Thus every
house receives "new fire." Some of the sticks are kept throughout
the year and laid on the hearth-fire during heavy thunder-storms to
prevent the house from being struck by lightning, or they are
inserted in the roof with the like intention. Others are placed in
the fields, gardens, and meadows, with a prayer that God will keep
them from blight and hail. Such fields and gardens are thought to
thrive more than others; the corn and the plants that grow in them
are not beaten down by hail, nor devoured by mice, vermin, and
beetles; no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand close and
full. The charred sticks are also applied to the plough. The ashes
of the Easter bonfire, together with the ashes of the consecrated
palm-branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing. A wooden figure
called Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire, and
even where this custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some
places goes by the name of "the burning of Judas."
The essentially pagan character of the Easter fire festival appears
plainly both from the mode in which it is celebrated by the peasants
and from the superstitious beliefs which they associate with it.
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