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He or she who does so without singeing his or her
garments will be married within the year. Young folk also carry
lighted torches about the streets or the fields, and when they pass
an orchard they cry out, "More fruit than leaves!" Down to recent
years at Laviron, in the department of Doubs, it was the young
married couples of the year who had charge of the bonfires. In the
midst of the bonfire a pole was planted with a wooden figure of a
cock fastened to the top. Then there were races, and the winner
received the cock as a prize.
In Auvergne fires are everywhere kindled on the evening of the first
Sunday in Lent. Every village, every hamlet, even every ward, every
isolated farm has its bonfire or _figo,_ as it is called, which
blazes up as the shades of night are falling. The fires may be seen
flaring on the heights and in the plains; the people dance and sing
round about them and leap through the flames. Then they proceed to
the ceremony of the _Grannas-mias._ A _granno-mio_ is a torch of
straw fastened to the top of a pole.


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