Such an invitation to jump together over the bonfire was
regarded as tantamount to a public betrothal.[410] Near Offenburg, in
the Black Forest, on Midsummer Day the village boys used to collect
faggots and straw on some steep and conspicuous height, and they spent
some time in making circular wooden discs by slicing the trunk of a
pine-tree across. When darkness had fallen, they kindled the bonfire,
and then, as it blazed up, they lighted the discs at it, and, after
swinging them to and fro at the end of a stout and supple hazel-wand,
they hurled them one after the other, whizzing and flaming, into the
air, where they described great arcs of fire, to fall at length, like
shooting-stars, at the foot of the mountain.[411] In many parts of
Alsace and Lorraine the midsummer fires still blaze annually or did so
not very many years ago.[412] At Speicher in the Eifel, a district which
lies on the middle Rhine, to the west of Coblentz, a bonfire used to be
kindled in front of the village on St. John's Day, and all the young
people had to jump over it. Those who failed to do so were not allowed
to join the rest in begging for eggs from house to house. Where no eggs
were given, they drove a wedge into the keyhole of the door. On this day
children in the Eifel used also to gather flowers in the fields, weave
them into garlands, and throw the garlands on the roofs or hang them on
the doors of the houses. So long as the flowers remained there, they
were supposed to guard the house from fire and lightning.
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