Special virtue was
attributed to the smoke of the bonfire; in Sweden fruit-trees and
nets were fumigated with it, in order that the trees might bear
fruit and the nets catch fish. In the Highlands of Scotland the
need-fire was accounted a sovereign remedy for witchcraft. In the
island of Mull, when the fire was kindled as a cure for the murrain,
we hear of the rite being accompanied by the sacrifice of a sick
heifer, which was cut in pieces and burnt. Slavonian and Bulgarian
peasants conceive cattle-plague as a foul fiend or vampyre which can
be kept at bay by interposing a barrier of fire between it and the
herds. A similar conception may perhaps have originally everywhere
underlain the use of the need-fire as a remedy for the murrain. It
appears that in some parts of Germany the people did not wait for an
outbreak of cattleplague, but, taking time by the forelock, kindled
a need-fire annually to prevent the calamity. Similarly in Poland
the peasants are said to kindle fires in the village streets every
year on St. Rochus's day and to drive the cattle thrice through them
in order to protect the beasts against the murrain.
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