Similarly at the Beltane fires in Scotland the pretended
victim was seized, and a show made of throwing him into the flames,
and for some time afterwards people affected to speak of him as
dead. Again, in the Hallowe'en bonfires of Northeastern Scotland we
may perhaps detect a similar pretence in the custom observed by a
lad of lying down as close to the fire as possible and allowing the
other lads to leap over him. The titular king at Aix, who reigned
for a year and danced the first dance round the midsummer bonfire,
may perhaps in days of old have discharged the less agreeable duty
of serving as fuel for that fire which in later times he only
kindled. In the following customs Mannhardt is probably right in
recognising traces of an old custom of burning a leaf-clad
representative of the spirit of vegetation. At Wolfeck, in Austria,
on Midsummer Day, a boy completely clad in green fir branches goes
from house to house, accompanied by a noisy crew, collecting wood
for the bonfire. As he gets the wood he sings:
"Forest trees I want,
No sour milk for me,
But beer and wine,
So can the wood-man be jolly and gay.
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