"[496] In the sixteenth
century the Eton boys used to kindle a bonfire on the east side of the
church both on St John's Day and on St. Peter's Day.[497] Writing in the
second half of the seventeenth century, the antiquary John Aubrey tells
us that bonfires were still kindled in many places on St. John's Night,
but that the civil wars had thrown many of these old customs out of
fashion. Wars, he adds, extinguish superstition as well as religion and
laws, and there is nothing like gunpowder for putting phantoms to
flight.[498]
[The Midsummer fires in the north of England; the Midsummer fires in
Northumberland.]
In the north of England these fires used to be lit in the open streets.
Young and old gathered round them, and while the young leaped over the
fires and engaged in games, their elders looked on and probably
remembered with regret the days when they used to foot it as nimbly.
Sometimes the fires were kindled on the tops of high hills. The people
also carried firebrands about the fields.[499] The custom of kindling
bonfires on Midsummer Eve prevailed all over Cumberland down to the
second half of the eighteenth century.[500] In Northumberland the custom
seems to have lasted into the first quarter of the nineteenth century;
the fires were lit in the villages and on the tops of high hills, and
the people sported and danced round them.[501] Moreover, the villagers
used to run with burning brands round their fields and to snatch ashes
from a neighbour's fire, saying as they did so, "We have the flower (or
flour) of the wake.
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