Fête de Saint Jean

Last night, strolling by the capitainerie du port (harbour master's office doesn't quite do justice to the idea of rich man's factotum such posts project here), we heard music wafting over the waters of the yacht basin. It was coming from the Bastion Saint Jaume, the old arsenal built when the port was fortified by Vauban - and now turned into a 'cultural space'. We went to investigate.

Somebody had lit a large bonfire, and people were dancing round it. Of course, it was the annual fire-worship night, the Fête de Saint Jean. Tradition has it that couples who leap over the bonfire together will get married within the year. In these days of modulable marital arrangements, I wonder what happens if people married to each other make the leap. Does it include separations and divorces?

To the sounds of three holed flutes, an accordeon, a fiddle, assorted drums and tambourines, and, most traditionally of all, a Fender Telecaster bass guitar, groups of people of all ages danced with a kind of frenzied skill. They really knew the steps. The nearest thing I have seen to it is a Scottish ceilidh, the same sort of assumption that everybody knew what to do. One unprepossessing couple, the man bald and wearing an accountant's expression after one too many ledger inspected, his partner with the skin quality that only too much sun and a regular supply of cigarettes can provide, dominated the proceedings. As they twirled around the fire on the baked earth dance floor, little puffs of dust came up from their fleeting feet, perfectly in time.