Here, as elsewhere, a close connexion was traced
between these bonfires and the harvest. In some places it was thought
that those who leaped over the fires would not suffer from backache at
reaping. Sometimes, as the young folk sprang over the flames, they
cried, "Grow, that the hemp may be three ells high!" This notion that
the hemp or the corn would grow as high as the flames blazed or as the
people jumped over them, seems to have been widespread in Baden. It was
held that the parents of the young people who bounded highest over the
fire would have the most abundant harvest; and on the other hand, if a
man contributed nothing to the bonfire, it was imagined that there would
be no blessing on his crops, and that his hemp in particular would never
grow.[409] In the neighbourhood of Buehl and Achern the St. John's fires
were kindled on the tops of hills; only the unmarried lads of the
village brought the fuel, and only the unmarried young men and women
sprang through the flames. But most of the villagers, old and young,
gathered round the bonfires, leaving a clear space for the leapers to
take their run. One of the bystanders would call out the names of a pair
of sweethearts; on which the two would step out from the throng, take
each other by the hand, and leap high and lightly through the swirling
smoke and flames, while the spectators watched them critically and drew
omens of their married life from the height to which each of them
bounded.
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