"The cat, which represented the devil, could never suffer
enough." While the creatures were perishing in the flames, the
shepherds guarded their flocks and forced them to leap over the
fire, esteeming this an infallible means of preserving them from
disease and witchcraft. We have seen that squirrels were sometimes
burned in the Easter fire.
Thus it appears that the sacrificial rites of the Celts of ancient
Gaul can be traced in the popular festivals of modern Europe.
Naturally it is in France, or rather in the wider area comprised
within the limits of ancient Gaul, that these rites have left the
clearest traces in the customs of burning giants of wicker-work and
animals enclosed in wicker-work or baskets. These customs, it will
have been remarked, are generally observed at or about midsummer.
From this we may infer that the original rites of which these are
the degenerate successors were solemnised at midsummer. This
inference harmonises with the conclusion suggested by a general
survey of European folk-custom, that the midsummer festival must on
the whole have been the most widely diffused and the most solemn of
all the yearly festivals celebrated by the primitive Aryans in
Europe.
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