On this witching
night children in Voigtland also light bonfires on the heights and
leap over them. Moreover, they wave burning brooms or toss them into
the air. So far as the light of the bonfire reaches, so far will a
blessing rest on the fields. The kindling of the fires on Walpurgis
Night is called "driving away the witches." The custom of kindling
fires on the eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) for the purpose of
burning the witches is, or used to be, widespread in the Tyrol,
Moravia, Saxony and Silesia.
5. The Midsummer Fires
BUT THE SEASON at which these firefestivals have been most generally
held all over Europe is the summer solstice, that is Midsummer Eve
(the twenty-third of June) or Midsummer day (the twenty-fourth of
June). A faint tinge of Christianity has been given to them by
naming Midsummer Day after St. John the Baptist, but we cannot doubt
that the celebration dates from a time long before the beginning of
our era. The summer solstice, or Midsummer Day, is the great
turning-point in the sun's career, when, after climbing higher and
higher day by day in the sky, the luminary stops and thenceforth
retraces his steps down the heavenly road.
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