to protect it against fire.  In the towns about Wuerzburg the bonfires used to be kindled in the market-places, and the young people who jumped over them wore garlands of flowers, especially of mugwort and vervain, and carried sprigs of larkspur in their hands.  They thought that such as looked at the fire holding a bit of larkspur before their face would be troubled by no malady of the eyes throughout the year.[403] Further, it was customary at Wuerzburg, in the sixteenth century, for the bishop’s followers to throw burning discs of wood into the air from a mountain which overhangs the town.  The discs were discharged by means of flexible rods, and in their flight through the darkness presented the appearance of fiery dragons.[404]

[The Midsummer fires in Swabia; omens drawn from the leaps over the fires; burning wheels rolled down hill; burning the Angel-Man at Rottenburg.]

In the valley of the Lech, which divides Upper Bavaria from Swabia, the midsummer customs and beliefs are, or used to be, very similar.  Bonfires are kindled on the mountains on Midsummer Day; and besides the bonfire a tall beam, thickly wrapt in straw and surmounted by a cross-piece, is burned in many places.  Round this cross as it burns the lads dance with loud shouts; and when the flames have subsided, the young people leap over the fire in pairs, a young man and a young woman together.  If they escape unsmirched, the man will not suffer from fever, and the girl will not become a mother within the year.  Further, it is believed that the flax will grow that year as high as they leap over the fire; and that if a charred billet be taken from the fire and stuck in a flax-field it will promote the growth of the flax.[405] Similarly in Swabia, lads and lasses, hand in hand, leap over the midsummer bonfire, praying that the hemp may grow three ells high, and they set fire to wheels of straw and send them rolling down the hill.  Among the places where burning wheels were thus bowled down hill at Midsummer were the Hohenstaufen mountains in Wurtemberg and the Frauenberg near Gerhausen.[406] At Deffingen, in Swabia, as the people sprang over the midsummer bonfire they cried out, “Flax, flax! may the flax this year grow seven ells high!"[407] At Rottenburg in Swabia, down to the year 1807 or 1808, the festival was marked by some special features.  About mid-day troops of boys went about the town begging for firewood at the houses.  In each troop there were three leaders, one of whom carried a dagger, a second a paper banner, and a third a white plate covered with a white cloth.  These three entered each house and recited verses, in which they expressed an intention of roasting Martin Luther and sending him to the devil; and for this meritorious service they expected to be paid, the contributions being received in the cloth-covered plate.  In the evening they counted up their money and proceeded to “behead the Angel-man.”  For this ceremony an open space was chosen, sometimes in the middle of the town.