54 Norway and the Nortvegians 



Christianity, — that it is a festival to the sun, held on the 

 sun's highest day. Sun-worship, and the worship of fire, 

 are things intimately connected, the fire being supposed 

 (naturally enough) a sort of image of the sun : this we 

 see especially in the old Mazdean religion of Persia. 

 It can hardly be said that this feast of the summer is 

 peculiarly Teutonic or peculiarly Celtic. It rather 

 seems to belong to a very primitive faith common to 

 the ancestors of Germans and Celts alike. The festival, 

 I have said, used to be kept up in all the countries of 

 Christendom. 



Strutt, in his Bim'ts and Pastimes, says that it was 

 usual in country places, on the Vigil of St. John the 

 Baptist, commonly called Midsummer Eve, for the 

 people, old and young, to meet together and make 

 merry by the side of a large fire made in the middle 

 of the street, or in some open and convenient place, 

 over whicli the young men frequently leapt by way 

 of frolic, and also exercised themselves with various 

 sports and pastimes. 



In the heathen times in the north, as we see by the 

 Icelandic Sagas, the two great festivals of the year were 

 Yule-tide and Midsummer, and both were celebrated 

 by the lighting of great fires. So that we may assume 

 that, in the festival as we witness it to-day, we are 

 stepping back at once into the religious observances of 

 heathen times. 



Brand, in his Popular Antiquities (pp. 169-199) cites 

 a number of authorities who refer to the custom of light- 

 ing these Midsummer fires in different parts of England 

 and Ireland, Of the latter country a writer in the 

 Gentleman's Magazine of 1795 says, 'I was so fortunate, 



