The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 10 of 12)

by James George Frazer

§ 8. The Need-fire.

European festivals of fire in seasons of distress and calamity. The need-fire.

The fire-festivals hitherto described are all celebrated periodically at certain stated times of the year. But besides these regularly recurring celebrations the peasants in many parts of Europe have been wont from time immemorial to resort to a ritual of fire at irregular intervals in seasons of distress and calamity, above all when their cattle were attacked by epidemic disease. No account of the popular European fire-festivals would be complete without some notice of these remarkable rites, which have all the greater claim on our attention because they may perhaps be regarded as the source and origin of all the other fire-festivals; certainly they must date from a very remote antiquity. The general name by which they are known among the Teutonic peoples is need-fire.[688]

The need-fire in the Middle Ages. The need-fire at Neustadt in 1598.

The history of the need-fire can be traced back to the early Middle Ages; for in the reign of Pippin, King of the Franks, the practice of kindling need-fires was denounced as a heathen superstition by a synod of prelates and nobles held under the presidency of Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz.[689] Not long afterwards the custom was again forbidden, along with many more relics of expiring paganism, in an “Index of Superstitions and Heathenish Observances,” which has been usually referred to the year 743 a.d., though some scholars assign it a later date under the reign of Charlemagne.[690] In Germany the need-fires would seem to have been popular down to the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus in the year 1598, when a fatal cattle-plague was raging at Neustadt, near Marburg, a wise man of the name of Joh. Köhler induced the authorities of the town to adopt the following remedy. A new waggon-wheel was taken and twirled round an axle, which had never been used before, until the friction elicited fire. With this fire a bonfire was next kindled between the gates of the town, and all the cattle were driven through the smoke and flames. Moreover, every householder had to rekindle the fire on his hearth by means of a light taken from the bonfire. Strange to say, this salutary measure had no effect whatever in staying the [pg 271] cattle-plague, and seven years later the sapient Joh. Köhler himself was burnt as a witch. The farmers, whose pigs and cows had derived no benefit from the need-fire, perhaps assisted as spectators at the burning, and, while they shook their heads, agreed among themselves that it served Joh. Köhler perfectly right.[691] According to a writer who published his book about nine years afterwards, some of the Germans, especially in the Wassgaw mountains, confidently believed that a cattle-plague could be stayed by driving the animals through a need-fire which had been kindled by the violent friction of a pole on a quantity of dry oak wood; but it was a necessary condition of success that all fires in the village should previously be extinguished with water, and any householder who failed to put out his fire was heavily fined.[692]

Method of kindling the need-fire.

The method of kindling the need-fire is described as follows by a writer towards the end of the seventeenth century: “When an evil plague has broken out among the cattle, large and small, and the herds have thereby suffered great ravages, the peasants resolve to light a need-fire. On a day appointed there must be no single flame in any house nor on any hearth. From every house a quantity of straw and water and underwood must be brought forth; then a strong oaken pole is fixed firmly in the earth, a hole is bored in it, and a wooden winch, well smeared with pitch and tar, is inserted in the hole and turned round forcibly till great heat and then fire is generated. The fire so produced is caught in fuel and fed with straw, heath, and underwood till it bursts out into a regular need-fire, which must then be somewhat spread out between walls or fences, and the cattle and horses driven through it twice or thrice with sticks and whips. Others set up two posts, each with a hole in it, and insert a winch, along with old greasy rags, in the holes. Others use a thick rope, collect nine kinds of wood, and keep them in violent motion till fire leaps forth. Perhaps there may be other [pg 272] ways of generating or kindling this fire, but they are all directed simply at the cure of the cattle. After passing twice or thrice through the fire the cattle are driven to their stalls or to pasture, and the heap of wood that had been collected is destroyed, but in some places every householder must take with him a brand, extinguish it in a washing-tub or trough, and put it in the manger where the cattle are fed, where it must lie for some time. The poles that were used to make the need-fire, together with the wood that was employed as a winch, are sometimes burned with the rest of the fuel, sometimes carefully preserved after the cattle have been thrice driven through the flames.”[693]

The mode of kindling the need-fire about Hildesheim.

Sometimes the need-fire was known as the “wild fire,” to distinguish it no doubt from the tame fire produced by more ordinary methods. The following is Grimm's account of the mode of kindling it which prevailed in some parts of Central Germany, particularly about Hildesheim, down apparently to the first half of the nineteenth century: “In many places of Lower Saxony, especially among the mountains, the custom prevails of preparing the so-called ‘wild fire’ for the purpose of preventing cattle-plague; and through it first the pigs, then the cows, and last of all the geese are driven. The proceedings on the occasion are as follows. The principal farmers and parishioners assemble, and notice is served to every inhabitant to extinguish entirely all fire in his house, so that not even a spark remains alight in the whole village. Then young and old repair to a road in a hollow, usually towards evening, the women carrying linen, and the men wood and tow. Two oaken poles are driven into the ground about a foot and a half from each other. Each pole has in the side facing the other a socket into which a cross-piece as thick as a man's arm is fitted. The sockets are stuffed with linen, and the cross-piece is rammed in as tight as possible, while the poles are bound together at the top by ropes. A rope is wound about the round, smooth cross-piece, and the free ends of the rope at both sides are gripped by several [pg 273] persons, who pull the cross-piece to and fro with the utmost rapidity, till through the friction the linen in the sockets takes fire. The sparks of the linen are immediately caught in tow or oakum and waved about in a circle until they burst into a bright glow, when straw is applied to it, and the flaming straw used to kindle the brushwood which has been stacked in piles in the hollow way. When this wood has blazed up and the fire has nearly died out again, the people hasten to the herds, which have been waiting in the background, and drive them forcibly, one after the other, through the glow. As soon as all the beasts are through, the young folk rush wildly at the ashes and cinders, sprinkling and blackening each other with them; those who have been most sprinkled and blackened march in triumph behind the cattle into the village and do not wash themselves for a long time. If after long rubbing the linen should not catch fire, they guess that there is still fire somewhere in the village; then a strict search is made from house to house, any fire that may be found is put out, and the householder is punished or upbraided. The ‘wild fire’ must be made by prolonged friction; it may not be struck with flint and steel. Some villages do not prepare it yearly as a preventive of cattle-plague, but only kindle it when the disease has actually broken out.”[694] In the Halberstadt district the ends of the rope which was used to make the cross-piece revolve in the sockets had to be pulled by two chaste young men.[695]

The mode of kindling the need-fire in the Mark.

In the Mark down to the first half of the nineteenth century the practice was similar. We read that “in many parts of the Mark there still prevails on certain occasions the custom of kindling a need-fire, it happens particularly when a farmer has sick pigs. Two posts of dry wood are planted in the earth amid solemn silence before the sun rises, and round these posts hempen ropes are pulled to and fro till the wood kindles; whereupon the fire is fed with dry leaves and twigs and the sick beasts are driven through it. In some places the fire is produced by the friction of an old cart-wheel.”[696]

The mode of kindling the need-fire in Mecklenburg.

In Mecklenburg the need-fire used to be lighted by the friction of a rope wound about an oaken pole or by rubbing two boards against each other. Having been thus elicited, the flame was fed with wood of seven kinds. The practice was forbidden by Gustavus Adolphus, Duke of Mecklenburg, in 1682; but the prohibition apparently had little effect, for down to the end of the eighteenth century the custom was so common that the inhabitants even of large towns made no scruple of resorting to it. For example, in the month of July 1792 sickness broke out among the cattle belonging to the town of Sternberg; some of the beasts died suddenly, and so the people resolved to drive all the survivors through a need-fire. On the tenth day of July the magistrates issued a proclamation announcing that next morning before sunrise a need-fire would be kindled for the behoof of all the cattle of the town, and warning all the inhabitants against lighting fires in their kitchens that evening. So next morning very early, about two o'clock, nearly the whole population was astir, and having assembled outside one of the gates of the town they helped to drive the timid cattle, not without much ado, through three separate need-fires; after which they dispersed to their homes in the unalterable conviction that they had rescued the cattle from destruction. But to make assurance doubly sure they deemed it advisable to administer the rest of the ashes as a bolus to the animals. However, some people in Mecklenburg used to strew the ashes of the need-fire on fields for the purpose of protecting the crops against vermin. As late as June 1868 a traveller in Mecklenburg saw a couple of peasants sweating away at a rope, which they were pulling backwards and forwards so as to make a tarry roller revolve with great speed in the socket of an upright post. Asked what they were about, they vouchsafed no reply; but an old woman who appeared on the scene from a neighbouring cottage was more communicative. In the fulness of her heart she confided to the stranger that her pigs were sick, that the two taciturn bumpkins were her sons, who were busy extracting a need-fire from the roller, and that, when they succeeded, the flame would be used to ignite a heap of rags and brushwood, through which [pg 275] the ailing swine would be driven. She further explained that the persons who kindle a need-fire should always be two brothers or at least bear the same Christian name.[697]

The mode of kindling the need-fire in Hanover.

In the summer of 1828 there was much sickness among the pigs and the cows of Eddesse, a village near Meinersen, in the south of Hanover. When all ordinary measures to arrest the malady failed, the farmers met in solemn conclave on the village green and determined that next morning there should be a need-fire. Thereupon the head man of the village sent word from house to house that on the following day nobody should kindle a fire before sunrise, and that everybody should stand by ready to drive out the cattle. The same afternoon all the necessary preparations were made for giving effect to the decision of the collective wisdom. A narrow street was enclosed with planks, and the village carpenter set to work at the machinery for kindling the fire. He took two posts of oak wood, bored a hole about three inches deep and broad in each, and set the two poles up facing each other at a distance of about two feet. Then he fitted a roller of oak wood into the two holes of the posts, so that it formed a cross-piece between them. About two o'clock next morning every householder brought a bundle of straw and brushwood and laid it down across the street in a prescribed order. The sturdiest swains who could be found were chosen to make the need-fire. For this purpose a long hempen rope was wound twice round the oaken roller in the oaken posts: the pivots were well smeared with pitch and tar: a bundle of tow and other tinder was laid close at hand, and all was ready. The stalwart clodhoppers now seized the two ends of the rope and went to work with a will. Puffs of smoke soon issued from the sockets, but to the consternation of the bystanders not a spark of fire could be elicited. Some people openly declared their suspicion that some rascal had not put out the fire in his house, when suddenly the tinder burst into flame. The cloud passed away from all faces; the fire was applied to the heaps of fuel, and when the flames had somewhat died down, the herds were forcibly driven through the fire, first the pigs, [pg 276] next the cows, and last of all the horses. The herdsmen then drove the beasts to pasture, and persons whose faith in the efficacy of the need-fire was particularly robust carried home brands.[698]

The mode of kindling the need-fire in the Harz Mountains.

Again, at a village near Quedlinburg, in the Harz Mountains, it was resolved to put a herd of sick swine through the need-fire. Hearing of this intention the Superintendent of Quedlinburg hurried to the spot and has described for us what he saw. The beadles went from house to house to see that there was no fire in any house; for it is well known that should there be common fire burning in a house the need-fire will not kindle. The men made their rounds very early in the morning to make quite sure that all lights were out. At two o'clock a night-light was still burning in the parsonage, and this was of course a hindrance to the need-fire. The peasants knocked at the window and earnestly entreated that the night-light might be extinguished. But the parson's wife refused to put the light out; it still glimmered at the window; and in the darkness outside the angry rustics vowed that the parson's pigs should get no benefit of the need-fire. However, as good luck would have it, just as the morning broke, the night-light went out of itself, and the hopes of the people revived. From every house bundles of straw, tow, faggots and so forth were now carried to feed the bonfire. The noise and the cheerful bustle were such that you might have thought they were all hurrying to witness a public execution. Outside the village, between two garden walls, an oaken post had been driven into the ground and a hole bored through it. In the hole a wooden winch, smeared with tar, was inserted and made to revolve with such force and rapidity that fire and smoke in time issued from the socket. The collected fuel was then thrown upon the fire and soon a great blaze shot up. The pigs were now driven into the upper end of the street. As soon as they saw the fire, they turned tail, but the peasants drove them through with shrieks and shouts and lashes of whips. At the other end of the street there was another crowd waiting, who [pg 277] chased the swine back through the fire a second time. Then the other crowd repeated the manœuvre, and the herd of swine was driven for the third time through the smoke and flames. That was the end of the performance. Many pigs were scorched so severely that they gave up the ghost. The bonfire was broken up, and every householder took home with him a brand, which he washed in the water-barrel and laid for some time, as a treasure of great price, in the manger from which the cattle were fed. But the parson's wife had reason bitterly to repent her folly in refusing to put out that night-light; for not one of her pigs was driven through the need-fire, so they died.[699]

The mode of kindling the need-fire in Brunswick.

In Brunswick, also, the need-fire is known to have been repeatedly kindled during the nineteenth century. After driving the pigs through the fire, which was kindled by the friction of wood, some people took brands home, dipped them in water, and then gave the water to the pigs to drink, no doubt for the purpose of inoculating them still more effectually with the precious virtue of the need-fire. In the villages of the Drömling district everybody who bore a hand in kindling the “wild fire” must have the same Christian name; otherwise they laboured in vain. The fire was produced by the friction of a rope round the beams of a door; and bread, corn, and old boots contributed their mites to swell the blaze through which the pigs as usual were driven. In one place, apparently not far from Wolfenbüttel, the need-fire is said to have been kindled, contrary to custom, by the smith striking a spark from the cold anvil.[700] At Gandersheim down to about the beginning of the nineteenth century the need-fire was lit in the common way by causing a cross-bar to revolve rapidly on its axis between two upright posts. The rope which produced the revolution of the bar had to be new, but it was if possible woven from threads taken from a gallows-rope, with which people had been hanged. While the need-fire was being kindled in this fashion, every other fire in the town had to be put out; [pg 278] search was made through the houses, and any fire discovered to be burning was extinguished. If in spite of every precaution no flame could be elicited by the friction of the rope, the failure was set down to witchcraft; but if the efforts were successful, a bonfire was lit with the new fire, and when the flames had died down, the sick swine were driven thrice through the glowing embers.[701] On the lower Rhine the need-fire is said to have been kindled by the friction of oak-wood on fir-wood, all fires in the village having been previously extinguished. The bonfires so kindled were composed of wood of nine different sorts; there were three such bonfires, and the cattle were driven round them with great gravity and devotion.[702]

The mode of kindling the need-fire in Silesia and Bohemia.

In Silesia, also, need-fires were often employed for the purpose of curing a murrain or preventing its spread. While all other lights within the boundaries were extinguished, the new fire was produced by the friction of nine kinds of wood, and the flame so obtained was used to kindle heaps of brushwood or straw to which every inhabitant had contributed. Through these fires the cattle, both sick and sound, were driven in the confident expectation that thereby the sick would be healed and the sound saved from sickness.[703] When plague breaks out among the herds at Dobischwald, in Austrian Silesia, a splinter of wood is chipped from the threshold of every house, the cattle are driven to a cross-road, and there a tree, growing at the boundary, is felled by a pair of twin brothers. The wood of the tree and the splinters from the thresholds furnish the fuel of a bonfire, which is kindled by the rubbing of two pieces of wood together. When the bonfire is ablaze, the horns of the cattle are pared and the parings thrown into the flames, after which the animals are driven through the fire. This is believed to guard the herd against the plague.[704] The Germans of Western Bohemia resort to similar measures for staying a murrain. You set up a post, bore a hole in it, and insert in the hole a stick, which you have first of all smeared [pg 279] with pitch and wrapt in inflammable stuffs. Then you wind a rope round the stick and give the two ends of the rope to two persons who must either be brothers or have the same baptismal name. They haul the rope backwards and forwards so as to make the tarred stick revolve rapidly till the rope first smokes and then emits sparks. The sparks are used to kindle a bonfire, through which the cattle are driven in the usual way. And as usual no other fire may burn in the village while the need-fire is being kindled; for otherwise the rope could not possibly be ignited.[705] In Upper Austria sick pigs are reported to have been driven through a need-fire about the beginning of the nineteenth century.[706]

The use of the need-fire in Switzerland.

The need-fire is still in use in some parts of Switzerland, but it seems to have degenerated into a children's game and to be employed rather for the dispersal of a mist than for the prevention or cure of cattle-plague. In some cantons it goes by the name of “mist-healing,” while in others it is called “butter-churning.” On a misty or rainy day a number of children will shut themselves up in a stable or byre and proceed to make fire for the purpose of improving the weather. The way in which they make it is this. A boy places a board against his breast, takes a peg pointed at both ends, and, setting one end of the peg against the board on his breast, presses the other end firmly against a second board, the surface of which has been flaked into a nap. A string is tied round the peg, and two other boys pull it to and fro, till through the rapid motion of the point of the peg a hole is burnt in the flaked board, to which tow or dry moss is then applied as a tinder. In this way fire and smoke are elicited, and with their appearance the children fancy that the mist will vanish.[707] We may conjecture that this method of dispersing a mist, which is now left to children, was formerly practised in all seriousness by grown men in Switzerland. It is thus that religious or magical rites dwindle away into the sports [pg 280] of children. In the canton of the Grisons there is still in common use an imprecation, “Mist, go away, or I'll heal you,” which points to an old custom of burning up the fog with fire. A longer form of the curse lingers in the Vallée des Bagnes of the canton Valais. It runs thus: “Mist, mist, fly, fly, or St. Martin will come with a sheaf of straw to burn your guts, a great log of wood to smash your brow, and an iron chain to drag you to hell.”[708]

The mode of kindling the need-fire in Sweden and Norway. The need-fire as a protection against witchcraft.

In Sweden the need-fire is called, from the mode of its production, either vrid-eld, “turned fire,” or gnid-eld, “rubbed fire.” Down to near the end of the eighteenth century the need-fire was kindled, as in Germany, by the violent rubbing of two pieces of wood against each other; sometimes nine different kinds of wood were used for the purpose. The smoke of the fire was deemed salutary; fruit-trees and nets were fumigated with it, in order that the trees might bear fruit and the nets catch fish. Cattle were also driven through the smoke.[709] In Sundal, a narrow Norwegian valley, shut in on both sides by precipitous mountains, there lived down to the second half of the nineteenth century an old man who was very superstitious. He set salmon-traps in the river Driva, which traverses the valley, and he caught many fish both in spring and autumn. When his fishing went wrong, he kindled naueld (“need-fire”) or gnideild (“rubbed fire,” “friction fire”) to counteract the witchcraft, which he believed to be the cause of his bad luck. He set up two planks near each other, bored a hole in each, inserted a pointed rod in the holes, and twisted a long cord round the rod. Then he pulled the cord so as to make the rod revolve rapidly. Thus by reason of the friction he at last drew fire from the wood. That contented him, for “he believed that the witchery was thus rendered powerless, and that good luck in his fishing was now ensured.”[710]

The need-fire among the Slavonic peoples.

Slavonic peoples hold the need-fire in high esteem. [pg 281] They call it “living fire,” and attribute to it a healing virtue. The ascription of medicinal power to fire kindled by the friction of wood is said to be especially characteristic of the Slavs who inhabit the Carpathian Mountains and the Balkan peninsula. The mode in which they produce the need-fire differs somewhat in different places. Thus in the Schar mountains of Servia the task is entrusted to a boy and girl between eleven and fourteen years of age. They are led into a perfectly dark room, and having stripped themselves naked kindle the fire by rubbing two rollers of lime wood against each other, till the friction produces sparks, which are caught in tinder. The Serbs of Western Macedonia drive two oaken posts into the ground, bore a round hole in the upper end of each, insert a roller of lime wood in the holes, and set it revolving rapidly by means of a cord, which is looped round the roller and worked by a bow. Elsewhere the roller is put in motion by two men, who hold each one end of the cord and pull it backwards and forwards forcibly between them. Bulgarian shepherds sometimes kindle the need-fire by drawing a prism-shaped piece of lime wood to and fro across the flat surface of a tree-stump in the forest.[711] But in the neighbourhood of Küstendil, in Bulgaria, the need-fire is kindled by the friction of two pieces of oak wood and the cattle are driven through it.[712]

The need-fire in Russia, Poland, and Slavonia..

In many districts of Russia, also, “living fire” is made by the friction of wood on St. John's Day, and the herds are driven through it, and the people leap over it in the conviction that their health is thereby assured; when a cattle-plague is raging, the fire is produced by rubbing two pieces of oak wood against each other, and it is used to kindle the lamps before the holy pictures and the censers in the churches.[713] Thus it appears that in Russia the need-fire is kindled for the sake of the cattle periodically as well as on special emergencies. Similarly in Poland the peasants are said to kindle fires in [pg 282] the village streets on St. Rochus's day and to drive the cattle thrice through them in order to protect the animals against the murrain. The fire is produced by rubbing a pole of poplar wood on a plank of poplar or fir wood and catching the sparks in tow. The embers are carried home to be used as remedies in sickness.[714] As practised in Slavonia, the custom of the need-fire used to present some interesting features, which are best described in the words of an eye-witness:—“In the year 1833 I came for the first time as a young merchant to Slavonia; it was to Gaj that I went, in the Požega district. The time was autumn, and it chanced that a cattle-plague was raging in the neighbourhood, which inflicted much loss on the people. The peasants believed that the plague was a woman, an evil spirit (Kuga), who was destroying the cattle; so they sought to banish her. I had then occasion to observe the proceedings in the villages of Gaj, Kukunjevac, Brezina, and Brekinjska. Towards evening the whole population of the village was busy laying a ring of brushwood round the boundaries of the village. All fires were extinguished throughout the village. Then pairs of men in several places took pieces of wood, which had been specially prepared for the purpose, and rubbed them together till they emitted sparks. The sparks were allowed to fall on tinder and fanned into a flame, with which the dry brushwood was kindled. Thus the fire burned all round the village. The peasants persuaded themselves that thereupon Kuga must take her departure.”[715]

The need-fire in Servia.

This last account leaves no doubt as to the significance of the need-fire in the minds of Slavonian peasantry. They regard it simply as a barrier interposed between their cattle and the evil spirit, which prowls, like a hungry wolf, round the fold and can, like a wolf, be kept at bay by fire. The same interpretation of the need-fire comes out, hardly less clearly, in the account which another writer gives of a ceremony witnessed by him at the village of Setonje, at the foot of the Homolje mountains in the great forest of Servia. An [pg 283] epidemic was raging among the children, and the need-fire was resorted to as a means of staying the plague. It was produced by an old man and an old woman in the first of the ways described above; that is, they made it in the dark by rubbing two sticks of lime wood against each other. Before the healing virtue of the fire was applied to the inhabitants of the village, two old women performed the following ceremony. Both bore the name of Stana, from the verb stati, “to remain standing”; for the ceremony could not be successfully performed by persons of any other name. One of them carried a copper kettle full of water, the other an old house-lock with the key. Thus equipped they repaired to a spot outside of the village, and there the old dame with the kettle asked the old dame with the lock, “Whither away?” and the other answered her, “I came to shut the village against ill-luck.” With that she locked the lock and threw it with the key into the kettle of water. Then they marched thrice round the village, repeating the ceremony of the lock and key at each round. Meantime all the villagers, arrayed in their best clothes, were assembled in an open place. All the fires in the houses had been previously extinguished. Two sturdy yokels now dug a tunnel through a mound beside an oak tree; the tunnel was just high enough to let a man creep through it on all fours. Two fires, lit by the need-fire, were now laid, one at each end of the tunnel; and the old woman with the kettle took her stand at the entrance of the tunnel, while the one with the lock posted herself at the exit. Facing the latter stood another woman with a great pot of milk before her, and on the other side was set a pot full of melted swine's fat. All was now ready. The villagers thereupon crawled through the tunnel on hands and knees, one behind the other. Each, as he emerged from the tunnel, received a spoonful of milk from the woman and looked at his face reflected in the pot of melted swine's fat. Then another woman made a cross with a piece of charcoal on his back. When all the inhabitants had thus crept through the tunnel and been doctored at the other end, each took some glowing embers home with him in a pot wherewith to rekindle the fire on the domestic hearth. Lastly they put some of the charcoal in a vessel [pg 284] of water and drank the mixture in order to be thereby magically protected against the epidemic.[716]

It would be superfluous to point out in detail how admirably these measures are calculated to arrest the ravages of disease; but for the sake of those, if there are any, to whom the medicinal effect of crawling through a hole on hands and knees is not at once apparent, I shall merely say that the procedure in question is one of the most powerful specifics which the wit of man has devised for maladies of all sorts. Ample evidence of its application will be adduced in a later part of this work.[717]

The need-fire in Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria the herds suffer much from the raids of certain blood-sucking vampyres called Ustrels. An Ustrel is the spirit of a Christian child who was born on a Saturday and died unfortunately before he could be baptized. On the ninth day after burial he grubs his way out of the grave and attacks the cattle at once, sucking their blood all night and returning at peep of dawn to the grave to rest from his labours. In ten days or so the copious draughts of blood which he has swallowed have so fortified his constitution that he can undertake longer journeys; so when he falls in with great herds of cattle or flocks of sheep he returns no more to the grave for rest and refreshment at night, but takes up his quarters during the day either between the horns of a sturdy calf or ram or between the hind legs of a milch-cow. Beasts whose blood he has sucked die the same night. In any herd that he may fasten on he begins with the fattest animal and works his way down steadily through the leaner kine till not one single beast is left alive. The carcases of the victims swell up, and when the hide is stripped off you can always perceive the livid patch of flesh where the monster sucked the blood of the poor creature. In a single night he may, by working hard, kill five cows; but he seldom exceeds that number. He can change his shape and weight very easily; for example, when he is sitting by day between the horns of a ram, the animal scarcely feels his weight, but at night he will sometimes throw himself on an ox or a cow [pg 285] so heavily that the animal cannot stir, and lows so pitifully that it would make your heart bleed to hear. People who were born on a Saturday can see these monsters, and they have described them accurately, so that there can be no doubt whatever about their existence. It is, therefore, a matter of great importance to the peasant to protect his flocks and herds against the ravages of such dangerous vampyres. The way in which he does so is this. On a Saturday morning before sunrise the village drummer gives the signal to put out every fire in the village; even smoking is forbidden. Next all the domestic animals, with the exception of fowls, geese, and ducks, are driven out into the open. In front of the flocks and herds march two men, whose names during the ceremony may not be mentioned in the village. They go into the wood, pick two dry branches, and having stript themselves of their clothes they rub the two branches together very hard till they catch fire; then with the fire so obtained they kindle two bonfires, one on each side of a cross-road which is known to be frequented by wolves. After that the herd is driven between the two fires. Coals from the bonfires are then taken back to the village and used to rekindle the fires on the domestic hearths. For several days no one may go near the charred and blackened remains of the bonfires at the cross-road. The reason is that the vampyre is lying there, having dropped from his seat between the cow's horns when the animals were driven between the two fires. So if any one were to pass by the spot during these days, the monster would be sure to call him by name and to follow him to the village; whereas if he is left alone, a wolf will come at midnight and strangle him, and in a few days the herdsmen can see the ground soaked with his slimy blood. So that is the end of the vampyre.[718] In this Bulgarian custom, as in the Slavonian custom described above, the conception of the need-fire as a barrier set up between the cattle and a dangerous spirit is clearly worked out. The spirit rides the cow till he comes to the narrow pass between the two fires, but the heat there is too much for him; he drops in a faint from the saddle, or rather from the horns, and the now riderless animal escapes safe and sound [pg 286] beyond the smoke and flame, leaving her persecutor prostrate on the ground on the further side of the blessed barrier.

The need-fire in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina there are some local differences in the mode of kindling the need-fire, or “living fire,” as it is called. Thus at Jablanica both the uprights and the roller or cross-piece, which by its revolution kindles the fire, are made of cornel-tree wood; whereas at Dolac, near Sarajevo, the uprights and the cross-piece or roller are all made of lime wood. In Gacko, contrary to the usual custom, the fire is made by striking a piece of iron on an anvil, till sparks are given out, which are caught in tinder. The “living fire” thus produced is employed for purposes of healing. In particular, if any one suffers from wounds or sores, ashes of the need-fire are sprinkled on the ailing part. In Gacko it is also believed that if a pregnant woman witnesses a conflagration, her child will either be born with a red eruption on its skin or will contract the malady sooner or later afterwards. The only remedy consists in ashes of the need-fire, which are mixed with water and given to the child to drink.[719]

The need-fire in England, in Yorkshire.

In England the earliest notice of the need-fire seems to be contained in the Chronicle of Lanercost for the year 1268. The annalist tells with pious horror how, when an epidemic was raging in that year among the cattle, “certain beastly men, monks in garb but not in mind, taught the idiots of their country to make fire by the friction of wood and to set up an image of Priapus, whereby they thought to succour the animals.”[720] The use of the need-fire is particularly attested for the counties of Yorkshire and Northumberland. Thus in Yorkshire down to the middle of the eighteenth century “the favourite remedy of the country [pg 287] people, not only in the way of cure, but of prevention, was an odd one; it was to smoke the cattle almost to suffocation, by kindling straw, litter, and other combustible matter about them. The effects of this mode of cure are not stated, but the most singular part of it was that by which it was reported to have been discovered. An angel (says the legend), descended into Yorkshire, and there set a large tree on fire; the strange appearance of which or else the savour of the smoke, incited the cattle around (some of which were infected) to draw near the miracle, when they all either received an immediate cure or an absolute prevention of the disorder. It is not affirmed that the angel staid to speak to anybody, but only that he left a written direction for the neighbouring people to catch this supernatural fire, and to communicate it from one to another with all possible speed throughout the country; and in case it should be extinguished and utterly lost, that then new fire, of equal virtue, might be obtained, not by any common method, but by rubbing two pieces of wood together till they ignited. Upon what foundation this story stood, is not exactly known, but it put the farmers actually into a hurry of communicating flame and smoke from one house to another with wonderful speed, making it run like wildfire over the country.”[721] Again, we read that “the father of the writer, who died in 1843, in his seventy-ninth year, had a perfect remembrance of a great number of persons, belonging to the upper and middle classes of his native parish of Bowes, assembling on the banks of the river Greta to work for need-fire. A disease among cattle, called the murrain, then prevailed to a very great extent through that district of Yorkshire. The cattle were made to pass through the smoke raised by this miraculous fire, and their cure was looked upon as certain, and to neglect doing so was looked upon as wicked. This fire was produced by the violent and continued friction of two dry pieces of wood until such time as it was thereby obtained. ‘To work as though one was working for need-fire’ [pg 288] is a common proverb in the North of England.”[722] At Ingleton, a small town nestling picturesquely at the foot of the high hill of Ingleborough in western Yorkshire, “within the last thirty years or so it was a common practice to kindle the so-called ‘Need-fire’ by rubbing two pieces of wood briskly together, and setting ablaze a large heap of sticks and brushwood, which were dispersed, and cattle then driven through the smoking brands. This was thought to act as a charm against the spread or developement of the various ailments to which cattle are liable, and the farmers seem to have had great faith in it.”[723] Writing about the middle of the nineteenth century, Kemble tells us that the will-fire or need-fire had been used in Devonshire for the purpose of staying a murrain within the memory of man.[724]

The need-fire in Northumberland.

So in Northumberland, down to the first half of the nineteenth century, “when a contagious disease enters among cattle, the fires are extinguished in the adjacent villages. Two pieces of dried wood are then rubbed together until fire be produced; with this a quantity of straw is kindled, juniper is thrown into the flame, and the cattle are repeatedly driven through the smoke. Part of the forced fire is sent to the neighbours, who again forward it to others, and, as great expedition is used, the fires may be seen blazing over a great extent of country in a very short space of time.”[725] “It is strange,” says the antiquary William Henderson, writing about 1866, “to find the custom of lighting ‘need-fires’ on the occasion of epidemics among cattle still lingering among us, but so it is. The vicar of Stamfordham writes thus [pg 289] respecting it: ‘When the murrain broke out among the cattle about eighteen years ago, this fire was produced by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, and was carried from place to place all through this district, as a charm against cattle taking the disease. Bonfires were kindled with it, and the cattle driven into the smoke, where they were left for some time. Many farmers hereabouts, I am informed, had the need-fire.’ ”[726]

Martin's account of the need-fire in the Highlands of Scotland.

In the earliest systematic account of the western islands of Scotland we read that “the inhabitants here did also make use of a fire called Tin-egin, i.e. a forced fire, or fire of necessity, which they used as an antidote against the plague or murrain in cattle; and it was performed thus: all the fires in the parish were extinguished, and then eighty-one married men, being thought the necessary number for effecting this design, took two great planks of wood, and nine of them were employed by turns, who by their repeated efforts rubbed one of the planks against the other until the heat thereof produced fire; and from this forced fire each family is supplied with new fire, which is no sooner kindled than a pot full of water is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled upon the people infected with the plague, or upon the cattle that have the murrain. And this they all say they find successful by experience: it was practised in the main land, opposite to the south of Skie, within these thirty years.”[727]

The need-fire in the island of Mull. Sacrifice of a heifer.

In the island of Mull, one of the largest of the Hebrides, the need-fire was kindled as late as 1767. “In consequence of a disease among the black cattle the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Cammoor a wheel and nine spindles of oakwood. They extinguished every fire in [pg 290] every house within sight of the hill; the wheel was then turned from east to west over the nine spindles long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect. They failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to the obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out for what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants they contrived to have them extinguished and on that morning raised their fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths from the pile and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came over as master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the spell, he said, the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again. The whole country believed him accursed.”[728] From this account we see that in Mull the kindling of the need-fire as a remedy for cattle disease was accompanied by the sacrifice of one of the diseased animals; and though the two customs are for the most part mentioned separately by our authorities, we may surmise that they were often, perhaps usually, practised together for the purpose of checking the ravages of sickness in the herds.[729]

The need-fire in Caithness.

In the county of Caithness, forming the extreme north-east corner of the mainland of Scotland, the practice of the need-fire survived down at least to about 1788. We read that “in those days, when the stock of any considerable farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one of the charm-doctors to superintend the raising of a need-fire. It was done by friction, thus; upon any small island, where the stream of a river or burn ran on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf, as it could be had, in [pg 291] which a semicircular or highland couple of birch, or other hard wood, was set; and, in short, a roof closed on it. A straight pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a wooden pin to the top of the couple, and the lower end in an oblong trink in the earth or floor; and lastly, another pole was set across horizontally, having both ends tapered, one end of which was supported in a hole in the side of the perpendicular pole, and the other in a similar hole in the couple leg. The horizontal stick was called the auger, having four short arms or levers fixed in its centre, to work it by; the building having been thus finished, as many men as could be collected in the vicinity, (being divested of all kinds of metal in their clothes, etc.), would set to work with the said auger, two after two, constantly turning it round by the arms or levers, and others occasionally driving wedges of wood or stone behind the lower end of the upright pole, so as to press it the more on the end of the auger: by this constant friction and pressure, the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be instantly kindled, and thus the need-fire would be accomplished. The fire in the farmer's house, etc., was immediately quenched with water, a fire kindled from this need-fire, both in the farm-houses and offices, and the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which preserved them from the murrain.”[730]

The need-fire in Caithness.

The last recorded case of the need-fire in Caithness happened in 1809 or 1810. At Houstry, Dunbeath, a crofter named David Gunn had made for himself a kail-yard and in doing so had wilfully encroached on one of those prehistoric ruins called brochs, which the people of the neighbourhood believed to be a fairy habitation. Soon afterwards a murrain broke out among the cattle of the district and carried off many beasts. So the wise men put their heads together and resolved to light a teine-eigin or need-fire as the best way of stopping the plague. They cut a branch from a tree in a neighbouring wood, stripped it of bark, and carried it to a small island in the Houstry Burn. Every fire in the [pg 292] district having been quenched, new fire was made by the friction of wood in the island, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the houses were lit afresh. One of the sticks used in making the fire was preserved down to about the end of the nineteenth century; apparently the mode of operation was the one known as the fire-drill: a pointed stick was twirled in a hole made in another stick till fire was elicited by the friction.[731]

Another account of the need-fire in the Highlands.

Another account of the use of need-fire in the Highlands of Scotland runs as follows: “When, by the neglect of the prescribed safeguards [against witchcraft], the seeds of iniquity have taken root, and a person's means are decaying in consequence, the only alternative, in this case, is to resort to that grand remedy, the Tein Econuch, or ‘Forlorn Fire,’ which seldom fails of being productive of the best effects. The cure for witchcraft, called Tein Econuch, is wrought in the following manner:—A consultation being held by the unhappy sufferer and his friends as to the most advisable measures of effecting a cure, if this process is adopted, notice is privately communicated to all those householders who reside within the nearest of two running streams, to extinguish their lights and fires on some appointed morning. On its being ascertained that this notice has been duly observed, a spinning-wheel, or some other convenient instrument, calculated to produce fire by friction, is set to work with the most furious earnestness by the unfortunate sufferer, and all who wish well to his cause. Relieving each other by turns, they drive on with such persevering diligence, that at length the spindle of the wheel, ignited by excessive friction, emits ‘forlorn fire’ in abundance, which, by the application of tow, or some other combustible material, is widely extended over the whole neighbourhood. Communicating the fire to the tow, the tow communicates it to a candle, the candle to a fir-torch, the torch to a cartful of peats, which the master of the ceremonies, with pious ejaculations for the success of the experiment, distributes to messengers, who will proceed with portions of it to the different houses within the said two running streams, to kindle the different fires. By the influence [pg 293] of this operation, the machinations and spells of witchcraft are rendered null and void.”[732]

Alexander Carmichael's account of the need-fire in the Highlands of Scotland during the nineteenth century.

In various parts of the Highlands of Scotland the need-fire was still kindled during the first half of the nineteenth century, as we learn from the following account:—

“Tein-eigin, neid-fire, need-fire, forced fire, fire produced by the friction of wood or iron against wood.

“The fire of purification was kindled from the neid-fire, while the domestic fire on the hearth was re-kindled from the purification fire on the knoll. Among other names, the purification fire was called Teine Bheuil, fire of Beul, and Teine mor Bheuil, great fire of Beul. The fire of Beul was divided into two fires between which people and cattle rushed australly for purposes of purification. The ordeal was trying, as may be inferred from phrases still current. Is teodha so na teine teodha Bheuil, ‘Hotter is this than the hot fire of Beul.’ Replying to his grandchild, an old man in Lewis said ... ‘Mary! sonnie, it were worse for me to do that for thee than to go between the two great fires of Beul.’

“The neid-fire was resorted to in imminent or actual calamity upon the first day of the quarter, and to ensure success in great or important events.

The need-fire in Arran.

“The writer conversed with several persons who saw the neid-fire made, and who joined in the ceremony. As mentioned elsewhere, a woman in Arran said that her father, and the other men of the townland, made the neid-fire on the knoll on La buidhe Bealltain—Yellow Day of Beltane. They fed the fire from cuaile mor conaidh caoin—great bundles of sacred faggots brought to the knoll on Beltane Eve. When the sacred fire became kindled, the people rushed home and brought their herds and drove them through and round the fire of purification, to sain them from the bana bhuitseach mhor Nic Creafain Mac Creafain—the great arch witch Mac Crauford, now Crawford. That was in the second decade of this century.

The need-fire in North Uist.

“John Macphail, Middlequarter, North Uist, said that [pg 294] the last occasion on which the neid-fire was made in North Uist was bliadhna an t-sneachda bhuidhe—the year of the yellow snow—1829 (?). The snow lay so deep and remained so long on the ground, that it became yellow. Some suggest that the snow was originally yellow, as snow is occasionally red. This extraordinary continuance of snow caused much want and suffering throughout the Isles. The people of North Uist extinguished their own fires and generated a purification fire at Sail Dharaich, Sollas. The fire was produced from an oak log by rapidly boring with an auger. This was accomplished by the exertions of naoi naoinear ciad ginealach mac—the nine nines of first-begotten sons. From the neid-fire produced on the knoll the people of the parish obtained fire for their dwellings. Many cults and ceremonies were observed on the occasion, cults and ceremonies in which Pagan and Christian beliefs intermingled. Sail Dharaich, Oak Log, obtained its name from the log of oak for the neid-fire being there. A fragment of this log riddled with auger holes marks a grave in Cladh Sgealoir, the burying-ground of Sgealoir, in the neighbourhood.

The need-fire in Reay, Sutherland.

“Mr. Alexander Mackay, Edinburgh, a native of Reay, Sutherland, says:—‘My father was the skipper of a fishing crew. Before beginning operations for the season, the crew of the boat met at night in our house to settle accounts for the past, and to plan operations for the new season. My mother and the rest of us were sent to bed. I lay in the kitchen, and was listening and watching, though they thought I was asleep. After the men had settled their past affairs and future plans, they put out the fire on the hearth, not a spark being allowed to live. They then rubbed two pieces of wood one against another so rapidly as to produce fire, the men joining in one after the other, and working with the utmost energy and never allowing the friction to relax. From this friction-fire they rekindled the fire on the hearth, from which all the men present carried away a kindling to their own homes. Whether their success was due to their skill, their industry, their perseverance, or to the neid-fire, I do not know, but I know that they were much the most successful crew in the place. They met on Saturday, and went to church on Sunday like the good men [pg 295] and the good Christians they were—a little of their Pagan faith mingling with their Christian belief. I have reason to believe that other crews in the place as well as my father's crew practised the neid-fire.’

“A man at Helmsdale, Sutherland, saw the tein-eigin made in his boyhood.

“The neid-fire was made in North Uist about the year 1829, in Arran about 1820, in Helmsdale about 1818, in Reay about 1830.”[733]

The Beltane fires a precaution against witchcraft.

From the foregoing account we learn that in Arran the annual Beltane fire was regularly made by the friction of wood, and that it was used to protect men and cattle against a great witch. When we remember that Beltane Eve or the Eve of May Day (Walpurgis Night) is the great witching time of the year throughout Europe, we may surmise that wherever bonfires have been ceremonially kindled on that day it has been done simply as a precaution against witchcraft; indeed this motive is expressly alleged not only in Scotland, but in Wales, the Isle of Man, and many parts of Central Europe.[734] It deserves, further, to be noticed that in North Uist the wood used to kindle the need-fire was oak, and that the nine times nine men by whose exertions the flame was elicited were all first-born sons. Apparently the first-born son of a family was thought to be endowed with more magical virtue than his younger brothers. Similarly in the Punjaub “the supernatural power ascribed to the first born is not due to his being unlucky, but the idea underlying the belief seems to be that being the first product of the parents, he inherits the spiritual powers (or magnetism) in a high degree. The success of such persons in stopping rain and hail and in stupefying snakes is proverbial. It is believed that a first child born with feet forward can cure backache by kicking the patient in the back, on a crossing.”[735]

The need-fire in Aberdeenshire.

In the north-east of Aberdeenshire and the neighbourhood, when the cattle-disease known as the “quarter-ill” broke out, “the ‘muckle wheel’ was set in motion and turned till fire was produced. From this virgin flame fires were kindled in the byres. At the same time, if neighbours requested the favour, live coals were given them to kindle fires for the purification of their homesteads and turning off the disease. Fumigating the byres with juniper was a method adopted to ward off disease. Such a fire was called ‘needfyre.’ The kindling of it came under the censure of the Presbytery at times.”[736]

The need-fire in Perthshire.

In Perthshire the need-fire was kindled as a remedy for cattle-disease as late as 1826. “A wealthy old farmer, [pg 297] having lost several of his cattle by some disease very prevalent at present, and being able to account for it in no way so rationally as by witchcraft, had recourse to the following remedy, recommended to him by a weird sister in his neighbourhood, as an effectual protection from the attacks of the foul fiend. A few stones were piled together in the barnyard, and woodcoals having been laid thereon, the fuel was ignited by will-fire, that is fire obtained by friction; the neighbours having been called in to witness the solemnity, the cattle were made to pass through the flames, in the order of their dignity and age, commencing with the horses and ending with the swine. The ceremony having been duly and decorously gone through, a neighbouring farmer observed to the enlightened owner of the herd, that he, along with his family, ought to have followed the example of the cattle, and the sacrifice to Baal would have been complete.”[737]

The need-fire in Ireland.

In County Leitrim, Ireland, in order to prevent fever from spreading, “all the fires on the townland, and the two adjoining (one on each side), would be put out. Then the men of the three townlands would come to one house, and get two large blocks of wood. One would be set in the ground, and the other one, fitted with two handles, placed on the top of it. The men would then draw the upper block backwards and forwards over the lower until fire was produced by friction, and from this the fires would be lighted again. This would prevent the fever from spreading.”[738]

The use of the need-fire a relic of a time when all fires were kindled by the friction of wood.

Thus it appears that in many parts of Europe it has been customary to kindle fire by the friction of wood for the purpose of curing or preventing the spread of disease, particularly among cattle. The mode of striking a light by rubbing two dry sticks against each other is the one to which all over the world savages have most commonly resorted for the sake of providing themselves with fire;[739] and we can scarcely doubt that the practice of kindling the need-fire in this primitive fashion is merely a survival from the time [pg 298] when our savage forefathers lit all their fires in that way. Nothing is so conservative of old customs as religious or magical ritual, which invests these relics of the past with an atmosphere of mysterious virtue and sanctity. To the educated mind it seems obvious that a fire which a man kindles with the sweat of his brow by laboriously rubbing one stick against each other can possess neither more nor less virtue than one which he has struck in a moment by the friction of a lucifer match; but to the ignorant and superstitious this truth is far from apparent, and accordingly they take infinite pains to do in a roundabout way what they might have done directly with the greatest ease, and what, even when it is done, is of no use whatever for the purpose in hand. A vast proportion of the labour which mankind has expended throughout the ages has been no better spent; it has been like the stone of Sisyphus eternally rolled up hill only to revolve eternally down again, or like the water poured for ever by the Danaids into broken pitchers which it could never fill.

The belief that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other fire remains alight in the neighbourhood.

The curious notion that the need-fire cannot kindle if any other fire remains alight in the neighbourhood seems to imply that fire is conceived as a unity which is broken up into fractions and consequently weakened in exact proportion to the number of places where it burns; hence in order to obtain it at full strength you must light it only at a single point, for then the flame will burst out with a concentrated energy derived from the tributary fires which burned on all the extinguished hearths of the country. So in a modern city if all the gas were turned off simultaneously at all the burners but one, the flame would no doubt blaze at that one burner with a fierceness such as no single burner could shew when all are burning at the same time. The analogy may help us to understand the process of reasoning which leads the peasantry to insist on the extinction of all common fires when the need-fire is about to be kindled. Perhaps, too, it may partly explain that ceremonial extinction of all old fires on other occasions which is often required by custom as a preliminary to the lighting of a new and sacred fire.[740] We [pg 299] have seen that in the Highlands of Scotland all common fires were extinguished on the Eve of May-day as a preparation for kindling the Beltane bonfire by friction next morning;[741] and no doubt the reason for the extinction was the same as in the case of the need-fire. Indeed we may assume with a fair degree of probability that the need-fire was the parent of the periodic fire-festivals; at first invoked only at irregular intervals to cure certain evils as they occurred, the powerful virtue of fire was afterwards employed at regular intervals to prevent the occurrence of the same evils as well as to remedy such as had actually arisen.

The need-fire among the Iroquois of North America.

The need-fire of Europe has its parallel in a ceremony which used to be observed by the Iroquois Indians of North America. “Formerly when an epidemic prevailed among the Iroquois despite the efforts to stay it, it was customary for the principal shaman to order the fires in every cabin to be extinguished and the ashes and cinders to be carefully removed; for it was believed that the pestilence was sent as a punishment for neglecting to rekindle ‘new fire’ or because of the manner in which the fire then in use had been kindled. So, after all the fires were out, two suitable logs of slippery elm (Ulmus fulva) were provided for the new fire. One of the logs was from six to eight inches in diameter and from eight to ten feet long; the other was from ten to twelve inches in diameter and about ten feet long. About midway across the larger log a cuneiform notch or cut about six inches deep was made, and in the wedge-shaped notch punk was placed. The other log was drawn rapidly to and fro in the cut by four strong men chosen for the purpose until the punk was ignited by the friction thus produced. Before and during the progress of the work of igniting the fire the shaman votively sprinkled tcar-hŭ'-ĕñ-wĕ, ‘real tobacco,’ three several times into the cuneiform notch and offered earnest prayers to the Fire-god, beseeching him ‘to aid, to bless, and [pg 300] to redeem the people from their calamities.’ The ignited punk was used to light a large bonfire, and then the head of every family was required to take home ‘new fire’ to rekindle a fire in his or her fire-place.”[742]

§ 9. The Sacrifice of an Animal to stay a Cattle-Plague.

The burnt sacrifice of a calf in England and Wales. Burnt sacrifice of a pig in Scotland.

Sometimes apparently in England as well as in Scotland the kindling of a need-fire was accompanied by the sacrifice of a calf. Thus in Northamptonshire, at some time during the first half of the nineteenth century, “Miss C—— and her cousin walking saw a fire in a field and a crowd round it. They said, ‘What is the matter?’ ‘Killing a calf.’ ‘What for?’ ‘To stop the murrain.’ They went away as quickly as possible. On speaking to the clergyman he made enquiries. The people did not like to talk of the affair, but it appeared that when there is a disease among the cows or the calves are born sickly, they sacrifice (i.e. kill and burn) one ‘for good luck.’ ”[743] It is not here said that the fire was a need-fire, of which indeed the two horrified ladies had probably never heard; but the analogy of the parallel custom in Mull[744] renders it probable that in Northamptonshire also the fire was kindled by the friction of wood, and that the calf or some part of it was burnt in the fire. Certainly the practice of burning a single animal alive in order to save all the others would seem to have been not uncommon in England down to the nineteenth century. Thus a farmer in Cornwall about the year 1800, having lost many cattle by disease, and tried many remedies in vain, consulted with some of his neighbours and laying their heads together “they recalled to their recollections a tale, which tradition had handed down from remote antiquity, that the calamity would not cease until he had actually burned alive the finest calf which he had upon his farm; but that, when this sacrifice was made, the murrain would afflict his cattle no more.” Accordingly, on a day appointed they met, lighted a large fire, placed the best calf in it, and standing round the blazing [pg 301] pile drove the animal with pitchforks back into the flames whenever it attempted to escape. Thus the victim was burned alive to save the rest of the cattle.[745] “There can be no doubt but that a belief prevailed until a very recent period, amongst the small farmers in the districts remote from towns in Cornwall, that a living sacrifice appeased the wrath of God. This sacrifice must be by fire; and I have heard it argued that the Bible gave them warranty for this belief.... While correcting these sheets I am informed of two recent instances of this superstition. One of them was the sacrifice of a calf by a farmer near Portreath, for the purpose of removing a disease which had long followed his horses and his cows. The other was the burning of a living lamb, to save, as the farmer said, ‘his flocks from spells which had been cast on 'em.’ ”[746] In a recent account of the fire-festivals of Wales we read that “I have also heard my grandfather and father say that in times gone by the people would throw a calf in the fire when there was any disease among the herds. The same would be done with a sheep if there was anything the matter with a flock. I can remember myself seeing cattle being driven between two fires to ‘stop the disease spreading.’ When in later times it was not considered humane to drive the cattle between the fires, the herdsmen were accustomed to force the animals over the wood ashes to protect them against various ailments.”[747] Writing about 1866, the antiquary W. Henderson says that a live ox was burned near Haltwhistle in Northumberland “only twenty years ago” to stop a murrain.[748] “About the year 1850 disease broke out among the cattle of a small farm in the parish of Resoliss, Black Isle, Ross-shire. The farmer prevailed on his wife to undertake a journey to a wise woman of renown [pg 302] in Banffshire to ask a charm against the effects of the ‘ill ee.’ The long journey of upwards of fifty miles was performed by the good wife, and the charm was got. One chief thing ordered was to burn to death a pig, and sprinkle the ashes over the byre and other farm buildings. This order was carried out, except that the pig was killed before it was burned. A more terrible sacrifice was made at times. One of the diseased animals was rubbed over with tar, driven forth, set on fire, and allowed to run till it fell down and died.”[749] “Living animals have been burnt alive in sacrifice within memory to avert the loss of other stock. The burial of three puppies ‘brandise-wise’ in a field is supposed to rid it of weeds. Throughout the rural districts of Devon witchcraft is an article of current faith, and the toad is thrown into the flames as an emissary of the evil one.”[750]

The calf is burnt in order to break a spell which has been cast on the herd.

But why, we may ask, should the burning alive of a calf or a sheep be supposed to save the rest of the herd or the flock from the murrain? According to one writer, as we have seen, the burnt sacrifice was thought to appease the wrath of God.[751] The idea of appeasing the wrath of a ferocious deity by burning an animal alive is probably no more than a theological gloss put on an old heathen rite; it would hardly occur to the simple mind of an English bumpkin, who, though he may be stupid, is not naturally cruel and does not conceive of a divinity who takes delight in the contemplation of suffering. To his thinking God has little or nothing to do with the murrain, but witches, ill-wishers, and fairies have a great deal to do with it. The English farmer who burned one of his lambs alive said that he did it “to save his flocks from spells which had been cast on them”; and the Scotch farmer who was bidden to burn a pig alive for a similar [pg 303] purpose, but who had the humanity to kill the animal first, believed that this was a remedy for the “evil eye” which had been cast upon his beasts. Again, we read that “a farmer, who possessed broad acres, and who was in many respects a sensible man, was greatly annoyed to find that his cattle became diseased in the spring. Nothing could satisfy him but that they were bewitched, and he was resolved to find out the person who had cast the evil eye on his oxen. According to an anciently-prescribed rule, the farmer took one of his bullocks and bled it to death, catching all the blood on bundles of straw. The bloody straw was then piled into a heap, and set on fire. Burning with a vast quantity of smoke, the farmer expected to see the witch, either in reality or in shadow, amidst the smoke.”[752] Such reasons express the real beliefs of the peasants. “Cattle, like human beings, were exposed to the influences of the evil eye, of forespeaking, and of the casting of evil. Witches and warlocks did the work of evil among their neighbours' cattle if their anger had been aroused in any way. The fairies often wrought injury amongst cattle. Every animal that died suddenly was killed by the dart of the fairies, or, in the language of the people, was ‘shot-a-dead.’ Flint arrows and spear-heads went by the name of ‘faery dairts.’ ... When an animal died suddenly the canny woman of the district was sent for to search for the ‘faery dairt,’ and in due course she found one, to the great satisfaction of the owner of the dead animal.”[753]

Mode in which the burning of a bewitched animal is supposed to break the spell.

But how, we must still ask, can burning an animal alive break the spell that has been cast upon its fellows by a witch or a warlock? Some light is thrown on the question by the following account of measures which rustic wiseacres in Suffolk are said to have adopted as a remedy for witchcraft. “A woman I knew forty-three years had been employed by my predecessor to take care of his poultry. At the time I came to make her acquaintance she was a bedridden toothless crone, with chin and nose all but meeting. She did [pg 304] not discourage in her neighbours the idea that she knew more than people ought to know, and had more power than others had. Many years before I knew her it happened one spring that the ducks, which were a part of her charge, failed to lay eggs.... She at once took it for granted that the ducks had been bewitched. This misbelief involved very shocking consequences, for it necessitated the idea that so diabolical an act could only be combated by diabolical cruelty. And the most diabolical act of cruelty she could imagine was that of baking alive in a hot oven one of the ducks. And that was what she did. The sequence of thought in her mind was that the spell that had been laid on the ducks was that of preternaturally wicked wilfulness; that this spell could only be broken through intensity of suffering, in this case death by burning; that the intensity of suffering would break the spell in the one roasted to death; and that the spell broken in one would be altogether broken, that is, in all the ducks.... Shocking, however, as was this method of exorcising the ducks, there was nothing in it original. Just about a hundred years before, everyone in the town and neighbourhood of Ipswich had heard, and many had believed, that a witch had been burnt to death in her own house at Ipswich by the process of burning alive one of the sheep she had bewitched. It was curious, but it was as convincing as curious, that the hands and feet of this witch were the only parts of her that had not been incinerated. This, however, was satisfactorily explained by the fact that the four feet of the sheep, by which it had been suspended over the fire, had not been destroyed in the flames that had consumed its body.”[754] According to a slightly different account of the same tragic incident, the last of the “Ipswitch witches,” one Grace Pett, “laid her hand heavily on a farmer's sheep, who, in order to punish her, fastened one of the sheep in the ground and burnt it, except the feet, which were under the earth. The next morning Grace Pett was found burnt to a cinder, except her [pg 305] feet. Her fate is recorded in the Philosophical Transactions as a case of spontaneous combustion.”[755]

In burning the bewitched animal you burn the witch herself.

This last anecdote is instructive, if perhaps not strictly authentic. It shews that in burning alive one of a bewitched flock or herd what you really do is to burn the witch, who is either actually incarnate in the animal or perhaps more probably stands in a relation of sympathy with it so close as almost to amount to identity. Hence if you burn the creature to ashes, you utterly destroy the witch and thereby save the whole of the rest of the flock or herd from her abominable machinations; whereas if you only partially burn the animal, allowing some parts of it to escape the flames, the witch is only half-baked, and her power for mischief may be hardly, if at all, impaired by the grilling. We can now see that in such matters half-measures are useless. To kill the animal first and burn it afterwards is a weak compromise, dictated no doubt by a well-meant but utterly mistaken kindness; it is like shutting the stable-door when the steed is stolen, for obviously by leaving the animal's, and therefore the witch's, body nearly intact at the moment of death, it allows her soul to escape and return safe and sound to her own human body, which all the time is probably lying quietly at home in bed. And the same train of reasoning that justifies the burning alive of bewitched animals justifies and indeed requires the burning alive of the witches themselves; it is really the only way of destroying them, body and soul, and therefore of thoroughly extirpating the whole infernal crew.

Practice of burning cattle and sheep as sacrifices in the Isle of Man.

In the Isle of Man the practice of burning cattle alive in order to stop a murrain seems to have persisted down to a time within living memory. On this subject I will quote the evidence collected by Sir John Rhys: “A respectable farmer from Andreas told me that he was driving with his wife to the neighbouring parish of Jurby some years ago, and that on the way they beheld the carcase of a cow or an ox burning in a field, with a woman engaged in stirring the fire. On reaching the village to which they were going, they found that the burning beast belonged to a farmer [pg 306] whom they knew. They were further told it was no wonder that the said farmer had one of his cattle burnt, as several of them had recently died. Whether this was a case of sacrifice or not I cannot say. But let me give you another instance: a man whom I have already mentioned, saw at a farm nearer the centre of the island a live calf being burnt. The owner bears an English name, but his family has long been settled in Man. The farmer's explanation to my informant was that the calf was burnt to secure luck for the rest of the herd, some of which were threatening to die. My informant thought there was absolutely nothing the matter with them, except that they had too little to eat. Be that as it may, the one calf was sacrificed as a burnt-offering to secure luck for the rest of the cattle. Let me here also quote Mr. Moore's note in his Manx Surnames, p. 184, on the place name Cabbal yn Oural Losht, or the Chapel of the Burnt Sacrifice. ‘This name,’ he says, ‘records a circumstance which took place in the nineteenth century, but which, it is to be hoped, was never customary in the Isle of Man. A farmer, who had lost a number of his sheep and cattle by murrain, burned a calf as a propitiatory offering to the Deity on this spot, where a chapel was afterwards built. Hence the name.’ Particulars, I may say, of time, place, and person could be easily added to Mr. Moore's statement, excepting, perhaps as to the deity in question; on that point I have never been informed, but Mr. Moore is probably right in the use of the capital d, as the sacrificer is, according to all accounts, a highly devout Christian. One more instance: an octogenarian woman, born in the parish of Bride, and now living at Kirk Andreas, saw, when she was a ‘lump of a girl’ of ten or fifteen years of age, a live sheep being burnt in a field in the parish of Andreas, on May-day, whereby she meant the first of May reckoned according to the Old Style. She asserts very decidedly that it was son oural, ‘as a sacrifice,’ as she put it, and ‘for an object to the public’: those were her words when she expressed herself in English. Further, she made the statement that it was a custom to burn a sheep on old May-day for a sacrifice. I was fully alive to the interest of this evidence, and cross-examined her so far as [pg 307] her age allows of it, and I find that she adheres to her statement with all firmness.”[756]

By burning a bewitched animal you compel the witch to appear.

But Manxmen burn beasts when they are dead as well as when they are alive; and their reasons for burning the dead animals may help us to understand their reasons for burning the living animals. On this subject I will again quote Sir John Rhys: “When a beast dies on a farm, of course it dies, according to the old-fashioned view of things, as I understand it, from the influence of the evil eye or the interposition of a witch. So if you want to know to whom you are indebted for the loss of the beast, you have simply to burn its carcase in the open air and watch who comes first to the spot or who first passes by; that is the criminal to be charged with the death of the animal, and he cannot help coming there—such is the effect of the fire. A Michael woman, who is now about thirty, related to me how she watched while the carcase of a bewitched colt was burning, how she saw the witch coming, and how she remembers her shrivelled face, with nose and chin in close proximity. According to another native of Michael, a well-informed middle-aged man, the animal in question was oftenest a calf, and it was wont to be burnt whole, skin and all. The object, according to him, is invariably to bring the bewitcher on the spot, and he always comes; but I am not clear what happens to him when he appears. My informant added, however, that it was believed that, unless the bewitcher got possession of the heart of the burning beast, he lost all his power of bewitching.”[757]

Magic sympathy between the witch and the bewitched animal.

These statements shew that in the Isle of Man the sympathetic relation between the witch and his or her animal victim is believed to be so close that by burning the animal you compel the witch to appear. The original idea may have been that, by virtue of a magic sympathy which binds the two together, whatever harm you do to the animal is felt by the witch as if it were done to herself. That notion would fully explain why Manx people used also to burn bewitched animals alive; in doing so they probably imagined that they were simultaneously burning the witch who had cast the spell on their cattle.

Parallel belief in magic sympathy between the animal shape of a were-wolf and his or her ordinary human shape: by wounding the wolf you simultaneously wound the man or woman.

This explanation of the reason for burning a bewitched animal, dead or alive, is confirmed by the parallel belief concerning were-wolves. It is commonly supposed that certain men and women can transform themselves by magic art into wolves or other animals, but that any wound inflicted on such a transformed beast (a were-wolf or other were-animal) is simultaneously inflicted on the human body of the witch or warlock who had transformed herself or himself into the creature. This belief is widely diffused; it meets us in Europe, Asia, and Africa. For example, Olaus Magnus tells us that in Livonia, not many years before he wrote, a noble lady had a dispute with her slave on the subject of were-wolves, she doubting whether there were any such things, and he maintaining that there were. To convince her he retired to a room, from which he soon appeared in the form of a wolf. Being chased by the dogs into the forest and brought to bay, the wolf defended himself fiercely, but lost an eye in the struggle. Next day the slave returned to his mistress in human form but with only one eye.[758] Again, it happened in the year 1588 that a gentleman in a village among the mountains of Auvergne, looking out of the window one evening, saw a friend of his going out to hunt. He begged him to bring him back some of his bag, and his friend said that he would. Well, he had not gone very far before he met a huge wolf. He fired and missed it, and the animal attacked him furiously, but he stood on his guard and with an adroit stroke of his [pg 309] hunting knife he cut off the right fore-paw of the brute, which thereupon fled away and he saw it no more. He returned to his friend, and drawing from his pouch the severed paw of the wolf he found to his horror that it was turned into a woman's hand with a golden ring on one of the fingers. His friend recognized the ring as that of his own wife and went to find her. She was sitting by the fire with her right arm under her apron. As she refused to draw it out, her husband confronted her with the hand and the ring on it. She at once confessed the truth, that it was she in the form of a were-wolf whom the hunter had wounded. Her confession was confirmed by applying the severed hand to the stump of her arm, for the two fitted exactly. The angry husband delivered up his wicked wife to justice; she was tried and burnt as a witch.[759] It is said that a were-wolf, scouring the streets of Padua, was caught, and when they cut off his four paws he at once turned into a man, but with both his hands and feet amputated.[760] Again, in a farm of the French district of Beauce, there was once a herdsman who never slept at home. These nocturnal absences naturally attracted attention and set people talking. At the same time, by a curious coincidence, a wolf used to prowl round the farm every night and to excite the dogs in the farmyard to fury by thrusting his snout derisively through the cat's hole in the great gate. The farmer had his suspicions and he determined to watch. One night, when the herdsman went out as usual, his master followed him quietly till he came to a hut, where with his own eyes he saw the man put on a broad belt and at once turn into a wolf, which scoured away over the fields. The farmer smiled a sickly sort of smile and went back to the farm. There he took a stout stick and sat down at the cat's hole to wait. He had not long to wait. The dogs barked like mad, a wolf's snout shewed through the hole, down came the stick, out gushed the blood, and a voice was heard to say without the gate, “A good job too. I had still three years to run.” Next day the herdsman appeared as usual, [pg 310] but he had a scar on his brow, and he never went out again at night.[761]

Were-wolves in China.

In China also the faith in similar transformations is reflected in the following tale. A certain man in Sungyang went into the mountains to gather fuel. Night fell and he was pursued by two tigers, but scrambled up a tree out of their reach. Then said the one tiger to the other tiger, “If we can find Chu-Tu-shi, we are sure to catch this man up the tree.” So off went one of them to find Chu-Tu-shi, while the other kept watch at the foot of the tree. Soon after that another tiger, leaner and longer than the other two, appeared on the scene and made a grab at the man's coat. But fortunately the moon was shining, the man saw the paw, and with a stroke of his axe cut off one of its claws. The tigers roared and fled, one after the other, so the man climbed down the tree and went home. When he told his tale in the village, suspicion naturally fell on the said Chu-Tu-shi; and next day some men went to see him in his house. They [pg 311] were told that they could not see him; for he had been out the night before and had hurt his hand, and he was now ill in bed. So they put two and two together and reported him to the police. The police arrived, surrounded the house, and set fire to it; but Chu-Tu-shi rose from his bed, turned into a tiger, charged right through the police, and escaped, and to this day nobody ever knew where he went to.[762]

Were-wolves among the Toradjas of Central Celebes. The were-wolf in human shape.

The Toradjas of Central Celebes stand in very great fear of were-wolves, that is of men and women, who have the power of transforming their spirits into animals such as cats, crocodiles, wild pigs, apes, deer, and buffaloes, which roam about battening on human flesh, and especially on human livers, while the men and women in their own proper human form are sleeping quietly in their beds at home. Among them a man is either born a were-wolf or becomes one by infection; for mere contact with a were-wolf, or even with anything that has been touched by his spittle, is quite enough to turn the most innocent person into a were-wolf; nay even to lean your head against anything against which a were-wolf has leaned his head suffices to do it. The penalty for being a were-wolf is death; but the sentence is never passed until the accused has had a fair trial and his guilt has been clearly demonstrated by an ordeal, which consists in dipping the middle finger into boiling resin. If the finger is not burnt, the man is no were-wolf; but if it is burnt, a were-wolf he most assuredly is, so they take him away to a quiet spot and hack him to bits. In cutting him up the executioners are naturally very careful not to be bespattered with his blood, for if that were to happen they would of course be turned into were-wolves themselves. Further, they place his severed head beside his hinder-quarters to prevent his soul from coming to life again and pursuing his depredations. So great is the horror of were-wolves among the Toradjas, and so great is their fear of contracting the deadly taint by infection, that many persons have assured a missionary that they would not spare their own child if they knew him to be a were-wolf.[763] Now these people, [pg 312] whose faith in were-wolves is not a mere dying or dead superstition but a living, dreadful conviction, tell stories of were-wolves which conform to the type which we are examining. They say that once upon a time a were-wolf came in human shape under the house of a neighbour, while his real body lay asleep as usual at home, and calling out softly to the man's wife made an assignation with her to meet him in the tobacco-field next day. But the husband was lying awake and he heard it all, but he said nothing to anybody. Next day chanced to be a busy one in the village, for a roof had to be put on a new house and all the men were lending a hand with the work, and among them to be sure was the were-wolf himself, I mean to say his own human self; there he was up on the roof working away as hard as anybody. But the woman went out to the tobacco-field, and behind went unseen her husband, slinking through the underwood. When they were come to the field, he saw the were-wolf make up to his wife, so out he rushed and struck at him with a stick. Quick as thought, the were-wolf turned himself into a leaf, but the man was as nimble, for he caught up the leaf, thrust it into the joint of bamboo, in which he kept his tobacco, and bunged it up tight. Then he walked back with his wife to the village, carrying the bamboo with the were-wolf in it. When they came to the village, the human body of the were-wolf was still on the roof, working away with the rest. The man put the bamboo in a fire. At that the human were-wolf looked down from the roof and said, “Don't do that.” The man drew the bamboo from the fire, but a moment afterwards he put it in the fire again, and again the human were-wolf on the roof looked down and cried, “Don't do that.” But this time the man kept the bamboo in the fire, and when it blazed up, down fell the human were-wolf from the roof as dead as a stone.[764] Again, the following story went round among the Toradjas not so very many years ago. The thing happened at Soemara, on the Gulf of Tomori. It was evening and some men sat chatting with a certain Hadji Mohammad. When it had grown dark, one of the men went out of the house for something or other. A little while afterwards one of the company [pg 313] thought he saw a stag's antlers standing out sharp and clear against the bright evening sky. So Hadji Mohammad raised his gun and fired. A minute or two afterwards back comes the man who had gone out, and says he to Hadji Mohammad, “You shot at me and hit me. You must pay me a fine.” They searched him but found no wound on him anywhere. Then they knew that he was a were-wolf who had turned himself into a stag and had healed the bullet-wound by licking it. However, the bullet had found its billet, for two days afterwards he was a dead man.[765]

Were-wolves in the Egyptian Sudan.

In Sennar, a province of the Egyptian Sudan, the Hammeg and Fungi enjoy the reputation of being powerful magicians who can turn themselves into hyaenas and in that guise scour the country at night, howling and gorging themselves. But by day they are men again. It is very dangerous to shoot at such human hyaenas by night. On the Jebel Bela mountain a soldier once shot at a hyaena and hit it, but it dragged itself off, bleeding, in the darkness and escaped. Next morning he followed up the trail of blood and it led him straight to the hut of a man who was everywhere known for a wizard. Nothing of the hyaena was to be seen, but the man himself was laid up in the house with a fresh wound and died soon afterwards. And the soldier did not long survive him.[766]

The were-wolf story in Petronius.

But the classical example of these stories is an old Roman tale told by Petronius. It is put in the mouth of one Niceros. Late at night he left the town to visit a friend of his, a widow, who lived at a farm five miles down the road. He [pg 314] was accompanied by a soldier, who lodged in the same house, a man of Herculean build. When they set out it was near dawn, but the moon shone as bright as day. Passing through the outskirts of the town, they came amongst the tombs, which lined the highroad for some distance. There the soldier made an excuse for retiring behind a monument, and Niceros sat down to wait for him, humming a tune and counting the tombstones to pass the time. In a little he looked round for his companion, and saw a sight which froze him with horror. The soldier had stripped off his clothes to the last rag and laid them at the side of the highway. Then he performed a certain ceremony over them, and immediately was changed into a wolf, and ran howling into the forest. When Niceros had recovered himself a little, he went to pick up the clothes, but found that they were turned to stone. More dead than alive, he drew his sword, and, striking at every shadow cast by the tombstones on the moonlit road, he tottered to his friend's house. He entered it like a ghost, to the surprise of the widow, who wondered to see him abroad so late. “If you had only been here a little ago,” said she, “you might have been of some use. For a wolf came tearing into the yard, scaring the cattle and bleeding them like a butcher. But he did not get off so easily, for the servant speared him in the neck.” After hearing these words, Niceros felt that he could not close an eye, so he hurried away home again. It was now broad daylight, but when he came to the place where the clothes had been turned to stone, he found only a pool of blood. He reached home, and there lay the soldier in bed like an ox in the shambles, and the doctor was bandaging his neck. “Then I knew,” said Niceros, “that the man was a were-wolf, and never again could I break bread with him, no, not if you had killed me for it.”[767]

Witches like were-wolves can temporarily transform themselves into animals.

These stories may help us to understand the custom of burning a bewitched animal, which has been observed in our own country down to recent times, if indeed it is even now extinct. For a close parallel may be traced in some respects between witches and were-wolves. Like were-wolves, witches are commonly supposed to be able to transform themselves temporarily into animals for the purpose of playing their mischievous pranks;[768] and like were-wolves they can in their animal disguise be compelled to unmask themselves to any one who succeeds in drawing their blood. In either case the animal-skin is conceived as a cloak thrown round the wicked enchanter; and if you can only pierce the skin, whether by the stab of a knife or the shot of a gun, you so rend the disguise that the man or woman inside of it stands revealed in his or her true colours. Strictly speaking, the stab should be given on the brow or between the eyes in the case both of a witch and of a were-wolf;[769] and it is vain to shoot at a were-wolf unless you have had the bullet blessed in a chapel [pg 316] of St. Hubert or happen to be carrying about you, without knowing it, a four-leaved clover; otherwise the bullet will merely rebound from the were-wolf like water from a duck's back.[770] However, in Armenia they say that the were-wolf, who in that country is usually a woman, can be killed neither by shot nor by steel; the only way of delivering the unhappy woman from her bondage is to get hold of her wolf's skin and burn it; for that naturally prevents her from turning into a wolf again. But it is not easy to find the skin, for she is cunning enough to hide it by day.[771] So with witches, it is not only useless but even dangerous to shoot at one of them when she has turned herself into a hare; if you do, the gun may burst in your hand or the shot come back and kill you. The only way to make quite sure of hitting a witch-animal is to put a silver sixpence or a silver button in your gun.[772] For example, it happened one evening that a native of the island of Tiree was going home with a new gun, when he saw a black sheep running towards him across the plain of Reef. Something about the creature excited his suspicion, so he put a silver sixpence in his gun and fired at it. Instantly the black sheep became a woman with a drugget coat wrapt round her head. The man knew her quite well, for she was a witch who had often persecuted him before in the shape of a cat.[773]

Wounds inflicted on an animal into which a witch has transformed herself are inflicted on the witch herself.

Again, the wounds inflicted on a witch-hare or a witch-cat are to be seen on the witch herself, just as the wounds inflicted on a were-wolf are to be seen on the man himself when he has doffed the wolf's skin. To take a few instances out of a multitude, a young man in the island of Lismore was out shooting. When he was near Balnagown loch, he started [pg 317] a hare and fired at it. The animal gave an unearthly scream, and then for the first time it occurred to him that there were no real hares in Lismore. He threw away his gun in terror and fled home; and next day he heard that a notorious witch was laid up with a broken leg. A man need be no conjuror to guess how she came by that broken leg.[774] Again, at Thurso certain witches used to turn themselves into cats and in that shape to torment an honest man. One night he lost patience, whipped out his broadsword, and put them to flight. As they were scurrying away he struck at them and cut off a leg of one of the cats. To his astonishment it was a woman's leg, and next morning he found one of the witches short of the corresponding limb.[775] Glanvil tells a story of “an old woman in Cambridge-shire, whose astral spirit, coming into a man's house (as he was sitting alone at the fire) in the shape of an huge cat, and setting her self before the fire, not far from him, he stole a stroke at the back of it with a fire-fork, and seemed to break the back of it, but it scambled from him, and vanisht he knew not how. But such an old woman, a reputed witch, was found dead in her bed that very night, with her back broken, as I have heard some years ago credibly reported.”[776] In Yorkshire during the latter half of the nineteenth century a parish clergyman was told a circumstantial story of an old witch named Nanny, who was hunted in the form of a hare for several miles over the Westerdale moors and kept well away from the dogs, till a black one joined the pack and succeeded in taking a bit out of one of the hare's legs. That was the end of the chase, and immediately afterwards the sportsmen found old Nanny laid up in bed with a sore leg. On examining the wounded limb they discovered that the hurt was precisely in that part of it which in the hare had been bitten by the black dog and, what was still more significant, the wound had all the appearance of having been inflicted by a dog's teeth. So they put two and two together.[777] The same sort of thing [pg 318] is often reported in Lincolnshire. “One night,” said a servant from Kirton Lindsey, “my father and brother saw a cat in front of them. Father knew it was a witch, and took a stone and hammered it. Next day the witch had her face all tied up, and shortly afterwards died.” Again, a Bardney bumpkin told how a witch in his neighbourhood could take all sorts of shapes. One night a man shot a hare, and when he went to the witch's house he found her plastering a wound just where he had shot the hare.[778] So in County Leitrim, in Ireland, they say that a hare pursued by dogs fled to a house near at hand, but just as it was bolting in at the door one of the dogs came up with it and nipped a piece out of its leg. The hunters entered the house and found no hare there but only an old woman, and her side was bleeding; so they knew what to think of her.[779]

Wounded witches in the Vosges.

Again, in the Vosges Mountains a great big hare used to come out every evening to take the air at the foot of the Mont des Fourches. All the sportsmen of the neighbourhood tried their hands on that hare for a month, but not one of them could hit it. At last one marksman, more knowing than the rest, loaded his gun with some pellets of a consecrated wafer in addition to the usual pellets of lead. That did the trick. If puss was not killed outright, she was badly hurt, and limped away uttering shrieks and curses in a human voice. Later it transpired that she was no other than the witch of a neighbouring village who had the power of putting on the shape of any animal she pleased.[780] Again, a hunter of Travexin, in the Vosges, fired at a hare and almost shot away one of its hind legs. Nevertheless the creature contrived to escape into a cottage through the open door. Immediately a child's cries were heard to proceed from the cottage, and the hunter could distinguish these words, “Daddy, daddy, come quick! Poor mammy has her leg broken.”[781]

Wounded witches in Swabia.

In Swabia the witches are liable to accidents of the same sort when they go about their business in the form [pg 319] of animals. For example, there was a soldier who was betrothed to a young woman and used to visit her every evening when he was off duty. But one evening the girl told him that he must not come to the house on Friday nights, because it was never convenient to her to see him then. This roused his suspicion, and the very next Friday night he set out to go to his sweetheart's house. On the way a white cat ran up to him in the street and dogged his steps, and when the animal would not make off he drew his sword and slashed off one of its paws. On that the cat bolted. The soldier walked on, but when he came to his sweetheart's house he found her in bed, and when he asked her what was the matter, she gave a very confused reply. Noticing stains of blood on the bed, he drew down the coverlet and saw that the girl was weltering in her gore, for one of her feet was lopped off. “So that's what's the matter with you, you witch!” said he, and turned on his heel and left her, and within three days she was dead.[782] Again, a farmer in the neighbourhood of Wiesensteig frequently found in his stable a horse over and above the four horses he actually owned. He did not know what to make of it and mentioned the matter to the smith. The smith said quietly, “The next time you see a fifth horse in the stable, just you send for me.” Well, it was not long before the strange horse was there again, and the farmer at once sent for the smith. He came bringing four horse-shoes with him, and said, “I'm sure the nag has no shoes; I'll shoe her for you.” No sooner said than done. However, the smith overreached himself; for next day when his friend the farmer paid him a visit he found the smith's own wife prancing about with horse-shoes nailed on her hands and feet. But it was the last time she ever appeared in the shape of a horse.[783]

The miller's wife and the two grey cats.

Once more, in Silesia they tell of a miller's apprentice, a sturdy and industrious young fellow, who set out on his travels. One day he came to a mill, and the miller told [pg 320] him that he wanted an apprentice but did not care to engage one, because hitherto all his apprentices had run away in the night, and when he came down in the morning the mill was at a stand. However, he liked the looks of the young chap and took him into his pay. But what the new apprentice heard about the mill and his predecessors was not encouraging; so the first night when it was his duty to watch in the mill he took care to provide himself with an axe and a prayer-book, and while he kept one eye on the whirring, humming wheels he kept the other on the good book, which he read by the flickering light of a candle set on a table. So the hours at first passed quietly with nothing to disturb him but the monotonous drone and click of the machinery. But on the stroke of twelve, as he was still reading with the axe lying on the table within reach, the door opened and in came two grey cats mewing, an old one and a young one. They sat down opposite him, but it was easy to see that they did not like his wakefulness and the prayer-book and the axe. Suddenly the old cat reached out a paw and made a grab at the axe, but the young chap was too quick for her and held it fast. Then the young cat tried to do the same for the prayer-book, but the apprentice gripped it tight. Thus balked, the two cats set up such a squalling that the young fellow could hardly say his prayers. Just before one o'clock the younger cat sprang on the table and fetched a blow with her right paw at the candle to put it out. But the apprentice struck at her with his axe and sliced the paw off, whereupon the two cats vanished with a frightful screech. The apprentice wrapped the paw up in paper to shew it to his master. Very glad the miller was next morning when he came down and found the mill going and the young chap at his post. The apprentice told him what had happened in the night and gave him the parcel containing the cat's paw. But when the miller opened it, what was the astonishment of the two to find in it no cat's paw but a woman's hand! At breakfast the miller's young wife did not as usual take her place at the table. She was ill in bed, and the doctor had to be called in to bind up her right arm, because in hewing wood, so they said, she had made a slip and cut off her own right hand. But [pg 321] the apprentice packed up his traps and turned his back on that mill before the sun had set.[784]

The analogy of were-wolves confirms the view that the reason for burning bewitched animals is either to burn the witch or to compel her to appear.

It would no doubt be easy to multiply instances, all equally well attested and authentic, of the transformation of witches into animals and of the damage which the women themselves have sustained through injuries inflicted on the animals.[785] But the foregoing evidence may suffice to establish the complete parallelism between witches and were-wolves in these respects. The analogy appears to confirm the view that the reason for burning a bewitched animal alive is a belief that the witch herself is in the animal, and that by burning it you either destroy the witch completely or at least unmask her and compel her to reassume her proper human shape, in which she is naturally far less potent for mischief than when she is careering about the country in the likeness of a cat, a hare, a horse, or what not. This principle is still indeed clearly recognized by people in Oldenburg, though, as might be expected, they do not now carry out the principle to its logical conclusion by burning the bewitched animal or person alive; instead they resort to a feeble and, it must be added, perfectly futile subterfuge dictated by a mistaken humanity or a fear of the police. “When anything living is bewitched in a house, for example, children or animals, they burn or boil the nobler inwards of animals, especially the hearts, but also the lungs or the liver. If animals have died, they take the inwards of one of them or of an animal of the same kind slaughtered for the purpose; but if that is not possible they take the inwards of a cock, by preference a black one. The [pg 322] heart, lung, or liver is stuck all over with needles, or marked with a cross cut, or placed on the fire in a tightly closed vessel, strict silence being observed and doors and windows well shut. When the heart boils or is reduced to ashes, the witch must appear, for during the boiling she feels the burning pain. She either begs to be released or seeks to borrow something, for example, salt or a coal of fire, or she takes the lid off the pot, or tries to induce the person whose spell is on her to speak. They say, too, that a woman comes with a spinning-wheel. If it is a sheep that has died, you proceed in the same way with a tripe from its stomach and prick it with needles while it is on the boil. Instead of boiling it, some people nail the heart to the highest rafter of the house, or lay it on the edge of the hearth, in order that it may dry up, no doubt because the same thing happens to the witch. We may conjecture that other sympathetic means of destruction are employed against witchcraft. The following is expressly reported: the heart of a calf that has died is stuck all over with needles, enclosed in a bag, and thrown into flowing water before sunset.”[786]

There is the same reason for burning bewitched things.

And the same thing holds good also of inanimate objects on which a witch has cast her spell. In Wales they say that “if a thing is bewitched, burn it, and immediately afterwards the witch will come to borrow something of you. If you give what she asks, she will go free; if you refuse it, she will burn, and a mark will be on her body the next day.”[787] So, too, in Oldenburg, “the burning of things that are bewitched or that have been received from witches is another way of breaking the spell. It is often said that the burning should take place at a cross-road, and in several places cross-roads are shewn where the burning used to be performed.... As a rule, while the things are burning, the guilty witches appear, though not always in their own shape. At the burning of bewitched butter they often appear as cockchafers and can be killed with impunity. Victuals received from witches may be safely consumed if only you [pg 323] first burn a portion of them.”[788] For example, a young man in Oldenburg was wooing a girl, and she gave him two fine apples as a gift. Not feeling any appetite at the time, he put the apples in his pocket, and when he came home he laid them by in a chest. Two or three days afterwards he remembered the apples and went to the chest to fetch them. But when he would have put his hand on them, what was his horror to find in their stead two fat ugly toads in the chest! He hastened to a wise man and asked him what he should do with the toads. The man told him to boil the toads alive, but while he was doing so he must be sure on no account to lend anything out of the house. Well, just as he had the toads in a pot on the fire and the water began to grow nicely warm, who should come to the door but the girl who had given him the apples, and she wished to borrow something; but he refused to give her anything, rated her as a witch, and drove her out of the house. A little afterwards in came the girl's mother and begged with tears in her eyes for something or other; but he turned her out also. The last word she said to him was that he should at least spare her daughter's life; but he paid no heed to her and let the toads boil till they fell to bits. Next day word came that the girl was dead.[789] Can any reasonable man doubt that the witch herself was boiled alive in the person of the toads?

Similarly by burning alive a person whose form a witch has assumed, you compel the witch to disclose herself. The burning alive of a supposed witch in Ireland in 1895.

Moreover, just as a witch can assume the form of an animal, so she can assume the form of some other human being, and the likeness is sometimes so good that it is difficult to detect the fraud. However, by burning alive the person whose shape the witch has put on, you force the witch to disclose herself, just as by burning alive the bewitched animal you in like manner oblige the witch to appear. This principle may perhaps be unknown to science, falsely so called, but it is well understood in Ireland and has been acted on within recent years. In March 1895 a peasant named Michael Cleary, residing at Ballyvadlea, a remote and lonely district in the county of Tipperary, burned his wife [pg 324] Bridget Cleary alive over a slow fire on the kitchen hearth in the presence of and with the active assistance of some neighbours, including the woman's own father and several of her cousins. They thought that she was not Bridget Cleary at all, but a witch, and that when they held her down on the fire she would vanish up the chimney; so they cried, while she was burning, “Away she goes! Away she goes!” Even when she lay quite dead on the kitchen floor (for contrary to the general expectation she did not disappear up the chimney), her husband still believed that the woman lying there was a witch, and that his own dear wife had gone with the fairies to the old rath or fort on the hill of Kylenagranagh, where he would see her at night riding a grey horse and roped to the saddle, and that he would cut the ropes, and that she would stay with him ever afterwards. So he went with some friends to the fort night after night, taking a big table-knife with him to cut the ropes. But he never saw his wife again. He and the men who had held the woman on the fire were arrested and tried at Clonmel for wilful murder in July 1895; they were all found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to various terms of penal servitude and imprisonment; the sentence passed on Michael Cleary was twenty years' penal servitude.[790]

Sometimes bewitched animals are buried alive instead of being burned.

However, our British peasants, it must be confessed, have not always acted up to the strict logical theory which seems to call for death by fire as the proper treatment both of bewitched animals and of witches. Sometimes, perhaps in moments of weakness, they have merely buried the bewitched animals alive instead of burning them. For example, in the year 1643, “many cattle having died, John Brughe and Neane Nikclerith, also one of the initiated, conjoined their mutual skill for the safety of the herd. The surviving animals were drove past a tub of water containing two enchanted stones: and each was sprinkled from the liquid contents in its course. One, however, being unable to walk, ‘was by force drawin out at the byre dure; [pg 325] and the said Johnne with Nikclerith smelling the nois thereof said it wald not leive, caused ane hoill to be maid in Maw Greane, quhilk was put quick in the hole and maid all the rest of the cattell theireftir to go over that place: and in that devillische maner, be charmeing,’ they were cured.”[791] Again, during the prevalence of a murrain about the year 1629, certain persons proposed to stay the plague with the help of a celebrated “cureing stane” of which the laird of Lee was the fortunate owner. But from this they were dissuaded by one who “had sene bestiall curet be taking ane quik seik ox, and making ane deip pitt, and bureing him therin, and be calling the oxin and bestiall over that place.” Indeed Issobell Young, the mother of these persons, had herself endeavoured to check the progress of the distemper by taking “ane quik ox with ane catt, and ane grit quantitie of salt,” and proceeding “to burie the ox and catt quik with the salt, in ane deip hoill in the grund, as ane sacrifice to the devill, that the rest of the guidis might be fred of the seiknes or diseases.”[792] Writing towards the end of the eighteenth century, John Ramsay of Ochtertyre tells us that “the violent death even of a brute is in some cases held to be of great avail. There is a disease called the black spauld, which sometimes rages like a pestilence among black cattle, the symptoms of which are a mortification in the legs and a corruption of the mass of blood. Among the other engines of superstition that are directed against this fatal malady, the first cow seized with it is commonly buried alive, and the other cattle are forced to pass backwards and forwards over the pit. At other times the heart is taken out of the beast alive, and then the carcass is buried. It is remarkable that the leg affected is cut off, and hung up in some part of the house or byre, where it remains suspended, notwithstanding the seeming danger of infection. There is hardly a house in Mull where these may not be seen. This practice seems to have taken its rise antecedent to Christianity, as it reminds us of the pagan custom of [pg 326] hanging up offerings in their temples. In Breadalbane, when a cow is observed to have symptoms of madness, there is recourse had to a peculiar process. They tie the legs of the mad creature, and throw her into a pit dug at the door of the fold. After covering the hole with earth, a large fire is kindled upon it; and the rest of the cattle are driven out, and forced to pass through the fire one by one.”[793] In this latter custom we may suspect that the fire kindled on the grave of the buried cow was originally made by the friction of wood, in other words, that it was a need-fire. Again, writing in the year 1862, Sir Arthur Mitchell tells us that “for the cure of the murrain in cattle, one of the herd is still sacrificed for the good of the whole. This is done by burying it alive. I am assured that within the last ten years such a barbarism occurred in the county of Moray.”[794]

Calves killed and buried to save the rest of the herd.

Sometimes, however, the animal has not even been buried alive, it has been merely killed and then buried. In this emasculated form the sacrifice, we may say with confidence, is absolutely useless for the purpose of stopping a murrain. Nevertheless, it has been tried. Thus in Lincolnshire, “when the cattle plague was so prevalent in 1866, there was, I believe, not a single cowshed in Marshland but had its wicken cross over the door; and other charms more powerful than this were in some cases resorted to. I never heard of the use of the needfire in the Marsh, though it was, I believe, used on the wolds not many miles off. But I knew of at least one case in which a calf was killed and solemnly buried feet pointing upwards at the threshold of the cowshed. When our garthman told me of this, I pointed out to him that the charm had failed, for the disease had not spared that shed. But he promptly replied, ‘Yis, but owd Edwards were a soight too cliver; he were that mean he slew nobbutt a wankling cauf as were bound to deny anny road; if he had nobbutt tekken his best cauf it wud hev worked reight enuff; 'tain't [pg 327] in reason that owd skrat 'ud be hanselled wi' wankling draffle.’ ”[795]

[pg 328]

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Chapter V. The Interpretation of the Fire-Festivals.

§ 1. On the Fire-festivals in general.

General resemblance of the European fire-festivals to each other.

The foregoing survey of the popular fire-festivals of Europe suggests some general observations. In the first place we can hardly help being struck by the resemblance which the ceremonies bear to each other, at whatever time of the year and in whatever part of Europe they are celebrated. The custom of kindling great bonfires, leaping over them, and driving cattle through or round them would seem to have been practically universal throughout Europe, and the same may be said of the processions or races with blazing torches round fields, orchards, pastures, or cattle-stalls. Less widespread are the customs of hurling lighted discs into the air[796] and trundling a burning wheel down hill;[797] for to judge by the evidence which I have collected these modes of distributing the beneficial influence of the fire have been confined in the main to Central Europe. The ceremonial of the Yule log is distinguished from that of the other fire-festivals by the privacy and domesticity which characterize it; but, as we have already seen, this distinction may well be due simply to the rough weather of midwinter, which is apt not only to render a public assembly in the open air disagreeable, but also at any moment to defeat the object of the assembly by extinguishing the all-important fire under a downpour of rain or a fall of snow. Apart from these local or seasonal differences, the general resemblance between [pg 329] the fire-festivals at all times of the year and in all places is tolerably close. And as the ceremonies themselves resemble each other, so do the benefits which the people expect to reap from them. Whether applied in the form of bonfires blazing at fixed points, or of torches carried about from place to place, or of embers and ashes taken from the smouldering heap of fuel, the fire is believed to promote the growth of the crops and the welfare of man and beast, either positively by stimulating them, or negatively by averting the dangers and calamities which threaten them from such causes as thunder and lightning, conflagration, blight, mildew, vermin, sterility, disease, and not least of all witchcraft.

Two explanations suggested of the fire-festivals. According to W. Mannhardt, they are charms to secure a supply of sunshine; according to Dr. E. Westermarck they are purificatory, being intended to burn and destroy all harmful influences.

But we naturally ask, How did it come about that benefits so great and manifold were supposed to be attained by means so simple? In what way did people imagine that they could procure so many goods or avoid so many ills by the application of fire and smoke, of embers and ashes? In short, what theory underlay and prompted the practice of these customs? For that the institution of the festivals was the outcome of a definite train of reasoning may be taken for granted; the view that primitive man acted first and invented his reasons to suit his actions afterwards, is not borne out by what we know of his nearest living representatives, the savage and the peasant. Two different explanations of the fire-festivals have been given by modern enquirers. On the one hand it has been held that they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended, on the principle of imitative magic, to ensure a needful supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants by kindling fires which mimic on earth the great source of light and heat in the sky. This was the view of Wilhelm Mannhardt.[798] It may be called the solar theory. On the other hand it has been maintained that the ceremonial fires have no necessary reference to the sun but are simply purificatory in intention, being designed to burn up and destroy all harmful influences, whether these are conceived in a personal form as witches, demons, and monsters, or in an impersonal form as a sort of pervading taint or corruption of the air. This is the view of Dr. [pg 330] Edward Westermarck[799] and apparently of Professor Eugen Mogk.[800] It may be called the purificatory theory. Obviously the two theories postulate two very different conceptions of the fire which plays the principal part in the rites. On the one view, the fire, like sunshine in our latitude, is a genial creative power which fosters the growth of plants and the development of all that makes for health and happiness; on the other view, the fire is a fierce destructive power which blasts and consumes all the noxious elements, whether spiritual or material, that menace the life of men, of animals, and of plants. According to the one theory the fire is a stimulant, according to the other it is a disinfectant; on the one view its virtue is positive, on the other it is negative.

The two explanations are perhaps not mutually exclusive.

Yet the two explanations, different as they are in the character which they attribute to the fire, are perhaps not wholly irreconcilable. If we assume that the fires kindled at these festivals were primarily intended to imitate the sun's light and heat, may we not regard the purificatory and disinfecting qualities, which popular opinion certainly appears to have ascribed to them, as attributes derived directly from the purificatory and disinfecting qualities of sunshine? In this way we might conclude that, while the imitation of sunshine in these ceremonies was primary and original, the purification attributed to them was secondary and derivative. Such a conclusion, occupying an intermediate position between the two opposing theories and recognizing an element of truth in both of them, was adopted by me in earlier editions of this work;[801] but in the meantime Dr. Westermarck [pg 331] has argued powerfully in favour of the purificatory theory alone, and I am bound to say that his arguments carry great weight, and that on a fuller review of the facts the balance of evidence seems to me to incline decidedly in his favour. However, the case is not so clear as to justify us in dismissing the solar theory without discussion, and accordingly I propose to adduce the considerations which tell for it before proceeding to notice those which tell against it. A theory which had the support of so learned and sagacious an investigator as W. Mannhardt is entitled to a respectful hearing.

§ 2. The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals.

Theory that the fire-festivals are charms to ensure a supply of sunshine.

In an earlier part of this work we saw that savages resort to charms for making sunshine,[802] and it would be no wonder if primitive man in Europe did the same. Indeed, when we consider the cold and cloudy climate of Europe during a great part of the year, we shall find it natural that sun-charms should have played a much more prominent part among the superstitious practices of European peoples than among those of savages who live nearer the equator and who consequently are apt to get in the course of nature more sunshine than they want. This view of the festivals may be supported by various arguments drawn partly from their dates, partly from the nature of the rites, and partly from the influence which they are believed to exert upon the weather and on vegetation.

Coincidence of two of the festivals with the solstices.

First, in regard to the dates of the festivals it can be no mere accident that two of the most important and widely spread of the festivals are timed to coincide more or less exactly with the summer and winter solstices, that is, with the two turning-points in the sun's apparent course in the sky when he reaches respectively his highest and his lowest elevation at noon. Indeed with respect to the midwinter celebration of Christmas we are not left to conjecture; we [pg 332] know from the express testimony of the ancients that it was instituted by the church to supersede an old heathen festival of the birth of the sun,[803] which was apparently conceived to be born again on the shortest day of the year, after which his light and heat were seen to grow till they attained their full maturity at midsummer. Therefore it is no very far-fetched conjecture to suppose that the Yule log, which figures so prominently in the popular celebration of Christmas, was originally designed to help the labouring sun of midwinter to rekindle his seemingly expiring light.

Attempt of the Bushmen to warm up the fire of Sirius in midwinter by kindling sticks.

The idea that by lighting a log on earth you can rekindle a fire in heaven or fan it into a brighter blaze, naturally seems to us absurd; but to the savage mind it wears a different aspect, and the institution of the great fire-festivals which we are considering probably dates from a time when Europe was still sunk in savagery or at most in barbarism. Now it can be shewn that in order to increase the celestial source of heat at midwinter savages resort to a practice analogous to that of our Yule log, if the kindling of the Yule log was originally a magical rite intended to rekindle the sun. In the southern hemisphere, where the order of the seasons is the reverse of ours, the rising of Sirius or the Dog Star in July marks the season of the greatest cold instead of, as with us, the greatest heat; and just as the civilized ancients ascribed the torrid heat of midsummer to that brilliant star,[804] so the modern savage of South Africa attributes to it the piercing cold of midwinter and seeks to mitigate its rigour by warming up the chilly star with the genial heat of the sun. How he does so may be best described in his own words as follows:—[805]

“The Bushmen perceive Canopus, they say to a child: ‘Give me yonder piece of wood, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that I may point it burning towards grandmother, for grandmother carries Bushman rice; grandmother shall make a little warmth for us; for she coldly comes out; the sun[806] shall warm grandmother's eye for us.’ Sirius comes out; the people call out to one another: ‘Sirius comes yonder;’ they say to one another: ‘Ye must burn a stick for us towards Sirius.’ They say to one another: ‘Who was it who saw Sirius?’ One man says to the other: ‘Our brother saw Sirius.’ The other man says to him: ‘I saw Sirius.’ The other man says to him: ‘I wish thee to burn a stick for us towards Sirius; that the sun may shining come out for us; that Sirius may not coldly come out.’ The other man (the one who saw Sirius) says to his son: ‘Bring me the small piece of wood yonder, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that I may burn it towards grandmother; that grandmother may ascend the sky, like the other one, Canopus.’ The child brings him the piece of wood, he (the father) holds the end of it in the fire. He points it burning towards Sirius; he says that Sirius shall twinkle like Canopus. He sings; he sings about Canopus, he sings about Sirius; he points to them with fire,[807] that they may twinkle like each other. He throws fire at them. He covers himself up entirely (including his head) in his kaross and lies down. He arises, he sits down; while he does not again lie down; because he feels that he has worked, putting Sirius into the sun's warmth; so that Sirius may warmly come out. The women go out early to seek for Bushman rice; they walk, sunning their shoulder blades.”[808] What the Bushmen thus do to temper the cold of midwinter in the southern hemisphere by blowing up the celestial fires may have been done by our rude forefathers at the corresponding season in the northern hemisphere.

The burning wheels and discs of the fire-festivals may be direct imitations of the sun.

Not only the date of some of the festivals but the manner of their celebration suggests a conscious imitation of the sun. The custom of rolling a burning wheel down a hill, which is often observed at these ceremonies, might well pass for an imitation of the sun's course in the sky, and the imitation would be especially appropriate on Midsummer Day when the sun's annual declension begins. Indeed the custom has been thus interpreted by some of those who have recorded it.[809] Not less graphic, it may be said, is the mimicry of his apparent revolution by swinging a burning tar-barrel round a pole.[810] Again, the common practice of throwing fiery discs, sometimes expressly said to be shaped like suns, into the air at the festivals may well be a piece of imitative magic. In these, as in so many cases, the magic force may be supposed to take effect through mimicry or sympathy: by imitating the desired result you actually produce it: by counterfeiting the sun's progress through the heavens you really help the luminary to pursue his celestial journey with punctuality and despatch. The name “fire of heaven,” by which the midsummer fire is sometimes popularly known,[811] clearly implies a consciousness of a connexion between the earthly and the heavenly flame.

The wheel sometimes used to kindle the fire by friction may also be an imitation of the sun.

Again, the manner in which the fire appears to have been originally kindled on these occasions has been alleged in support of the view that it was intended to be a mock-sun. As some scholars have perceived, it is highly probable [pg 335] that at the periodic festivals in former times fire was universally obtained by the friction of two pieces of wood.[812] We have seen that it is still so procured in some places both at the Easter and the midsummer festivals, and that it is expressly said to have been formerly so procured at the Beltane celebration both in Scotland and Wales.[813] But what makes it nearly certain that this was once the invariable mode of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the analogy of the need-fire, which has almost always been produced by the friction of wood, and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel. It is a plausible conjecture that the wheel employed for this purpose represents the sun,[814] and if the fires at the regularly recurring celebrations were formerly produced in the same way, it might be regarded as a confirmation of the view that they were originally sun-charms. In point of fact there is, as Kuhn has indicated,[815] some evidence to shew that the midsummer fire was originally thus produced. We have seen that many Hungarian swine-herds make fire on Midsummer Eve by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and that they drive their pigs through the fire thus made.[816] At Obermedlingen, in Swabia, the “fire of heaven,” as it was called, was made on St. Vitus's Day (the fifteenth of June) by igniting a cart-wheel, which, smeared with pitch and plaited with straw, was fastened on a pole twelve feet high, the top of the pole being inserted in the nave of the wheel. This fire was [pg 336] made on the summit of a mountain, and as the flame ascended, the people uttered a set form of words, with eyes and arms directed heavenward.[817] Here the fixing of a wheel on a pole and igniting it suggests that originally the fire was produced, as in the case of the need-fire, by the revolution of a wheel. The day on which the ceremony takes place (the fifteenth of June) is near midsummer; and we have seen that in Masuren fire is, or used to be, actually made on Midsummer Day by turning a wheel rapidly about an oaken pole,[818] though it is not said that the new fire so obtained is used to light a bonfire. However, we must bear in mind that in all such cases the use of a wheel may be merely a mechanical device to facilitate the operation of fire-making by increasing the friction; it need not have any symbolical significance.

The influence which the fires are supposed to exert on the weather and vegetation may be thought to be due to an increase of solar heat produced by the fires.

Further, the influence which these fires, whether periodic or occasional, are supposed to exert on the weather and vegetation may be cited in support of the view that they are sun-charms, since the effects ascribed to them resemble those of sunshine. Thus, the French belief that in a rainy June the lighting of the midsummer bonfires will cause the rain to cease[819] appears to assume that they can disperse the dark clouds and make the sun to break out in radiant glory, drying the wet earth and dripping trees. Similarly the use of the need-fire by Swiss children on foggy days for the purpose of clearing away the mist[820] may very naturally be interpreted as a sun-charm. Again, we have seen that in the Vosges Mountains the people believe that the midsummer fires help to preserve the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops.[821] In Sweden the warmth or cold of the coming season is inferred from the direction in which the flames of the May Day bonfire are blown; if they blow to the south, it will be warm, if to the north, cold.[822] No doubt at present the direction of the flames is regarded merely as an augury of the weather, not as a mode of influencing it. But we may be pretty sure that this is one of the cases in which magic has dwindled into divination. So in the Eifel [pg 337] Mountains, when the smoke blows towards the corn-fields, this is an omen that the harvest will be abundant.[823] But the older view may have been not merely that the smoke and flames prognosticated, but that they actually produced an abundant harvest, the heat of the flames acting like sunshine on the corn. Perhaps it was with this view that people in the Isle of Man lit fires to windward of their fields in order that the smoke might blow over them.[824] So in South Africa, about the month of April, the Matabeles light huge fires to the windward of their gardens, “their idea being that the smoke, by passing over the crops, will assist the ripening of them.”[825] Among the Zulus also “medicine is burned on a fire placed to windward of the garden, the fumigation which the plants in consequence receive being held to improve the crop.”[826] Again, the idea of our European peasants that the corn will grow well as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible,[827] may be interpreted as a remnant of the belief in the quickening and fertilizing power of the bonfires. The same belief, it may be argued, reappears in the notion that embers taken from the bonfires and inserted in the fields will promote the growth of the crops,[828] and it may be thought to underlie the customs of sowing flax-seed in the direction in which the flames blow,[829] of mixing the ashes of the bonfire with the seed-corn at sowing,[830] of scattering the ashes by themselves over the field to fertilize it,[831] and of incorporating a piece of the Yule log in the plough to make the seeds thrive.[832] The opinion that the flax or hemp will grow as high as the flames rise or the people leap over them[833] belongs clearly to the same class of ideas. Again, at Konz, on the banks of the Moselle, if the blazing wheel which was trundled down the hillside reached the river without being extinguished, this was hailed as a proof that the [pg 338] vintage would be abundant. So firmly was this belief held that the successful performance of the ceremony entitled the villagers to levy a tax upon the owners of the neighbouring vineyards.[834] Here the unextinguished wheel might be taken to represent an unclouded sun, which in turn would portend an abundant vintage. So the waggon-load of white wine which the villagers received from the vineyards round about might pass for a payment for the sunshine which they had procured for the grapes. Similarly we saw that in the Vale of Glamorgan a blazing wheel used to be trundled down hill on Midsummer Day, and that if the fire were extinguished before the wheel reached the foot of the hill, the people expected a bad harvest; whereas if the wheel kept alight all the way down and continued to blaze for a long time, the farmers looked forward to heavy crops that summer.[835] Here, again, it is natural to suppose that the rustic mind traced a direct connexion between the fire of the wheel and the fire of the sun, on which the crops are dependent.

The effect which the bonfires are supposed to have in fertilizing cattle and women may also be attributed to an increase of solar heat produced by the fires.

But in popular belief the quickening and fertilizing influence of the bonfires is not limited to the vegetable world; it extends also to animals. This plainly appears from the Irish custom of driving barren cattle through the mid-summer fires,[836] from the French belief that the Yule-log steeped in water helps cows to calve,[837] from the French and Servian notion that there will be as many chickens, calves, lambs, and kids as there are sparks struck out of the Yule log,[838] from the French custom of putting the ashes of the bonfires in the fowls' nests to make the hens lay eggs,[839] and from the German practice of mixing the ashes of the bonfires with the drink of cattle in order to make the animals thrive.[840] Further, there are clear indications that even human fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the fires. In Morocco the people think that childless couples can obtain offspring by leaping over the midsummer bonfire.[841] It is an Irish belief that a girl who jumps thrice over the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the mother [pg 339] of many children;[842] in Flanders women leap over the Midsummer fires to ensure an easy delivery;[843] and in various parts of France they think that if a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry within the year.[844] On the other hand, in Lechrain people say that if a young man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within twelve months:[845] the flames have not touched and fertilized her. In parts of Switzerland and France the lighting of the Yule log is accompanied by a prayer that the women may bear children, the she-goats bring forth kids, and the ewes drop lambs.[846] The rule observed in some places that the bonfires should be kindled by the person who was last married[847] seems to belong to the same class of ideas, whether it be that such a person is supposed to receive from, or to impart to, the fire a generative and fertilizing influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the fires hand in hand may very well have originated in a notion that thereby their marriage would be blessed with offspring; and the like motive would explain the custom which obliges couples married within the year to dance to the light of torches.[848] And the scenes of profligacy which appear to have marked the midsummer celebration among the Esthonians,[849] as they once marked the celebration of May Day among ourselves, may have sprung, not from the mere license of holiday-makers, but from a crude notion that such orgies were justified, if not required, by some mysterious bond which linked the life of man to the courses of the heavens at this turning-point of the year.

The custom of carrying lighted torches about the country at the festivals may be explained as an attempt to diffuse the sun's heat.

At the festivals which we are considering the custom of kindling bonfires is commonly associated with a custom of carrying lighted torches about the fields, the orchards, the pastures, the flocks and the herds; and we can hardly doubt that the two customs are only two different ways of attaining the same object, namely, the benefits which are believed to flow from the fire, whether it be stationary or portable. [pg 340] Accordingly if we accept the solar theory of the bonfires, we seem bound to apply it also to the torches; we must suppose that the practice of marching or running with blazing torches about the country is simply a means of diffusing far and wide the genial influence of the sunshine, of which these flickering flames are a feeble imitation. In favour of this view it may be said that sometimes the torches are carried about the fields for the express purpose of fertilizing them,[850] and for the same purpose live coals from the bonfires are sometimes placed in the fields “to prevent blight.”[851] On the Eve of Twelfth Day in Normandy men, women, and children run wildly through the fields and orchards with lighted torches, which they wave about the branches and dash against the trunks of the fruit-trees for the sake of burning the moss and driving away the moles and field mice. “They believe that the ceremony fulfils the double object of exorcizing the vermin whose multiplication would be a real calamity, and of imparting fecundity to the trees, the fields, and even the cattle”; and they imagine that the more the ceremony is prolonged, the greater will be the crop of fruit next autumn.[852] In Bohemia they say that the corn will grow as high as they fling the blazing besoms into the air.[853] Nor are such notions confined to Europe. In Corea, a few days before the New Year festival, the eunuchs of the palace swing burning torches, chanting invocations the while, and this is supposed to ensure bountiful crops for the next season.[854] The custom of trundling a burning wheel [pg 341] over the fields, which used to be observed in Poitou for the express purpose of fertilizing them,[855] may be thought to embody the same idea in a still more graphic form; since in this way the mock-sun itself, not merely its light and heat represented by torches, is made actually to pass over the ground which is to receive its quickening and kindly influence. Once more, the custom of carrying lighted brands round cattle[856] is plainly equivalent to driving the animals through the bonfire; and if the bonfire is a sun-charm, the torches must be so also.

§ 3. The Purificatory Theory of the Fire-festivals.

Theory that the fires at the festivals are purificatory, being intended to burn up all harmful things.

Thus far we have considered what may be said for the theory that at the European fire-festivals the fire is kindled as a charm to ensure an abundant supply of sunshine for man and beast, for corn and fruits. It remains to consider what may be said against this theory and in favour of the view that in these rites fire is employed not as a creative but as a cleansing agent, which purifies men, animals, and plants by burning up and consuming the noxious elements, whether material or spiritual, which menace all living things with disease and death.

The purificatory or destructive effect of the fires is often alleged by the people who light them. The great evil against which the fire at the festivals is directed appears to be witchcraft.

First, then, it is to be observed that the people who practise the fire-customs appear never to allege the solar theory in explanation of them, while on the contrary they do frequently and emphatically put forward the purificatory theory. This is a strong argument in favour of the purificatory and against the solar theory; for the popular explanation of a popular custom is never to be rejected except for grave cause. And in the present case there seems to be no adequate reason for rejecting it. The conception of fire as a destructive agent, which can be turned to account for the consumption of evil things, is so simple and obvious that it could hardly escape the minds even of the rude peasantry with whom these festivals originated. On the other hand the conception of fire as an emanation of the sun, or at all events as linked to it by a bond of physical sympathy, is far less simple and obvious; and though the [pg 342] use of fire as a charm to produce sunshine appears to be undeniable,[857] nevertheless in attempting to explain popular customs we should never have recourse to a more recondite idea when a simpler one lies to hand and is supported by the explicit testimony of the people themselves. Now in the case of the fire-festivals the destructive aspect of fire is one upon which the people dwell again and again; and it is highly significant that the great evil against which the fire is directed appears to be witchcraft. Again and again we are told that the fires are intended to burn or repel the witches;[858] and the intention is sometimes graphically expressed by burning an effigy of a witch in the fire.[859] Hence, when we remember the great hold which the dread of witchcraft has had on the popular European mind in all ages, we may suspect that the primary intention of all these fire-festivals was simply to destroy or at all events get rid of the witches, who were regarded as the causes of nearly all the misfortunes and calamities that befall men, their cattle, and their crops.[860]

Amongst the evils for which the fire-festivals are deemed remedies the fore-most is cattle-disease, and cattle-disease is often supposed to be an effect of witchcraft.

This suspicion is confirmed when we examine the evils for which the bonfires and torches were supposed to provide a remedy. Foremost, perhaps, among these evils we may reckon the diseases of cattle; and of all the ills that witches are believed to work there is probably none which is so constantly insisted on as the harm they do to the herds, particularly by stealing the milk from the cows.[861] Now it is significant that the need-fire, which may perhaps be regarded as the parent of the periodic fire-festivals, is kindled above all as a remedy for a murrain or other disease of cattle; and the circumstance suggests, what on general grounds seems probable, that the custom of kindling the need-fire goes back to a time when the ancestors of the European peoples subsisted chiefly on the products of their herds, and when agriculture as yet played a subordinate part in their lives. Witches and wolves are the two great foes still dreaded by the herdsman in many parts of Europe;[862] and we need not wonder that he should resort to fire as a powerful means of [pg 344] banning them both. Among Slavonic peoples it appears that the foes whom the need-fire is designed to combat are not so much living witches as vampyres and other evil spirits,[863] and the ceremony, as we saw, aims rather at repelling these baleful beings than at actually consuming them in the flames. But for our present purpose these distinctions are immaterial. The important thing to observe is that among the Slavs the need-fire, which is probably the original of all the ceremonial fires now under consideration, is not a sun-charm, but clearly and unmistakably nothing but a means of protecting man and beast against the attacks of maleficent creatures, whom the peasant thinks to burn or scare by the heat of the fire, just as he might burn or scare wild animals.

Again, the bonfires are thought to avert hail, thunder, lightning, and other maladies, all of which are attributed to the maleficent arts of witches.

Again, the bonfires are often supposed to protect the fields against hail[864] and the homestead against thunder and lightning.[865] But both hail and thunderstorms are frequently thought to be caused by witches;[866] hence the fire which bans the witches necessarily serves at the same time as a talisman against hail, thunder, and lightning. Further, brands taken from the bonfires are commonly kept in the houses to guard them against conflagration;[867] and though this may perhaps be done on the principle of homoeopathic magic, one fire being thought to act as a preventive of another, it is also possible that the intention may be to keep witch-incendiaries at bay. Again, people leap over the bonfires as a preventive of colic,[868] and look at the flames steadily in order to preserve their eyes in good health;[869] and both colic and sore eyes are in Germany, and probably elsewhere, set down to the machinations of witches.[870] Once more, to leap over the Midsummer fires or [pg 345] to circumambulate them is thought to prevent a person from feeling pains in his back at reaping;[871] and in Germany such pains are called “witch-shots” and ascribed to witchcraft.[872]

The burning wheels rolled down hills and the burning discs and brooms thrown into the air may be intended to burn the invisible witches.

But if the bonfires and torches of the fire-festivals are to be regarded primarily as weapons directed against witches and wizards, it becomes probable that the same explanation applies not only to the flaming discs which are hurled into the air, but also to the burning wheels which are rolled down hill on these occasions; discs and wheels, we may suppose, are alike intended to burn the witches who hover invisible in the air or haunt unseen the fields, the orchards, and the vineyards on the hillside.[873] Certainly witches are constantly thought to ride through the air on broomsticks or other equally convenient vehicles; and if they do so, how can you get at them so effectually as by hurling lighted missiles, whether discs, torches, or besoms, after them as they flit past overhead in the gloom? The South Slavonian peasant believes that witches ride in the dark hail-clouds; so he shoots at the clouds to bring down the hags, while he curses them, saying, “Curse, curse Herodias, thy mother is a heathen, damned of God and fettered through the Redeemer's blood.” Also he brings out a pot of glowing charcoal on which he has thrown holy oil, laurel leaves, and wormwood to make a smoke. The fumes are supposed to ascend to the clouds and stupefy the witches, so that they tumble down to earth. And in order that they may not fall soft, but may hurt themselves very much, the yokel hastily brings out a chair and tilts it bottom up so that the witch in falling may break her legs on the legs of the chair. Worse than that, he cruelly lays scythes, bill-hooks and other formidable weapons edge upwards so as to cut and mangle [pg 346] the poor wretches when they drop plump upon them from the clouds.[874]

On this view the fertility supposed to follow the use of fire results indirectly from breaking the spells of witches.

On this view the fertility supposed to follow the application of fire in the form of bonfires, torches, discs, rolling wheels, and so forth, is not conceived as resulting directly from an increase of solar heat which the fire has magically generated; it is merely an indirect result obtained by freeing the reproductive powers of plants and animals from the fatal obstruction of witchcraft. And what is true of the reproduction of plants and animals may hold good also of the fertility of the human sexes. We have seen that the bonfires are supposed to promote marriage and to procure offspring for childless couples. This happy effect need not flow directly from any quickening or fertilizing energy in the fire; it may follow indirectly from the power of the fire to remove those obstacles which the spells of witches and wizards notoriously present to the union of man and wife.[875]

On the whole the theory of the purificatory or destructive intention of the fire-festivals seems the more probable.

On the whole, then, the theory of the purificatory virtue of the ceremonial fires appears more probable and more in accordance with the evidence than the opposing theory of their connexion with the sun. But Europe is not the only part of the world where ceremonies of this sort have been performed; elsewhere the passage through the flames or smoke or over the glowing embers of a bonfire, which is the central feature of most of the rites, has been employed as a cure or a preventive of various ills. We have seen that the midsummer ritual of fire in Morocco is practically identical with that of our European peasantry; and customs more or less similar have been observed by many races in various parts of the world. A consideration of some of them may help us to decide between the conflicting claims of the two rival theories, which explain the ceremonies as sun-charms or purifications respectively.

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