vineyards which cover the greater part of the declivity impeded their progress, and the wheel was often burned out before it reached the river.  As it rolled past the women and girls at the spring, they raised cries of joy which were answered by the men on the top of the mountain; and the shouts were echoed by the inhabitants of neighbouring villages who watched the spectacle from their hills on the opposite bank of the Moselle.  If the fiery wheel was successfully conveyed to the bank of the river and extinguished in the water, the people looked for an abundant vintage that year, and the inhabitants of Konz had the right to exact a waggon-load of white wine from the surrounding vineyards.  On the other hand, they believed that, if they neglected to perform the ceremony, the cattle would be attacked by giddiness and convulsions and would dance in their stalls.[399]

[The Midsummer fires in Bavaria; Cattle driven through the fire; the new fire; omens of the harvest drawn from the fires; burning discs thrown into the air.]

Down at least to the middle of the nineteenth century the midsummer fires used to blaze all over Upper Bavaria.  They were kindled especially on the mountains, but also far and wide in the lowlands, and we are told that in the darkness and stillness of night the moving groups, lit up by the flickering glow of the flames, presented an impressive spectacle.  In some places the people shewed their sense of the sanctity of the fires by using for fuel the trees past which the gay procession had defiled, with fluttering banners, on Corpus Christi Day.  In others the children collected the firewood from door to door on the eve of the festival, singing their request for fuel at every house in doggerel verse.  Cattle were driven through the fire to cure the sick animals and to guard such as were sound against plague and harm of every kind throughout the year.  Many a householder on that day put out the fire on the domestic hearth and rekindled it by means of a brand taken from the midsummer bonfire.  The people judged of the height to which the flax would grow in the year by the height to which the flames of the bonfire rose; and whoever leaped over the burning pile was sure not to suffer from backache in reaping the corn at harvest.  But it was especially the practice for lovers to spring over the fire hand in hand, and the way in which each couple made the leap was the subject of many a jest and many a superstition.  In one district the custom of kindling the bonfires was combined with that of lighting wooden discs and hurling them in the air after the manner which prevails at some of the spring festivals.[400] In many parts of Bavaria it was believed that the flax would grow as high as the young people leaped over the fire.[401] In others the old folk used to plant three charred sticks from the bonfire in the fields, believing that this would make the flax grow tall.[402] Elsewhere an extinguished brand was put in the roof of the house