Note 61 — DANCING MANIA OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The Bishop Theodoret of Cyrus in Syria states that, at the festival of St. John, large fires were annually kindled in several towns, through which men, women, and children jumped; and that young children were carried through by their mothers. He considered this custom as an ancient Asiatic ceremony of purification, similar to that recorded of Ahaz, in II Kings, xvi. 3. Zonaras, Balsamon, and Photius speak of the St. John's fires in Constantinople, and the first looks upon them as the remains of an old Grecian custom. Even in modern times fires are still lighted on St. John's Day in Brittany and other remote parts of Continental Europe, through the smoke of which the cattle are driven in the belief that they will thus be protected from contagious and other diseases, and in these practices protective fumigation originated. That such different nations should have had the same idea of fixing the purification by fire on St. John's Day is a remarkable coincidence, which perhaps can be accounted for only by its analogy to baptism.