At the festivals which we are considering the custom of kindling
bonfires is commonly associated with a custom of carrying lighted
torches about the fields, the orchards, the pastures, the flocks and
the herds; and we can hardly doubt that the two customs are only two
different ways of attaining the same object, namely, the benefits
which are believed to flow from the fire, whether it be stationary
or portable. Accordingly if we accept the solar theory of the
bonfires, we seem bound to apply it also to the torches; we must
suppose that the practice of marching or running with blazing
torches about the country is simply a means of diffusing far and
wide the genial influence of the sunshine of which these flickering
flames are a feeble imitation. In favour of this view it may be said
that sometimes the torches are carried about the fields for the
express purpose of fertilising them, and with the same intention
live coals from the bonfires are sometimes placed in the fields to
prevent blight. On the eve of Twelfth Day in Normandy men, women,
and children run wildly through the fields and orchards with lighted
torches, which they wave about the branches and dash against the
trunks of the fruit-trees for the sake of burning the moss and
driving away the moles and field-mice.
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