John the Baptist's tyde."
Hemp was also in demand, many forms of divination having been practised
by means of its seed.
According to a belief in Iceland, the trijadent (_Spiraea ulmaria_)
will, if put under water on this day, reveal a thief; floating if the
thief be a woman, and sinking if a man.
In the Harz, on Midsummer night, branches of the fir-tree are decorated
with flowers and coloured eggs, around which the young people dance,
singing rhymes. The Bolognese, who regard garlic as the symbol of
abundance, buy it at the festival as a charm against poverty during the
coming year. The Bohemian, says Mr. Conway, "thinks he can make himself
shot-proof for twenty-four hours by finding on St. John's Day pine-cones
on the top of a tree, taking them home, and eating a single kernel on
each day that he wishes to be invulnerable." In Sicily it is customary,
on Midsummer Eve, to fell the highest poplar, and with shouts to drag it
through the village, while some beat a drum. Around this poplar, says
Mr. Folkard,[4] "symbolising the greatest solar ascension and the
decline which follows it, the crowd dance, and sing an appropriate
refrain;" and he further mentions that, at the commencement of the
Franco-German War, he saw sprigs of pine stuck on the railway carriages
bearing the German soldiers into France.
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