fyre. The first fyre, as a great clerke Johan Belleth telleth he was in a certayne countrey, so in the countrey there was soo greate hete the which causid that dragons to go togyther in tokenynge that Johan dyed in brennynge love and charyté to God and man, and they that dye in charyté shall have parte of all good prayers, and they that do not, shall never be saved. Then as these dragons flewe in th'ayre they shed down to that water froth of ther kynde, and so envenymed the waters, and caused moche people for to take theyr deth therby, and many dyverse sykenesse. Wyse clerkes knoweth well that dragons hate nothyng more than the stenche of brennynge bones, and therefore they gaderyd as many as they mighte fynde, and brent them; and so with the stenche thereof they drove away the dragons, and so they were brought out of greete dysease. The second fyre was made of woode, for that wyl brenne lyght, and wyll be seen farre. For it is the chefe of fyre to be seen farre, and betokennynge that Saynt Johan was a lanterne of lyght to the people. Also the people made blases of fyre, for that they shulde be seene farre, and specyally in the nyght, in token of St. Johan's having been seen from far in the spirit by Jeremiah. The third fyre of bones betokenneth Johan's martyrdome, for hys bones were brente, and how ye shall here." The Homilist accounts for this by telling us that after John's disciples had buried his body, it lay till Julian, the apostate emperor, came that way, and caused them to be taken up and burnt, "and to caste the ashes in the wynde, hopynge that he shuld never ryse again to lyfe."

Bourne tells us, that it was the custom in his time, in the North of England, chiefly in country villages, for old and young people to meet together and be merry over a large fire, which was made for that purpose in the open street. This, of whatever materials it consisted, was called a Bonefire.1

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1 These fires are supposed to have been called bonefires because they were generally made of bones. There is a passage in Stow, however, wherein he speaks of men finding wood or labour towards them, which seems to oppose the opinion. Dr. Hickes also gives a very different etyHe defines a bonefire to be a festive or triumphant fire. In the Islandic language, he says, Baal signifies a burning. In the Anglo-Saxo, Bael-Fyn, by a change of letters of the same organ is made Baen-fy, whence our bone-fire. In the Tinmouth MS. cited in the History of Newcastle, "Boon-er," and "Boen-Harow," occur for ploughing and harrowing gratis, or by gift. There is a passage also, much to our purpose, in

Over and above this fire they frequently leap, and play at various games, such as running, wrestling, dancing, &c.: this, however, is generally confined to the younger sort; for the old ones, for the most part, sit by as spectators only of the vagaries of those who compose the "Lasciva decentius ætas," and enjoy themselves over their bottle, which they do not quit till midnight, and sometimes till cock-crow the next morning. The learned Gebelin, in his Allégories Orientales, accounts in the following manner for the custom of making fires on Midsummer Eve: "Can one," says he, "omit to mention here the St. John Fires, those sacred fires kindled about midnight, on the very moment of the solstice, by the greatest part as well of ancient as of modern nations; a religious ceremony of the most remote antiquity, which was observed for the prosperity of states and people, and to dispel every kind of evil? The origin of this fire, which is still retained by so many nations, though enveloped in the mist of antiquity, is very simple: it was a Feu de Joie, kindled the very moment the year began; for the first of all years, and the most ancient that we know of, began at this month of June. Thence the very name of this month, junior, the youngest, which is renewed; while that of the preceding one is May, major, the ancient. Thus the one was the month of young people, while the other belonged to old men. These Feux de Joie were accompanied at the same time with vows and sacrifices for the prosperity of the people and the fruits of the earth. They danced also round this fire (for what feast is there without a dance?), and the most active leaped over it. Each on departing took away a firebrand, great or

Aston's Translation of Aubanus, p. 282,-" Common fires (or, as we call them here in England, bone-fires)." I am therefore strongly inclined to think that bone-fire means a contribution-fire, that is, a fire to which every one in the neighbourhood contributes a certain portion of materials. The contributed ploughing days in Northumberland are called bone-dargs. "Bon-fire," says Lye (apud Junii Etymolog.), "not a fire made of bones, but a boon-fire, a fire made of materials obtained by begging. Boon, bone, bene, vet. Angl. petitio, preces." Fuller, in p. 25 of his Mixt Contemplations in Better Times, 1658, says he has met with "two etymologies of bone-fires. Some deduce it from fires made of bones, relating it to the burning of martyrs, first fashionable in England in the reign of King Henry the Fourth; but others derive the word (more truly in my mind) from boon, that is good, and fires."

small, and the remains were scattered to the wind, which, at the same time that it dispersed the ashes, was thought to expel every evil. When, after a long train of years, the year ceased to commence at this solstice, still the custom of making these fires at this time was continued by force of habit, and of those superstitious ideas that are annexed to it. Besides, it would have been a sad thing to have annihilated a day of joy in times when there were not many of them. Thus has the custom been continued and handed down to us."

So far our learned and ingenious foreigner. But I can by no means acquiesce with him in thinking that the act of leaping over these fires was only a trial of agility. A great deal of learning might be produced here to show farther that it was as much a religious act as making them.1

In the Gent. Mag. for May 1733, p. 225, a posthumous piece of Sir Isaac Newton, entitled Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, is cited, where that great philosopher, on Daniel ii. v. 38, 39, observes, that "the Heathens were delighted with the festivals of their gods, and unwilling to part with those ceremonies; therefore Gregory, Bishop of Neo-Cæsarea, in Pontus, to facilitate their conversion, instituted annual festivals to the saints and martyrs: hence the keeping of Christmas with ivy, feasting of Christmas with ivy, feasting, plays, and sports, came in the room of the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia; the celebrating of May-day with flowers, in the room of the Floralia; and the festivals to the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, and divers of the Apostles, in the room of the solemnities at the entrance of the sun into the signs of the zodiac in the old Julian Calendar."

Borlase, in his Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 130, tells us :

1 Levinus Lemnius, in his treatise de Occultis Naturæ Miraculis, lib. iii, cap. 8, has the following: "Natalis dies Joannis Baptista-non solùm Judæis ac Christianis, sed Mauris etiam ac Barbaris, quique a nostra religione alieni ac Mahumeto addicti sunt, celebris est et sacro-sanctus, tametsi nonnulli hujus noctem superstitioso quodam cultu congestis lignorum acervis, accensisque Ignibus, ut Corybantes ac Cybeles cultores, strepitu ac furiosis clamoribus transigant, quin et impuberes congestis collisisque ignitis carbonibus bombos ac crepitacula excutiunt." He cites Olaus Magnus as describing how the Goths kept this night. "Omnis enim generis sexusque homines turmatim in publicum concurrunt, extructisque luculentis ignibus atque accensis facibus, choreis, tripudiisque se exercent."

"Of the fires we kindle in many parts of England at some stated times of the year, we know not certainly the rise, reason, or occasion, but they may probably be reckoned among the relics of the Druid superstitious fires. In Cornwall, the festival fires, called bonfires, are kindled on the Eve of St. John Baptist and St. Peter's Day; and Midsummer is thence, in the Cornish tongue, called 'Goluan,' which signifies both light and rejoicing. At these fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarr'd and pitch'd at the end, and make their perambulations round their fires, and go from village to village, carrying their torches before them; and this is certainly the remains of the Druid superstition, for 'faces præferre,' to carry lighted torches, was reckoned a kind of Gentilism, and as such particularly prohibited by the Gallick Councils : they were in the eye of the law 'accensores facularum,' and thought to sacrifice to the devil, and to deserve capital punishment."

In Ireland, "on the Eves of St. John Baptist and St. Peter, they always have in every town a bonfire late in the evenings, and carry about bundles of reeds fast tied and fired; these being dry, will last long, and flame better than a torch, and be a pleasing divertive prospect to the distant beholder; a stranger would go near to imagine the whole country was on fire." (Sir Henry Piers's Description of Westmeath, 1682.) The author of the Survey of the South of Ireland, says, p. 232: "It is not strange that many Druid remains should still exist; but it is a little extraordinary that some of their customs should still be practised. They annually renew the sacrifices that used to be offered to Apollo, without knowing it. On Midsummer's Eve, every eminence, near which is a habitation, blazes with bonfires; and round these they carry numerous torches, shouting and dancing, which affords a beautiful sight, and at the same time confirms the observation of Scaliger: 'En Irlande, ils sont quasi tous papistes, mais c'est Papauté méslee de Paganisme, comme partout.' Though historians had not given us the mythology of the Pagan Irish, and though they had not told us expressly that they worshipped Beal, or Bealin, and that this Beal was the sun and their chief god, it might nevertheless be investigated from this custom, which the lapse of so many centuries has not been able to wear away. I have, however, heard it lamented that the alteration

of the style had spoiled these exhibitions: for the Roman Catholics light their fires by the new style, as the correction originated from a pope; and for that very same reason the Protestants adhere to the old."

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I find the following, much to our purpose, in the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1795, p. 124: "The Irish have ever been worshippers of fire and of Baal, and are so to this day. This is owing to the Roman Catholics, who have artfully yielded to the superstitions of the natives, in order to gain and keep up an establishment, grafting Christianity upon Pagan rites. The chief festival in honour of the sun and fire upon the 21st of June, when the sun arrives at the summer solstice, or rather begins its retrograde motion. I was so fortunate in the summer of 1782 as to have my curiosity gratified by a sight of this ceremony to a very great extent of country. At the house where I was entertained, it was told me that we should see at midnight the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting fires in honour of the sun. Accordingly, 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." This is at the end of some Reflections by the late Rev. Donald M'Queen, of Kilmuir, in the Isle of Sky, on Ancient Customs preserved in that island.

The late Dr. Milner was opposed to the notion of the Irish having ever been worshippers of fire and of Baal. In An Inquiry into certain Vulgar Opinions concerning the Catholic Inhabitants and the Antiquities of Ireland, 1808, p. 100, he tells us that the "modern hunters after Paganism in Ireland think they have discovered another instance of it (though they derive this neither from the Celtic Druidesses nor the Roman Vestals, but from the Carthaginians or Phoenicians) in the fires lighted up in different parts of the country on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, or Midsummer-day. This they represent as the idolatrous worship of Baal, the Philistine god of