James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

In Europe people used to bathe on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, because water was thought to acquire wonderful medicinal virtues at that time.

Yet curiously enough, though the water-spirits call for human victims on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, water in general is supposed at that season to acquire certain wonderful medicinal virtues, so that he who bathes in it then or drinks of it is not only healed of all his infirmities but will be well and hearty throughout the year. Hence in many parts of Europe, from Sweden in the north to Sicily in the south, and from Ireland and Spain in the west to Esthonia in the east it used to be customary for men, women, and children to bathe in crowds in rivers, the sea, or springs on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, hoping thus to fortify themselves for the next twelve months. The usual time for taking the bath was the night which intervenes between Midsummer Eve and Midsummer Day; 77 77 J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie , 4 i. 489 sq. , iii. 487; A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube 2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 77 § 92; O. Freiherr von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr (Leipsic, 1863), p. 193; F. J. Vonbun, Beiträge zur deutschen Mythologie (Chur, 1862), p. 133; P. Drechsler, Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien (Leipsic, 1903-1906), i. 143 § 161; Karl Haupt, Sagenbuch der Lausitz (Leipsic, 1862-1863), i. 248, No. 303; F. J. Wiedemann, Aus dem inneren und äusseren Leben der Ehsten (St. Petersburg, 1876), p. 415; L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden (London, 1870), pp. 261 sq. ; Paul Sébillot, Le Folk-lore de France (Paris, 1904-1907), ii. 160 sq. ; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, British Popular Customs (London, 1876), pp. 322 sq. , 329 sq. For more evidence, see above, vol. i. pp. 193, 194, 205 sq. , 208, 210, 216; Adonis, Attis, Osiris , Second Edition, pp. 204 sqq. but in Belgium the hour was noon on Midsummer Day. It was a curious sight, we are told, to see the banks of a river lined with naked children waiting for the first stroke of noon to plunge into the healing water. The dip was supposed to have a remarkable effect in strengthening the legs. People who were ashamed to bathe in public used to have cans of water brought to their houses from the river at midday, and then performed their ablutions in the privacy of their chambers. Nor did they throw away the precious fluid; on the contrary they bottled it up and kept it as a sort of elixir for use throughout the year. It was thought never to grow foul and to be as blessed as holy water fetched from a church, which we may well believe. Hence it served to guard the house against a thunder-storm; when the clouds were heavy and threatening, all you had to do was to take the palm branches (that is, the twigs of box-wood) which were blessed on Palm Sunday, dip them in the midsummer water, and burn them. That averted the tempest. 78 78 Le Baron de Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Calendrier Belge (Brussels, 1861-1862), i. 420 sq. ; E. Monseur, Le Folklore Wallon (Brussels, n. d.), p. 130; P. Sébillot, Le Folk-lore de France , ii. 374 sq. In the Swiss canton of Lucerne a bath on Midsummer Eve is thought to be especially wholesome, though in other parts of Switzerland, as we saw, bathing at that season is accounted dangerous. 79 79 E. Hoffmann-Krayer, Feste und Bräuche des Schweizervolkes (Zurich, 1913), p. 163. See above, p. 27.

Similar customs and beliefs as to water at Midsummer in Morocco.

Nor are such customs and beliefs confined to the Christian peoples of Europe; they are shared also by the Mohammedan peoples of Morocco. There, too, on Midsummer Day all water is thought to be endowed with such marvellous virtue that it not only heals but prevents sickness for the rest of the year; hence men, women, and children bathe in the sea, in rivers, or in their houses at that time for the sake of their health. In Fez and other places on this day people pour or squirt water over each other in the streets or from the house-tops, so that the streets become almost as muddy as after a fall of rain. More than that, in the Andjra they bathe their animals also; horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, sheep, and goats, all must participate in the miraculous benefits of midsummer water. 80 80 E. Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” Folk-lore , xvi. (1905) pp. 31 sq. ; id. , Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in Morocco (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 84-86; E. Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), pp. 567 sq. See also above, vol. i. p. 216. The rite forms part of that old heathen celebration of Midsummer which appears to have been common to the peoples on both sides of the Mediterranean; 81 81 See above, vol. i. pp. 213-219. and as the aim of bathing in the midsummer water is undoubtedly purification, it is reasonable to assign the same motive for the custom of leaping over the midsummer bonfire. On the other hand some people in Morocco, like some people in Europe, think that water on Midsummer Day is unclean or dangerous. A Berber told Dr. Westermarck that water is haunted on Midsummer Day, and that people therefore avoid bathing in it and keep animals from drinking of it. And among the Beni Ahsen persons who swim in the river on that day are careful, before plunging into the water, to throw burning straw into it as an offering, in order that the spirits may not harm them. 82 82 E. Westermarck, Ceremonies and Beliefs connected with Agriculture, certain Dates of the Solar Year, and the Weather in Morocco (Helsingfors, 1913), pp. 94 sq. The parallelism between the rites of water and fire at this season is certainly in favour of interpreting both in the same way; 83 83 This has been rightly pointed out by Dr. Edward Westermarck (“Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” Folk-lore , xvi. (1905) p. 46). and the traces of human sacrifice which we have detected in the rite of water may therefore be allowed to strengthen the inference of a similar sacrifice in the rite of fire.

Human sacrifices by fire among the ancient Gauls. Men and animals enclosed in great wicker-work images and burnt alive.

But it seems possible to go farther than this. Of human sacrifices offered on these occasions the most unequivocal traces, as we have seen, are those which, about a hundred years ago, still lingered at the Beltane fires in the Highlands of Scotland, that is, among a Celtic people who, situated in a remote corner of Europe and almost completely isolated from foreign influence, had till then conserved their old heathenism better perhaps than any other people in the West of Europe. It is significant, therefore, that human sacrifices by fire are known, on unquestionable evidence, to have been systematically practised by the Celts. The earliest description of these sacrifices has been bequeathed to us by Julius Caesar. As conqueror of the hitherto independent Celts of Gaul, Caesar had ample opportunity of observing the national Celtic religion and manners, while these were still fresh and crisp from the native mint and had not yet been fused in the melting-pot of Roman civilization. With his own notes Caesar appears to have incorporated the observations of a Greek explorer, by name Posidonius, who travelled in Gaul about fifty years before Caesar carried the Roman arms to the English Channel. The Greek geographer Strabo and the historian Diodorus seem also to have derived their descriptions of the Celtic sacrifices from the work of Posidonius, but independently of each other, and of Caesar, for each of the three derivative accounts contain some details which are not to be found in either of the others. By combining them, therefore, we can restore the original account of Posidonius with some probability, and thus obtain a picture of the sacrifices offered by the Celts of Gaul at the close of the second century before our era. 84 84 Caesar, Bell. Gall. vi. 15; Strabo, iv. 4. 5, p. 198; Diodorus Siculus, v. 32. See W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus , pp. 525 sqq. The following seem to have been the main outlines of the custom. Condemned criminals were reserved by the Celts in order to be sacrificed to the gods at a great festival which took place once in every five years. The more there were of such victims, the greater was believed to be the fertility of the land. 85 85 Strabo, iv. 4. 4, p. 197: τὰς δὲ φονικὰς δίκας μάλιστα τούτοις [ i. e. the Druids] ἐπετέτραπτο δικάζειν, ὅταν τε φορὰ τούτων ᾖ, φορὰν καὶ τῆς χώρας νομίζουσιν ὑπάρχειν. On this passage see W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus , pp. 529 sqq. ; and below, pp. 42 sq. If there were not enough criminals to furnish victims, captives taken in war were immolated to supply the deficiency. When the time came the victims were sacrificed by the Druids or priests. Some they shot down with arrows, some they impaled, and some they burned alive in the following manner. Colossal images of wicker-work or of wood and grass were constructed; these were filled with live men, cattle, and animals of other kinds; fire was then applied to the images, and they were burned with their living contents.