Note 200 — Chapter II · THE NATURE OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS

The various methods of transferring or expelling evil, which abundantly illustrate the materialistic notions held about it, have been treated by Dr. Frazer with unrivalled learning (The Golden Bough), iii. 1 sqq. I have little doubt that the fire- and water-ceremonies, once practised all over Europe on a certain day every year, belong to the same group of rites. “The best general explanation of these European fire-festivals,” says Dr. Frazer (ibid. iii. 300), “seems to be the one given by Mannhardt, namely, that they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended to ensure a proper supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants.” But it should be noticed that in Europe, as in Morocco, a purificatory purpose is expressly ascribed to them by the very persons by whom they are practised (see Frazer, op. cit. iii. 238 sqq.), that they alternate with lustration by water (see Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ii. 588 sqq.). On the other hand, in Dr. Frazer’s exhaustive description of these ceremonies I fail to discover a single fact which would make Mannhardt’s hypothesis at all probable. Dr. Frazer says (op. cit. iii. 301), “The custom of rolling a burning wheel down a hillside, which is often observed at these times, seems a very natural imitation of the sun’s course in the sky.” To me it appears as a method of distributing the purificatory energy over the fields or vineyards. Notice, for instance, the following statements:—In the Rhon Mountains, Bavaria, “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…. In neighbouring villages of Hesse … it is thought that wherever the burning wheels roll, the fields will be safe from hail and storm” (ibid. iii. 243 sq.). At Volkmarsen, in Hesse, “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 whisps of straw at the bonfires and rush about brandishing them in their hands” (ibid. iii. 254). In Münsterland, “boys with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them fruitful” (ibid. iii. 255). Dr. Frazer says (ibid. iii. 301), “The custom of throwing blazing discs, shaped liked suns, into the air is probably also a piece of imitative magic.” But why should it not, in conformity with other practices, be regarded as a means of purifying the air? According to old writers, the object of Midsummer fires was to disperse the aerial dragons (ibid. iii. 267). It would carry me too far from my subject to enter into further details. I have dealt with the matter in my article ‘Midsummer Customs in Morocco.’ in Folk-Lore, xvi. 27-47.