Meanwhile, in each village, pyres of dry wood, amounting to thirty, fifty, or even a hundred cartloads, have been piled up.  The wood is set on fire before the procession goes forth to the hallowing of the fountains.  On returning, the crowd dances a horo (round dance) about the glowing logs.  Heaps of embers (Pineus acervus) are made, and water is thrown on the ground.  The musicians play the tune called ’L’Air Nistinar.’  A Nistinare breaks through the dance, turns blue, trembles like a leaf, and glares wildly with his eyes.  The dance ends, and everybody goes to the best point of view.  Then the wildest Nistinare seizes the icon, turns it to the crowd, and with naked feet climbs the pyre of glowing embers.  The music plays, and the Nistinare dances to the tune in the fire.  If he is so disposed he utters prophecies.  He dances till his face resumes its ordinary expression; then he begins to feel the burning; he leaves the pyre, and places his feet in the mud made by the libations of water already described.  The second Nistinare then dances in the fire, and so on.  The predictions apply to villages and persons; sometimes sinners are denounced, or repairs of the church are demanded in this queer parish council.  All through the month of May the Nistinares call out for fire when they hear the Nistinare music playing.  They are very temperate men and women.  Except in May they do not clamour for fire, and cannot dance in it.

In this remarkable case the alleged gift is hereditary, is of saintly origin, and is only exercised when the Nistinare is excited, and (apparently) entranced by music and the dance, as is the manner also of medicine-men among savages.  The rite, with its sacrifices of sheep and oxen, is manifestly of heathen origin.  They ‘pass through the fire’ to St. Constantine, but the observance must be far older than Bulgarian Christianity.  The report says nothing as to the state of the feet of the Nistinares after the fire-dance.  Medical inspection is desirable, and the photographic camera should be used to catch a picture of the wild scene.  My account is abridged from the French version of the Bulgarian report sent by Dr. Schischmanof.

Indian Fire-walk

Since these lines were written the kindness of Mr. Tawney, librarian at the India Office, has added to my stock of examples.  Thus, Mr. Stokes printed in the Indian Antiquary (ii. p. 190) notes of evidence taken at an inquest on a boy of fourteen, who fell during the fire-walk, was burned, and died on that day.  The rite had been forbidden, but was secretly practised in the village of Periyangridi.  The fire-pit was 27 feet long by 7.5 feet broad and a span in depth.  Thirteen persons walked through the hot wood embers, which, in Mr. Stokes’s opinion (who did not see the performance), ’would hardly injure the tough skin of the sole of a labourer’s foot,’ yet killed a boy.  The treading was