[287] In the peninsula
of La Manche the Norman peasants used to spend almost the whole night of
the first Sunday in Lent rushing about the country with lighted torches
for the purpose, as they supposed, of driving away the moles and
field-mice; fires were also kindled on some of the dolmens.[288]
[Bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Germany and Austria; burning
the witch; burning discs thrown into the air; burning wheels rolled down
hill; bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent in Switzerland.]
In Germany, Austria, and Switzerland at the same season similar customs
have prevailed. Thus in the Eifel Mountains, Rhenish Prussia, on the
first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood
from house to house. These they carried to an eminence and piled up
round a tall, slim beech-tree, to which a piece of wood was fastened at
right angles to form a cross. The structure was known as the "hut" or
"castle." Fire was set to it and the young people marched round the
blazing "castle" bareheaded, each carrying a lighted torch and praying
aloud. Sometimes a straw-man was burned in the "hut." People observed
the direction in which the smoke blew from the fire. If it blew towards
the corn-fields, it was a sign that the harvest would be abundant. On
the same day, in some parts of the Eifel, a great wheel was made of
straw and dragged by three horses to the top of a hill. Thither the
village boys marched at nightfall, set fire to the wheel, and sent it
rolling down the slope.
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