Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

2IO Old Irish Religions.
the feast of St. John were Hghted all around Angouleme,
and men and women were dancing before them, and jumping
over them almost all night."
Russia and India have their
leaping through the flames.
In the first, a straw figure of Kupalo, a sort of representative
of vegetation, was thrown in the fire. Germans had a
straw image of the god Thor. In Mexico, babes on their
fourth day were passed through fire.
in
Sonnerat had this account of the Darma, a Feast of Fire
:— India " It lasts eighteen days, during which time those
must fast, abstain from women,
who make a vow to keep it
lie on the bare ground, and walk on a brisk fire. On the
eighteenth day, they assemble on the sound of instruments,
their heads covered wdth flowers, the body daubed with
saffron, and
follow in cadence the figures of Darma Rajah
and Dobrede his wife, who are carried there in procession.
When they come to the fire, they stir it to animate its
activity, and take a little of the ashes, with w^hich they rub
their foreheads ;
and when the gods have been three times
round it, they walk, either fast or slow, according to their
zeal, over a very hot fire, extended to about forty feet in
length."
Fire-w^orship may be the purest form of idolatry ;
as
flame, so nearly immaterial, ever moving, always aspiring,
is a type of the spiritual,— is useful, although dangerous.
But no form of idolatry could be more cruel than the
fiery adoration of the grim Moloch. Symbols are agreeable
to fancy, and often helpful ; but they may, and repeatedly
do, lead men to crass idolatry.