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Updated: May 17, 2025
The principal fire-festivals of the Celts, which have survived, though in a restricted area and with diminished pomp, to modern times and even to our own day, were seemingly timed without any reference to the position of the sun in the heaven.
The Midsummer Fires, pp. 160-219. The great season for fire-festivals in Europe is Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, which the church has dedicated to St.
However, the case is not so clear as to justify us in dismissing the solar theory without discussion, and accordingly I propose to adduce the considerations which tell for it before proceeding to notice those which tell against it. A theory which had the support of so learned and sagacious an investigator as W. Mannhardt is entitled to a respectful hearing. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals
But besides these quinquennial festivals, celebrated on so grand a scale, and with, apparently, so large an expenditure of human life, it seems reasonable to suppose that festivals of the same sort, only on a lesser scale, were held annually, and that from these annual festivals are lineally descended some at least of the fire-festivals which, with their traces of human sacrifices, are still celebrated year by year in many parts of Europe.
Here he slipped quietly out of his straw casing, which was then burned, the children thinking that it was the man who was being burned. The figure is called the Old Woman, and the ceremony "burning the Old Woman." The Easter Fires ANOTHER occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is Easter Eve, the Saturday before Easter Sunday.
Once more, the custom of carrying lighted brands round cattle is plainly equivalent to driving the animals through the bonfire; and if the bonfire is a suncharm, the torches must be so also. The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals
The writer adopts the absurd derivation of jônée from Janus. Needless to say that our old friend Baal, Bel, or Belus figures prominently in this and many other accounts of the European fire-festivals. Guerry, "Sur les usages et traditions du Poitou," Mémoires et dissertations publiés par la Société Royale des Antiquaires de France, viii. pp. 451 sq.
The principal fire-festivals of the Celts, which have survived, though in a restricted area and with diminished pomp, to modern times and even to our own day, were seemingly timed without any reference to the position of the sun in the heaven.
The other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, 'his flocks from spells which had been cast on 'em." In a recent account of the fire-festivals of Wales we read that "I have also heard my grandfather and father say that in times gone by the people would throw a calf in the fire when there was any disease among the herds.
The wicken-tree is the mountain-ash or rowan free, which is a very efficient, or at all events a very popular protective against witchcraft. See County Folk-lore, vol. v. See further The Scapegoat, pp. 266 sq. On the Fire-festivals in general The foregoing survey of the popular fire-festivals of Europe suggests some general observations.
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