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198
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[May, 1891.
fires and dance round them, or leap over them, or in Russia in the mock burning of Kupalo. In burn effizies or pretend to burn living persons in French Flanders they used to burn the figure of them. A review of these customs will bring out a woman at this festival. traces of hunan sacrifices, and the pulling of the mistletoe has often been connected with the
The proper explanation of the Fire Festivals is
that most likely they are Sun-charms for men, ceremonies observed at the fire festivals.
animals and plants, and probably originated in In different parts of German Europe, on the sympathetic magic to induce sunshine. The fact firat Sunday in Lent the ceremonies of burning that the fire required for these festivals has frethe hut, the castle, the witch, the old wife, or quently been kindled in the same way as need winter's granimother, and driving away the fire, viz., by the friction of wood or by the wicked sower, consist in one form or another of revolution of a wheel, is strong evidence of this; burning an effizy or a disc or wheel, with a view as it is pretty nearly certain that, at the kindling *) prvouring an abundant harvest or keeping of the need-fire, i. e., a magically curative fire vormin from the fields. These Quadragesima kindled in time of distress, the wheel represented Sanday customs are hardly to be distinguished the sun. At the Pongal Festival in South India from those of Carrying out Death observed about at the harvest, which is a fire-festival, fires are the same tima, in which Death, varied in the Tyrol everywhere lighted to wake up Sarya the Sun, or 119 the Old Woman, is frequently burot, and some Agni the Fire. In Yncatan a fire-festival is held times a particular personage must leap over the
on New Year's Day to rid the people of their burning ein bers.
troubles, and the Hottentots drive their sheep
periodically through ceremonial fires to preserve The Naw Fire customs and that of the Easter
them. These last two cases shew the universality Candle on Easter Eve kept up in Catholic
of the customs and of the ideas conveyed by countries, are observal with a view to the ferSili
them. antion of the fields and gardens and keeping off blizit anl huil. The ashes of the consecrated
That the effigies burnt in these fires are Easter Bonflro made from the "new fira" are
rapresentatives of the spirit of vegetation or Imixed with the sued at sowing, and sometimes
the tree-spirit, there can be little doubt; and wooden effigy of Judas is burnt in the bonfires.
thathu nan beinga representing the tree-spirit All over Germany unconsecrated Eastar Fires
were formerly sacrificed among the Celtic tre lighted in which the Easter Man or the Judas
nations, we have strong reason to believe from the 3 burnt with the object of averting hail. Parti
narrative of Julius Cæsar. He shews us that in anlur hills are sometim 33 used for the purpose
his time or bafore it colossal images of wickeryear after year, and called the Easter or Pascal
work or wood or grass were filled with living men Mountains. Dincing round and leaping through
and animals and burnt and the customs at the th399 firas is a caspicuous part of the ceremony.
Baltana Fires and so on seem to point emphatically while in some places squirrels and even bones
to the conclusion that these wicker-image3 represented the Judas. The Beltane Fires of
represented the traz-spirit. "Giants" at the Scotland kindled on the 1st of May, and which,
spring and summer festivals have been familiar in in the person of the Boltane Carlina, "devoted to
England, France, Balgium and Flanders, and in be sacrificed to Bial" in the fire, sbew clear
parts of France the giant was regularly burnt and signs of former human sacrifice, were burnt in
his ashes scattered among the people. At Luchon order to preserve th: flocsa and herds: while a
in th: Pyran 333 * hollow @lumn is still lightel similar festival in Swaden is held with a view to
and live anakas thrown into it and burnt on Midpredicting thu character of the coming Spring
sumner Eve, and live animals have been thrown
into the Lent, Easter and Midsummer fires in Midsumner Fires, accompanied with dancing
France, Germany and Russia. There is little and leaping, and with much the same curemonies doubt that these animals have played the same as those of Lent and Easter, have been, and are to part as the human victims. son extent still, current all over Europe from
The sum of the evidence as to these Fire West to East. Their object has always been
Festivals is, that they were originally held at to prosper the hards or the crops, or to keep off evil induences. The slaying and burning of
Midsummer, and consisted of human burnt effigies at the Midsummer Firez has existed in
sacrifloss, representing the tree-spirit or Würtemberg in the custom of “the Beheading of
spirit of vegetation, with a view to making the Angel-Man," in the Tyrol in that of burning
the sun to shine and the crops to grow. the Lötter now corrupted into the Luther, in They had another chief feature the gatherAustria in the burning of the Tattermann, anding of the mistletoe. Pliny tells us that the
