heathen. It might easily come into extensive favor, and that not as a Christian feast alone: to our heathen forefathers St. John’s Day would mean the festive middle of the year, when the sun turns, and there might be many customs connected with it. I confess, if Petrarch had witnessed the bathing in the river at some small town, I would the sooner take it for a native rite of the ancient Germani; at Cologne, the holy city so renowned for its relics, I rather suspect it to be a custom first introduced by Christian tradition.”[96] Water used for mechanical purposes was also looked upon as possessing peculiar virtues. Down to the present time the Servians catch the water which rebounds from the paddles of mill wheels. Women go early on St. George’s day, April 23d, to catch such water for bathing purposes. Some carry it home on the evening before the twenty-third and sprinkle broken bits of green herbs and boughs upon it. They believe that all evil and harm “will then glance off their bodies like water off the mill wheel,” as the result of such bathing. A trace of the same superstition remains in Servia in the popular warning, “Not to flirt the water off your hands after washing in the morning,” else you flirt away your luck for the day. Many religious and superstitious practices are prevalent in Northern Europe in times of drouth, in order to propitiate the divinities, either good or evil, and secure a rainfall. Certain goddesses which were prominent in the Northern European mythologies, especially Nerthus and Holda, were closely connected with water-worship. The former represented the earth and is spoken of as “the bath-loving Nerthus.” Holda lived in wells. She was identical with the Roman Isis. “When it snows, she is making her bed, and the feathers fly. She stirs up snow as Donar does rain.” In Prussia when it snows the people say: “The angels are shaking their beds, and the flakes of down drop to the earth.” It was believed that Holda haunted the lakes and fountains and might be seen bathing at the hour of noon. Mortals could reach her dwelling by passing through a well. She was supposed to pass through the land at Christmas time, bringing fertility by her presence.[97] On the fifth of August the lace-makers of Brussels pray to Mary that their work “may keep as white as snow.” It was believed that Holda appeared as an ugly old woman, long-nosed, big-toothed, with bristling and thick-matted hair. The common people still say of a man whose hair is tangled and in disorder: “He has had a jaunt with Holda.”