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606 ELEMENTS.
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
those who are most blackened and
and blackening one another ;
besmudged march into the village behind the cattle as conquerors,
and will not wash for a long time after. 1
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
and the master of the house
may light upon is extinguished,
rebuked or chastised. But that the wildfire 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.
Accurate as these accounts are, a few minor details have
escaped them, whose observance is seen to in some districts at
least. Thus, in the Halberstadt country the ropes of the wooden
roller are pulled by tivo chaste l>oys? Need fires have remained in
use longer and 3
more commonly in North Germany, yet are not
quite unknown in the South. Schmeller and Stalder are silent,
but in Appenzell the country children still have a game of rub-
ling a rope against a stick till it catches fire : t this they
tiifel hale/ unmanning the devil, despoiling him of his strength. 4
call de
1
Is there not also a brand or some light carried home for
fire in the village ?
a redistribution of
2
Biisching s Wochentliche nachr. 4, 64 ; so a chaste youth has to strike the
light for curing St. Anthony s fire, Superst. I, 710.
3 Conf. Conring s Epist. ad Baluz. xiii. Gericke s Schottel. p. 70. Dahnert
sub v. noodfiir.
4 Zellweger s Gesch. von Appenzell, Trogen 1830. 1, 63 ; who observes, that
with the ashes of the fire so engendered they strew the fields, as a protection
against vermin.