Section 8. 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. Sometimes the need-fire
was known as "wild fire," to distinguish it no doubt from the tame fire
produced by more ordinary methods. Among Slavonic peoples it is called
"living fire." 1
The history of the custom can be traced from the early Middle Ages,
when it was denounced by the Church as a heathen superstition, down to
the first half of the nineteenth century, when it was still occasionally
practised in various parts of Germany, England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Among Slavonic peoples it appears to have lingered even longer. The
usual occasion for performing the rite was an outbreak of plague or
cattle-disease, for which the need-fire was believed to be an infallible
remedy. The animals which were subjected to it included cows, pigs,
horses, and sometimes geese. As a necessary preliminary to the kindling
of the need-fire all other fires and lights in the neighbourhood were
extinguished, so that not so much as a spark remained alight; for so long
as even a night-light burned in a house, it was imagined that the
need-fire could not kindle. Sometimes it was deemed enough to put out all
the fires in the village; but sometimes the extinction extended to
neighbouring villages or to a whole parish. In some parts of the Highlands
of Scotland the rule was that all householders who dwelt within the two
nearest running streams should put out their lights and fires on the day
appointed. Usually the need-fire was made in the open air, but in some
parts of Serbia it was kindled in a dark room; sometimes the place was a
cross-way or a hollow in a road. In the Highlands of Scotland the proper
places for performing the rite seem to have been knolls or small islands in
rivers. 2
The regular method of producing the need-fire was by the friction of two
pieces of wood; it might not be struck by flint and steel. Very exceptionally
among some South Slavs we read of a practice of kindling a need-fire by
striking a piece of iron on an anvil. Where the wood to be employed is
specified, it is generally said to be oak; but on the Lower Rhine the fire
was kindled by the friction of oak-wood or fir-wood. In Slavonic countries
we hear of poplar, pear, and cornel wood being used for the purpose.
Often the material is simply described as two pieces of dry wood.
Sometimes nine different kinds of wood were deemed necessary, but rather
perhaps to be burned in the bonfire than to be rubbed together for the
production of the need-fire. The particular mode of kindling the need-fire
varied in different districts; a very common one was this. Two poles were
driven into the ground about a foot and a half from each other. Each pole
had in the side facing the other a socket into which a smooth cross-piece
or roller was fitted. The sockets were stuffed with linen, and the two ends
of the roller were rammed tightly into the sockets. To make it more
inflammable the roller was often coated with tar. A rope was then wound
round the roller, and the free ends at both sides were gripped by two or
more persons, who by pulling the rope to and fro caused the roller to
revolve rapidly, till through the friction the linen in the sockets took fire.
The sparks were immediately caught in tow or oakum and waved about in
a circle until they burst into a bright glow, when straw was applied to it,
and the blazing straw used to kindle the fuel that had been stacked to
make the bonfire. Often a wheel, sometimes a cart-wheel or even a
spinning-wheel, formed part of the mechanism; in Aberdeenshire it was
called "the muckle wheel"; in the island of Mull the wheel was turned from
east to west over nine spindles of oak-wood. Sometimes we are merely
told that two wooden planks were rubbed together. Sometimes it was
prescribed that the cart-wheel used for fire-making and the axle on which
it turned should both be new. Similarly it was said that the rope which
turned the roller should be new; if possible it should be woven of strands
taken from a gallows rope with which people had been hanged, but this
was a counsel of perfection rather than a strict necessity. 3
Various rules were also laid down as to the kind of persons who might or
should make the need-fire. Sometimes it was said that the two persons
who pulled the rope which twirled the roller should always be brothers or
at least bear the same baptismal name; sometimes it was deemed sufficient
if they were both chaste young men. In some villages of Brunswick people
thought that if everybody who lent a hand in kindling the need-fire did not
bear the same Christian name, they would labour in vain. In Silesia the
tree employed to produce the need-fire used to be felled by a pair of twin
brothers. In the western islands of Scotland the fire was kindled by
eighty-one married men, who rubbed two great planks against each other,
working in relays of nine; in North Uist the nine times nine who made the
fire were all first-begotten sons, but we are not told whether they were
married or single. Among the Serbians the need-fire is sometimes kindled
by a boy and girl between eleven and fourteen years of age, who work
stark naked in a dark room; sometimes it is made by an old man and an old
woman also in the dark. In Bulgaria, too, the makers of need-fire strip
themselves of their clothes; in Caithness they divested themselves of all
kinds of metal. If after long rubbing of the wood no fire was elicited they
concluded that some fire must still be burning in the village; so a strict
search was made from house to house, any fire that might be found was
put out, and the negligent householder punished or upbraided; indeed a
heavy fine might be inflicted on him. 4
When the need-fire was at last kindled, the bonfire was lit from it, and as
soon as the blaze had somewhat died down, the sick animals were driven
over the glowing embers, sometimes in a regular order of precedence, first
the pigs, next the cows, and last of all the horses. Sometimes they were
driven twice or thrice through the smoke and flames, so that occasionally
some of them were scorched to death. As soon as all the beasts were
through, the young folk would rush wildly at the ashes and cinders,
sprinkling and blackening each other with them; those who were most
blackened would march in triumph behind the cattle into the village and
would not wash themselves for a long time. From the bonfire people carried
live embers home and used them to rekindle the fires in their houses.
These brands, after being extinguished in water, they sometimes put in the
managers at which the cattle fed, and kept them there for a while. Ashes
from the need-fire were also strewed on the fields to protect the crops
against vermin; sometimes they were taken home to be employed as
remedies in sickness, being sprinkled on the ailing part or mixed in water
and drunk by the patient. In the western islands of Scotland and on the
adjoining mainland, as soon as the fire on the domestic hearth had been
rekindled from the need-fire a pot full of water was set on it, and the water
thus heated was afterwards sprinkled upon the people infected with the
plague or upon the cattle that were tainted by the murrain. Special virtue
was attributed to the smoke of the bonfire; in Sweden fruit-trees and nets
were fumigated with it, in order that the trees might bear fruit and the nets
catch fish. In the Highlands of Scotland the need-fire was accounted a
sovereign remedy for witchcraft. In the island of Mull, when the fire was
kindled as a cure for the murrain, we hear of the rite being accompanied
by the sacrifice of a sick heifer, which was cut in pieces and burnt.
Slavonian and Bulgarian peasants conceive cattle-plague as a foul fiend
or vampyre which can be kept at bay by interposing a barrier of fire
between it and the herds. A similar conception may perhaps have
originally everywhere underlain the use of the need-fire as a remedy for
the murrain. It appears that in some parts of Germany the people did not
wait for an outbreak of cattleplague, but, taking time by the forelock,
kindled a need-fire annually to prevent the calamity. Similarly in Poland
the peasants are said to kindle fires in the village streets every year on St.
Rochus's day and to drive the cattle thrice through them in order to protect
the beasts against the murrain. We have seen that in the Hebrides the
cattle were in like manner driven annually round the Beltane fires for the
same purpose. In some cantons of Switzerland children still kindle a
need-fire by the friction of wood for the sake of dispelling a mist. 5
