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Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. by Sir James George Frazer

S >> Sir James George Frazer >> Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I.




[Bonfires on the First Sunday of Lent in Franche-Comte.]

In the French province of Franche-Comte, to the west of the Jura
Mountains, the first Sunday of Lent is known as the Sunday of the
Firebrands (_Brandons_), on account of the fires which it is customary
to kindle on that day. On the Saturday or the Sunday the village lads
harness themselves to a cart and drag it about the streets, stopping at
the doors of the houses where there are girls and begging for a faggot.
When they have got enough, they cart the fuel to a spot at some little
distance from the village, pile it up, and set it on fire. All the
people of the parish come out to see the bonfire. In some villages, when
the bells have rung the Angelus, the signal for the observance is given
by cries of, "To the fire! to the fire!" Lads, lasses, and children
dance round the blaze, and when the flames have died down they vie with
each other in leaping over the red embers. He or she who does so without
singeing his or her garments will be married within the year. Young folk
also carry lighted torches about the streets or the fields, and when
they pass an orchard they cry out, "More fruit than leaves!" Down to
recent years at Laviron, in the department of Doubs, it was the young
married couples of the year who had charge of the bonfires. In the midst
of the bonfire a pole was planted with a wooden figure of a cock
fastened to the top. Then there were races, and the winner received the
cock as a prize.[273]

[Bonfires on the first Sunday of Lent in Auvergne; the Granno invoked at
these bonfires may be the old Celtic god Grannus, who was identified
with Apollo.]

In Auvergne fires are everywhere kindled on the evening of the first
Sunday in Lent. Every village, every hamlet, even every ward, every
isolated farm has its bonfire or _figo_, as it is called, which blazes
up as the shades of night are falling. The fires may be seen flaring on
the heights and in the plains; the people dance and sing round about
them and leap through the flames. Then they proceed to the ceremony of
the _Grannas-mias_. A _granno-mio_[274] is a torch of straw fastened to
the top of a pole. When the pyre is half consumed, the bystanders kindle
the torches at the expiring flames and carry them into the neighbouring
orchards, fields, and gardens, wherever there are fruit-trees. As they
march they sing at the top of their voices,

"_Granno, mo mio,
Granno, mon pouere,
Granno, mo mouere!_"

that is, "Grannus my friend, Grannus my father, Grannus my mother." Then
they pass the burning torches under the branches of every tree, singing,

"_Brando, brandounci
Tsaque brantso, in plan panei!_"

that is, "Firebrand burn; every branch a basketful!" In some villages
the people also run across the sown fields and shake the ashes of the
torches on the ground; also they put some of the ashes in the fowls'
nests, in order that the hens may lay plenty of eggs throughout the
year. When all these ceremonies have been performed, everybody goes home
and feasts; the special dishes of the evening are fritters and
pancakes.[275] Here the application of the fire to the fruit-trees, to
the sown fields, and to the nests of the poultry is clearly a charm
intended to ensure fertility; and the Granno to whom the invocations are
addressed, and who gives his name to the torches, may possibly be, as
Dr. Pommerol suggests,[276] no other than the ancient Celtic god
Grannus, whom the Romans identified with Apollo, and whose worship is
attested by inscriptions found not only in France but in Scotland and on
the Danube.[277] If the name Grannus is derived, as the learned tell us,
from a root meaning "to glow, burn, shine,"[278] the deity who bore the
name and was identified with Apollo may well have been a sun-god; and in
that case the prayers addressed to him by the peasants of the Auvergne,
while they wave the blazing, crackling torches about the fruit-trees,
would be eminently appropriate. For who could ripen the fruit so well as
the sun-god? and what better process could be devised to draw the
blossoms from the bare boughs than the application to them of that
genial warmth which is ultimately derived from the solar beams? Thus the
fire-festival of the first Sunday in Lent, as it is observed in
Auvergne, may be interpreted very naturally and simply as a religious or
rather perhaps magical ceremony designed to procure a due supply of the
sun's heat for plants and animals. At the same time we should remember
that the employment of fire in this and kindred ceremonies may have been
designed originally, not so much to stimulate growth and reproduction,
as to burn and destroy all agencies, whether in the shape of vermin,
witches, or what not, which threatened or were supposed to threaten the
growth of the crops and the multiplication of animals. It is often
difficult to decide between these two different interpretations of the
use of fire in agricultural rites. In any case the fire-festival of
Auvergne on the first Sunday in Lent may date from Druidical times.

[French custom of carrying lighted torches (_brandons_) about the
orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent.]

The custom of carrying lighted torches of straw (_brandons_) about the
orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent seems
to have been common in France, whether it was accompanied with the
practice of kindling bonfires or not. Thus in the province of Picardy
"on the first Sunday of Lent people carried torches through the fields,
exorcising the field-mice, the darnel, and the smut. They imagined that
they did much good to the gardens and caused the onions to grow large.
Children ran about the fields, torch in hand, to make the land more
fertile. All that was done habitually in Picardy, and the ceremony of
the torches is not entirely forgotten, especially in the villages on
both sides the Somme as far as Saint-Valery."[279] "A very agreeable
spectacle, said the curate of l'Etoile, is to survey from the portal of
the church, situated almost on the top of the mountain, the vast plains
of Vimeux all illuminated by these wandering fires. The same pastime is
observed at Poix, at Conty, and in all the villages round about."[280]
Again, in the district of Beauce a festival of torches (_brandons_ or
_brandelons_) used to be held both on the first and on the second Sunday
in Lent; the first was called "the Great Torches" and the second "the
Little Torches." The torches were, as usual, bundles of straw wrapt
round poles. In the evening the village lads carried the burning brands
through the country, running about in disorder and singing,

"_Torches burn
At these vines, at this wheat_;
_Torches burn
For the maidens that shall wed_!"

From time to time the bearers would stand still and smite the earth all
together with the blazing straw of the torches, while they cried, "A
sheaf of a peck and a half!" (_Gearbe a boissiaux_). If two torchbearers
happened to meet each other on their rounds, they performed the same
ceremony and uttered the same words. When the straw was burnt out, the
poles were collected and a great bonfire made of them. Lads and lasses
danced round the flames, and the lads leaped over them. Afterwards it
was customary to eat a special sort of hasty-pudding made of wheaten
flour. These usages were still in vogue at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, but they have now almost disappeared. The peasants
believed that by carrying lighted torches through the fields they
protected the crops from field-mice, darnel, and smut.[281] "At Dijon,
in Burgundy, it is the custom upon the first Sunday in Lent to make
large fires in the streets, whence it is called Firebrand Sunday. This
practice originated in the processions formerly made on that day by the
peasants with lighted torches of straw, to drive away, as they called
it, the bad air from the earth."[282] In some parts of France, while the
people scoured the country with burning brands on the first Sunday in
Lent, they warned the fruit-trees that if they did not take heed and
bear fruit they would surely be cut down and cast into the fire.[283] On
the same day peasants in the department of Loiret used to run about the
sowed fields with burning torches in their hands, while they adjured the
field-mice to quit the wheat on pain of having their whiskers
burned.[284] In the department of Ain the great fires of straw and
faggots which are kindled in the fields at this time are or were
supposed to destroy the nests of the caterpillars.[285] At Verges, a
lonely village surrounded by forests between the Jura and the Combe
d'Ain, the torches used at this season were kindled in a peculiar
manner. The young people climbed to the top of a mountain, where they
placed three nests of straw in three trees. These nests being then set
on fire, torches made of dry lime-wood were lighted at them, and the
merry troop descended the mountain to their flickering light, and went
to every house in the village, demanding roasted peas and obliging all
couples who had been married within the year to dance.[286] In Berry, a
district of central France, it appears that bonfires are not lighted on
this day, but when the sun has set the whole population of the villages,
armed with blazing torches of straw, disperse over the country and scour
the fields, the vineyards, and the orchards. Seen from afar, the
multitude of moving lights, twinkling in the darkness, appear like
will-o'-the-wisps chasing each other across the plains, along the
hillsides, and down the valleys. While the men wave their flambeaus
about the branches of the fruit-trees, the women and children tie bands
of wheaten-straw round the tree-trunks. The effect of the ceremony is
supposed to be to avert the various plagues from which the fruits of the
earth are apt to suffer; and the bands of straw fastened round the stems
of the trees are believed to render them fruitful.[287] In the peninsula
of La Manche the Norman peasants used to spend almost the whole night of
the first Sunday in Lent rushing about the country with lighted torches
for the purpose, as they supposed, of driving away the moles and
field-mice; fires were also kindled on some of the dolmens.[288]

[Bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Germany and Austria; burning
the witch; burning discs thrown into the air; burning wheels rolled down
hill; bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Switzerland.]

In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the same season similar customs
have prevailed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on the
first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood
from house to house. These they carried to an eminence and piled up
round a tall, slim beech-tree, to which a piece of wood was fastened at
right angles to form a cross. The structure was known as the "hut" or
"castle." Fire was set to it and the young people marched round the
blazing "castle" bareheaded, each carrying a lighted torch and praying
aloud. Sometimes a straw-man was burned in the "hut." People observed
the direction in which the smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards
the corn-fields, it was a sign that the harvest would be abundant. On
the same day, in some parts of the Eifel, a great wheel was made of
straw and dragged by three horses to the top of a hill. Thither the
village boys marched at nightfall, set fire to the wheel, and sent it
rolling down the slope. Two lads followed it with levers to set it in
motion again, in case it should anywhere meet with a check. At
Oberstattfeld the wheel had to be provided by the young man who was last
married.[289] About Echternach in Luxemburg the same ceremony is called
"burning the witch"; while it is going on, the older men ascend the
heights and observe what wind is blowing, for that is the wind which
will prevail the whole year.[290] At Voralberg in the Tyrol, on the
first Sunday in Lent, a slender young fir-tree is surrounded with a pile
of straw and firewood. To the top of the tree is fastened a human figure
called the "witch," made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder. At
night the whole is set on fire and boys and girls dance round it,
swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words "corn in the
winnowing-basket, the plough in the earth" may be distinguished.[291] In
Swabia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the "witch" or the
"old wife" or "winter's grandmother" is made up of clothes and fastened
to a pole. This is stuck in the middle of a pile of wood, to which fire
is applied. While the "witch" is burning, the young people throw blazing
discs into the air. The discs are thin round pieces of wood, a few
inches in diameter, with notched edges to imitate the rays of the sun or
stars. They have a hole in the middle, by which they are attached to the
end of a wand. Before the disc is thrown it is set on fire, the wand is
swung to and fro, and the impetus thus communicated to the disc is
augmented by dashing the rod sharply against a sloping board. The
burning disc is thus thrown off, and mounting high into the air,
describes a long fiery curve before it reaches the ground. A single lad
may fling up forty or fifty of these discs, one after the other. The
object is to throw them as high as possible. The wand by which they are
hurled must, at least in some parts of Swabia, be of hazel. Sometimes
the lads also leap over the fire brandishing lighted torches of
pine-wood. The charred embers of the burned "witch" and discs are taken
home and planted in the flaxfields the same night, in the belief that
they will keep vermin from the fields.[292] At Wangen, near Molsheim in
Baden, a like custom is observed on the first Sunday in Lent. The young
people kindle a bonfire on the crest of the mountain above the village;
and the burning discs which they hurl into the air are said to present
in the darkness the aspect of a continual shower of falling stars. When
the supply of discs is exhausted and the bonfire begins to burn low, the
boys light torches and run with them at full speed down one or other of
the three steep and winding paths that descend the mountain-side to the
village. Bumps, bruises, and scratches are often the result of their
efforts to outstrip each other in the headlong race.[293] In the Rhoen
Mountains, situated on the borders of Hesse and Bavaria, the people used
to march to the top of a hill or eminence on the first Sunday in Lent.
Children and lads carried torches, brooms daubed with tar, and poles
swathed in straw. A wheel, wrapt in combustibles, was kindled and rolled
down the hill; and the young people rushed about the fields with their
burning torches and brooms, till at last they flung them in a heap, and
standing round them, struck up a hymn or a popular song. The object of
running about the fields with the blazing torches was to "drive away the
wicked sower." Or it was done in honour of the Virgin, that she might
preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and bless
them.[294] In neighbouring villages of Hesse, between the Rhoen and the
Vogel Mountains, it is thought that wherever the burning wheels roll,
the fields will be safe from hail and storm.[295] At Konz on the
Moselle, on the Thursday before the first Sunday in Lent, the two guilds
of the butchers and the weavers used to repair to the Marxberg and there
set up an oak-tree with a wheel fastened to it. On the following Sunday
the people ascended the hill, cut down the oak, set fire to the wheel,
and sent both oak and wheel rolling down the hillside, while a guard of
butchers, mounted on horses, fired at the flaming wheel in its descent.
If the wheel rolled down into the Moselle, the butchers were rewarded
with a waggon-load of wine by the archbishop of Treves.[296]

[Burning discs thrown into the air.]

In Switzerland, also, it is or used to be customary to kindle bonfires
on high places on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent, and the day
is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday. The custom prevailed, for
example, throughout the canton of Lucerne. Boys went about from house to
house begging for wood and straw, then piled the fuel on a conspicuous
mountain or hill round about a pole, which bore a straw effigy called
"the witch." At nightfall the pile was set on fire, and the young folks
danced wildly round it, some of them cracking whips or ringing bells;
and when the fire burned low enough, they leaped over it. This was
called "burning the witch." In some parts of the canton also they used
to wrap old wheels in straw and thorns, put a light to them, and send
them rolling and blazing down hill. The same custom of rolling lighted
wheels down hill is attested by old authorities for the cantons of
Aargau and Bale. The more bonfires could be seen sparkling and flaring
in the darkness, the more fruitful was the year expected to be; and the
higher the dancers leaped beside or over the fire, the higher, it was
thought, would grow the flax. In the district of Freiburg and at Birseck
in the district of Bale it was the last married man or woman who must
kindle the bonfire. While the bonfires blazed up, it was customary in
some parts of Switzerland to propel burning discs of wood through the
air by means of the same simple machinery which is used for the purpose
in Swabia. Each lad tried to send his disc fizzing and flaring through
the darkness as far as possible, and in discharging it he mentioned the
name of the person to whose honour it was dedicated. But in Praettigau
the words uttered in launching the fiery discs referred to the abundance
which was apparently expected to follow the performance of the ceremony.
Among them were, "Grease in the pan, corn in the fan, and the plough in
the earth!"[297]

[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 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 Duesseldorf 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]


Sec. 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 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 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 newborn
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;
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]