[424] At Gratz on
St. John's Eve (the twenty-third of June) the common people used to make
a puppet called the _Tatermann_, which they dragged to the bleaching
ground, and pelted with burning besoms till it took fire.[425] At
Reutte, in the Tyrol, people believed that the flax would grow as high
as they leaped over the midsummer bonfire, and they took pieces of
charred wood from the fire and stuck them in their flax-fields the same
night, leaving them there till the flax harvest had been got in.[426] In
Lower Austria fires are lit in the fields, commonly in front of a cross,
and the people dance and sing round them and throw flowers into the
flames. Before each handful of flowers is tossed into the fire, a set
speech is made; then the dance is resumed and the dancers sing in chorus
the last words of the speech. At evening bonfires are kindled on the
heights, and the boys caper round them, brandishing lighted torches
drenched in pitch. Whoever jumps thrice across the fire will not suffer
from fever within the year. Cart-wheels are often smeared with pitch,
ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down the hillsides.[427]
[Midsummer fires in Bohemia; wreaths thrown across the fire; uses made
of the singed wreaths; burning wheels rolled down hill; embers of the
fire stuck in fields, gardens, and houses as a talisman against
lightning and conflagration; use of mugwort; cattle protected against
witchcraft.
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