Kupalo was believed to be the god of love and of the harvest and the personification of the earth's fertility. According to popular belief, ‘Kupalo eve’ (‘Ivan's eve’) was the only time of the year when the earth revealed its secrets and made ferns bloom to mark places where its treasures were buried, and the only time when trees spoke and even moved and when witches gathered. It was also the only time of the year when free love was accepted as a celebration of fertility.  On Kupala eve, unmarried young men and women gathered outside the village in the forest or near a stream or pond. There they built ‘Kupalo fires’—a relic of the pagan custom of bringing sacrifice—around which they performed ritual dances and sang ritual songs. They leaped over the fires, bathed in the water (an act of purification), and played physical games with obviously sexual connotations. The fires were also used to burn herbs gathered in the previous year and various items of no further use, particularly those that had been blessed with holy water and could therefore not be discarded by normal means. The fires were never extinguished, but were always allowed to smolder out. On Kupalo eve, female participants wore scented herbs and flowers to attract the males and adorned their hair with garlands of freshly cut flowers. Later they divined their fates according to what happened to the garlands which they had sent flowing on the water.