On the other hand, in Lechrain people say
that if a young man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire
together, escape unsmirched, the young woman will not become a
mother within twelve months; the flames have not touched and
fertilised her. In parts of Switzerland and France the lighting of
the Yule log is accompanied by a prayer that the women may bear
children, the she-goats bring forth kids, and the ewes drop lambs.
The rule observed in some places that the bonfires should be kindled
by the person who was last married seems to belong to the same class
of ideas, whether it be that such a person is supposed to receive
from, or to impart to, the fire a generative and fertilising
influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the fires hand
in hand may very well have originated in a notion that thereby their
marriage would be blessed with offspring; and the like motive would
explain the custom which obliges couples married within the year to
dance to the light of torches. And the scenes of profligacy which
appear to have marked the midsummer celebration among the
Esthonians, as they once marked the celebration of May Day among
ourselves, may have sprung, not from the mere licence of
holiday-makers, but from a crude notion that such orgies were
justified, if not required, by some mysterious bond which linked the
life of man to the courses of the heavens at this turning-point of
the year.
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