e fiery wheel, and watched with amusement the shifts to which
its guides were put in steering it round the hollows and over the broken
ground on the mountainside. The great object of the young men who guided
the wheel was to plunge it blazing into the water of the Moselle; but
they rarely succeeded in their efforts, for the vineyards which cover
the greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel
was often burned out before it reached the river. As it rolled past the
women and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were
answered by the men on the top of the mountain; and the shouts were
echoed by the inhabitants of neighbouring villages who watched the
spectacle from their hills on the opposite bank of the Moselle. If the
fiery wheel was successfully conveyed to the bank of the river and
extinguished in the water, the people looked for an abundant vintage
that year, and the inhabitants of Konz had the right to exact a
waggon-load of white wine from the surrounding vineyards. On the other
hand, they believed that, if they neglected to perform the ceremony, the
cattle would be attacked by giddiness and convulsions and would dance in
their stalls.[399]

[The Midsummer fires in Bavaria; Cattle driven through the fire; the new
fire; omens of the harvest drawn from the fires; burning discs thrown
into the air.]

Down at least to the middle of the nineteenth century the midsummer
fires used to blaze all over Upper Bavaria. They were kindled especially
on the mountains, but also far and wide in the lowlands, and we are told
that in the darkness and stillness of night the moving groups, lit up by
the flickering glow of the flames, presented an impressive spectacle. In
some places the people shewed their sense of the sanctity of the fires
by using for fuel the trees past which the gay procession had defiled,
with fluttering banners, on Corpus Christi Day. In others the children
collected the firewood from door to door on the eve of the festival,
singing their request for fuel at every house in doggerel verse. Cattle
were driven through the fire to cure the sick animals and to guard such
as were sound against plague and harm of every kind throughout the year.
Many a householder on that day put out the fire on the domestic hearth
and rekindled it by means of a brand taken from the midsummer bonfire.
The people judged of the height to which the flax would grow in the year
by the height to which the