[540] At Orvieto the midsummer fires were specially excepted
from the prohibition directed against bonfires in general.[541]
[The Midsummer fires in Malta ]
In Malta also the people celebrate Midsummer Eve (St. John's Eve) "by
kindling great fires in the public streets, and giving their children
dolls to carry in their arms on this day, in order to make good the
prophecy respecting the Baptist, _Multi in nativitate ejus gaudebunt_.
Days and even weeks before this festival, groups of children are seen
going out into the country fields to gather straw, twigs, and all sorts
of other combustibles, which they store up for St. John's Eve. On the
night of the twenty-third of June, the day before the festival of the
Saint, great fires are kindled in the streets, squares, and market
places of the towns and villages of the Island, and as fire after fire
blazes out of the darkness of that summer night, the effect is
singularly striking. These fires are sometimes kept up for hours, being
continually fed by the scores of bystanders, who take great delight in
throwing amidst the flames some old rickety piece of furniture which
they consider as lumber in their houses. Lots of happy and reckless
children, and very often men, are seen merrily leaping in succession
over and through the crackling flames. At the time of the Order of St.
John of Jerusalem, the Grand Master himself, soon after the _Angelus_,
used to leave his palace, accompanied by the Grand Prior, the Bishop,
and two bailiffs, to set fire to some pitch barrels which were placed
for the occasion in the square facing the sacred Hospital.
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