Midsummer.
“At eve last Midsummer no sleep I sought.”
—Gay’s Pastorals.
The custom of making bonfires on the hilltops at Midsummer was formerly so general among all the Celtic nations that it is highly probable that it must have existed also in these islands, the aboriginal inhabitants of which belonged undoubtedly to the Celtic race. In Scotland and in Ireland these fires are called Beltein, or Baltein; they are lighted also on May Day, and are supposed to be a relic of the worship formerly paid to the sun, under the name of Bel, or Baal. Throughout Brittany, and in some of the neighbouring parts of Normandy, “les feux de la St. Jean” are still lighted on all the hills. In some parts of Wales and Cornwall the custom is still kept up. That some observances connected with this season still existed in this island in the early part of the 17th Century is certain, from the fact of the Royal Court having promulgated an ordinance in 1622 prohibiting begging on St. John’s Eve, “as tending to keep alive superstition,” but what these observances were, is now entirely forgotten. It has been asserted that in days gone by “la Rocque Balan,” a remarkable and picturesque mass of granite on the plain of L’Ancresse, used to be resorted to at Midsummer, and that the youths and maidens danced together on its summit, where bonfires used to be lit. The burden of an old song—
“J’irons tous à la Saint Jean
Dansaïr sus la Rocque Balan,”
is quoted as confirmatory of this assertion. Some suppose that “Balan” has the same derivation as “Beltein;” others say that there was once a logan, or rocking stone, “une pierre qui balançait,” on the apex of the rock; but there is also a tradition that the former Priors of St. Michel du Valle caused the merchandise of their tenants and vassals to be weighed, and that the rock derived its appellation from the “balances” used for this purpose.
The most probable and matter of fact solution of the difficulty is that, like many other localities, it took its designation from the person to whom it once belonged, the name “Balan” being that of a family, now extinct, which at one time inhabited this parish.
Every cottage and farmhouse in the island is furnished with what is called a “lit de fouâille” or “jonquière”—now called the “green bed”—a sort of rustic divan generally placed in a recess between the hearth and a window. This, raised about eighteen inches from the ground, is thickly strewn with dried fern, or pea-haulm, and forms the usual seat of the females of the family, when engaged in knitting or sewing, and a very comfortable couch on which the men can repose after the labours of the day. But at Midsummer, after the fresh fern has been cut, the taverns and cottages vie with each other in decorating these seats. A canopy is raised over them, and the whole, floor and all, is thickly carpeted with fresh cut fern, and ornamented with the most brilliant and showy flowers that can be procured, not scattered at hap-hazard, but arranged in formal, and often far from inelegant patterns.[22] The love of flowers is almost a passion with every class of the inhabitants, and displays itself in the variety to be found at all seasons in every garden, and the taste with which they are employed in decorations.