In Switzerland, also, it is or used to be customary to kindle
bonfires on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent,
and the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. The custom
prevailed, for example, throughout the canton of Lucerne. Boys went
about from house to house begging for wood and straw, then piled the
fuel on a conspicuous mountain or hill round about a pole, which
bore a straw effigy called "the witch." At nightfall the pile was
set on fire, and the young folks danced wildly round it, some of
them cracking whips or ringing bells; and when the fire burned low
enough, they leaped over it. This was called "burning the witch." In
some parts of the canton also they used to wrap old wheels in straw
and thorns, put a light to them, and send them rolling and blazing
down hill. The more bonfires could be seen sparkling and flaring in
the darkness, the more fruitful was the year expected to be; and the
higher the dancers leaped beside or over the fire, the higher, it
was thought, would grow the flax.
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