Again, the bonfires are often supposed to protect the fields against hail[864] and the homestead against thunder and lightning.[865] But both hail and thunderstorms are frequently thought to be caused by witches;[866] hence the fire which bans the witches necessarily serves at the same time as a talisman against hail, thunder, and lightning.  Further, brands taken from the bonfires are commonly kept in the houses to guard them against conflagration;[867] and though this may perhaps be done on the principle of homoeopathic magic, one fire being thought to act as a preventive of another, it is also possible that the intention may be to keep witch-incendiaries at bay.  Again, people leap over the bonfires as a preventive of colic,[868] and look at the flames steadily in order to preserve their eyes in good health;[869] and both colic and sore eyes are in Germany, and probably elsewhere, set down to the machinations of witches.[870] Once more, to leap over the Midsummer fires or to circumambulate them is thought to prevent a person from feeling pains in his back at reaping;[871] and in Germany such pains are called “witch-shots” and ascribed to witchcraft.[872]

[The burning wheels rolled down hills and the burning discs and brooms thrown into the air may be intended to burn the invisible witches.]

But if the bonfires and torches of the fire-festivals are to be regarded primarily as weapons directed against witches and wizards, it becomes probable that the same explanation applies not only to the flaming discs which are hurled into the air, but also to the burning wheels which are rolled down hill on these occasions; discs and wheels, we may suppose, are alike intended to burn the witches who hover invisible in the air or haunt unseen the fields, the orchards, and the vineyards on the hillside.[873] Certainly witches are constantly thought to ride through the air on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past overhead in the gloom?  The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the hags, while he curses them, saying, “Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is a heathen, damned of God and fettered through the Redeemer’s blood.”  Also he brings out a pot of glowing charcoal on which he has thrown holy oil, laurel leaves, and wormwood to make a smoke.  The fumes are supposed to ascend to the clouds and stupefy the witches, so that they tumble down to earth.  And in order that they may not fall soft, but may hurt themselves very much, the yokel hastily brings out a chair and tilts it bottom up so that the witch in falling may break her legs on the legs of the chair.  Worse than that, he cruelly lays scythes, bill-hooks and other formidable weapons edge upwards so as to cut and mangle the poor wretches when they drop plump upon them from the clouds.[874]