So in Baden the children collected fuel from house to house for the
midsummer bonfire on St. John's Day; and lads and lasses leaped over
the fire in couples. Here, as elsewhere, a close connexion was
traced between these bonfires and the harvest. In some places it was
thought that those who leaped over the fires would not suffer from
backache at reaping. Sometimes, as the young folk sprang over the
flames, they cried, "Grow, that the hemp may be three ells high!"
This notion that the hemp or the corn would grow as high as the
flames blazed or as the people jumped over them, seems to have been
widespread in Baden. It was held that the parents of the young
people who bounded highest over the fire would have the most
abundant harvest; and on the other hand, if a man contributed
nothing to the bonfire, it was imagined that there would be no
blessing on his crops, and that his hemp in particular would never
grow. At Edersleben, near Sangerhausen, a high pole was planted in
the ground and a tarbarrel was hung from it by a chain which reached
to the ground.
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