After that
the holy hand-bells, deposited on the step of the altar, were
entrusted as insignia of office to the man who was to be the Green
Wolf next year.
At Ch?teau-Thierry, in the department of Aisne, the custom of
lighting bonfires and dancing round them at the midsummer festival
of St. John lasted down to about 1850; the fires were kindled
especially when June had been rainy, and the people thought that the
lighting of the bonfires would cause the rain to cease. In the
Vosges it is still customary to kindle bonfires upon the hill-tops
on Midsummer Eve; the people believe that the fires help to preserve
the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops.
Bonfires were lit in almost all the hamlets of Poitou on the Eve of
St. John. People marched round them thrice, carrying a branch of
walnut in their hand. Shepherdesses and children passed sprigs of
mullein (_verbascum_) and nuts across the flames; the nuts were
supposed to cure toothache, and the mullein to protect the cattle
from sickness and sorcery. When the fire died down people took some
of the ashes home with them, either to keep them in the house as a
preservative against thunder or to scatter them on the fields for
the purpose of destroying corn-cockles and darnel.
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