Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

602 ELEMENTS.
grand viffar (bane, crusher, of wood), Sn. 126, her alls vi&ar,
Sssm. 228 b . Another difficult expression is eikin fur, Ssem. 83 b .
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 yta sonum, ok solar syn/ fire is best for men,
Seem. 18 b
(as Pindar says water is). In Superst. B, 17, I under
stand observatio pagana infoco 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 Oelov, divine smoke (II. 8, 135. Od. 22,
481. 493). In 0. Fr. poems I often find such forms of cursing
as : mal feu arde ! Tristr. 3791 maus ; feus et male flambe
m arde 1 Meon 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 viir los/ Doc. in Sartorius s
Hanse p. 27 ; in Lower Germany an alarm of fire was given in the
words fiir los ! ON. einn neisti (spark) war$ laus/
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,