g flames are a feeble imitation. In
favour of this view it may be said that sometimes the torches are
carried about the fields for the express purpose of fertilizing
them,[850] and for the same purpose live coals from the bonfires are
sometimes placed in the fields "to prevent blight."[851] On the Eve of
Twelfth Day in Normandy men, women, and children run wildly through the
fields and orchards with lighted torches, which they wave about the
branches and dash against the trunks of the fruit-trees for the sake of
burning the moss and driving away the moles and field mice. "They
believe that the ceremony fulfils the double object of exorcizing the
vermin whose multiplication would be a real calamity, and of imparting
fecundity to the trees, the fields, and even the cattle"; and they
imagine that the more the ceremony is prolonged, the greater will be the
crop of fruit next autumn.[852] In Bohemia they say that the corn will
grow as high as they fling the blazing besoms into the air.[853] Nor are
such notions confined to Europe. In Corea, a few days before the New
Year festival, the eunuchs of the palace swing burning torches, chanting
invocations the while, and this is supposed to ensure bountiful crops
for the next season.[854] The custom of trundling a burning wheel over
the fields, which used to be observed in Poitou for the express purpose
of fertilizing them,[855] may be thought to embody the same idea in a
still more graphic form; since in this way the mock-sun itself, not
merely its light and heat represented by torches, is made actually to
pass over the ground which is to receive its quickening and kindly
influence. Once more, the custom of carrying lighted brands round
cattle[856] is plainly equivalent to driving the animals through the
bonfire; and if the bonfire is a sun-charm, the torches must be so also.

Sec. 3. _The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals_

[Theory that the fires at the festivals are purificatory, being intended
to burn up all harmful things.]

Thus far we have considered what may be said for the theory that at the
European fire-festivals the fire is kindled as a charm to ensure an
abundant supply of sunshine for man and beast, for corn and fruits. It
remains to consider what may be said against this theory and in favour
of the view that in these rites fire is employed not as a creative but
as a cleansing agent, which purifies men, animals, and plants by burning
up and consuming the