Connexion of these bonfires with the custom of “carrying out Death.” Effigies burnt on Shrove Tuesday.
It seems hardly possible to separate from these bonfires, kindled on the first Sunday in Lent, the fires in which, about the same season, the effigy called Death is burned as part of the ceremony of “carrying out Death.” We have seen that at Spachendorf, in Austrian Silesia, on the morning of Rupert's Day (Shrove Tuesday?), a straw-man, dressed in a fur coat and a fur cap, is laid in a hole outside the village and there burned, and that while it is blazing every one seeks to snatch a fragment of it, which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or buries in his field, believing that this will make the crops to grow better. The ceremony is known as the “burying of Death.”[298] Even [pg 120] when the straw-man is not designated as Death, the meaning of the observance is probably the same; for the name Death, as I have tried to shew, does not express the original intention of the ceremony. At Cobern in the Eifel Mountains the lads make up a straw-man on Shrove Tuesday. The effigy is formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have been committed in the neighbourhood throughout the year. Being condemned to death, the straw-man is led through the village, shot, and burned upon a pyre. They dance round the blazing pile, and the last bride must leap over it.[299] In Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to make long bundles of straw, which they set on fire, and then ran about the fields waving them, shrieking, and singing wild songs. Finally they burned a straw-man on the field.[300] In the district of Düsseldorf the straw-man burned on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn.[301] On the first Monday after the spring equinox the urchins of Zurich drag a straw-man on a little cart through the streets, while at the same time the girls carry about a May-tree. When vespers ring, the straw-man is burned.[302] In the district of Aachen on Ash Wednesday a man used to be encased in peas-straw and taken to an appointed place. Here he slipped quietly out of his straw casing, which was then burned, the children thinking that it was the man who was being burned.[303] In the Val di Ledro (Tyrol) on the last day of the Carnival a figure is made up of straw and brushwood and then burned. The figure is called the Old Woman, and the ceremony “burning the Old Woman.”[304]
§ 2. The Easter Fires.
Fire-festivals on Easter Eve. Custom in Catholic countries of kindling a holy new fire at the church on Easter Saturday; marvellous properties ascribed to the embers of the fire. The burning of Judas.
Another occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is [pg 121] Easter Eve, the Saturday before Easter Sunday. On that day it has been customary in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches, and then to make a new fire, sometimes with flint and steel, sometimes with a burning-glass. At this fire is lit the great Paschal or Easter candle, which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church. In many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled, by means of the new fire, on some open space near the church. It is consecrated, and the people bring sticks of oak, walnut, and beech, which they char in the fire, and then take home with them. Some of these charred sticks are thereupon burned at home in a newly-kindled fire, with a prayer that God will preserve the homestead from fire, lightning, and hail. Thus every house receives “new fire.” Some of the sticks are kept throughout the year and laid on the hearth-fire during heavy thunder-storms to prevent the house from being struck by lightning, or they are inserted in the roof with the like intention. Others are placed in the fields, gardens, and meadows, with a prayer that God will keep them from blight and hail. Such fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others; the corn and the plants that grow in them are not beaten down by hail, nor devoured by mice, vermin, and beetles; no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand close and full. The charred sticks are also applied to the plough. The ashes of the Easter bonfire, together with the ashes of the consecrated palm-branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing. A wooden figure called Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire, and even where this custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some places goes by the name of “the burning of Judas.”[305]
Easter fires in Bavaria and the Abruzzi.
In the Hollertau, Bavaria, the young men used to light their lanterns at the newly-kindled Easter candle in the church and then race to the bonfire; he who reached it first set fire to the pile, and next day, Easter Sunday, was rewarded at the church-door by the housewives, who presented him with red eggs. Great was the jubilation while the effigy of the traitor was being consumed in the flames. The ashes were carefully collected and thrown away at sunrise in running water.[306] In many parts of the Abruzzi, also, pious people kindle their fires on Easter Saturday with a brand brought from the sacred new fire in the church. When the brand has thus served to bless the fire on the domestic hearth, it is extinguished, and the remainder is preserved, partly in a cranny of the outer wall of the house, partly on a tree to which it is tied. This is done for the purpose of guarding the homestead against injury by storms. At Campo di Giove the people say that if you can get a piece of one of the three holy candles which the priest lights from the new fire, you should allow a few drops of the wax to fall into the crown of your hat; for after that, if it should thunder and lighten, you have nothing to do but to clap the hat on your head, and no flash of lightning can possibly strike you.[307]
Water as well as fire consecrated in the Abruzzi on Easter Saturday. Water consecrated in Calabria on Easter Saturday. Water and fire consecrated on Easter Saturday among the Germans of Bohemia. Easter rites of fire and water at Hildesheim.
Further, it deserves to be noted that in the Abruzzi water as well as fire is, as it were, renewed and consecrated on Easter Saturday. Most people fetch holy water on [pg 123] that day from the churches, and every member of the family drinks a little of it, believing that it has power to protect him or her against witchcraft, fever, and stomach-aches of all sorts. And when the church bells ring again after their enforced silence, the water is sprinkled about the house, and especially under the beds, with the help of a palm-branch. Some of this blessed water is also kept in the house for use in great emergencies, when there is no time to fetch a priest; thus it may be employed to baptize a new-born infant gasping for life or to sprinkle a sick man in the last agony; such a sprinkling is reckoned equal to priestly absolution.[308] In Calabria the customs with regard to the new water, as it is called, on Easter Saturday are similar; it is poured into a new vessel, adorned with ribbons and flowers, is blessed by the priest, and is tasted by every one of the household, beginning with the parents. And when the air vibrates with the glad music of the church bells announcing the resurrection, the people sprinkle the holy water about the houses, bidding in a loud voice all evil things to go forth and all good things to come in. At the same time, to emphasize the exorcism, they knock on doors, window-shutters, chests, and other domestic articles of furniture. At Cetraro people who suffer from diseases of the skin bathe in the sea at this propitious moment; at Pietro in Guarano they plunge into the river on the night of Easter Saturday before Easter Sunday dawns, and while they bathe they utter never a word. Moreover, the Calabrians keep the “new water” as a sacred thing. They believe that it serves as a protection against witchcraft if it is sprinkled on a fire or a lamp, when the wood crackles or the wick sputters; for they regard it as a bad omen when the fire talks, as they say.[309] Among the Germans of Western Bohemia, also, water as well as fire is consecrated by the priest in front of the church on Easter Saturday. People bring jugs full of water to the church and set them beside the holy fire; afterwards they use the water to sprinkle on the palm-branches which are stuck in the fields. Charred sticks of the Judas fire, as it is popularly called, are supposed to possess a magical and healing virtue; [pg 124] hence the people take them home with them, and even scuffle with each other for the still glowing embers in order to carry them, still glimmering, to their houses and so obtain “the light” or “the holy light.”[310] At Hildesheim, also, and the neighbouring villages of central Germany rites both of fire and water are or were till lately observed at Easter. Thus on Easter night many people fetch water from the Innerste river and keep it carefully, believing it to be a remedy for many sorts of ailments both of man and beast. In the villages on the Leine river servant men and maids used to go silently on Easter night between the hours of eleven and twelve and silently draw water in buckets from the river; they mixed the water with the fodder and the drink of the cattle to make the animals thrive, and they imagined that to wash in it was good for human beings. Many were also of opinion that at the same mystic hour the water turned to wine as far as the crowing of a cock could be heard, and in this belief they laid themselves flat on their stomachs and kept their tongues in the water till the miraculous change occurred, when they took a great gulp of the transformed water. At Hildesheim, too, and the neighbouring villages fires used to blaze on all the heights on Easter Eve; and embers taken from the bonfires were dipped in the cattle troughs to benefit the beasts and were kept in the houses to avert lightning.[311]