In the towns about Wuerzburg the bonfires used to be
kindled in the market-places, and the young people who jumped over them
wore garlands of flowers, especially of mugwort and vervain, and carried
sprigs of larkspur in their hands. They thought that such as looked at
the fire holding a bit of larkspur before their face would be troubled
by no malady of the eyes throughout the year.[403] Further, it was
customary at Wuerzburg, in the sixteenth century, for the bishop's
followers to throw burning discs of wood into the air from a mountain
which overhangs the town. The discs were discharged by means of flexible
rods, and in their flight through the darkness presented the appearance
of fiery dragons.[404]
[The Midsummer fires in Swabia; omens drawn from the leaps over the
fires; burning wheels rolled down hill; burning the Angel-Man at
Rottenburg.]
In the valley of the Lech, which divides Upper Bavaria from Swabia, the
midsummer customs and beliefs are, or used to be, very similar. Bonfires
are kindled on the mountains on Midsummer Day; and besides the bonfire a
tall beam, thickly wrapt in straw and surmounted by a cross-piece, is
burned in many places. Round this cross as it burns the lads dance with
loud shouts; and when the flames have subsided, the young people leap
over the fire in pairs, a young man and a young woman together. If they
escape unsmirched, the man will not suffer from fever, and the girl will
not become a mother within the year.
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