It is customary, in Roussillon, to light large bonfires in public squares and on the mountains on the eve of Saint John (in the evening of June 23 to 24). They are called the fires of Saint John. But what characterizes Saint John is the gathering of “fortunes”.
The fires of Saint John
In a joyful exodus, young men and young girls spread out, at dawn, into the countryside to make bouquets of plants with a special virtue: stonecrop (herba de sant Joan), verbena, St. John's wort, jasmine, chamomile, lemongrass, fern, thyme or rosemary. Verbena (verbena) and St. John's wort (tresenm) are the most sought after. These are, it is said, sovereign remedies against skin diseases, and it is said in the Conflent that a leper is cured if he rolls, on the morning of Saint John, in a field where miraculous plants.
To be effective, these plants must be moistened with night dew at the time of picking. The day before Saint John's Day, young girls place a vase of water on their window into which they pour egg white. The drawing that the albuminous material dissolved in water forms the next day, before dawn, gives precise indications of the qualities or faults of their lover. As for the bouquets that they pick in the countryside, they place them in crosses at doors and windows to prevent bad fairies from entering their house.
Here is how we explain this custom:
A young girl was said to have fallen in love with a handsome mountain man whom she was to marry. On the morning of Saint John's Day she went to gather fortune telling with her comrades, and, returning home, placed on her door, as if by chance, two bouquets of thyme and rosemary forming a cross. When her fiancé came to join her, he did not dare to enter the house:
"So why are you standing in front of the door," said the young girl.
— I don't dare go in.
- And yet
— I'm afraid of this bouquet which has the shape of an asp.
— It's not an asp, replies the beauty, it's a cross of thyme and rosemary. Lonely bad people are afraid of a cross.
— Well, yes, I will make the cruel admission: .. . I am the demon who came to seek your soul and who would have achieved his goals without this cursed bouquet. Then the mountain man suddenly disappeared.
Since that day, and in memory of this victory against evil, the young girls do not fail to place a bouquet at their door on the morning of Saint John.
It is said that St John walks in the countryside, the day before his feast, and gives certain plants a miraculous virtue which benefits those who devoutly invoke him. It is good to note on this subject that verbena or herb of Saint John is a plant for which the Druids professed a particular cult. The memory of the saint is therefore foreign to the custom that we are reporting.
Finally, let us report the version according to which the origin of the custom is linked to the romantic intrigue of a young girl from Vallespir. She was in love with a young man who affected the greatest indifference towards her. Saint John showed him in a dream the infallible way to relent the disdainful boy: pick a bouquet of stonecrops and plant it on the door. The process succeeded perfectly and the young girl secured the love of the rebel. The stonecrop then became the herb of St. John.
