56 Norzvay and the Norivegians 



garlands plaited of nine sorts of flowers, and nine is a 

 mystic number in the old Scandinavian mythology. 



Souvestre, in his account of Brittany (ed. by Cambray), 

 gives a description of the midsummer fires, which corre- 

 spond very closely with the account of the ceremony in 

 Iceland just cited. ' Cries of joy,' he says, ' are heard 

 from every side. Every promontory, every rock, every 

 mountain is alight. A thousand fires are burning in 

 the open air, and from afar you may descry the shadow- 

 like figures moving round the fire ; in their dancing one 

 might fancy it a dance of conrils (fairies). The fires 

 are often lighted by the priests, who make procession 

 through the villages with consecrated tapers.' The cere- 

 mony of leaping throvigh the flame, which some writers 

 mention, must, one thinks, be the far-off reflex of tlie 

 sacrifice of children by passing them through the fire. 

 The ordeal by fire is itself a reflex of this custom. On 

 the same principle that Abraham's readiness to sacrifice 

 Isaac was accounted to him for righteousness : so is the 

 readiness of an accused person to offer liimself as a 

 sacrifice to the deity supposed to show his innocence ; 

 and, as in the case of Isaac, the divinity is expected 

 to intervene to prevent the completion of the 

 sacrifice. 



It would not be safe to affirm that the simple practice 

 of jumping over the ashes of the fire, when it has burnt 

 low, which we see the boys and young men do to-day 

 in Sweden and Norway, is in its turn a relic of the 

 more ceremonial custom of jumping through the fire 

 when it was in full blaze. But, of course, it may easily 

 be so. 



Grimm, in his German Mythology {Denischc Mytho- 



