Passing to Italy, we find that the midsummer fires are still lighted on St. John’s Eve in many parts of the Abruzzi.  They are commonest in the territory which was inhabited in antiquity by the Vestini; they are rarer in the land of the ancient Marsi, and they disappear entirely in the lower valley of the Sangro.  For the most part, the fires are fed with straw and dry grass, and are kindled in the fields near the villages or on high ground.  As they blaze up, the people dance round or over them.  In leaping across the flames the boys cry out, “St. John, preserve my thighs and legs!” Formerly it used to be common to light the bonfires also in the towns in front of churches of St. John, and the remains of the sacred fire were carried home by the people; but this custom has mostly fallen into disuse.  However, at Celano the practice is still kept up of taking brands and ashes from the bonfires to the houses, although the fires are no longer kindled in front of the churches, but merely in the streets.[538] In the Abruzzi water also is supposed to acquire certain marvellous and beneficent properties on St. John’s Night.  Hence many people bathe or at least wash their faces and hands in the sea or a river at that season, especially at the moment of sunrise.  Such a bath is said to be an excellent cure for diseases of the skin.  At Castiglione a Casauria the people, after washing in the river or in springs, gird their waists and wreath their brows with sprigs of briony in order to keep them from aches and pains.[539] In various parts of Sicily, also, fires are kindled on Midsummer Eve (St. John’s Eve), the twenty-third of June.  On the Madonie mountains, in the north of the island, the herdsmen kindle them at intervals, so that the crests of the mountains are seen ablaze in the darkness for many miles.  About Acireale, on the east coast of the island, the bonfires are lit by boys, who jump over them.  At Chiaromonte the witches that night acquire extraordinary powers; hence everybody then puts a broom outside of his house, because a broom is an excellent protective against witchcraft.[540] At Orvieto the midsummer fires were specially excepted from the prohibition directed against bonfires in general.[541]

[The Midsummer fires in Malta ]

In Malta also the people celebrate Midsummer Eve (St. John’s Eve) “by kindling great fires in the public streets, and giving their children dolls to carry in their arms on this day, in order to make good the prophecy respecting the Baptist, Multi in nativitate ejus gaudebunt.  Days and even weeks before this festival, groups of children are seen going out into the country fields to gather straw, twigs, and all sorts of other combustibles, which they store up for St. John’s Eve.  On the night of the twenty-third of June, the day before the festival of the Saint, great fires are kindled in the streets, squares, and market places of the towns and villages of the Island, and as fire after fire