FIRE OVER FRANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 July 1939, Page 9

FIRE OVER FRANCE

ORIGIN LOST IN DIM PAST OF HISTORY.

From hill to hill, mountain to mountain, beacon after beacon flares up into the night sky during the month of May in France. Following a custom whose origin is lost in the dim past of history, these bonfires are lit throughout France, in some regions more numerous than in others, but still an almost universal practice. In Brittany, the fires are generally lit near dolmens and menhirs, huge stones left standing by prehistoric man. which cause archeologists to believe they are probably a survival of ancient rites of our earliest forefathers in honour of the coming summer. The Bre tons in their picturesque costumes dance round the bonfires, their giant shadows thrown upon the tall stones. In Burgundy there is rivalry between village and village as to which shall have the biggest bonfire, and bonfires and bonfire building becomes a topic of importance long before and after the night when they are set on fire. There are regularly constituted bonfire committees, in Auvergne and the Jura, where the building of a bonfire has become something of a fine art.