Chapter 20

Fire, (41) like water, is regarded as a living being: corresponding to quecprunno (p. 588n.) we have a quecfiur, daz quecke fiwer, Parz. 71, 13; Serv. vatra zhiva, ogan zhivi (vivus, Vuk 1, xlvi. and 3, 8. 20); to pur qhrion emyucon of the Egyptians, Herod. 3, 16; ignis animal, Cic. de N. D. 3, 14, i.e. a devouring hungry insatiable beast, vorax flamma; frekr (avidus), Sæm. 50b; bitar fiur, Hel. 78, 22; bitar logna 79, 20; grâdag logna (greedy lowe), 130, 23; grim endi grâdag 133, 11; eld unfuodi (insatiabilis) 78, 23; it licks with its tongue, eats all round it, pastures, nemetai, Il. 23, 177; the land gets eaten clean by it, puri cqwn nemetai, 2, 780; 'lêztu eld eta iöfra bygdir, Sæm. 142ª; it is restless, akamaton pur, Il. 23, 52. To be spoken to is a mark of living things: 'heitr ertu hripuðr!' (hot art thou, Fire), Sæm. 40ª. The ancient Persians made a god of it, and the Indian Agni (ignis) is looked upon as a god. The Edda makes fire a brother of the wind and sea, therefore himself alive and a god, Sn. 126. Our people compare the element to a cock flying from house to house: 'I'll set the red cock on your roof' is a threat of the incendiary; 'ein roten han aufs stadel setzen,' H. Sachs iv. 3, 86d; rôter schîn, Gudr. 786, 2.

An antique heathen designation of the great World-fire, ON. muspell, OHG. OS. muspilli, mudspelli, mutspelli, has already been noticed, p. 558. The mythic allusions here involved can only be unfolded in the sequel; the meaning of the word seems to be ligni perditor, as fire in general is also called bani viðar, grand viðar (bane, crusher, of wood), Sn. 126, her alls viðar, Sæm. 228b. Another difficult expression is eikin fur, Sæm. 83b. Of vafrlogi (quivering flame), suggesting the MHG. 'daz bibende fiwer' (Tund. 54, 58), I likewise forbear to speak; conf. Chap. XXXI., Will o' the wisp (see Suppl.).

A regular worship of fire seems to have had a more limited range than the veneration of water; it is only in that passage of the AS. prohibitions quoted p. 102, and in no other, that I find mention of fire. A part of the reverence accorded to it is no doubt included in that of the light-giving and warming sun, as Julius Caesar (p. 103 above) names Sol and Vulcanus together, and the Edda fire and sun, praising them both as supreme: 'eldr er beztr med ýta sonum, ôk sôlar sýn,' fire is best for men, Sæm. 18b (as Pindar says water is). In Superst. B, 17, I understand 'observatio pagana in foco' of the flame on the hearth or in the oven: where a hearth-fire burns, no lightning strikes (Sup. I, 126); when it crackles, there will be strife (322. 534). Compare with this the Norwegian exposition (p. 242); so long as a child is unbaptized, you must not let the fire out (Sup. Swed. 22), conf. kasta eld, tagi i elden (24-5. 54. 68. 107).---The Esthonians throw gifts into fire, as well as into water (Sup. M, 11); to pacify the flame, they sacrifice a fowl to it (82).

A distinction seems to have been made between friendly and malignant fires; among the former the Greeks reckoned brimstone fire, as they call sulphur qeion, divine smoke (Il. 8, 135. Od. 22, 481. 493). In O. Fr. poems I often find such forms of cursing as: mal feu arde! Tristr. 3791; maus feus et male flambe m'arde! Méon 3, 227. 297. Ren. 19998. This evil fire is what the Norse Loki represents; and as Loki or the Devil breaks loose, we say, when a fire begins, that it breaks loose, breaks out, gets out, as if from chains and prison: 'worde vür los,' Doc. in Sartorius's Hanse p. 27; in Lower Germany an alarm of fire was given in the words 'für los!' ON. 'einn neisti (spark) warð laus.' [[a spark became loose]]

Forms of exorcism treat fire as a hostile higher being, whom one must encounter with might and main. Tacitus (Ann. 13, 57) tells us how the Ubii suppressed a fire that broke out of the ground: Residentibus flammis propius suggressi, ictu fustium aliisque verberibus ut feras (see p. 601) absterrebant, postremo tegmina corpore direpta injiciunt, quanto magis profana et usu polluta, tanto magis oppressura ignes. So, on valuables that have caught fire, people throw some article of clothing that has been worn next to the skin, or else earth which has first been stamped on with the foot. Rupertus Tuitiensis, De incendio oppidi Tuitii (i.e. Deutz, in 1128), relates that a white altar-cloth (corporale) was thrust into the middle of the fire, to stifle it, but the flame hurled back the cloth. The cloth remained uninjured, but had a red streak running through it. Similar to this was the casting of clothes into the lake (p. 596-7). Fire breaking out of the earth (iarðeldr) is mentioned several times in Icelandic sagas: in the evening you see a great horrible man rowing to land in an iron boat, and digging under the stable door; in the night earth-fire breaks out there, and consumes every dwelling, Landn. 2, 5; 'iarðeldr rann ofan,' 4, 12 (see Suppl.).

Needfire.---Flame which had been kept some time among men and been propagated from one fire to another, was thought unserviceable for sacred uses; as holy water had to be drawn fresh from the spring, so it made all the difference, if instead of the profaned and as it were worn out flame, a new one were used. This was called wild fire, as opposed to the tame and domesticated. So heroes when they fought, 'des fiurs ûz ir helmen daz wilde fiwer von den slegen vuor entwer,' Alt. bl. 1, 339; 'daz fiur wilde wadlende drûze vluoc,' Lanz. 5306; 'si sluogen ûf einander, daz wilde fiur erschien,' Etzels hofh. 168 (see Suppl.). Fire struck or scraped out of stone might indeed have every claim to be called a fresh one, but either that method seemed too common (flammam concussis ex more lapidibus elicere, Vita Severini cap. 14), or its generation out of wood was regarded as more primitive and hallowed. If by accident such wild fire have arisen under the carpenter's hand in driving a nail into the mortised timbers of a new house, it is ominous of danger (Superst. I, 411. 500. 707). But for the most part there was a formal kindling of flame by the rubbing of wood, for which the name known from the oldest time was notfeuer (need fire), and its ritual can with scarce a doubt be traced back to heathen sacrifices.

So far back as in the Indiculus superstit. 15, we have mention 'de igne fricato de ligno, id est nodfyr'; the Capitulare Carlomani of 742 § 5 (Pertz. 3, 17) forbids 'illos sacrilegos ignes quos niedfyr vocant. (42)

The preparation of needfire is variously described: I think it worth the while to bring all such accounts together in this place. Lindenbrog in the Glossary to the Capitularies says: 'Rusticani homines in multis Germaniae locis, et festo quidem S. Johannis Baptistae die, palum sepi extrahunt, extracto funem circumligant, illumque huc illuc ducunt, donec ignem concipiat: quem stipula lignisque aridioribus aggestis curate fovent, ac cineres collectos supra olera spargunt, hoc medio erucas abigi posse inani superstitione credentes. Eum ergo ignem nodfeur et nodfyr, quasi necessarium ignem, vocant.'---Joh. Reiskius, (43) in Untersuchung des notfeuers, Frankf. and Leipz. 1696, 8. p. 51: 'If at any time a grievous murrain have broke out among cattle great or small, and they have suffered much harm thereby; the husbandmen with one consent make a nothfür or nothfeuer. On a day appointed there must in no house be any flame left on the hearth. From every house shall be some straw and water and bushwood brought; then is a stout oaken stake driven fast into the ground, and a hole bored through the same, to the which a wooden roller well smeared with pitch and tar is let in, and so winded about, until by reason of the great heat and stress (nothzwang) it give out fire. This is straightway catched on shavings, and by straw, heath and bushwood enlarged, till it grow to a full nothfeuer, yet must it stretch a little way along betwixt two walls or hedges, and the cattle and thereto the horses be with sticks and whips driven through it three times or two. Others in other parts set up two such stakes, and stuff into the holes a windle or roller and therewith old rags smeared with grease. Others use a hairen or common light-spun rope, collect wood of nine kinds, and keep up a violent motion till such time as fire do drop therefrom. There may be in use yet other ways for the generating or kindling of this fire, nevertheless they all have respect unto the healing of cattle alone. After thrice or twice passing through, the cattle are driven to stall or field, and the collected pile of wood pile of wood is again pulled asunder, yet in such a wise in sundry places, that every householder shall take a brand with him, quench it in the wash or swill tub, and put the same by for a time in the crib wherein the cattle are fed. The stakes driven in for the extorting of this fire, and the wood used for a roller, are sometimes carried away for fuel, sometimes laid by in safety, when the threefold chasing of the cattle through the flame hath been accomplished.'---In the Marburg Records of Inquiry, for 1605, it is ordered, that a new cartwheel with an unused axle be taken and worked round until it give fire, and with this a fire be lighted between the gates, and all the oxen driven through it; but before the fire be kindled, every citizen shall put his own fire clean out, and afterward fetch him fire again from the other. (44) Kuhn's Märkische sagen p. 369 informs us, that in many parts of the Mark the custom prevails of making a nothfeuer on certain occasions, and particularly when there iis disease among swine. Before sunrise two stakes of dry wood are dug into the ground amid solemn silence, and hempen ropes that go round them are pulled back and forwards till the wood catches fire; the fire is fed with leaves and twigs, and the sick animals are driven through. In some places the fire is produced by the friction of an old cartwheel.---The following description, the latest of all, is communicated from Hohenhameln, bailiw. Baldenberg, Hildensheim: In many villages of Lower Saxony, especially in the mountains, it is common, as a precaution against cattle plague, to get up the so-called wild fire, through which first the pigs, then the cows, lastly the geese are driven. (45) The established procedure in the matter is this. The farmers and all the parish assemble, each inhabitant receives notice to extinguish every bit of fire in his house, so that not a spark is left alight in the whole village. Then old and young walk to a hollow way, usually towards evening, the women carrying linen, the men wood and tow. Two oaken stakes are driven into the ground a foot and a half apart, each having a hole on the inner side, into which fits a cross-bar as thick as an arm. The holes are stuffed with linen, then the cross-bar is forced in as tight as possible, the heads of the stakes being held together with cords. About the smooth round cross-bar is coiled a rope, whose long ends, left hanging on both sides are seized by a number of men; these make the cross-bar revolve rapidly this way and that, till the friction sets the linen in the holes on fire. The sparks are caught on tow or oakum, and whirled round in the air till they burst into a clear blaze, which is then communicated to straw, and from the straw to a bed of brushwood arranged in cross layers in the hollow way. When this wood has well burnt and nearly done blazing, the people hurry off to the herds waiting behind, and drive them perforce, one after the other, through the glowing embers. As soon as all the cattle are through, the young folks throw themselves pellmell upon the ashes and coals, sprinkling and blackening one another; those who are most blackened and besmudged march into the village behind the cattle as conquerors, and will not wash for a long time after. (46) If after long rubbing the linen will not catch, they feel sure there is still fire somewhere in the village, and that the element refuses to reveal itself through friction: then follows a strict searching of houses, any fire they may light upon is extinguished, and the master of the house rebuked or chastised. But that the wild fire should be evoked by friction is indispensable, it cannot be struck out of flint and steel. Some localities perform the ceremony, not yearly as a preventive of murrain, but only upon its actually breaking out.




ENDNOTES:

41. Philostr. Heroic. pp. 740. Welcker's Trilogie, pp. 247-8. [Back]

42. Acta sanctor., calend. Febr. p. 112b. [Back]

43. Hyde remarks of the Guebers also, that they lighted a fire every year. [Back]

44. Bel, Bal, Isidor. Etym. 8, 23. [Back]

45. O'Flaherty in Transact. of Irish Acad., Vol. 24, pp. 100. 122-3. [Back]

46. Conf. the accounts in Mone's Geschichte des heidenth. 2, 485. [Back]