her hands and run beside her.  When the fire has burned out, the whole assembly marches in solemn procession to the church, singing hymns.  They go thrice round the church, and then break up.  In the twilight boys with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them fruitful.[351] At Delmenhorst, in Oldenburg, it used to be the custom to cut down two trees, plant them in the ground side by side, and pile twelve tar-barrels, one above the other, against each of the trees.  Brushwood was then heaped about the trees, and on the evening of Easter Saturday the boys, after rushing about with blazing beanpoles in their hands, set fire to the whole.  At the end of the ceremony the urchins tried to blacken each other and the clothes of grown-up people.[352] In Schaumburg the Easter bonfires may be seen blazing on all the mountains around for miles.  They are made with a tar-barrel fastened to a pine-tree, which is wrapt in straw.  The people dance singing round them.[353] In the Harz Mountains the fire is commonly made by piling brushwood about a tree and setting it on fire.  At Osterode every one tries to snatch a brand from the bonfire and runs about with it; the better it burns, the more lucky it is.  In Grund there are torch-races.[354] In the Altmark the Easter bonfires are composed of tar-barrels, bee-hives, and so forth, piled round a pole.  The young folk dance round the fire; and when it has died out, the old folk come and collect the ashes, which they preserve as a remedy for the ailments of bees.  It is also believed that as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible, the corn will grow well throughout the year, and no conflagration will break out.[355] At Braunroede, in the Harz Mountains, it was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire.[356] In the Altmark, bones were burned in it.[357]

[The Easter fires in Bavaria; the burning of Judas; burning the Easter Man.]

Further south the Easter fires are, or used to be, lit in many districts of Bavaria.  Thus on Easter Monday in some parts of Middle Franken the schoolboys collect all the old worn-out besoms they can lay hands on, and march with them in a long procession to a neighbouring height.  When the first chime of the evening bell comes up from the dale they set fire to the brooms, and run along the ridges waving them, so that seen from below the hills appear to be crested with a twinkling and moving chain of fire.[358] In some parts of Upper Bavaria at Easter burning arrows or discs of wood were shot from hill-tops high into the air, as in the Swabian and Swiss customs already described.[359] At Oberau, instead of the discs, an old cart-wheel was sometimes wrapt in straw, ignited, and sent rolling and blazing down the mountain.  The lads who hurled the discs received painted Easter eggs from the girls.[360] Near Forchheim, in Upper Franken, a straw-man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards on Easter Saturday.  The whole village contributed wood to the pyre on which he perished,