Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

620 ELEMENTS.
so that none of the wood is left in sight, a strong pole is passed
through the middle, which sticks out a yard on each side, and is
grasped by the guiders of the wheel ;
the remainder of the straw
is tied up into a number of small torches. At a signal given
by the Maire of Sierk (who, according to ancient custom, earns
a basket of cherries by the service), the wheel is lighted with a
torch, and set rapidly in motion, a shout of joy is raised, all wave
their torches on high, part of the men stay on the hill, part follow
the rolling globe of fire as it is guided downhill to the Moselle. It
often goes out first ; but if alight when it touches the river,
it prognosticates an abundant vintage , and the Konz people have
a right to levy a tun of white wine from the adjacent vineyards.
Whilst the wheel is rushing past the women and girls, they
break out into cries of joy, answered by the men on the hill ;
and
inhabitants of neighbouring villages, who have flocked to the
river side, mingle their voices in the universal rejoicing. 1
In the same way the butchers of Treves are said to have yearly
sent down a wheel of fire into the Moselle from the top of the
Paulsberg (see Suppl.). 2
The custom of Midsummer fires and wheels in France is
attested even by writers of the 12th and 13th centuries, John
Beleth, a Parisian divine, who wrote about 1162 a Summa de
divinis officiis, and William Durantis, b. near Beziers in Languedoc,
about 1237, d. 1296, the well-known author of the Rationale
divinor. offic. (written 1286; conf. viii. 2, 3 de epacta). In the
Summa (printed at Dillingen, 1572) cap. 137, fol. 256, and thence
extracted in the Rationale vii. 14, we find : Feruntur quoque
(in festo Joh. bapt.) brandae seu faces ardenies et fiunt ignes,
qui significant S. Johannem, qui fuit lumen et lucerna ardens,
praecedens et praecursor verae lucis . . .
; rota in quibusdam
locis volvitur, ad significandum, quod sicut sol ad altiora sui
circuli pervenit, nee altius potest progredi, sed tune sol descendit
in circulo, sic et faina Johannis, qui putabatur Christus, descendit
1 M6m. des antiquaires de Fr. 5, 383-6.
2 In memory of the hermit Paulus, who in the mid. of the 7th cent, hurled
the idol Apollo from Mt. Gehenna, near Treves, into the Moselle, thinks the writer
of the article on Konz, pp. 387-8. If Trithem s De viris illustr. ord. S. Bened. 4,
201, is to vouch for this, I at least can only find at p. 142 of Opp. pia et spirit.
Mogunt. 1605, that Paulus lived opposite Treves, on Cevenna, named Mons Pauli
after him ; but of Apollo and the firewheel not a word [and other authorities are
equally silent] .