"[517] Another writer states that he witnessed the festival in
Ireland in 1782: "At the house where I was entertained, it was told me,
that we should see, at midnight, the most singular sight in Ireland,
which was the lighting of fires in honour of the sun. Accordingly,
exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear; and taking the advantage
of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view,
I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires burning on
every eminence which the country afforded. I had a farther satisfaction
in learning, from undoubted authority, that the people danced round the
fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons
and daughters, together with their cattle, pass through the fire; and
the whole was conducted with religious solemnity."[518] That the custom
prevailed in full force as late as 1867 appears from a notice in a
newspaper of that date, which runs thus: "The old pagan fire-worship
still survives in Ireland, though nominally in honour of St. John. On
Sunday night bonfires were observed throughout nearly every county in
the province of Leinster. In Kilkenny, fires blazed on every hillside at
intervals of about a mile. There were very many in the Queen's County,
also in Kildare and Wexford. The effect in the rich sunset appeared to
travellers very grand. The people assemble, and dance round the fires,
the children jump through the flames, and in former times live coals
were carried into the corn-fields to prevent blight.
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