The "billboard that women never had before" in Vancouver provides a place to put graffiti.

UNDER no circumstances should women be caught celebrating Walpurgis Night, April 30. If you must embarrass men in downtown peep shows, don't do it in groups of three. If you must demonstrate in front of pornography outlets, don't do it in groups of 13. And under no circumstances should women light bonfires on the beaches that night."This selection of tongue-in-cheek directives appeared recently on a construction fence surrounding a site next to the popular Granville Island, near downtown Vancouver. Thousands of shoppers and people out for a stroll pass the site every day, and they can be seen stopping, pointing andtalking about the unusual graffiti.

Besides the directive, there are three-dimensional models of witches stuffed with foam rubber, dressed in colorful old clothes and fastened to the wall. The witches represent black, brown and white women, and onecarrying a baby is meant to represent single mothers.

Two-metre-high letters on one prominent part of the fence proclaim April 30 as The Night of the Witches. Women who have stopped to read the fence have added comments of their own, or put upposters about events of interest to women. One woman said: "Every women's group in the Lower Mainland has put stuff on the wall. It's a billboardthat women never had before."

So far, the owners of the construction site - a housing co~op - have not objected to the drawings, lettering and witches. A woman stapling posters to the fence said the idea to ask Vancouver women to celebrate Walpurgis Night came from a German woman seeking shelter at the Vancouver Rape Relief House. Sandra said the immigrant woman told her about the ancient ritual of Walpurgi and May 1 when witches were said to hold celebrations on the Broken, the highest point in northern Germany. Historians have suggested that the witches may have been peasant heathens dressed as witches to scare away the Christians wbo were trying to convert them. The church later dedicated the day to St. Walpurga, an eighth century English missionary.

Whatever the origin, Walpurgis Night seems to be related to the coming of spring. It falls exactly midway between the equinox and the solstice, and is exactly opposite Hallowe'en on the calendar.Today, many German feminists celebrate Walpurgis Night by going into the streets in groups and demonstrating against pornography or violence against women, the German woman said. Other women at the shelter thought the idea was worth promoting here, and decided to use the fence as the medium. 

One message on the fence warns women that they should definitely not be caught lighting bonfires on the beaches that ring the shoreline of   Vancouver from English Bay to Wreck Beach. The message refers to the ancient ritual of lighting strings of bonfires and burning horses' bones, because the pungent odor I would scare away the horses of an invading army.  The word bonfire is said to come from this practice.

But Vancouver Parks Board officials do not anticipate invaders on horseback entering Vancouver on Walpurgis Night, or any night. When asked if it is legal to light bonfires on the beaches, one official said emphatically "no sir, it certainly isn't."