ius 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."[519] In County
Leitrim on St. John's Eve, which is called Bonfire Day, fires are still
lighted after dusk on the hills and along the sides of the roads.[520]
All over Kerry the same thing continues to be done, though not so
commonly as of old. Small fires were made across the road, and to drive
through them brought luck for the year. Cattle were also driven through
the fires. On Lettermore Island, in South Connemara, some of the ashes
from the midsummer bonfire are thrown on the fields to fertilize
them.[521] One writer informs us that in Munster and Connaught a bone
must always be burned in the fire; for otherwise the people believe that
the fire will bring no luck. He adds that in many places sterile beasts
and human beings are passed through the fire, and that as a boy he
himself jumped through the fire "for luck."[522] An eye-witness has
described as follows a remarkable ceremony observed in Ireland on
Midsummer Eve: "When the fire burned for some hours, and got low, an
indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the
peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the
sparkling embers; while a wooden frame, of some eight feet long, with a
horse's head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it
concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its
appearance. This was gre