Bonfire

“ On the outer edge of the bonfire there was thin grey smoke through which you could see as through glass. The smell was heavenly, and even through closed windows the crackling of the burnt leaves could be heard. The sight of the bonfire excited Jeremy. It seemed to him a signal of encouragement, a spur to perseverance. All the morning the flames crackled, and men came with wheelbarrows full of leaves and emptied them in thick heaps upon the fire. At each emptying the fire would be for a moment beaten, and only the white, thick, malicious smoke would come through ”

“ In Brittany, apparently, the custom of the Midsummer bonfires is kept up to this day. Thus in Lower Brittany every town and every village still lights its tantad or bonfire on St. John's Night. When the flames have died down, the whole assembly kneels round about the bonfire and an old man prays aloud. Then they all rise and march thrice round the fire; at the third turn they stop and every one picks up a pebble and throws it on the burning pile. ”

“ A few boys still after dusk swing their torches, and here and there some of the old inhabitants keep up the custom of lighting tar-barrels or bonfires before their doors. A rite called the Bonfire Test was formerly celebrated on this night. Mr. R. Hunt, F.R.S., has described it in his Drolls, &c. Old Cornwall:—“A bonfire is formed of faggots of furze, ferns, and the like. Men and maidens, by locking hands, form a circle, and commence a dance to some wild native song. At length, as the dancers become excited, they pull each other from side to side across the fire. ”

“ The bonfire is still lit at the gloaming by the lads and lasses of the village on a high mound or hillock just outside of the village. Fuel for it is collected by the lads from door to door. The youth dance round the fire and leap over the fringes of it. The many cattle-drovers who used to assemble for the fair were wont to gather round the blazing pile, smoke their pipes, and listen to the young folk singing in chorus on the hillock. ”

“ Throughout Europe the peasants from time immemorial have lighted bonfires on certain days of the year, and danced around or leapt over them. This custom can be traced back to the middle ages, and certain usages in antiquity so nearly resemble it as to suggest that the bonfire has its origin in the early days of heathen Europe. Indeed the earliest proof of the observance of these bonfire ceremonies in Europe is afforded by the attempts made by Christian synods in the 7th and 8th centuries to suppress them as pagan. ”

“ I have a very deep affection for Bonfire, for we have been through so much together, and some of it bad enough. All the hard spots to which one's memory turns the old fellow has shared, though he says so little about it. ”

“ When he reached the place he found that a bonfire was shooting bravely upward, and the glow which it threw on the walls of the whitewashed dwelling-house was turning it into a rosy pink. The black forms of twenty or thirty persons, men and women—the former much in the majority—were crowding and gyrating round the blaze. ”

“ Hence when the bonfire is burning low, the lads leap over it, and the higher they bound, the better is the luck in store for them. He who surpasses his fellows is the hero of the day and is much admired by the village girls. It is also thought to be very good for the eyes to stare steadily at the bonfire without blinking; moreover he who does so will not drowse and fall asleep betimes in the long winter evenings. On Midsummer Eve the windows and doors of houses in Silesia are crowned with flowers, especially with the blue corn-flowers and the bright corn-cockles ”

“ I have not met with a thoroughly satisfactory etymology of the word bonfire. It may mean good fire, that is sacred fire, or bone-fire, as the old writer suggests; but I am inclined to think boon fire is worth consideration, as the ceremonies and sacrifices were performed in order to extract a boon, a gift, or favour from the god Bel. Free service rendered by a tenant to his lord, as part of his tenure, was called boon work. Dr. Hibbert Ware records an old saying in the north of England to the effect that when a man has been working for nothing he has "been served like a boon-shearer." ”

“ The wood of the tree and the splinters from the thresholds furnish the fuel of a bonfire, which is kindled by the rubbing of two pieces of wood together. When the bonfire is ablaze, the horns of the cattle are pared and the parings thrown into the flames, after which the animals are driven through the fire. This is believed to guard the herd against the plague.704 The Germans of Western Bohemia resort to similar measures for staying a murrain. ”

“ Some people insert charred sticks and ashes from the midsummer bonfire in their sown fields and meadows, in their gardens and the roofs of their houses, as a talisman against lightning and foul weather; or they fancy that the ashes placed in the roof will prevent any fire from breaking out in the house. In some districts they crown or gird themselves with mugwort while the midsummer fire is burning, for this is supposed to be a protection against ghosts, witches, and sickness ”

“ On Whiteborough, a large tumulus near Launceston, a huge bonfire used to be kindled on Midsummer Eve; a tall summer pole with a large bush at the top was fixed in the centre of the bonfire.696 At Darowen in Wales small bonfires were lit on Midsummer Eve.697 On the same [pg 263] day people in the Isle of Man used to light fires to the windward of every field, so that the smoke might pass over the corn ”

“ The young folk dance round the fire; and when it has died out, the old folk come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the ailments of bees. It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no conflagration will break out.355 At Braunröde, in the Harz Mountains, it was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.356 In the Altmark, bones were burned in it.357
[pg 143]
The Easter fires in Bavaria. ”

“ About ten o'clock a lighted tar-barrel was thrown into the Ouse. A few minutes before midnight a procession came up from Schoolhill, and, forming four abreast, danced round the bonfire in front of the Town Hall many times; presently one man broke from the ranks and ran through the flames; after a while others did the same. This continued until the town clock struck twelve, when fire-men with a hand-engine came up and totally extinguished the bonfire. ”

“ These partisans were always successful, for they always attacked the weak.
In such times, the burning of “a good Guy” was a scene of uproar unknown to the present day. The bonfire in Lincoln’s Inn Fields was of this superior order of disorder. It was made at the Great Queen-street corner, immediately opposite Newcastle-house. Fuel came all day long, in carts properly guarded against surprise: old people have remembered when upwards of two hundred cart-loads were brought to make and feed this bonfire, and more than thirty “Guys” were burnt upon gibbets between eight and twelve o’clock at night. ”

“ No fewer than eight Bonfire Societies flourish in the town, all in a strong financial position. Each of these has its bonfire blazing or smouldering at a street corner, from dusk to midnight, and each, at a certain stage in the evening, forms into procession, and approaching its own fire by devious routes, burns an effigy of the Pope, together with whatever miscreant most fills the public eye at the moment—such as General Booth or Mr. ”

“ I don’t know of fire,” replied the farmer, coolly, “at leastways, any fire that is worth puttin’ out. I have got a bonfire in back here, and it was purty big, and its smoke you may have seen in the village. If you want to stretch your muscle and soak your hose—and that is about all you engine-people do—you may come and play on my bonfire.” ”

“ Some authorities maintain that Bonfire is a corruption of Bonefire, or fire of bones. But bones will not burn, and the “Blessing Fire,” Bonfire, Good Fire, or Beltane is still worshipped in Brittany under the Celtic name of Tan Tad or Fire Father. In Brittany there exists to this day a worship of the Druidic Fire Father, which in its elaborate ritual preserves seemingly the exact spirit and ceremony of prehistoric fire-worship. ”

“ The bonfire representing the sun, and the victims, like the tree, representing the spirit of vegetation, it is obvious why the fire had healing and fertilising powers, and why its ashes and the ashes or the flesh of the victims possessed the same powers. Brands from the fire were carried through the fields or villages, as the tree had been, or placed on the fields or in houses, where they were carefully preserved for a year. All this aided growth and prosperity, just as the smoke of the fire, drifting over the fields, produced fertility. ”

“ The closing of the town gates put an end to the spectacle, and the lights might be seen dispersing in all directions like wandering will-o'-the-wisps.458 In Upper Brittany the materials for the midsummer bonfires, which generally consist of bundles of furze and heath, are furnished by voluntary contributions, and piled on the tops of hills round poles, each of which is surmounted by a nosegay or a crown. This nosegay or crown is generally provided by a man named John or a woman named Jean, and it is always a John or a Jean who puts a light to the bonfire. ”

“ It will be the crowning triumph of the whole festival, the senator said.
2nd Lab. But who ever heard of a bonfire on a large scale like this, so close to an old building? You know our orders: we are to place lines of faggots and straw 174 close to the building on every side, well soaked with oil, and certain sealed vessels full of a secret compound in the midst of them. And just before midnight we are to run with torches and set light to the whole bonfire, to amuse the noble guests at the banquet. ”

“ That boy has something the matter with his leg—hip-disease, I should say; and these good people think they are going to effect a cure by holding him over a bonfire on St. John's Day. I hope they'll succeed. Poor little chap! We are lucky to have seen the ceremony and got a [pg 611] photograph, for this is one of the most curious of our Breton superstitions. I'd quite forgotten that to-day was the 'Jour de Saint-Jean.' Many a bonfire will be lit in Brittany to-night, and many a cripple will be submitted to this ordeal of fire. ”

“ Sometimes they were driven twice or thrice through the smoke and flames, so that occasionally some of them were scorched to death. As soon as all the beasts were through, the young folk would rush wildly at the ashes and cinders, sprinkling and blackening each other with them; those who were most blackened would march in triumph behind the cattle into the village and would not wash themselves for a long time. From the bonfire people carried live embers home and used them to rekindle the fires in their houses. ”

“ The merging of one superstition, custom, habit, or tradition, into another, is one of the most ordinary facts of history.
Mr. Richard Edwards, in his "Land's End District," gives a very graphic account of the bonfires lighted up in Cornwall on Midsummer eve. Some of the details sufficiently resemble those of our northern "gunpowder plot" demonstrations to prove that a Guy Fawkes and an Act of Parliament are not absolutely necessary to make a bonfire festivity attractive to the descendants of the fire-worshippers of old. ”