The Lighting of the Holî Fire.
Next day the Holî fire is lit. By immemorial custom, the boys are allowed to appropriate fuel of any kind for the fire, the wood-work of deserted houses, fences, and the like, and the owner never dares to complain. We have the same custom in England. The chorus of the Oxfordshire song sung at the feast of Gunpowder Plot runs,—
A stick and a stake
For King James’s sake;
If you won’t give me one,
I’ll take two,
The better for me,
The worse for you.
This is chanted by the boys when collecting sticks for the bonfire, and it is considered quite lawful to appropriate any old wood they can lay hands on after the recitation of these lines.[66]
Mr. Growse goes on to describe how a large bonfire had been stacked between the pond and the temple of Prahlâda (who, as we have already seen, is connected with the legend), inside which the local village priest, the Kherapat or Panda, who was to take the chief part in the performance of the day, was sitting, telling his beads. At 6 p.m. the pile was lit, and being composed of the most inflammable materials, at once burst into a tremendous blaze. The lads of the village kept running close round it, jumping and dancing and brandishing their bludgeons, while the Panda went round and dipped in the pond, and then with his dripping turban and loin-cloth ran back and made a feint of passing through the fire. In reality he only jumped over the outermost verge of the smouldering ashes, and then dashed into his cell again, much to the dissatisfaction of the spectators, who say that the former incumbent used to do it much more thoroughly. If on the next recurrence of the festival the Panda shows himself equally timid, the village proprietors threaten to eject him as an impostor from the land which he holds rent-free, simply on the score of his being fire-proof.
It is hardly necessary to say that this custom of jumping through the fire prevails in many other places. We have already had an instance of it in the case of the fire worship of Râhu. In Greece people jump through the bonfires lighted on St. John’s Eve. The Irish make their cattle pass through the fire, and children are passed through it in the arms of their fathers. The passing of victims through the fire in honour of Moloch is well known.[67]