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In some districts they crown or gird themselves with mugwort while the midsummer fire is burning, for this is supposed to be a protection against ghosts, witches, and sickness; in particular, a wreath of mugwort is a sure preventive of sore eyes. Sometimes the girls look at the bonfires through garlands of wild flowers, praying the fire to strengthen their eyes and eyelids.
At one side gleamed two white tents, and in front of these burned bonfires. "What is it? It must be a lawn party. But we're not dressed for it!" murmured Charlotte, her eyes wide open now. Just then a tremendous shout from the automobile in front rang through the grove.
The Duke of Orleans then followed the example of his nephew, as did a multitude of princes, dukes, marshals, ecclesiastics, and all the officers of state. The royal party returned to the Palais-Royal amidst the unanimous acclamations of the multitude, and the cries of "Vive le roi" continued all night, with bonfires and illuminations.
Further, brands taken from the bonfires are commonly kept in the houses to guard them against conflagration; and though this may perhaps be done on the principle of homoeopathic magic, one fire being thought to act as a preventive of another, it is also possible that the intention may be to keep witch-incendiaries at bay.
Shot after shot found its mark, but still the fleet continued on its course. Then, after the bonfires died down, houses were set on fire to enable the artillerists to see their targets, but before daylight the whole fleet had run the gauntlet and lay almost uninjured below Vicksburg, ready to cooperate with Grant's advancing army.
During every stop of his progress he was greeted with the most extraordinary demonstrations of enthusiasm and affection. Bonfires blazed from the hills, triumphed arches, hastily of maidens spread a carpet of flowers for his chariot wheels, and greeted him with smiles and choruses of welcome. He carried at Lyons in the evening. The whole city was brilliant with illuminations.
We are not so presumptuous as to decide for ourselves what shall afflict us." "Or what shall transport us with joy," added Valeria, with a shrug. "Still less perhaps. Tradition says 'Weep, this is the moment, or 'Rejoice, the hour has come, and we chant our dirge or kindle our bonfires accordingly.
This is patriotism, concerning which Samuel Johnson, reporter in the House of Commons, once made a remark slightly touched with acerbity. In the years Seventeen Hundred Fifty-eight and Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine not a month passed but bonfires burned bright from Cornwall to Scotland in honor of English victories on land and sea.
It produced in England great consternation and distress, but on the Continent it was welcomed with joy, and the great English alliance, now so obviously approaching, was celebrated with ringing of bells, bonfires, and grand illuminations.
On this view the fertility supposed to follow the application of fire in the form of bonfires, torches, discs, rolling wheels, and so forth, is not conceived as resulting directly from an increase of solar heat which the fire has magically generated; it is merely an indirect result obtained by freeing the reproductive powers of plants and animals from the fatal obstruction of witchcraft.
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