Sec. 2. The Easter Fires

[Fire-festivals on Easter Eve.  Custom in Catholic countries of kindling a holy new fire at the church on Easter Saturday; marvellous properties ascribed to the embers of the fire; the burning of Judas.]

Another occasion on which these fire-festivals are held is Easter Eve, the Saturday before Easter Sunday.  On that day it has been customary in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches, and then to make a new fire, sometimes with flint and steel, sometimes with a burning-glass.  At this fire is lit the great Paschal or Easter candle, which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church.  In many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled, by means of the new fire, on some open space near the church.  It is consecrated, and the people bring sticks of oak, walnut, and beech, which they char in the fire, and then take home with them.  Some of these charred sticks are thereupon burned at home in a newly-kindled fire, with a prayer that God will preserve the homestead from fire, lightning, and hail.  Thus every house receives “new fire.”  Some of the sticks are kept throughout the year and laid on the hearth-fire during heavy thunder-storms to prevent the house from being struck by lightning, or they are inserted in the roof with the like intention.  Others are placed in the fields, gardens, and meadows, with a prayer that God will keep them from blight and hail.  Such fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others; the corn and the plants that grow in them are not beaten down by hail, nor devoured by mice, vermin, and beetles; no witch harms them, and the ears of corn stand close and full.  The charred sticks are also applied to the plough.  The ashes of the Easter bonfire, together with the ashes of the consecrated palm-branches, are mixed with the seed at sowing.  A wooden figure called Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire, and even where this custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some places goes by the name of “the burning of Judas."[305]

[Easter fires in Bavaria and the Abruzzi.]

In the Hollertau, Bavaria, the young men used to light their lanterns at the newly-kindled Easter candle in the church and then race to the bonfire; he who reached it first set fire to the pile, and next day, Easter Sunday, was rewarded at the church-door by the housewives, who presented him with red eggs.  Great was the jubilation while the effigy of the traitor was being consumed in the flames.  The ashes were carefully collected and thrown away at sunrise in running water.[306] In many parts of the Abruzzi, also, pious people kindle their fires on Easter Saturday with a brand brought from the sacred new fire in the church.  When the brand has thus served to bless the fire on the domestic hearth, it is extinguished, and the remainder is preserved, partly in a cranny of the outer wall of the house, partly on a tree to which it is tied.