the flames, on a
cairn or high hill top, as we have seen them some forty years ago." The
ancient Egyptians had their midsummer feasts, as also had the Greeks and
Romans. During these festivals, we are told that the people, headed by
the priests, walked in procession, carrying flowers and other emblems of
the season in honour of their gods. Such processions were continued
during the early years of the Christian Church, and the Christian
priests in their vestments went into the fields to ask a blessing on the
agricultural produce of the year. Towards the beginning of the twelfth
century the Church introduced the _Feast of God_, and fixed the 19th
June for its celebration. The eucharistic elements were declared to be
the actual presence of God, and this, the consecrated Host or God
himself was carried through the open streets by a procession of priests,
the people turning out to do it honour, kneeling and worshipping as it
passed. This feast of God may have absorbed some of the ancient
midsummer practices, but the _Feast of St. John's Day_, which is held
upon the 24th June, has in its customs a greater similarity to the
ancient sun feast. On the eve of St. John's day, people went to the
woods and brought home branches of trees, which they fixed over their
doorways. Towards night of St. John's Day, bonfires were kindled, and
round them the people danced with frantic mirth, and men and boys leaped
through the flames. Leaping through the flames is a common practice at
these survivals of sun festivals, and although done now, partly for luck
and partly for sport, there can be little doubt but that originally
human sacrifices were then offered to the sun god.

There was quite a host of curious superstitions connected with this
midsummer feast, especially in Ireland and Germany, and many of these
were similar to those connected with the feast of _Hallowe'en_ in
Scotland. In Ireland, in olden times, it was believed that the souls of
people left their sleeping bodies, and visited the place where death
would ultimately overtake them; and there were many who, in consequence,
would not sleep, but sat up all night. People also went out on St.
John's eve to gather certain plants which were held as sacred, such as
_the rose_, _the trifoil_, _St. John's wort_, and _vervain_, the
possession of which gave them influence over evil. To catch the seed of
the fern as it fell to the ground on St. John's eve, exactly at twelve
o'clock, was belie