(M15) On the analogy of these customs, in which the purpose of the passage through the fire appears to be unmistakable, we may suppose that the motive of the rite is similar at the popular festivals of Europe and the like observances in other lands. In every case the ritual appears to be explained in a simple and natural way by the supposition that the performers believe themselves to be freed from certain evils, actual or threatened, through the beneficent agency of fire, which either burns up and destroys the noxious things or at all events repels and keeps them at bay. Indeed this belief, or at least this hope, is definitely expressed by some of the people who leap across the bonfires: they imagine that all ills are burnt up and consumed in the flames, or that they leave their sins, or at all events their fleas, behind them on the far side of the fire.(41) But we may conjecture that originally all the evils from which the people thus thought to deliver themselves were conceived by them to be caused by personal beings, such as ghosts and demons or witches and warlocks, and that the fires were kindled for the sole purpose of burning or banning these noxious creatures. Of these evil powers witches and warlocks appear to have been the most dreaded by our European peasantry; and it is therefore significant that the fires kindled on these occasions are often expressly alleged to burn the witches,(42) that effigies of witches are not uncommonly consumed in them,(43) and that two of the great periodic fire-festivals of the year, namely May Day and Midsummer Eve, coincide with the seasons when witches are believed to be most active and mischievous, and when accordingly many other precautions are taken against them.(44) Thus if witchcraft, as a great part of mankind has believed, is the fertile source of almost all the calamities that afflict our species, and if the surest means of frustrating witchcraft is fire, then it follows as clearly as day follows night that to jump over a fire must be a sovereign panacea for practically all the ills that flesh is heir to. We can now, perhaps, fully understand why festivals of fire played so prominent a part in the religion or superstition of our heathen forefathers; the observance of such festivals flowed directly from their overmastering fear of witchcraft and from their theory as to the best way of combating that dreadful evil. CHAPTER VII. THE BURNING OF HUMAN BEINGS IN THE FIRES. § 1. The Burning of Effigies in the Fires.