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Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. by Sir James George Frazer

S >> Sir James George Frazer >> Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I.




[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 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 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 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 Vallee 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. 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 Kuestendil, 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 and Poland; the need-fire in 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 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 eyewitness:--"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
Pozega 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 (_Kutga_), 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 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 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
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 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; the need-fire 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
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' 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 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 Carnmoor a wheel
and nine spindles of oakwood. They extinguished every fire in 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]