In a flash the extra dry tinder caught alight and the flames leapt down and into the oil soaked wood shavings. The assistant was ready. He seized a pair of large leather bellows and within seconds the pumping had driven the fire up though the shavings and into the fragrant segments of wood at the top of the brazier. The Easter fire had started.
Slowly the Bishop took off his left glove, and holding it in his right hand made the sign of the cross over the leaping flames. In resonant Latin the blessing on the first fire for the new year of 1865 was pronounced and the cross repeated. As the last words were spoken the crowd gasped as the glove slipped from the Bishop's hand and fell into the fire. Before anyone could do anything about it, the leather burst into flames and the glove was consumed in an instant.
Ignoring the incident the Bishop stepped back, and true to his role, Father Kohl held up the Paschal candle and asked for the blessing of Saint Hugh. Trembling slightly, Father Vitezslav came into the harsh light glowing from the red hot embers in the brazier, held up the reliquary and in a voice that cracked only once, added the blessing of Saint Hugh to those of the Bishop. A ripple of delight spread through the congregation.
Exactly on cue, one of the brothers from Pernstejn yelled out from the crowd, "Blessed Saint Hugh, give us a sign." His voice was loud and carried around the square. It was immediately picked up by a second brother. "Yes, yes, a sign a sign." A stunned Father Vitezslav froze in place, the reliquary held out before him, raised at arms length.
Timing is everything, and Cesky Brezen timed it perfectly. Before the shocked audience could react he slid forward out of the crowd. He was wearing a scarf over his head, which conveniently hid his dark gypsy curls, and a long, thin coat that disguised most of his body. A few moments before, as the Bishop was giving his benediction, he had put his right hand into his shirt front and pulled on a strange looking glove. Unlike the Bishop's glove, the one that Brezen was wearing was dark gray and woven of some coarse thick threads. In daylight the glove would have appeared very strange and unnatural, but in the darkness is was almost unnoticeable and Brezen held his right hand down by his side to make sure it stayed that way.
"Saint Hugh, I hear you," he cried in a loud, passionate voice that echoed back off the cathedral walls. "I come, I come." Before anyone could stop him he jumped up the stairs, and holding his left hand high in the air where everyone could see it, he turned to the astonished Father Vitezslav and held out his empty hand to the reliquary holding the Saint's bones. So great was the shock, that the good Father almost forgot the critical role he had been assigned to play, and it took a dig in the ribs by Monsignor Schrattenbach to remind him. Jerked back into his part, the priest from St. Thomas' put both thumbs behind the lid of the reliquary and with a flicking motion he had practiced a hundred times, opened the top of the box.
As a startled gasp burst from the crowd, Cesky Brezen put his empty left hand into the open reliquary and withdrew a small piece of bone, which he held up so everyone could see.
"Oh Saint Hugh," he groaned dramatically, "Saint Hugh, protector of us all, protect me now."
Before anyone could stop him, and with a elaborate circular gesture, he transferred the piece of bone into his strangely gloved right hand, which he had kept out of sight until this moment. Without pausing in his fluid motion, the gypsy salamander closed his right fist around the piece of bone and then plunged it straight into the heart of the burning embers within the red hot brazier!
A woman screamed and fainted. The shriek lanced into heads of all those watching but failed to dislodge them from their petrified horror. Incredibly, the stranger held his hand in the fire for several seconds, this was the same fire that a few moments before had destroyed the Bishop's glove instantly. His head was turned to heaven and all that came from his lips was the name of the Saint.
Almost reluctantly, and before anyone could come to his rescue, the stranger withdrew his right hand from the flames, twisted his body slightly and clutched at his arm with his free left hand. It would have taken an expert to see that during this natural looking movement, the odd gray glove had been removed and dropped into one of the coat pockets. When the stranger raised his right hand again, and held it out to the crowd, the only thing it was holding was a piece of bone.
"A miracle, a miracle! The Saint has protected him from the flames! Saint Hugh has saved him!" came a shout from someone in the thong, it would have been impossible to say from whom. But at the cry, a cripple staggered forward into the light of the now burning pile of logs.
"Saint Hugh, Saint Hugh," he cried in a surprisingly loud voice for one who was dressed in rags and limping horribly on a crutch. "Save me. Cure me of my ailment!".
He hobbled up to Cesky Brezen, who, with the aura of sainthood around him, lowered his right hand and touched the cripple with the piece of bone.
Instantly the back of the bent cripple arched dramatically and he shouted out in pain. A shout that trailed off into an equally dramatic shout of joy as his twisted foot came firmly down onto the paving and held him there upright.
"I'm cured," he yelled above the roar of the fire, and to prove it he flourished the now useless crutch above his head where all could see.
"A miracle, a miracle!" came the cry from the crowd, this time taken up by many more voices.
As the priests and Bishop watched in shock and awe, a second cry was taken up by someone else around the fire. "Saint Hugh, cure me, cure me!" This plea was instantly echoed by a third and then a fourth voice. It was completely lost in the excitement of the moment, that all four voices had the thick accents of residents of Pernstejn. Almost at once the crowd began to surge forward, and more and more voices began to take up the cry.
"Saint Hugh, Saint Hugh!"
Caught off guard, none of the soldiers were ready for such an unexpected turn of events, and the advancing mob of Brno citizens, all followers of the Saint who had just performed two miracles, easily pushed them out of the way.
"Saint Hugh, hear me!"
"Saint Hugh, cure me!"
"Help me, Saint Hugh!"
The pleas came louder and the surge of people pushed steadily forward. Disaster loomed.
At the critical moment Monsignor Schrattenbach stepped around the Bishop, who was both stunned and frozen by the events of the last few minutes.
"Hear me, citizens of Brno," the Monsignor called out in a surprisingly loud and authoritative voice. He held up both his arms as if to hold back the crowd. "Hear me, hear me."
The surge slowed slightly. "Come no closer, the blessed Saint Hugh can hear your prayers, and he will answer them. We pledge that the Saint will remain here, here at the cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul until all your voices have been heard. Come no closer now."
The forward movement slowed again. What was that the priest was saying?
"Father Vitezslav, hold up the reliquary so all may see the Saint." It was done. "See, see!" shouted the Monsignor, "the Saint is here, and here he will stay until his work is done. The Blessed Saint Hugh has given us a sign that he wants to help you all. The miracles we have all seen are only the beginning. Starting tomorrow, Easter Sunday, the Saint will be here in St. Peter and St. Paul to answer all your prayers. He will not leave until he has heard you. Now please, come no closer. The Saint will be waiting."
With a joyous cry the press of people jumped up and down around the logs of the Easter fire that were now blazing out of control. A frenzy took hold took hold of them as they yelled and shouted with happiness. "Saint Hugh, Saint Hugh!". Behind them others from the Zelny Trh, hearing the rumors of miracles, thrust hard on the backs of those in front. All were trying to get to where they could see. Pushed closer and closer to the fire those in danger of being burnt alive began a different shout. A plea to their fellow citizens to heed the words of the priest and wait until later to see the bones of Saint Hugh perform their miracles, but, their increasingly desperate cries were ignored.
Seeing a massive disaster threatening, the 'cripple' from Pernstejn edged away from center stage. Brezen had already vanished. Not wishing to be associated anymore with what was happening, the 'cripple' flung away his heavy crutch and ducked down the steps beside the wine tables. His theatrical prop sailed over the heads of the still startled priests and crashed into the barrels of burcak stacked by the cathedral wall. That is when the true miracle of Easter 1865 took place.
The heavy end of the crutch hit the weakest spot on the nearest barrel; the spigot hole. Inside the barrel the contaminating rods were long dead, the yeast were still alive and Klacel's extra sugar had stimulated them to higher and higher levels of anaerobic fermentation.
As the crutch smashed into the soft wood that held the spigot in place within the oaken staves, the yeast won. In a giant release of energy, the carbon dioxide waste products that had been forming and dissolving in the wine for three weeks, suddenly found release, and with a huge surge, escaped from the captivity of solution in a massive and violent expansion.
The barrel exploded!
From a rent in the side of the barrel a stream of wine arched out across the square to be followed an instant later by a second and then a third stream as more and more barrels exploded in excess of dissolved carbon dioxide. Heavy, delicious burcak reached the raging fire, and those in danger of immolation were rescued within in seconds of a violent death. With a giant hiss the wine doused the logs nearest to the priests and brought them all to their senses.
Monsignor Schrattenbach grasped the arms of Father Vitezslav and Bishop Schaffgotsche and dragged them backwards to the doors of the cathedral. Wine flowed around their feet, down the stairs and into the fire. Superheated steam flashed into the air and the logs crackled and hissed in dying pain. From one side of the square a sergeant of the National Guard bellowed orders to his men and they roughly pushed their way towards the fire and began pulling people away from the flames.
Small boys darted among the crowd, remembering their duties and grabbed the wires still attached to some of the logs. With rags around their hands, they pulled their logs free before the wine could ruin them.
From the logs pulled from the fire, torches were set alight and candles lit. Around the square, down Biskupska through Zelny Trh and on through the streets of Brno the sacrum lucernarium began as thousands and thousands of points of light sprang into new beginning around the city. Local priests in all the smaller churches began reciting psalms, passages from the bible were read and orations rang out. The Easter vigil was truly underway.
Much slower, the rumors of what had just happened on the steps of the cathedral followed the points of light on its journey across the diocese. At each telling the miracle of Saint Hugh gained new color and grew more amazing and wonderful. Before the story reached St. Thomas' church the 'Miracle of the Easter Fire' had reached mythic proportions, and was told and retold to children and grandchildren, with increasing embellishment, for the next sixty years.
As promised, the bones of Saint Hugh remained at the cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, the next day, the next day and the day after that. In fact, they did such good work at their new location they stayed there and never returned to the parish of St. Thomas. Devoted followers of the Saint became devoted parishioners of the cathedral and left their donations to swell the anemic coffers of that church. Father Kohl's parish flourished and eventually a new priest was needed to handle all the extra work. That post was offered to Father Vitezslav, who thus began a famous pastoral career that eventually led to ... but that is another story.
Unfortunately the revenues at St. Thomas' church began to fail, and the demands for the Augustinian Monastery to pay up its arrears began to mount and mount. Although no one at the time realized it, the heavy burden of this debt would one day fall on the new Abbot of the monastery, and it would so affect his administration that he could no longer devote all his time to science. But that is another story.