Note (return) — Chapter V

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 married847 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.