Olympus, we leap over the blaze and land on the white powdery ash that rises in clouds around us to the ruination of boots and clothing. It is always evening, “’twixt the gloamin’ and the mirk.” The moon, still golden, is hung low in the sky ; the wind is sharp with a touch of frost, but the glare and the glow of the embers reddens and warms us—at least that part of us we turn to the fire, (Have you ever felt the fierce pleasure of being at once scorched and frozen ?)
In those few country places in Scotland where the old Beltane fires of midsummer or midwinter are still kindled, children are encouraged to pass through the smoke, that being good for their health. The custom, frankly pagan, is probably the maimed rite of a sacrifice of children to the old gods. That may be quite true, and yet I concur in believing the practice to be beneficial. At all events, the bonfires of so many years ago have left with me a memory that has often recurred since, and always with healing on its wings.
Again, the fainter, keener odour of burning pine-wood combined with the fanning sensation on the face of the cold wind of the dawn always brings back to me a summer morning at the Swiss frontier station of Pontarlier after an evening when vin ordinaire had induced effects extraordinaire upon a youth unaccustomed to that fiery
