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MIDSUMMEE FIEES. 623
Vanse dias, vienen dias, venido era el de Sant Juan,
do ode Christianos y Moros hazen gran solenidad :
los Christianos echan juncia, y los Moros arrayhan,
los Judios echan eneas, por la fiesta mas honrar.
Here nothing is said of fire, 1 but we are told that the Christians
strew rushes, the Moors myrtle, the Jews reeds ;
and the throw
ing of flowers and herbs into the flame seems an essential part
of the celebration, e.g. mugwort, monks-hood, larkspur (p. 618),
mullein and walnut leaves (p. 621). Hence the collecting of
all such John s-herbs in Germany (Superst. I, 157. 189. 190), and
of S. Hans urter (worts) in Denmark (K, 126), and the like in
France (L, 4). According to Gasp. Zeumer s De igne in festo
S. Joh. accendi solito, Jenae 1699, the herb aXiSfia (?) was
diligently sought on that day and hung up over doors.
In Greece the women make a fire on Midsummer Eve, and
think the
jump over it, crying, I leave my sins/ In Servia they
feast is so venerable, that the sun halts three times in reverence. 2
On the day before it, the herdsmen tie birchbark into torches,
and having lighted them, they first march round the sheepfolds
and cattle-pens, then go up the hills and let them burn out (Vuk
sub v.Ivan dan).
Other Slav countries have similar observances.
In Sartori s Journey through Carinthia 3, 349-50, we find the
rolling of St. John s fiery wheel fully described. Midsummerday
or the solstice itself is called by the Slovens kres, by the
Croats Jcresz, i.e. striking of light, from kresati (ignem elicere),
Pol. krzesac ; and as May is in Irish mi-na-bealtine (fire-month),
so June in Slovenic is kresnik. At the kres there were leaps of
joy performed at night ; of lighting by friction I find no mention.
Poles and Bohemians called the Midsummer fire sobotka, i.e. little
Saturday, as compared with the great sobota (Easter Eve) ; the
1 It is spoken of more definitely by Martinus de Aries, canonicus of Pampeluna
(cir. 1510), in his treatise De superstitionibus (Tract, tractatuum, ed. Lugd. 1544.
9, 133) : Cum in die S. Johannis propter jucunditatem multa pie aguutur a
fidelibus, puta pulsatio campanarum et ignes jucunditatis, similiter summo mane
exeunt ad colligendas herbas odoriferas et optinias et medicinales ex sua natura et
ex plenitudine virtutum propter tempus. . . quidam ignes accendunt in compitis
viarum, in agris, ne inde sortilegae et maleficae ilia nocte transitum faciant, ut
ego propriis oculis vidi. Alii herbas collectas in die S. Johannis incendentes contra
fulgura, tonitrua et tempestates credunt suis fumigationibus arcere daemones et
tempestates.
2 As he is supposed to leap three times at Easter (p. 291).