Still farther north, among a people of the same Turanian stock, we learn from an eye-witness that Midsummer Night used to witness a sort of witches' sabbath on the top of every hill in Finland. The bonfire was made by setting up four tall birches in a square and piling the intermediate space with fuel. Round the roaring flames the people sang and drank and gambolled in the usual way.[449] Farther east, in the valley of the Volga, the Cheremiss celebrate about midsummer a festival which Haxthausen regarded as identical with the midsummer ceremonies of the rest of Europe. A sacred tree in the forest, generally a tall and solitary oak, marks the scene of the solemnity. All the males assemble there, but no woman may be present. A heathen priest lights seven fires in a row from north-west to south-east; cattle are sacrificed and their blood poured in the fires, each of which is dedicated to a separate deity. Afterwards the holy tree is illumined by lighted candles placed on its branches; the people fall on their knees and with faces bowed to the earth pray that God would be pleased to bless them, their children, their cattle, and their bees, grant them success in trade, in travel, and in the chase, enable them to pay the Czar's taxes, and so forth.[450] [The Midsummer fires in France; Bossuet on the Midsummer festival.] When we pass from the east to the west of Europe we still find the summer solstice celebrated with rites of the same general character. Down to about the middle of the nineteenth century the custom of lighting bonfires at midsummer prevailed so commonly in France that there was hardly a town or a village, we are told, where they were not kindled.[451] Though the pagan origin of the custom may be regarded as certain, the Catholic Church threw a Christian cloak over it by boldly declaring that the bonfires were lit in token of the general rejoicing at the birth of the Baptist, who opportunely came into the world at the solstice of summer, just as his greater successor did at the solstice of winter; so that the whole year might be said to revolve on the golden hinges of these two great birthdays.[452] Writing in the seventeenth century Bishop Bossuet expressly affirms this edifying theory of the Midsummer bonfires, and he tells his catechumens that the Church herself participated in the illumination, since in several dioceses, including his own diocese of Meaux, a number of parishes kindled what were called ecclesiastical fires for the purpose of banishing the superstitions practised at the purely mundane bonfires. These superstitions, he goes on to say, consisted in dancing round the fire, playing, feasting, singing ribald songs, throwing herbs across the fire, gathering herbs at noon or while fasting, carrying them on the person, preserving them throughout the year, keeping brands or cinders of the fire, and other similar practices.[453] However excellent the intentions of the