in the bonfires blazing in every parish on Midsummer Eve in Norway, as they are still blazing this very day on innumerable hills all over the country.
Besides the "Jonsokkall,"—I again cite Mr. Hægstad—a smaller pyre is first set on fire.
This figure—the "Jonsokkall"—the pole with the cross-arms bound with the juniper, I have succeeded in tracing from the neighbourhood of Bergen and Aalesund to Larvik and Tonsberg in the south of Norway. Thus near the town of Egersund they build their St. Han's (St. John's) Eve bonfires in the shape of a cross, with tar-tubs on the three points of it, the figure being called "the Rygla." Rygla means a little heap composed of stones and the like. In the Osterfjord, near Bergen, they still on Midsummer Eve burn a figure shaped like a cross and wound with green. "It was like a man," my informant said. And on the 1st of July (Syftesok, i.e. St. Svithun's vaka) they burn a similar figure representing a woman "the Syftesok kjærring." The late folk-lorist, Mr. Joh. Th. Sboraker, tells us in his manuscript (in the University library of Kristiania) that they—in South Norway—began to collect fuel in the afternoon. In the evening the figure was made. As a rule a pole was raised, resembling a little ship-mast, and round it was placed a heap of stones to make it stand. Often there was fixed a (cross)-beam near the top so as to make a cross. Round the pole were laid juniper, wood and heather. If they had a boat it was raised beside the pole and made to lean on it, and if the luck had been good a tar-tub was hung on the top and a tar-bucket on either of the two points of the arms. After the pile in the evening had been kindled with acclamations, accompanied by shots from big logs, used as guns, guns and keg-pistols, a burning fire-cross was seen through the smoke, and the rejoicings of the young folk were blended with the crackling and the splutter of the juniper and the pine-needles. In the Listerland the young folk often used to dance round the pile; in the Sæstesdal this was always done. This cross-form—Mr. Sboraker says—is not used everywhere, but in the Listerland the custom was known in most places. Up to the present day the old men were eager to help the boys to drag
