Balder the Beautiful Part 36

The rule observed in some places that the bonfires should be kindled by the person who was last married[847] seems to belong to the same cla.s.s 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.

[The custom of carrying lighted torches about the country at the festival may be explained as an attempt to diffuse the Sun's heat.]

At the festivals which we are considering the custom of kindling bonfires is commonly a.s.sociated with a custom of carrying lighted torches about the fields, the orchards, the pastures, the flocks and the herds; and we can hardly doubt that the two customs are only two different ways of attaining the same object, namely, the benefits which are believed to flow from the fire, whether it be stationary or portable. Accordingly if we accept the solar theory of the bonfires, we seem bound to apply it also to the torches; we must suppose that the practice of marching or running with blazing torches about the country is simply a means of diffusing far and wide the genial influence of the suns.h.i.+ne, of which these flickering flames are a feeble imitation. In favour of this view it may be said that sometimes the torches are carried about the fields for the express purpose of fertilizing them,[850] and for the same purpose live coals from the bonfires are sometimes placed in the fields "to prevent blight."[851] On the Eve of Twelfth Day in Normandy men, women, and children run wildly through the fields and orchards with lighted torches, which they wave about the branches and dash against the trunks of the fruit-trees for the sake of burning the moss and driving away the moles and field mice. "They believe that the ceremony fulfils the double object of exorcizing the vermin whose multiplication would be a real calamity, and of imparting fecundity to the trees, the fields, and even the cattle"; and they imagine that the more the ceremony is prolonged, the greater will be the crop of fruit next autumn.[852] In Bohemia they say that the corn will grow as high as they fling the blazing besoms into the air.[853] Nor are such notions confined to Europe. In Corea, a few days before the New Year festival, the eunuchs of the palace swing burning torches, chanting invocations the while, and this is supposed to ensure bountiful crops for the next season.[854] The custom of trundling a burning wheel over the fields, which used to be observed in Poitou for the express purpose of fertilizing them,[855] may be thought to embody the same idea in a still more graphic form; since in this way the mock-sun itself, not merely its light and heat represented by torches, is made actually to pa.s.s over the ground which is to receive its quickening and kindly influence. Once more, the custom of carrying lighted brands round cattle[856] is plainly equivalent to driving the animals through the bonfire; and if the bonfire is a sun-charm, the torches must be so also.

-- 3. _The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals_

[Theory that the fires at the festivals are purificatory, being intended to burn up all harmful things.]

Thus far we have considered what may be said for the theory that at the European fire-festivals the fire is kindled as a charm to ensure an abundant supply of suns.h.i.+ne for man and beast, for corn and fruits. It remains to consider what may be said against this theory and in favour of the view that in these rites fire is employed not as a creative but as a cleansing agent, which purifies men, animals, and plants by burning up and consuming the noxious elements, whether material or spiritual, which menace all living things with disease and death.

[The purificatory or destructive effect of the fires is often alleged by the people who light them; the great evil against which the fire at the festivals is directed appears to be witchcraft.]

First, then, it is to be observed that the people who practise the fire-customs appear never to allege the solar theory in explanation of them, while on the contrary they do frequently and emphatically put forward the purificatory theory. This is a strong argument in favour of the purificatory and against the solar theory; for the popular explanation of a popular custom is never to be rejected except for grave cause. And in the present case there seems to be no adequate reason for rejecting it. The conception of fire as a destructive agent, which can be turned to account for the consumption of evil things, is so simple and obvious that it could hardly escape the minds even of the rude peasantry with whom these festivals originated. On the other hand the conception of fire as an emanation of the sun, or at all events as linked to it by a bond of physical sympathy, is far less simple and obvious; and though the use of fire as a charm to produce suns.h.i.+ne appears to be undeniable,[857] nevertheless in attempting to explain popular customs we should never have recourse to a more recondite idea when a simpler one lies to hand and is supported by the explicit testimony of the people themselves. Now in the case of the fire-festivals the destructive aspect of fire is one upon which the people dwell again and again; and it is highly significant that the great evil against which the fire is directed appears to be witchcraft.

Again and again we are told that the fires are intended to burn or repel the witches;[858] and the intention is sometimes graphically expressed by burning an effigy of a witch in the fire.[859] Hence, when we remember the great hold which the dread of witchcraft has had on the popular European mind in all ages, we may suspect that the primary intention of all these fire-festivals was simply to destroy or at all events get rid of the witches, who were regarded as the causes of nearly all the misfortunes and calamities that befall men, their cattle, and their crops.[860]

[Amongst the evils for which the fire-festivals are deemed remedies the foremost is cattle-disease, and cattle-disease is often supposed to be an effect of witchcraft.]

This suspicion is confirmed when we examine the evils for which the bonfires and torches were supposed to provide a remedy. Foremost, perhaps, among these evils we may reckon the diseases of cattle; and of all the ills that witches are believed to work there is probably none which is so constantly insisted on as the harm they do to the herds, particularly by stealing the milk from the cows.[861] Now it is significant that the need-fire, which may perhaps be regarded as the parent of the periodic fire-festivals, is kindled above all as a remedy for a murrain or other disease of cattle; and the circ.u.mstance suggests, what on general grounds seems probable, that the custom of kindling the need-fire goes back to a time when the ancestors of the European peoples subsisted chiefly on the products of their herds, and when agriculture as yet played a subordinate part in their lives. Witches and wolves are the two great foes still dreaded by the herdsman in many parts of Europe;[862] and we need not wonder that he should resort to fire as a powerful means of banning them both. Among Slavonic peoples it appears that the foes whom the need-fire is designed to combat are not so much living witches as vampyres and other evil spirits,[863] and the ceremony, as we saw, aims rather at repelling these baleful beings than at actually consuming them in the flames. But for our present purpose these distinctions are immaterial. The important thing to observe is that among the Slavs the need-fire, which is probably the original of all the ceremonial fires now under consideration, is not a sun-charm, but clearly and unmistakably nothing but a means of protecting man and beast against the attacks of maleficent creatures, whom the peasant thinks to burn or scare by the heat of the fire, just as he might burn or scare wild animals.

[Again, the bonfires are thought to avert hail, thunder, lightning, and other maladies, all of which are attributed to the maleficent arts of witches.]

Again, the bonfires are often supposed to protect the fields against hail[864] and the homestead against thunder and lightning.[865] But both hail and thunderstorms are frequently thought to be caused by witches;[866] hence the fire which bans the witches necessarily serves at the same time as a talisman against hail, thunder, and lightning.

Further, brands taken from the bonfires are commonly kept in the houses to guard them against conflagration;[867] and though this may perhaps be done on the principle of h.o.m.oeopathic magic, one fire being thought to act as a preventive of another, it is also possible that the intention may be to keep witch-incendiaries at bay. Again, people leap over the bonfires as a preventive of colic,[868] and look at the flames steadily in order to preserve their eyes in good health;[869] and both colic and sore eyes are in Germany, and probably elsewhere, set down to the machinations of witches.[870] Once more, to leap over the Midsummer fires or to circ.u.mambulate them is thought to prevent a person from feeling pains in his back at reaping;[871] and in Germany such pains are called "witch-shots" and ascribed to witchcraft.[872]

[The burning wheels rolled down hills and the burning discs and brooms thrown into the air may be intended to burn the invisible witches.]

But if the bonfires and torches of the fire-festivals are to be regarded primarily as weapons directed against witches and wizards, it becomes probable that the same explanation applies not only to the flaming discs which are hurled into the air, but also to the burning wheels which are rolled down hill on these occasions; discs and wheels, we may suppose, are alike intended to burn the witches who hover invisible in the air or haunt unseen the fields, the orchards, and the vineyards on the hillside.[873] Certainly witches are constantly thought to ride through the air on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past overhead in the gloom? The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the hags, while he curses them, saying, "Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is a heathen, d.a.m.ned of G.o.d and fettered through the Redeemer's blood." Also he brings out a pot of glowing charcoal on which he has thrown holy oil, laurel leaves, and wormwood to make a smoke. The fumes are supposed to ascend to the clouds and stupefy the witches, so that they tumble down to earth. And in order that they may not fall soft, but may hurt themselves very much, the yokel hastily brings out a chair and tilts it bottom up so that the witch in falling may break her legs on the legs of the chair. Worse than that, he cruelly lays scythes, bill-hooks and other formidable weapons edge upwards so as to cut and mangle the poor wretches when they drop plump upon them from the clouds.[874]

[On this view the fertility supposed to follow the use of fire results indirectly from breaking the spells of witches.]

On this view the fertility supposed to follow the application of fire in the form of bonfires, torches, discs, rolling wheels, and so forth, is not conceived as resulting directly from an increase of solar heat which the fire has magically generated; it is merely an indirect result obtained by freeing the reproductive powers of plants and animals from the fatal obstruction of witchcraft. And what is true of the reproduction of plants and animals may hold good also of the fertility of the human s.e.xes. We have seen that the bonfires are supposed to promote marriage and to procure offspring for childless couples. This happy effect need not flow directly from any quickening or fertilizing energy in the fire; it may follow indirectly from the power of the fire to remove those obstacles which the spells of witches and wizards notoriously present to the union of man and wife.[875]

[On the whole the theory of the purificatory or destructive intention of the fire-festivals seems the more probable.]

On the whole, then, the theory of the purificatory virtue of the ceremonial fires appears more probable and more in accordance with the evidence than the opposing theory of their connexion with the sun. But Europe is not the only part of the world where ceremonies of this sort have been performed; elsewhere the pa.s.sage through the flames or smoke or over the glowing embers of a bonfire, which is the central feature of most of the rites, has been employed as a cure or a preventive of various ills. We have seen that the midsummer ritual of fire in Morocco is practically identical with that of our European peasantry; and customs more or less similar have been observed by many races in various parts of the world. A consideration of some of them may help us to decide between the conflicting claims of the two rival theories, which explain the ceremonies as sun-charms or purifications respectively.

Notes:

[796] Above, pp. 116 _sq._, 119, 143, 165, 166, 168 _sq._, 172.

[797] Above, pp. 116, 117 _sq._, 119, 141, 143, 161, 162 _sq._, 163 _sq._, 173, 191, 201.

[798] W. Mannhardt, _Der Baumkultus der Germanen und ihrer Nachbarstamme_ (Berlin, 1875), pp. 521 _sqq._

[799] E. Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-lore_, xvi.

(1905) pp. 44 _sqq.; id., The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_ (London, 1906-1908), i. 56; _id., Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in Morocco_ (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 93-102.

[800] E. Mogk, "Sitten und Gebrauche im Kreislauf des Jahres," in R.

Wuttke's _Sachsische Volkskunde_*[2] (Dresden, 1901), pp. 310 _sq._

[801] _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition (London, 1900), iii. 312: "The custom of leaping over the fire and driving cattle through it may be intended, on the one hand, to secure for man and beast a share of the vital energy of the sun, and, on the other hand, to purge them of all evil influences; for to the primitive mind fire is the most powerful of all purificatory agents"; and again, _id._ iii. 314: "It is quite possible that in these customs the idea of the quickening power of fire may be combined with the conception of it as a purgative agent for the expulsion or destruction of evil beings, such as witches and the vermin that destroy the fruits of the earth. Certainly the fires are often interpreted in the latter way by the persons who light them; and this purgative use of the element comes out very prominently, as we have seen, in the general expulsion of demons from towns and villages. But in the present cla.s.s of cases this aspect of fire may be secondary, if indeed it is more than a later misinterpretation of the custom."

[802] _The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings_, i. 311 _sqq_.

[803] See _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 254 _sqq_.

[804] Manilius, _Astronom_. v. 206 _sqq._:

"_c.u.m vero in vastos surget Nemeaeus hiatus, Exoriturque Canis, latratque Canicula flammas Et rabit igne suo geminatque incendia solis, Qua subdente facem terris radiosque movente_" etc.

Pliny, _Naturalis Historic_ xviii. 269 _sq_.: "_Exoritur dein post triduum fere ubique confessum inter omnes sidus ingens quod canis ortum vocamus, sole partem primam leonis ingresso. Hoc fit post solst.i.tium XXIII. die. Sentiunt id maria et terrae, multae vero et ferae, ut suis locis diximus. Neque est minor ei veneratio quam descriptis in deos stellis accendique solem et magnam aestus obtinet causam_."

[805] _Specimens of Bushman Folklore_ collected by the late W.H.I.

Bleek, Ph.D., and L.C. Lloyd (London, 1911), pp. 339, 341. In quoting the pa.s.sage I have omitted the brackets which the editors print for the purpose of indicating the words which are implied, but not expressed, in the original Bushman text.

[806] "The sun is a little warm, when this star appears in winter"

(Editors of _Specimens of Bushman Folklore_).

[807] "With the stick that he had held in the fire, moving it up and down quickly" (Editors).

[808] "They take one arm out of the kaross, thereby exposing one shoulder blade to the sun" (Editors).

[809] See above, pp. 161, 162 _sq._ On the wheel as an emblem of the sun, see J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,*[4] ii. 585; A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks_*[2] (Gutersloh, 1886), pp.

45 _sqq._; H. Gaidoz, "Le dieu gaulois du soleil et le symbolisme de la roue," _Revue Archeologique_, iii. Serie, iv. (1884) pp. 14 _sqq._; William Simpson, _The Buddhist Praying Wheel_ (London, 1896), pp. 87 _sqq._ It is a popular Armenian idea that "the body of the sun has the shape of the wheel of a water-mill; it revolves and moves forward. As drops of water sputter from the mill-wheel, so sunbeams shoot out from the spokes of the sun-wheel" (M. Abeghian, _Der armenische Volksglaube_, Leipsic, 1899, p. 41). In the old Mexican picture-books the usual representation of the sun is "a wheel, often brilliant with many colours, the rays of which are so many bloodstained tongues, by means of which the Sun receives his nourishment" (E.J. Payne, _History of the New World called America_, Oxford, 1892, i. 521).

[810] Above, p. 169.

[811] Ernst Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebrauche aus Schwaben_ (Stuttgart, 1852), p. 225; F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 240; Anton Birlinger, _Volksthumliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1861-1862), ii. 57, 97; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 510.

[812] Compare J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,*[4] i. 521; J.W. Wolf, _Beitrage zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Gottingen und Leipsic, 1852-1857), ii. 389; Adalbert Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks_*[2] (Gutersloh, 1886), pp. 41 _sq._, 47; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 521. Lindenbrog in his Glossary on the Capitularies (quoted by J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,*[4] i. 502) expressly says: "The rustics in many parts of Germany, particularly on the festival of St. John the Baptist, wrench a stake from a fence, wind a rope round it, and pull it to and fro till it catches fire. This fire they carefully feed with straw and dry sticks and scatter the ashes over the vegetable gardens, foolishly and superst.i.tiously imagining that in this way the caterpillar can be kept off. They call such a fire _nodfeur_ or _nodfyr_, that is to say need-fire."

[813] Above, pp. 144 _sq._, 147 _sq._, 155, 169 _sq._, 175, 177, 179.

[814] J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,*[4] i. 509; J.W. Wolf, _Beitrage zur deutschen Mythologie_, i. 117; A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers_,*[2] pp. 47 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 521; W.E.

Kelly, _Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore_ (London, 1863), p. 49.

[815] A. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Gottertranks_*[2]

(Gutersloh, 1886), p. 47.

[816] Above, p. 179.

[817] F. Panzer, _Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie_ (Munich, 1848-1855), ii. 240, -- 443.

[818] Above, p. 177.

[819] Above, pp. 187 _sq._