So far as the Celts and
Lithuanians are concerned, this conclusion will perhaps hardly be
contested. But both for them and for the Germans it is confirmed by
a remarkable piece of religious conservatism. The most primitive
method known to man of producing fire is by rubbing two pieces of
wood against each other till they ignite; and we have seen that this
method is still used in Europe for kindling sacred fires such as the
need-fire, and that most probably it was formerly resorted to at all
the fire-festivals under discussion. Now it is sometimes required
that the need-fire, or other sacred fire, should be made by the
friction of a particular kind of wood; and when the kind of wood is
prescribed, whether among Celts, Germans, or Slavs, that wood
appears to be generally the oak. But if the sacred fire was
regularly kindled by the friction of oak-wood, we may infer that
originally the fire was also fed with the same material. In point of
fact, it appears that the perpetual fire of Vesta at Rome was fed
with oak-wood, and that oak-wood was the fuel consumed in the
perpetual fire which burned under the sacred oak at the great
Lithuanian sanctuary of Romove.
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