n saga, where a woman
cursed her seven daughters and they became mice, a woman, who is of the
same age as the mother when she uttered the curse, must come with seven
sons of the same ages as the daughters were when they were cursed, on
Good Friday at noon, to the thicket where the mice are, and put her sons
on a certain round stone there. The seven mice will then return to human
shape; and when the children are old enough they will marry, and become
rich and happy for the rest of their lives. A Carinthian tale requires
the deliverer to come the next full moon after "May-Sunday"; and
May-night is the date fixed in another case. But the favourite time is
St. John's Day, either at noon or midnight.[182] Some of these days are
ecclesiastical festivals; but perhaps the only one which has not
superseded an ancient heathen feast is Good Friday. The policy of the
Church, in consecrating to Christian uses as many as possible of the
seasons and customs she found already honoured among the peoples she had
conquered, seized upon their holy days and made them her own. And if the
science of Folklore has taught us anything, it is that the observances
on these converted holy days external to the rites demanded by the
Church are relics of the ceremonies performed in pagan days to pagan
deities. In none of these instances has the proof been more conclusive
than in that of St. John's, or Midsummer Day. Grimm, first, with
abundant learning, and more recently Mr. Frazer, with a wealth of
illustration surpassing that of Grimm himself, and indeed inaccessible
in his day, have shown that the Midsummer festival was kept in honour of
the sun; that it consisted of the ceremonial kindling of fire, the
gathering and use of floral garlands, the offering of human and other
sacrifices, and the performance of sacred dances; and that its object
was to increase the power of the sun by magical sympathy, to obtain a
good harvest and fruitfulness of all creatures, and to purge the sins of
the people. It was, in fact, the chief ceremony of the year among the
European races.

Prominent among the remnants of these ceremonies continued down to
modern days are the Midsummer bonfires. These were lighted on the tops
of mountains, hills, or even barrows. This situation may be thought to
have symbolic reference to the solstice; but probably a still more
powerful reason for it was the already sacred character of such places.
But we need hardly consider whether the ce