height, and there, amidst much laughter and with many a shout, they
lighted the large bonfire. Then they danced round the blazing logs,
and afterwards leaped through the flames, and at the close of the
ceremony each person brought away with him a burning branch. This
rite appears to have been a relic of Paganism. Probably the fire was
originally lighted in honour of the sun, which our forefathers
worshipped before they became Christians. The leaping through the
flames had also a superstitious meaning, and the simple people
thought that in this way they could ward off evil spirits and
prevent sickness. The Roman shepherds used to leap through the
Midsummer blaze in honour of Pales. The Scandinavians lit their
bonfires in honour of their gods Odin and Thor, and the leaping
through the flames reminds us of the worshippers of Baal and Moloch,
who, as we read in the Bible, used to "pass their children through
the fire" in awe of their cruel god. St. John's Day, or Midsummer
Day (June 24th), was chosen because on that day the sun reaches its
highest point in the zodiac. There is, however, another
interpretation of the meaning of the fires on St. John's Day, as
illustrating the verse which speaks of him "as a burning and a
shining light" (St. John v. 35); but this interpretation was
probably invented by some pious divine who endeavoured to attach a
Christian meaning to an ancient heathen custom. The connection of
the ceremony with the old worship of the sun is indisputable. Its
practice was very general in nearly all European nations, and in not
very remote times from Norway to the shores of the Mediterranean the
glow of St. John's fires might have been seen. The Emperor
Charlemagne in the ninth century forbade the custom as a heathen
rite, but the Church endeavoured to win over the custom from its
Pagan associations and to attach to it a Christian signification. In
the island of Jersey the older inhabitants used to light fires under