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FIKE-WOBSHIP. 603
tanto magis oppressura ignes. So, on valuables that have caught
fire, people throw some article of clothing that has been worn
next 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 (iar<5-
: in the even
eldr) is mentioned several times in Icelandic sagas
ing 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; iarSeldr
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 domesti
cated. So heroes when they fought, des fiurs uz den ringen
(harness) hiuwen si genuoc/ Nib. 2215, 1 ; uz ir helmen daz
wilde fiwer von den slegen vuor entwer/ Alt. bl. 1, 339 ; daz
fiur wilde wadlende druze vluoc/ Lanz. 5306 ;
si sluogen uf ein-
ander, 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 (flarnmam 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 mor
tised 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 times 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 ignefricato de ligno, id est nodfyr ;
the Capitulare Carlomani