An examination of the dates when fire-festivals were held shows that they had a distinct connection with the sun's annual cycle. When several leading Church festivals fell to be observed about the same time of the year, they had often some features in common. Thus the pagan mid-summer festival had as its lineal successor, not only St. John's Day (24th June), but St. Vitus's Day and St. Peter's Day, respectively the fifteenth and the twenty-ninth of the same month. The kindling of fires was a feature of all three. Mediæval fire-festivals were thus the gleanings of rites derived from archaic sun-worship. The question arises, what connection was there between the custom and the cult? Mr. J. G. Frazer, in his "Golden Bough," has collected a variety of facts which go to show that the lighting of these fires was primarily intended to ensure the shining of the sun in the heavens. Mr. Frazer thus sums up the evidence: "The best general explanation of these European fire-festivals seems to be the one given by Mannhardt, namely, that they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended to ensure a proper supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants. Savages resort to charms for making sunshine, and we need not wonder that primitive man in Europe has done the same. Indeed, considering the cold and cloudy climate of Europe during a considerable part of the year, it is natural that sun-charms should have played a much more prominent part among the superstitious practices of European peoples than among those of savages who live nearer the equator. This view of the festivals in question is supported by various considerations drawn partly from the rites themselves, partly from the influence which they are believed to exert upon the weather and on vegetation." After alluding to certain sun-charms, Mr. Frazer continues, "In these the magic force is supposed to take effect through mimicry or sympathy; by imitating the desired result you actually produce it; by counterfeiting the sun's progress through the heavens you really help the luminary to pursue his celestial journey with punctuality and despatch.... The influence which these bonfires are supposed to exert on the weather and on vegetation goes to show that they are sun-charms, since the effects ascribed to them are identical with those of sunshine. Thus, in Sweden, the warmth or cold of the coming season is inferred from the direction in which the flames of the bonfire are blown; if they blow to the south it will be warm, if to the north, cold. No doubt at present the direction of the flames is regarded merely as an augury of the weather, not as a mode of influencing it. But we may be pretty sure that this is one of the cases in which magic has dwindled into divination." Hence a good supply of light and heat is not only foretold, but guaranteed.