At Grand Halleux any one
who refuses their request is pursued next day by the children, who
try to blacken his face with the ashes of the extinct fire. When the
day has come, they cut down bushes, especially juniper and broom,
and in the evening great bonfires blaze on all the heights. It is a
common saying that seven bonfires should be seen if the village is
to be safe from conflagrations. If the Meuse happens to be frozen
hard at the time, bonfires are lit also on the ice. At Grand Halleux
they set up a pole called _makral,_ or "the witch," in the midst of
the pile, and the fire is kindled by the man who was last married in
the village. In the neighbourhood of Morlanwelz a straw man is burnt
in the fire. Young people and children dance and sing round the
bonfires, and leap over the embers to secure good crops or a happy
marriage within the year, or as a means of guarding themselves
against colic. In Brabant on the same Sunday, down to the beginning
of the nineteenth century, women and men disguised in female attire
used to go with burning torches to the fields, where they danced and
sang comic songs for the purpose, as they alleged, of driving away
"the wicked sower," who is mentioned in the Gospel for the day.
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