Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

618 ELEMENTS.
848 we are told how a garland is plaited of nine sorts of flowers.
Eeiske (ut supra, p. 77) says : the fire is made under the open
sky, the youth and the meaner folk leap over it, and all manner
of herbs are cast into it : like these, may all their troubles go off
in fire and smoke I In some places they light lanterns outside
their chambers at night, and dress them with red poppies or
anemones, so as to make a bright glitter/ At Niirnberg the
lads go about begging billets of wood, cart them to the Bleacher s
pond by the Spital-gate, make a fire of them, and jump over it ;
ihis keeps them in health the whole year (conf. Sup. I, 918).
They invite passers by to have a leap, who pay a few kreuzers
for the privilege. In the Fulda country also the boys beg for
wood to burn at night, and other presents, while they sing a
Da kommen wir her gegangen Mit spiessen und mit
rhyme :
staogen, Und wollen die eier (eggs) langen. Feuerrothe bliime-
lein, An der erde springt der wein, Grebt ihr uns der eier ein
Zum Johannisfeuer, Der haber is gar theuer (oats are so dear) .
Haberje, haberju! frifre frid ! Gebt uns doch ein schiet (scheifc,
billet)! (J. v. u. f. Deutschl. 1790. 1, 313.) Similar rhymes
from Franconia and Bavaria, in Schm. 3, 262. In the Austrian
Donauliindchen on St. John s eve they light fires on the hill, lads
and lasses jump over the flames amid the joyful cries and songs
of the spectators (Reil, p. 41). Everywhere on St. John s eve
there was merry leaping over the sonnenwendefeuer, and mead was
drunk over it/ is Denis s recollection of his youthful days (Lesefr.
1, 130). At Ebingen in Swabia they boiled pease over the fire,
which were laid by and esteemed wholesome for bruises and
wounds (Schmid s Schwab, id. 167); conf. the boiling over need-
fires (p. 610). Greg. Strigenitius (b. 1548, d. 1603), in a sermon
preached on St. John s day and quoted in Ecc. Fr. or. i. 425,
observes, that the people (in Meissen or Thuringia) dance and
sing round the Midsummer fires ; that one man threw a horse s
head into the flame, meaning thereby to force the witches to fetch
some of the fire for themselves. Seb. Frank in his Weltbuch
51 b : On St. John s day they make a simet flre [corrupt, of sun-
went], and moreover wear upon them, I know not from what
superstition, quaint ivreaths of mug wort and monks-hood; nigh
every one hath a blue plant named larkspur in hand, and whoso
looketh into the fire thro the same, hath never a sore eye all that