The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-23
CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF
 SAINT JOHNS EVE

While St. John the Baptist is still widely commemorated on the festival l of his nativity, which falls on the 24rh of June, most of the quaint old GUS toms connected with the observance or St John's Eve are now almost ex- tinct. except in the remote rural sec7 tions of Ireland and England and parts of Europe. In those districts
 which cling to the old traditions, many curious rites will be enacted tonight. In England the popular appellat1on or the feast is Midsummer Eve and Mid summer Day, and the observance dates back to pagan times, although for many centures it has been combined with the festival of the Nativity Of St.
 John.
 l Thousands of the Irish still fondly lcling to the old belief that on the night preceding St. Johns Day the souls of all people leave their bodies and visit the spot where they are des- tined to give up the ghost This not altogether pleasant Supersntlons ac- counts for the fact that many Irish I men always, make a night of it, and lrefuse to go to bed, while their wives and children also keep open-eyeds vigil until the dawn of St. Johns Day.
 Many g. son and daughter Of the Elm eraId Isle will not sleep a wink to- night, having a natural preJudlce against permitting their spirits to make SO dubious g, Journey. Another superstition, now happily squetched, was tlhot those who sat up fasting in
 the church yard through the night
 would see apparitions of all those who
 were to die in the following year Wild tales of those nocturnal ghostIy visitations were spread over the neigh Ehorhoods every Midsummer Day. and many people worried themselves into
 their graves because of reports that their ttspooks'' were among the V1s- itors to the graveyard.
 1 No festival of this sort is complete without providing ways and means
 for the maiden to discover the iden- tity of her future husband. The par ticular rite to be followed at this time | is to go without an evening meal and,
 at midnight, to lay @ cloth and place
 upon it bread and cheese, then sit-
 ting down as if to eat. If the outside
 door is left open the future husband 1 is supposed to enter the room, drink Ito his bride-to-be, and then, with a I gallant bow, to retire These visitors were supposed to be separations, con- jured up by supernatural power,i but
 there was often ground for suspicion tthat they were flesh -and-b1ood young hnnen who thus sought to impose upon
 the credulity of the lady of their love. | And often they suceeededI Mankind has always sought for some
 means to make the body invisible, and
 it was long firmly believed that he Ewho went forth on St. Johns Eve and
 at midnight succeeded in catching
 some of the seed of the fern in a plate
 would possess the magic power of
 making himself invisible The seed of the fern are so small as to be not easily visible, and perhaps this ac-
 counts for the occult properties they
 were thought to contain. Tales of young men who had succeeded in
 their quest for the magic seed, and
 had thus been able to witness sights
 not intended for other eyes and to
 penetrate into places closed to prying
 persons, enjoyed a great popularity, and the engaging young liars who
 manufactured such fanciful accounts { of imaginary experiences found many
 ready to believe their engenious yarns. These old stories, most of them un-
 printable, have been handed down
 from father to son for generations,
 and they will be repeated tonight at
 many a gathering of men in rustic
 England and Scotland and in the tav-
 erns and shebeens of the Emerald Isle.