636 REPORT— 1896. 
ticular day, the last day of the old year, May eve, and so on ; and the 
significance of these, in the indication they give of continuous life, has been 
noted. I now come to examples of sacred fires which are not created on 
a particular day, but for a particular purpose. The points of contact 
between the two groups of examples are, however, many. The alleged 
purpose of the fire in these new examples is the same as one of the cere- 
monies performed during the fire ritual in the examples just given ; the 
actual mode of creating the fire is the same ; the connection between the 
village-fire and the house-fires is the same. In short, the elements of each 
example are the same, but the assumed importance of each element in the 
popular mind is not the same. 
In the isle of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland, the people carried 
to the top of Carnmoor a wheel and nine spindles of oak-wood. They 
extinguished every fire in every house within sight of the hill, and the 
wheel was then turned from east to west over the nine spindles long 
enough to produce fire by friction. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting 
in pieces and burning while yet alive the diseased part. Finally, they 
lighted their own hearths from the pile, and ended by feasting on the 
remains of the heifer. The cause of the ceremony was to cure the disease 
among the black cattle.! Here we have three elements of the typical form 
6, c, and e, and the important divergence 0. More important, how- 
ever, are the facts of sacrifice and the sacred feast ; and I suggest that 
these are not radical elements, but signs of the degradation of the ritual 
into other uses or channels. Clearly there is no connection between the 
sacrifice and the ceremony of lighting the house-fires from the village-fire ; 
and as this element is the strongest link to the other examples which have 
been examined it must be regarded as the test of origins. Another form 
of this example confirms this view. In the Highlands and in Caithness 
new fires were made ‘ to defeat sorceries.’ ‘Certain persons who have the 
power to do so’ were sent for to raise the new fire? The qualification of 
the persons engaged in the ceremony is extremely important. It may 
point to a kind of priesthood, or to the descendants of persons originally 
qualified. Up to the present it is remarkable that no idea of a priesthood 
is hinted at in these customs ; and on this I shall have something to say 
presently ; while in the Burghead typical form common descent from origi- 
nally qualified persons, who were not priests, appears. In the absence, 
then, of direct evidence on this important point, I am inclined to class the 
‘certain persons’ of the Caithness custom with the common descendants 
of qualified persons of the Burghead custom.’ The ceremonial of creating 
the fire is very curious. Upon any small island in a river or lake a cir- 
cular booth of stone or turf was erected, on which a couple or rafter of a 
birch tree was placed, and the roof covered over. In the centre was set a 
perpendicular post fixed by a wooden pin to the couple, the lower end 
being placed in an oblong groove on the floor, and another pole was placed 
horizontally between the upright post and the legs of the couple, into 
both of which the ends, being tapered, were inserted. This horizontal 
? Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ii. 608. 
2 Logan, Scottish Gael, ii. 68. 
% Jamieson, Scottish Dictionary, s.v. ‘ New fire,’ quotes, from the Agricultural 
Survey of Caithness, the same ceremony as that described by Logan, which, however, 
says, instead of ‘certain persons,’ that ‘ charm doctors’ superintended the lighting of 
the new fire. This, of course, may point to a priesthood, but I do not think it does, 
and the point needs further investigation. 
