[411] Belethus (†1162), de Div. Offic. c. 137 (P. L. ccii. 141), gives three customs of St. John’s Eve. Bones are burnt, because (1) there are dragons in air, earth, and water, and when these ‘in aere ad libidinem concitantur, quod fere fit, saepe ipsum sperma vel in puteos vel in aquas fluviales eiiciunt, ex quo lethalis sequitur annus,’ but the smoke of the bonfires drives them away; and (2) because St. John’s bones were burnt in Sebasta. Torches are carried, because St. John was a shining light. A wheel is rolled, because of the solstice, which is made appropriate to St. John by St. John iii. 30. The account of Belethus is amplified by Durandus, Rationale Div. Offic. (ed. corr. Antwerp, 1614) vii. 14, and taken in turn from Durandus by a fifteenth-century monk of Winchelscombe in a sermon preserved in Harl. MS. 2345, f. 49 (b).
[412] Gaidoz, 24, 109; Bertrand, 122; Dyer, 323; Stubbes, i. 339, from Naogeorgos; Usener, ii. 81; and the mediaeval calendar in Brand, i. 179.
[413] Gomme, in Brit. Ass. Rep. (1896), 636 (Moray, Mull); F. L. ix. 280 (Caithness, with illustration of wood used); Kemble, i. 360 (Perthshire in 1826, Devonshire).
[414] Grimm, ii. 603; Kemble, i. 359; Elton, 293; Frazer, iii. 301; Gaidoz, 22; Jahn, 26; Simpson, 196; Bertrand, 107; Golther, 570. The English term is need-fire, Scotch neidfyre, German Nothfeuer. It is variously derived from nôt ‘need,’ niuwan ‘rub,’ or hniotan ‘press.’ If the last is right, the English form should perhaps be knead-fire (Grimm, ii. 607, 609; Golther, 570). Another German term is Wildfeuer. The Gaelic tin-egin is from tin ‘fire,’ and egin ‘violence’ (Grimm, ii. 609). For ecclesiastical prohibitions cf. Indiculus (Saupe, 20) ‘de igne fricato de ligno, i. e. nodfyr’; Capit. Karlmanni (742), c. 5 (Grimm, ii. 604) ‘illos sacrilegos ignes quos niedfyr vocant.’
[415] Gaidoz, 1; Bertrand, 109, 140; Simpson, 109, 240; Rhys, C. H. 54. The commonest form of the symbol is the swastika, but others appear to be found in the ‘hammer’ of Thor, and on the altars and statues of a Gaulish deity equated in the interpretatio Romana with Jupiter. There is a wheel decoration on the barelle or cars of the Gubbio ceri (Bower, 4).
[416] Brand, i. 97; Dyer, 159; Ditchfield, 78. Eggs are used ceremonially at the Scotch Beltane fires (Frazer, iii. 261; Simpson, 285). Strings of birds’ eggs are hung on the Lynn May garland (F. L. x. 443). In Dauphiné an omelette is made when the sun rises on St. John’s day (Cortet, 217). In Germany children are sent to look for the Easter eggs in the nest of a hare, a very divine animal. Among the miscellaneous Benedictions in the Sarum Manual, with the Ben. Seminis and the Ben. Pomorum in die Sti Iacobi are a Ben. Carnis Casei Butyri Ovorum sive Pastillarum in Pascha and a Ben. Agni Paschalis, Ovorum et Herbarum in die Paschae. These Benedictions are little more than graces. The Durham Accounts, i. 71-174, contain entries of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century payments ‘fratribus et sororibus de Wytton pro eorum Egsilver erga festum pasche.’
[417] Tw. N. i. 3. 42 ‘He’s a coward and a coystrill, that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe like a parish-top.’ Steevens says ‘a large top was formerly kept in every village, to be whipt in frosty weather, that the peasants might be kept warm by exercise and out of mischief while they could not work.’ This is evidently a ‘fake’ of the ‘Puck of commentators.’ Hone, E. D. B. i. 199, says ‘According to a story (whether true or false), in one of the churches of Paris, a choir boy used to whip a top marked with Alleluia, written in gold letters, from one end of the choir to the other.’ The ‘burial of Alleluia’ is shown later on to be a mediaeval perversion of an agricultural rite. On the whole question of tops, see Haddon, 255; A. B. Gomme, s. v.
[418] Leber, ix. 391; Barthélemy, iv. 447; Du Tilliot, 30; Grenier, 385; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 427; Belethus, c. 120 ‘Sunt nonnullae ecclesiae in quibus usitatum est, ut vel etiam episcopi et archiepiscopi in coenobiis cum suis ludant subditis, ita ut etiam se ad lusum pilae demittant. atque haec quidem libertas ideo dicta est decembrica ... quamquam vero magnae ecclesiae, ut est Remensis, hanc ludendi consuetudinem observent, videtur tamen laudabilius esse non ludere’; Durandus, vi. 86 ‘In quibusdam locis hac die, in aliis in Natali, praelati cum suis clericis ludunt, vel in claustris, vel in domibus episcopalibus; ita ut etiam descendant ad ludum pilae, vel etiam ad choreas et cantus, &c.’ Often the ball play was outside the church, but the canons of Evreux on their return from the procession noire of May 1, played ‘ad quillas super voltas ecclesiae’; and the Easter pilota of Auxerre which lasted to 1538, took place in the nave before vespers. Full accounts of this ceremony have been preserved. The dean and canons danced and tossed the ball, singing the Victimae paschali. For examples of Easter hand-ball or marbles in English folk-custom, cf. Brand, i. 103; Vaux, 240; F. L. xii. 75; Mrs. Gomme, s. v. Handball.
[419] Brand, i. 93; Burne-Jackson, 335. A Norfolk version (F. L. vii. 90) has ‘dances as if in agony.’ On the Mendips (F. L. v. 339) what is expected is ‘a lamb in the sun.’ The moon, and perhaps the sun also, is sometimes ‘wobbly,’ ‘jumping’ or ‘skipping,’ owing to the presence of strata of air differing in humidity or temperature, and so changing the index of refraction (Nicholson, Golspie, 186). At Pontesford Hill in Shropshire (Burne-Jackson, 330) the pilgrimage was on Palm Sunday, actually to pluck a sprig from a haunted yew, traditionally ‘to look for the golden arrow,’ which must be solar. In the Isle of Man hills, on which are sacred wells, are visited on the Lugnassad, to gather ling-berries. Others say that it is because of Jephthah’s daughter, who went up and down on the mountains and bewailed her virginity. And the old folk now stop at home and read Judges xi (Rhys, C. F. i. 312). On the place of hill-tops in agricultural religion cf. p. 106, and for the use of elevated spots for sun-worship at Rome, ch. xi.
[420] Simpson, passim; cf. F. L. vi. 168; xi. 220. Deasil is from Gaelic deas, ‘right,’ ‘south.’ Mediaeval ecclesiastical processions went ‘contra solis cursum et morem ecclesiasticum’ only in seasons of woe or sadness (Rock, iii. 2. 182).