordinary emergencies.

[Need-fire kindled by the friction of oak wood.]

"The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully extinguished, and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different.

They used a frame of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree. In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime, it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch-trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft, and a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their nature changed.

[The Beltane cake and the Beltane carline (_cailleach_).]

"After kindling the bonfire with the _tein-eigin_ the company prepared their victuals. And as soon as they had finished their meal, they amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge, called _am bonnach beal-tine--i.e._ the Beltane cake. It was divided into a number of pieces, and distributed in great form to the company. There was one particular piece which whoever got was called _cailleach beal-tine--i.e._, the Beltane _carline_, a term of great reproach. Upon his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued. And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with egg-sh.e.l.ls, and retained the odious appellation during the whole year.

And while the feast was fresh in people's memory, they affected to speak of the _cailleach beal-tine_ as dead.