heir
Martinmas supper, and as far south as Sicily it is considered essential
to taste the new wine at this festival.{80}

Bonfires appear at Martinmas in Germany, as at All Hallows tide in the
British Isles. On St. Martin's Eve in the Rhine |205| Valley between
Cologne and Coblentz, numbers of little fires burn on the heights and by
the river-bank,{81} the young people leap through the flames and dance
about them, and the ashes are strewn on the fields to make them
fertile.{82} Survivals of fire-customs are found also in other regions.
In Belgium, Holland, and north-west Germany processions of children with
paper or turnip lanterns take place on St. Martin's Eve. In the Eichsfeld
district the little river Geislede glows with the light of candles placed
in floating nutshells. Even the practice of leaping through the fire
survives in a modified form, for in northern Germany it is not uncommon
for people on St. Martin's Day or Eve to jump over lighted candles set on
the parlour floor.{83} In the fifteenth century the Martinmas fires were
so many that the festival actually got the name of _Funkentag_ (Spark
Day).{84}

* * * * *

On St. Martin's Eve in Germany and the Low Countries we begin to meet
those winter visitors, bright saints and angels on the one hand,
mock-terrible bogeys and monsters on the other, who add so much to the
romance and mystery of the children's Christmas. Such visitors are to be
found in many countries, but it is in the lands of German speech that
they take on the most vivid and picturesque forms. St. Martin, St.
Nicholas, Christkind, Knecht Ruprecht, and the rest are very real and
personal beings to the children, and are awaited with pleasant
expectation or mild dread. Often they are beheld not merely with the
imagination but with the bodily eye, when father or friend is wondrously
transformed into a supernatural figure.

What are the origins of these holy or monstrous beings? It is hard to say
with certainty, for many elements, pagan and Christian, seem here to be
closely blended. It is pretty clear, however, that the grotesque
half-animal shapes are direct relics of heathendom, and it is highly
probable that the forms of saints or angels--even, perhaps, of the Christ
Child Himself--represent attempts of the Church to transform and sanctify
alien things which she could not suppress. What some of these may have
been we shall tentatively guess as we go along. Though