January 4, 1906] 



NA TURE 



225 



twelvemonth had got exhausted, or perhaps that all 

 light expired with Christ, and that new fire must be. 

 obtained. Accordingly the priest solemnly struck new 

 fire out of flint and steel. But fire from flint and 

 steel was a novelty; and the people, Pagan at heart, 

 had no confidence in it, and in time of adversity went 

 back to the need-fire kindled in the time-honoured way 

 from wood bv friction, before this new-fangled way of 

 drawing it out of stone and iron was invented." 



The same authority informs us that before 

 Christianity was introduced into Ireland by St. Patrick 



there was a 

 temple at Tara 

 "where fire 

 burned ever, and 

 w as on no 

 account suffered 

 to go out." 



Mr. Frazer, 1 

 quoting Cerbied, 

 shows that in the 

 ancient religion 

 of Armenia the 

 new fire was 

 kindled at the 

 February festival 

 of the May year, 

 in honour of the 

 fire god Mihr. 

 " A bonfire was 

 „, . made in a public 

 ,j ^^it, l place and lamps 

 X ' kindled at it were 

 kept burning 

 throughout the 

 year in each of 

 the fire-god's 

 temples." This 

 festival now takes 

 place at Candle- 

 mas, February 2. 

 We must assume, then, that the pagan fires were 

 produced by the friction of dry wood, and possibly in 

 connection with an ever-burning fire. In either case 

 the priests officiating at the various circles must have 

 had a place handy where the wood was kept dry or 

 the fire kept burning', and on this ground alone we 

 may again inquire whether such structures as Maes- 

 howc at the Stenness circle, the Fougou at that 

 11I the Merry Maidens, and "indeed chambered bar- 

 rows and cairns generally, were not used for these 

 purposes amongst others ; whether indeed they were 

 not primarily built for the living and not for the 

 dead, and whether this will explain the finding of 

 traces of fires and of hollowed stones in them, as well 

 as some points in their structure. Mr. MacRitchie - 

 has brought together several of these points, among 

 them fireplaces and flues for carrying away smoke. 



At both solstices it would appear that a special fire- 

 rite was practised. This consisted of tying straw on 

 a wheel and rolling it when lighted down a hill. 

 There is much evidence for the wheel at the summer 

 but less at the winter solstice; still, we learn from the 

 old Runic fasti that a wheel was used to denote the 

 festival of Christmas. With regard to the summer 

 solstice I quote the following from Hazlitt (under 

 John, St.):— 



" Durandus, speaking of the rites of the Feast of 

 St. John Baptist, informs us of this curious circum- 

 stance, that in some places they roll a wheel about 

 to signify that the sun, then occupying the highest 

 place in the Zodiac, is beginning to descend. ' Rotam 



From Baring- 



gW 



of Tradition.' 



quoque hoc die in quibusdam locis volvunt, ad sig- 

 nificandum quod Sol altissimum tunc locum in Ccelo 

 occupet, et descendere incipiat in Zodiaco.' Had. 

 MSS. 2345 (on vellum), Art. 100, is an Account of the 

 rites of St. John Baptist's Eve, in which the wheel 

 is also mentioned. In the amplified account of these 

 ceremonies given by Naogeorgus, we read that this 

 wheel was taken up to the top of a mountain and 

 rolled down thence ; and that, as it had previously 

 been covered with straw twisted about it and set on 

 fire, it appeared at a distance as if the sun had been 

 falling from the sky. And he further observes, that 

 the people imagine that all their ill-luck rolls away 

 from them together with this wheel. At Norwich, says 

 a writer in Current Notes for March, 1X54, the rites 

 of St. John the Baptist were anciently observed, 

 ' when it was the custom to turn or roll a wheel 

 about, in signification of the sun's annual course, or 

 the sun, then occupying the highest place in the 

 Zodiac, was about descending.'" 



At Magdalen College, Oxford, the May and June 

 years are clearly differentiated. There is a vocal ser- 

 vice at sunrise on May morning, followed by boys 

 blowing horns. At the summer solstice there is a 

 sermon preached during the day in the quadrangle. 



One of the most picturesque survivals of this 

 ancient custom takes place at Florence each year at 

 Easter. This is fully described by Baring-Gould. 

 The moment the sacred fire is produced at the high 

 altar a dove (in plaster) carries it along a rope about 

 200 yards long to a car in the square outside the west 

 door of the cathedral and sets fire to a fuse, thus 

 causing the explosion of fireworks. 



The car with its explosives is the survival of the 

 ancient bonfire. 



It would appear that the lighting of these fires on 

 a large scale lingered longest in Ireland and Brittany. 



A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine 

 (February, 1795) thus describes the Irish Beltane fires 

 in 1782, " the most singular sight in Ireland " : — 



" Exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear, 

 and taking the advantage of going up to the leads 

 of the house, which had a widely extended view, I 

 saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires 

 burning on every eminence which the country 

 afforded. I had a farther satisfaction in learning, 

 from undoubted authority, that the people danced 

 round the fires, and at the close went through these 

 fires, and made their sons and daughters, together 

 with their cattle, pass through the fire; and the whole 

 was conducted with religious solemnity." 



It will have been observed with reference to these 

 fire festivals that although there were undoubtedly 

 four, in May, August, November, and February, those 

 in May and November were more important than the 

 others. This no doubt arose from the fact that at 

 different times the May and November celebrations 

 were New Year festivals. With regard to the New 

 Year in November in Celtic and later times, Rhys 

 writes as follows (" Hibbert Lectures," p. 514) :— 



" The Celts were in the habit formerly of counting 

 winters, and of giving precedence in their reckoning 

 to night and winter over day and summer (p. 360); I 

 should argue that the last day of the year in the Irish 

 story of Diarmait's death meant the eve of November 

 or All-hallo ween, the night before the Irish Samhain, 

 and known in Welsh as Nos Galan-gaeaf, or the 

 Night of the Winter Calends. But there is no 

 occasion to rest on this alone, as we have the evidence 

 of Cormac's Glossary that the month before the 

 beginning of winter was the last month ; so that the 

 first day of the first month of winter was also the 

 first day of the year." 



That the November bonfire was recognised as 



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