On this view the fertility supposed to follow the application of
fire in the form of bonfires, torches, discs, rolling wheels, and so
forth, is not conceived as resulting directly from an increase of
solar heat which the fire has magically generated; it is merely an
indirect result obtained by freeing the reproductive powers of
plants and animals from the fatal obstruction of witchcraft. And
what is true of the reproduction of plants and animals may hold good
also of the fertility of the human sexes. The bonfires are supposed
to promote marriage and to procure offspring for childless couples.
This happy effect need not flow directly from any quickening or
fertilising energy in the fire; it may follow indirectly from the
power of the fire to remove those obstacles which the spells of
witches and wizards notoriously present to the union of man and
wife.
On the whole, then, the theory of the purificatory virtue of the
ceremonial fires appears more probable and more in accordance with
the evidence than the opposing theory of their connexion with the
sun.
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