first quarter of the eighteenth century says:  “On the vigil of St. John the Baptist’s Nativity, they make bonfires, and run along the streets and fields with wisps of straw blazing on long poles to purify the air, which they think infectious, by believing all the devils, spirits, ghosts, and hobgoblins fly abroad this night to hurt mankind."[517] Another writer states that he witnessed the festival in Ireland in 1782:  “At the house where I was entertained, it was told me, that we should see, at midnight, the most singular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of fires in honour of the sun.  Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the fires began to appear; and taking the advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a widely extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the fires burning on every eminence which the country afforded.  I had a farther satisfaction in learning, from undoubted authority, that the people danced round the fires, and at the close went through these fires, and made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass through the fire; and the whole was conducted with religious solemnity."[518] That the custom prevailed in full force as late as 1867 appears from a notice in a newspaper of that date, which runs thus:  “The old pagan fire-worship still survives in Ireland, though nominally in honour of St. John.  On Sunday night bonfires were observed throughout nearly every county in the province of Leinster.  In Kilkenny, fires blazed on every hillside at intervals of about a mile.  There were very many in the Queen’s County, also in Kildare and Wexford.  The effect in the rich sunset appeared to travellers very grand.  The people assemble, and dance round the fires, the children jump through the flames, and in former times live coals were carried into the corn-fields to prevent blight."[519] In County Leitrim on St. John’s Eve, which is called Bonfire Day, fires are still lighted after dusk on the hills and along the sides of the roads.[520] All over Kerry the same thing continues to be done, though not so commonly as of old.  Small fires were made across the road, and to drive through them brought luck for the year.  Cattle were also driven through the fires.  On Lettermore Island, in South Connemara, some of the ashes from the midsummer bonfire are thrown on the fields to fertilize them.[521] One writer informs us that in Munster and Connaught a bone must always be burned in the fire; for otherwise the people believe that the fire will bring no luck.  He adds that in many places sterile beasts and human beings are passed through the fire, and that as a boy he himself jumped through the fire “for luck."[522] An eye-witness has described as follows a remarkable ceremony observed in Ireland on Midsummer Eve:  “When the fire burned for some hours, and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced.  Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers; while a wooden