Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

286 The Solar Wheel in Greece
as le grand Gay ant and other figures termed les enfants de Gayant x
.
This enables us to bring the wheel of Fortune into connexion with
a whole series of customs observed by the peasants
of central
Europe. Dr Frazer has shown that at Midsummer a blazing
wheel is trundled down hill 2
; burning disks or wheels are flung
and
into the air 3
4
a tar-barrel is kindled and ; swung round a pole ;
fresh fire is made by rotating a wheel on a wooden axle 8 . A clue
to the meaning of these rites is furnished by G. Durandus in his
account of the feast of Saint John the Baptist (Midsummer
Day) 6 :
'At this festival three special rites are performed. For in some districts on
the eve of the feast men and boys, in accordance with ancient custom, collect
bones and certain other unclean things, and burn them together, so that a
smoke rises from them into the air. Moreover, they bring brands or torches,
and with them go the round of the fields. There is a third rite too ; for they
roll a wheel. Those who burn the unclean things and make the smoke rise aloft
derive this practice from the heathen. For in ancient days dragons, stirred
to lust at this time of year on account of the heat, used to fly through the air and
often let fall their seed into wells and springs. Thus the waters were infected ;
and the year was then deadly by reason of the corruption of the air and the
waters, for whosoever drank of them died or suffered some grave disorder.
Philosophers, remarking this, bade fire be made frequently and everywhere
round wells and springs, and any unclean things likely to cause an unclean
smoke be burnt there ; for they were aware that dragons could be put to flight
by a smoke of that sort. And, since such things took place especially at this
time of year, the custom is still kept up by some. For dragons are actual
animals, as it says in the psalm "Praise the Lord from the earth, Ye dragons,"
not thracones, that is passages of the earth, as some have asserted. These
animals fly in the air, swim in the waters, and walk through the earth. They
cannot abide anything unclean and flee before a stinking smoke, like elephants
before the grunting of swine. There is another reason why the bones of animals
are burnt, to wit in memory of the fact that the bones of John the Baptist were
burnt by the heathen in the city of Sebaste. Or this may refer to the New
Testament ; for the boys cast away and burn what is old to signify that, when
the new law comes, the Old Testament must cease ; for it is said " Ye shall not
eat the oldest of the old, and when the new comes in ye shall cast out the old."
Brands too or blazing torches are brought and fires are made, which signify
Saint John, who "was a burning and a shining light," the forerunner who came
before "the true light, even the light which lighteth every man that cometh into
1 H. Gaidoz in the Rev. Arch. 1884 ii. 32 ff. These wicker giants may be descended
from the Druid divinities, whose colossal images of wicker-work are described by Caesar
de bell. Gall. 6. 16.
2 Frazer Golden Bough- iii. 268 f., 271, 273.
3 Id. ib. iii. 270 f., 273, 278.
4 Id. ib. iii. 272.
5 Id. ib. iii. 276 f.
6 G. Durandus Rationale divinorum officiorutn Lugduni 161 2 lib. 7 cap. 14 no. ioff.
This important book was first printed at Mentz in 1459.