The Greeks and Romans followed the practice of their remote ancestors when they made their sacred fire;[1] and the English and the Germans have preserved in their religious and superstitions observances a record of the period when they were wanderers in wild forests, depending on the unassisted soil for sustenance.
Kelly[2] tells us that the holy fires of the Germanic races are of two classes. In the first are included those which the church, finding herself powerless to suppress, appropriated and made part of her ceremonial rites. The new or sacred fire was generally got by flint and steel, but sometimes by friction.
The second class embraces those which are used as preservatives against epidemics, cures for witchcraft and the like—all pagan in their origin and character.
"The need-fire, nydfyr, new German noth feuer, was called, from the mode of its production, confrictione de lignis, and, though probably common to the Kelts as well as Teutons, was long and well known to all the German races at a certain period. All the fires in the village were to be re-lighted from the virgin flame produced by the rubbing together of wood, and in the highlands of Scotland and Ireland it was usual to drive the cattle through it by way of lustration, and as a preservative against disease."[3]
To this is added the following interesting note:—"In the Mirror of 24th June 1826 is an account of this having been done in Perthshire on occasion of a cattle epidemic. 'A wealthy old farmer 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 barn-yard, and wood-coals 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
- ↑ "The Aryan method of kindling sacred fire was practised by the Greeks and Romans down to a late period of their respective histories. The Greeks called the instrument used for the purpose pyreia, and the drilling stick trupanon. The kinds of wood which were fittest to form one or other of the two parts of which the instrument consisted are specified by Theophrastus and Pliny; both of whom agree that the laurel (daphne) made the best trupanon, and next to it thorn and some other kinds of hard wood; whilst ivy, athragene, and vitis sylvestris were to be preferred for the lower part of the pyreia. Festns states that when the vestal fire at Rome happened to go out, it was to be re-kindled with fire obtained by drilling a flat piece of auspicious wood (tabulam felicis materiæ)."—Kelly, p. 44-5.
The scholar need not be reminded of the many references to this practice in classics, and how largely language has profited by appropriating various modifications of the two words—Ηυρειον and Τρυρανον.
- ↑ Folk-lore, p. 46.
- ↑ The Saxons in England. Kemble, vol. I., p. 360.
minister to his household wants, the centre aud the guardian genius of his domestic affections."—Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore. Kelly, p. 40.
Eloquent as these words are, and true as they are—if we note the time and the circumstances to which they have reference—it is but just to observe that the chark could only do more easily what the palms of the hands can do as effectively. Time and labor perhaps were saved, and that was all. But any invention which saves time and labor leads to culture and refinement, and affords the opportunity and prepares the way for other labor and time saving inventions.
