[401] Ditchfield, 103; Transactions of Devonshire Association, xv. 104; cf. the Noah’s ship procession at Hull (Representations, s. v.).
[402] Brand, ii. 223; Grimm, ii. 584; Elton, 284; Gomme, Ethnology, 73; Hartland, Perseus, ii. 175; Haddon, 362; Vaux, 269; Wood-Martin, ii. 46; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 291; R. C. Hope, Holy Wells; M.-L. Quiller-Couch, Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall (1894); J. Rhys, C. F. i. 332, 354, and in F. L. iii. 74, iv. 55; A. W. Moore, in F. L. v. 212; H. C. March, in F. L. x. 479 (Dorset).
[403] A. B. Gomme, s. v.; Haddon, 362.
[404] Schaff, iii. 247; Duchesne, 281, 385; Rock, iii. 2. 101, 180; Maskell, i. cccxi; Feasey, 235; Wordsworth, 24; Pfannenschmidt, Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und christlichen Cultus (1869). The Benedictio Fontium took place on Easter Saturday, in preparation for the baptism which in the earliest times was a characteristic Easter rite. The formulae are in York Missal, i. 121; Sarum Missal, 350; Maskell, i. 13.
[405] Frazer, iii. 237; Gomme, in Brit. Ass. Rep. (1896), 626; Simpson, 195; Grenier, 380; Gaidoz, 16; Bertrand, 98; Gummere, G. O. 400; Grimm, ii. 601; Jahn, 25; Brand, i. 127, 166; Dyer, 269, 311, 332; Ditchfield, 141; Cortet, 211.
[406] To this custom may possibly be traced the black-a-vised figures who are persistent in the folk ludi, and also the curious tradition which makes May-day especially the chimney-sweeps’ holiday.
[407] The reasons given are various, ‘to keep off hail’ (whence the term Hagelfeuer mentioned by Pfannenschmidt, 67), ‘vermin,’ ‘caterpillars,’ ‘blight,’ ‘to make the fields fertile.’ In Bavaria torches are carried round the fields ‘to drive away the wicked sower’ (of tares?). In Northumberland raids are made on the ashes of neighbouring villages (Dyer, 332).
[408] Cf. p. 113.
[409] I know of no English Easter folk-fires, but St. Patrick is said to have lit one on the hill of Slane, opposite Tara, on Easter Eve, 433 (Feasey, 180).
[410] Schaff, v. 403; Duchesne, 240; Rock, iii. 2. 71, 94, 98, 107, 244; Feasey, 184; Wordsworth, 204; Frazer, iii. 245; Jahn, 129; Grimm, ii. 616; Simpson, 198. The formulae of the benedictio ignis and benedictio cereorum at Candlemas, and the benedictio ignis, benedictio incensi, and benedictio cerei on Easter Eve, are in Sarum Missal, 334, 697; York Missal, i. 109; ii. 17. One York MS. has ‘Paschae ignis de berillo vel de silice exceptus ... accenditur.’ The correspondence between Pope Zacharias and St. Boniface shows that the lighting of the ignis by a crystal instead of from a lamp kept secretly burning distinguished Gallican from Roman ceremonial in the eighth century (Jaffé, 2291). All the lights in the church are previously put out, and this itself has become a ceremony in the Tenebrae. Ecclesiastical symbolism explained the extinction and rekindling of lights as typifying the Resurrection. Sometimes the ignis provides a light for the folk-fire outside.