On the eve of Midsummer Day it was a common practice to light bonfires. This custom, which is a remnant of the old Pagan fire-worship, prevailed in various parts of the country, but perhaps lingered the longest in Cornwall. We gather from Borlase's "Antiquities of Cornwall," published in 1754, that at the Midsummer bonfires, the Cornish people attended with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and made their perambulations round the fires, afterwards going from village to village carrying their torches before them. He regarded the usage as a survival of Druidical superstitions. In the same county it was a practice on St. Stephen's Down, near Launceston, to erect a tall pole with a bush fixed at the top of it, and round the pole to heap fuel. After the fire was lit, parties of wrestlers contested for prizes specially provided for the festival. According to an old tradition, an evil spirit once appeared in the form of a black dog, and since that time the wrestlers have never been able to meet on Midsummer Eve without being seriously injured in the sport. About Penzance, not only did the fisher-folk and their friends dance about the blazing fire, but sang songs composed for the joyous time. We give a couple of verses from one of these songs:-- "As I walked out to yonder green One evening so fair, All where the fair maids may be seen, Playing at the bonfire. Where larks and linnets sing so sweet, To cheer each lively swain, Let each prove true unto her lover, And so farewell the plain." Mr. William Bottrell, one of the most painstaking writers on Cornish folk-lore, in an article written in 1873, asserts that not a few old people living in remote and primitive districts, "believe that dancing in a ring over the embers, around a bonfire, or leaping (singly) through its flames, is calculated to insure good luck to the performers, and serve as a protection from witchcraft and other malign influences during the ensuing year." Mr. Bottrell laments the decay of these pleasing old Midsummer observances. He tells us that within "the memory of many who would not like to be called old, or even aged, on a Midsummer's eve, long before sunset, groups of girls--both gentle and simple--of from ten to twenty years of age, neatly dressed and decked with garlands, wreaths, or chaplets of flowers, would be seen dancing in the streets." Some of the ancient Midsummer rites are still observed in Ireland. We have from an eyewitness some interesting items on the subject. People assemble and dance round fires, the children jump through the flames, and in former times coals were carried into corn fields to prevent blight. The peasants are not, of course, aware that the ceremony is a remnant of the worship of Baal. It is the opinion of not a few that the famous round towers of Ireland were intended for signal fires in connection with this worship.