If anybody makes a false step and falls or rolls in the hot embers, he
or she is greeted with hoots and retires abashed from the circle of
dancers. Brands are carried home from the bonfire to protect the houses
against lightning, conflagrations, and certain maladies and spells. The
precious talisman is carefully kept in a cupboard till St. John's Day of
the following year.[456] At Quimper, and in the district of Leon, chairs
used to be placed round the midsummer bonfire, that the souls of the
dead might sit on them and warm themselves at the blaze.[457] At Brest
on this day thousands of people used to assemble on the ramparts towards
evening and brandish lighted torches, which they swung in circles or
flung by hundreds into the air. The closing of the town gates put an end
to the spectacle, and the lights might be seen dispersing in all
directions like wandering will-o'-the-wisps.[458] In Upper Brittany the
materials for the midsummer bonfires, which generally consist of bundles
of furze and heath, are furnished by voluntary contributions, and piled
on the tops of hills round poles, each of which is surmounted by a
nosegay or a crown. This nosegay or crown is generally provided by a man
named John or a woman named Jean, and it is always a John or a Jean who
puts a light to the bonfire. While the fire is blazing the people dance
and sing round it, and when the flames have subsided they leap over the
glowing embers.
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