ON THE ETHNOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 6353 
the long nail which fastens the staves of the clavie is iron, and is made 
specially for the purpose by the village smith, the hammer used for the 
purpose must be a round stone.! 
The completeness of the Burghead example in so many details of 
_ significance enables us to fix upon it as the typical form of survival of the 
- fire-custom. The justification for this conclusion will appear later on, when 
we have fully examined the other examples and compared them with the 
Burghead example; but in the meantime I can state that it has no parallel 
for completeness anywhere. I will now set out the elements it contains 
in the shape of a formula, so that reference back to these elements may 
be made in as simple manner as possible. The following is the formula 
required :— 
(a) The fire is made by a group of men connected by a common 
descent, that is, a kindred. 
(6) The original inhabitants of a village form the unit from which 
common descent is traced. 
(c) The flame for the fire is obtained in a sacred manner. 
(d) Continuous life of the fire (symbolised). 
(e) The house-fire is derived from the village-fire. 
(/) The possession of an ember is the means of good fortune. 
(7) The bounds of the village have the fire carried round them. 
(h) Welfare and prosperity of the community dependent upon the 
performance of the ceremony. 
(i) The bearers of the fire are honoured. 
(k) Early economic conditions are enforced in the performance of the 
ceremony. 
(1) Stone-age implements are used. 
A custom in Lanarkshire has preserved some essential elements of the 
Burghead example. Thus, at Biggar the villagers collect a large quantity 
of fuel, and about nine o’clock on the last day of the old year the pile is 
lighted, each member of the crowd ‘thinking it a duty to cast into the 
flaming mass some additional portion of material.’ It is necessary to 
maintain the fire until New Year’s day is far advanced, and if the house 
fire has been allowed to become extinguished, recourse must be had to the 
village pile.2 Here the collective action of the villagers, the connection 
between the village-fire and the house-fires, and the symbolical continuation 
of the fire from one year to the next year, are still closely preserved. But 
the sanction for the proceeding has changed. In the Burghead example 
the prosperity of the whole community depended upon the lighting of the 
village-fire ; in the Biggar example it was to provide the flame for the house- 
fire on account of the unluck of giving out fire on New Year's day. The 
two sanctions, different in form, are practically identical in motif; the 
Burghead example in this, as in other features, is the more archaic ; the 
Biggar example has assumed the usual condition of survivals and substituted ~ 
the non-specific notion of unluck for the specific notion of prosperity of 
the community as the sanction for the ceremony of the village-fire. In 
this respect the Biggar example is an important link in the evidence we are 
1 Folklore Journal, vii. 13. The stone is thrown away after use; and it may be 
that in this act we have an indication of the sacred character of the stone, in that it 
was not to be used for any other purpose after being used in the clavie ceremony. 
2 N. and Q. 2nd Series, ix. 322. 
