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front of the army by men called Fire-bearers, priests of Ares.26 An undying lamp tended by widows burned in the Pretaneum at Athens.97
In the eighth century, Bede (730 A. D.) remarked that the Christian Church had done well to change the lastrations which used to scatter the evil influences of angracious February for the lights, which in Rome so brightened the churches and the city, that the day of St. Mary came to be known as Candlemas, the feast of lights. But the Candlemas procession of lights has a direct origin in the Roman and Greek walking round the fields carrying torches and candles in honour of Februa and Ceres, a rite which still continues in France.29 The old Slav and German guardian Swanto Wit or Holy Light, whose worship lasted till the ninth century, was then Christianized into the worship of St. Vitus, the boy-martyr of Rome, to whom, in Germany, the fiery sun-wheel is still set a-rolling in Midsummer dances.30 In the eighth century, in Germany, to jump over a Need Fire, kindled by rubbing dry wood on St. John's Eve, kept off ill-luck and fever.31 The practice of lighting bonfires from a flame kindled by rubbing wood is still observed on St. John's Eve in Russia.32 In Ireland, on the 21st June, fires were lit, and every member of the family passed through the fire to get good fortune in the coming year. 33 In Scotland, at the beginning of this century, the money presents of boys and girls to the schoolmaster on Candlemas Day were known as bleezes or blases, a memory of earlier candle gifts to the priest,84 In the Western or Latin Church, Christmas as well as Candlemas was called the feast of lights on account of the number of candles that burned at the feast.36 On Christmas mornings, in North-East Scotland, fire and juniper were burned.36 In the North of England (1825), each family had a Yule Candle lighted in the evening and set on the table. A piece of the candle was kept to secure luck.37 In Scotland, on the last night of the year, fire is carried round houses, fields, and boats for luck, that is, to scare evil.98 A third Christian festival of lights was Easter Eve. Constantine the Great (A. D. 330) turned the sacred vigil into the light of day, hanging lamps everywhere and setting wax tapers, as big as columns, all over Byzantium. In the fifth century, one special wax taper was solemnly blessed as a type of Christ's rising from the dead.39 Fires were lighted on Mayday and on St. John's Day (June 24th), and the lantern was one of the many guardian influences on spirit-haunted Halloween (October 31st). Fires lighted on the Transylvanian hills in South-East Austria, on June 24th, guard the flocks from evil spirits.40 In North-East Scotland, the children, who danced round the Mayday bonfires, used to shout:-"Fire blaze and burn the witches,"41 A medieval legend says fires were kindled on St. John's Eve to scare the dragons of pestilence.12 In Forfarshire and in the Isle of Man, sick cattle have to walk over lighted peat or to pass between two fires. In England, in 1783, the Roman Catholics used to light bonfires on the hills on All Saints' Night, the Eve of All Souls. In Brittany, the fragments of the torches burnt on St. John's Eve are kept as charms against thunder and nervous diseases. The
* Potter's Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 79.
7 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 131. 2 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 998.
* Napier's Polk-Lors of Scotland, p. 181. 80 Baring Gould's Strange Survivals, p. 247. After the death of Charles the Great (A. D. 814) the people of Rugen gave up the worship of the foreign Christian Vitus and wont back to the worship of their local Suanto Vita, who was apparently both Sun-god and God of War. This idol continued a centre of worship till after the middle of the twelfth century. Elton and Powell's Saxo-Grammaticus, pp. 392-396.
31 Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. II. pp. 606, 617 ; Smith's Christian Antiquities, pp. 810, 15 15. For the same belief in nineteenth century Sussex, see Folk. Lore Record, Vol. I. p. 38.
52 Ralston's Russian Songs, p. 240.
33 Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary : xv." Beltein." Hone's Every Day.Book, Vol. I. p. 849. According to the Folk-Lore Record, Vol. IV. p. 97, bonfires are burnt in Ireland on June 23rd. If a bone is burnt in them, to leap through the stoke cures barrenness in man or in beast.
N Napier's Folk-Lore of Scotland, p. 181; Folk Lore Record, Vol. I. p. 103. 25 Notes and Queries, 5th Series, Vol. I. p. 379.
* Gregor's Polk-Lore of North-East Scotland, p. 159. 31 The Denham Tracts, Vol. II. pp. 25, 26.
38 Mitchell's The Past in the Present, p. 144. 59 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 595.
Nineteenth Century Magazine, No. 101, p. 135. 1 Gregor's Folk-Lore of North-East Scotland, p. 167. 1 Folkard's Plant-Lore, p. 489. 5 Cumming's In the Hebrides, p. 218.
Gentleman's Magazine Library, "Popular Superstitions," p. 7. *5 Hislop's Two Babylons, p. 156.
