bring
jugs full of water to the church and set them beside the holy fire;
afterwards they use the water to sprinkle on the palm-branches which are
stuck in the fields. Charred sticks of the Judas fire, as it is
popularly called, are supposed to possess a magical and healing virtue;
hence the people take them home with them, and even scuffle with each
other for the still glowing embers in order to carry them, still
glimmering, to their houses and so obtain "the light" or "the holy
light."[310] At Hildesheim, also, and the neighbouring villages of
central Germany rites both of fire and water are or were till lately
observed at Easter. Thus on Easter night many people fetch water from
the Innerste river and keep it carefully, believing it to be a remedy
for many sorts of ailments both of man and beast. In the villages on the
Leine river servant men and maids used to go silently on Easter night
between the hours of eleven and twelve and silently draw water in
buckets from the river; they mixed the water with the fodder and the
drink of the cattle to make the animals thrive, and they imagined that
to wash in it was good for human beings. Many were also of opinion that
at the same mystic hour the water turned to wine as far as the crowing
of a cock could be heard, and in this belief they laid themselves flat
on their stomachs and kept their tongues in the water till the
miraculous change occurred, when they took a great gulp of the
transformed water. At Hildesheim, too, and the neighbouring villages
fires used to blaze on all the heights on Easter Eve; and embers taken
from the bonfires were dipped in the cattle troughs to benefit the
beasts and were kept in the houses to avert lightning.[311]

[New fire at Easter in Carinthia; consecration of fire and water by the
Catholic Church at Easter.]

In the Lesachthal, Carinthia, all the fires in the houses used to be
extinguished on Easter Saturday, and rekindled with a fresh fire brought
from the churchyard, where the priest had lit it by the friction of
flint and steel and had bestowed his blessing on it.[312] Such customs
were probably widespread. In a Latin poem of the sixteenth century,
written by a certain Thomas Kirchmeyer and translated into English by
Barnabe Googe, we read:--

"_On Easter Eve the fire all is quencht in every place,
And fresh againe from out the flint is fetcht with solemne grace:
The priest doth halow this against great daungers many one,
A brande whe