with the swine. The ceremony having been duly and decorously gone through, a neighbouring farmer observed to the enlightened owner of the herd that he, along with his family, ought to have followed the example of the cattle, and the sacrifice to Baal would have been complete.'"
Grimm mentions the making of will-fire by means of the wheel as having been practised by the people of the island of Mull, in 1767, for the purpose of curing their cattle of some disease then prevalent.
In the Scottish highlands, according to Logan, the need-fire is still made for the same purpose; and old superstitions connected with fire yet linger in Ireland.[1]
I have been thus particular in describing these practices, because it is too commonly supposed, when we find any practice curious or not, simple or not, amongst savage peoples, that these peoples have derived the practice from some civilized race. Surely it is but reasonable to believe that the universal practice of getting fire by friction amongst all the civilized nations has its origin in the customs of the past, when the men of these nations were uncivilized. It is indeed a proof that it was once their usual, if not their only method of getting fire. High civilization, culture, and the possession of much knowledge, in Athens or in Rome, could consist with the existence, in the near neighbourhood, of men who were little above the savage state, and who would have had to resort to fire-sticks whenever they needed fire. Perhaps not one man in ten thousand in London knows how to get fire by friction, but less than five hundred miles from the capital there are men living who practise the art.
How did the Aborigines of Australia first get fire? Probably they were never without it. Far back in geological times there were active volcanoes in Victoria; and in the Miocene and Pliocene periods the southern and western parts formed an archipelago; the Pliocene sea was dotted with islands, and many active points sent upwards tall columns of smoke. Immense rivers of molten lava flowed towards the ocean with which they were at war. Yet we know from the fossils found in the Pliocene and post-Pliocene drifts that there were many spots covered with a rich vegetation—with trees bearing probably edible fruits—and that the climate was more like that of Queensland than that now prevailing in those parts of Australia lying to the south of the River Murray. Whether or not these islands were peopled, we shall, in all likelihood, never know. Coming to the Recent period, we find, in the places where the volcanic fires lingered until the land took the shape we now see, thin beds of volcanic ash overlying the natural grass-grown surface; and it is not impossible
- ↑ "Until lately, fires of straw were kindled on the 1st of May, in the milking yards, throughout many parts of Ireland. Men, women, and children passed through, or leaped over their flames, while cattle were driven through them. . . . . . .
"In the south-western parts of Ireland, many persons yet living remember to have seen fire asked from a priest's house when any disease or epidemic broke out in the country. With this fire, other fires, first quenched, were afterwards re-kindled in the peasants' houses. Such practice was thought to avert the pestilence. But if the priest refused the fire—as he usually did, to discountenance an old superstition—the people then sought it from the 'happiest man'—supposed to be the best-living person in the parish. This curious custom is worthy of being recorded, for it seems to have come down from a very remote period."—Irish Folk-lore.
