auspices were
taken. A man's innocence or guilt was manifested by gods to men
through ordeals by fire; walking upon red-hot ploughshares, holding
a heated bar of iron, or thrusting the hands into red-hot
gauntlets, or into boiling water. If after a certain number of
days no burns appeared the person was declared innocent. If a
suspected man, thrown into the water, floated he was guilty; if he
sank, he was acquitted.

The rites of the Celts were done in secret, and it was forbidden
that they be written down. Those of the Teutons were commemorated
in Edda and Saga (poetry and prose).

In the far north the shortness of summer and the length of winter
so impressed the people that when they made a story about it they
told of a maiden, the Spring, put to sleep, and guarded, along with
a hoard of treasure, by a ring of fire. One knight only could break
through the flames, awaken her and seize the treasure. He is the
returning sun, and the treasure he gets possession of is the wealth
of summer vegetation. So there is the story of Brynhild, pricked by
the "sleep-thorn" of her father, Wotan, and sleeping until Sigurd
wakens her. They marry, but soon Sigurd has to give her up to
Gunnar, the relentless winter, and Gunnar cannot rest until he has
killed Sigurd, and reigns undisturbed. Grimms' story of Rapunzel,
the princess who was shut up by a winter witch, and of Briar-Rose,
pricked by a witch's spindle, and sleeping inside a hedge which
blooms with spring at the knight's approach, mean likewise the
struggle between summer and winter.

The chief festivals of the Teutonic year were held at Midsummer and
Midwinter. May-Day, the very beginning of spring, was celebrated by
May-ridings, when winter and spring, personified by two warriors,
engaged in a combat in which Winter, the fur-clad king of ice and
snow, was defeated. It was then that the sacred fire had been
kindled, and the sacrificial feast held. Judgments were rendered
then.

The summer solstice was marked by bonfires, like those of the Celts
on May Eve and Midsummer. They were kindled in an open place or on
a hill, and the ceremonies held about them were similar to the
Celtic. As late as the eighteenth century these same customs were
observed in Iceland.

A May-pole wreathed with magical herbs is erected as the center of
the dance in Sweden, and in Norway a child chosen May-bride is
followed by a procession as at a real wedding. This is a symbol of
the wedding of su