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driven through the holy Need Fire to keep off sickness. German mothers put their children in the oven to cure fever, and lay in an oven a child who does not grow to drive out of him the dwarfing spirit of the elderling 20
As regards lights at festivals, according to Bede (A. D. 730), the English practice of keeping a candle burning all through Christmas Day goes back to fore-Christian times, when, on the eve of the winter solstice, the Saxons used to light great candles and kindle the Yule Clog.21 Lighted candles were also used ceremonially by the Germans before they became Christian.22 In Ripon, in Yorkshire, on the Sunday before Candlemas Day, all the afternoon the collegiate church is (1790) ablaze with lighted candles.23 In Rome, after sunset on Shrove Tuesday, everyone carries a lighted taper and tries to blow out his neighbour's light.24 Daring Easter-week the Pope worships a cross of fire over St. Peter's tomb.25 According to the Greek Christians, on Easter Day in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, a magic light from above kindles the candles.26 According to the traveller Coryate, in 1614, except the Latins, all Christians in Jerusalem at Easter prayed that the Holy Ghost might come from heaven in the visible form of fire. After great processioning the Patriarchs of the Greeks and Armenians went into the sepulcure. A priest passed into the grottoe. After a quarter of an honr he came forth with his tapers lighted. So great was the rush to get a light that the priest was nearly stified.27 At Durham, the great Easter candle, called Paschal, was lighted by flint and steel with a consecrating rite, and from it all other candles were kindled.28 So it is with the Paschal taper carried before the Pope, parts of which are kept as charms.20 In Transylvania, on Easter Eve, witches and demons are abroad. Every man must attend the midnight service and hold a lighted wax candle. Afterwards, if what is left of the caudle is lighted during a thunderstorm, it will keep the fiend lightning from striking the house.30 In London, on Midsummer Eve (June 24th), and on the Eve of St. Peter and St. Paul (June 28th), every man's door was sbaded with green birch, long fennel, St. John's wort, orpin, white lilies and the like ornaments with flower garlands. Glass oil-lamps were kept burning all night, covering the branches with hundreds of lights.31 So, among the Circassians, the holy pear-tree is hung with candles.32 At the hottest time of the year the grove of Diana at Nemi, near Rome, was lighted by a multitude of torches.33 In Rome, before the Church was eclipsed by the Italian Government (1869), an illumination took place when a new Cardinal was appointed.34 At the crowning of the Eastern Christian Emperors and at the throning of the Pope, a wisp of flax is lighted and burnt before the eyes of the enthroned.36 At the feast in honour of the dedication of the temple by Judas Macabæns (B. C. 160), the Jews lighted one candle the first day, and one more each day till seven were lighted.36 A lamp was always burning in the Jewish tabernacle; a lamp still barns in the Synagogue.37 The prophetic stones on the High Priest's breast-plate were called Urim or Lights.38 The undying fire on the altar of Solomon's temple couched like a lion and shone like the sun. Its solid pure and smokeless flame consumed alike the wet and the dry.39 In the fore-Christian Jowish catacombs at Rome, on each place for a body, is scratched the image of a seven-branched candle-stick.co When an early Christian Church was consecrated twelve candles were lighted.1 At the Japanese lantern feast, lighted lanterns are launched on water to ascertain the fate of dead friends. 3 At the Chinese feast of lanterns, on the fifteenth of the first moon, that
20 Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. III. pp. 1162, 1 183. 21 Notes and Queries, 5th Series, Vol. X. p. 483; Gentleman's Magazine Library, " Popular Saperstitions," p. 4. 91 Grimm's Teutonic Mythology, Vol. II. p. 616. Gentleman'. Magarine Library, "Popular Superstitions," p. 3. 24 "Carnival" in Ency. Brit. Xth Ed. * Hislop's Two Babylons, p. 225. 26 From MS. Notes.
27 Coryate's Crudities, Vol. III. "Extracts." 28 Hone's Everyday Book, Vol. 1. p. 496. 29 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 1564. 29 The Nineteenth century, No. 101, p. 134. 1 Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 830. 32 Frazer's Golden Bough, Vol. I. p. 73. $5 Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 5. 34 Ency. Brit. " Carnival," p. 98. 55 Smith's Christian Antiquities, p. 458. 36 Cornhill Magazine, December 1886. 37 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. III. p. 1398.
Op. cit. Vol. III. p. 1600. » Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 54.
** Smith's Christian Antiquities, pp. 300, 1944. 41 Op. cit. p. 430.
49 Japanese Manners, p. 67.
