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Some of the Perche farmers in the old days, not content with the public bonfire, used to light little private bonfires in their farmyards and make all their cattle pass through the smoke and flames for the purpose of protecting them against witchcraft or disease.

Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee. The monotonous chant with the refrain, "Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee," went on for many verses. Meanwhile the old squaws never ceased to feed the bonfire, and the flames roared, casting a deeper and more vivid light over the distorted faces of the dancers and those of the chiefs, who sat gravely beyond.

He will not go gently and quietly to work in his reform, for he feels that would be of no use; the case is so serious that nothing but a strong and decided step will answer the purpose. His strong step consisted in the making of a bonfire.

"'Clar for't," said Aunt Milly, "we orto have a bonfire. It won't hurt nothin' on the brick pavement." Accordingly, as it was now dark, the children were set at work gathering blocks, chips, sticks, dried twigs, and leaves, and by the time John Jr. appeared, they had collected quite a pile.

In Sweden the warmth or cold of the coming season is inferred from the direction in which the flames of the May Day bonfire are blown; if they blow to the south, it will be warm, if to the north, cold. No doubt at present the direction of the flames is regarded merely as an augury of the weather, not as a mode of influencing it.

The boom of the cannon came once more, and, then by the light of his splendid bonfire, he looked. There was the ship outside the reefs which his great pyramid of flame now enabled her to see. He shouted in his joy, and threw on more wood. If he could only build that pyramid high enough they would see the opening too and make for it.

It took only a few minutes to gather enough wood in the centre of the square for a gigantic bonfire, and when all the people of Lancaster were drawn into the square by the blaze, the boys started their display of fireworks. The astonished people heard one dull thudding report after another, saw a ball of colored fire flaming high in the air, then a burst of myriad sparks and a rain of stars.

Thus, at least, looking in the bosom of the miser, consideration detects the poet in the full tide of life, with more, indeed, of the poetic fire than usually goes to epics; and tracing that mean man about his cold hearth, and to and fro in his discomfortable house, spies within him a blazing bonfire of delight.

Yes, sir; but if they are so distant that he can not reach them, or so vast that he can not grasp them, he may let a thousand little, snug, kind, good actions slip through his fingers in the meanwhile; and so between the great things that he can not do, and the little ones that he will not do, life passes and nothing will be done. If it were the fifth of November I should think it were a bonfire.

These, after dipping in tar, they light running with them from one bonfire to another and when burnt out they are placed in the fields as charms against blight. The large ragwort known in Ireland as the "fairies' horse" has long been sought for by witches when taking their midnight journeys.