These they carried to an
eminence and piled up round a tall, slim beech-tree, to which a
piece of wood was fastened at right angles to form a cross. The
structure was known as the "hut" or "castle." Fire was set to it and
the young people marched round the blazing "castle" bareheaded, each
carrying a lighted torch and praying aloud. Sometimes a straw-man
was burned in the "hut." People observed the direction in which the
smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards the corn-fields, it was
a sign that the harvest would be abundant. On the same day, in some
parts of the Eifel, a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by
three horses to the top of the hill. Thither the village boys
marched at nightfall, set fire to the wheel, and sent it rolling
down the slope. At Oberstattfeld the wheel had to be provided by the
young man who was last married. About Echternach in Luxemburg the
same ceremony is called "burning the witch." At Voralberg in the
Tyrol, on the first Sunday in Lent, a slender young fir-tree is
surrounded with a pile of straw and firewood.
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