| as the remains of an old Grecian custom. See _Reiske_, loc. cit. p. | | 81. That such different nations should have had the same idea of | | fixing the purification by fire on St. John’s day, is a remarkable | | coincidence, which perhaps can be accounted for only by its analogy | | to baptism. | | | | [224] The Life and Adventures of _Nathaniel Pearce_, written by | | himself, during a residence in Abyssinia from the year 1810 to | | 1819. Edited by _J. J. Halls_. 2 Vols. 8vo. London, 1831. chap. ix. | | p. 290. | | | | [225] _Joann. Trithem._ Annal. Hirsaugiens. Oper. Tom. II. Hirsaug. | | 1690. fol. p. 263. A. 1374. See the before-mentioned Chronicle of | | Cologne, fol. 276. b., wherein it is said that the people passed in | | boats and rafts over the city walls. | | | | [226] What took place at the St. John’s fires in the middle ages | | (about 1280) we learn by a communication from the Bishop _Guil. | | Durantes_ of Aquitania (Rationale divinorum officiorum. L. VII. c. | | 26. In _Reiske_, loc. cit. p. 77.) Bones, horns, and other rubbish, | | were heaped together to be consumed in smoke, while persons of all | | ages danced round the flames as if they had been possessed, in the | | same way as at the Palilia, an ancient Roman lustration by fire, | | whereat those who took part in them, sprang through a fire made of | | straw. (Ovid. Met. XIV. 774. Fast. IV. 721.) Others seized burning | | flambeaux, and made a circuit of the fields, in the supposition | | that they thereby screened them from danger, while others, again, | | turned a cart wheel, to represent the retrograde movement of the | | sun. | | | | [227] _J. Chr. Beckmann_, Historia des Fürstenthums Anhalt. Zerbst. | | History of the Principality of Anhalt. Zerbst. 1710. fol. Part III. | | book 4. chap. 4. § 3. p. 467. | | | | [228] _Martini_ Minoritæ Flores temporum, in _Jo. Georg. Eccard_, | | Corpus historiæ medii ævi. Lips. 1723. fol. Tom. I. p. 1632. | | | | [229] _Beckmann_, loc. cit. § 1. f. p. 465, where many other | | observations are made on this well known circumstance. The priest | | named, is the same who is still known in the nursery tales of | | children as the _Knecht Ruprecht_. |