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 whereof doth every man with greedie mind take home, That when the fearefull storme appeares, or tempest black arise, By lighting this he safe may be from stroke of hurtful skies:  A taper great, the Paschall namde, with musicke then they blesse, And franckensence herein they pricke, for greater holynesse:  This burneth night and day as signe of Christ that conquerde hell, As if so be this foolish toye suffiseth this to tell.  Then doth the Bishop or the Priest, the water halow straight,
That for their baptisme is reservde:  for now no more of waight
Is that they usde the yeare before, nor can they any more,
Yong children christen with the same, as they have