642 REPORT—1896, 
nature of the sanctity conveyed from the village fire to the house-fires ? 
Perhaps we may not get this question answered from the evidence 
afforded by British usage ; but at all events it leads up to another pertinent 
question, namely, whether the kindling of the house-fires from the village- 
fire on one particular day in the year signifies the sanctity of the house- 
fire on that particular day only, or a sanctity which can only be conveyed 
by contact with the village-fire. There can be little doubt that the latter 
is the true interpretation of the rite; and it carries with it the assumption 
that throughout the year, from one anniversary of the formal lighting of 
the village-fire to another, the house-fire must have retained the sanctity 
derived from the village-fire. The only method of doing this is by con- 
tinuous life, a feature we are already familiar with in connection with the 
village-fire. 
The examples to be taken first are those house-fires which have already 
been mentioned as actually derived from the village-fire. The house-tires 
of Burghead, having been kindled from the clavie as already described, 
were kept up throughout the year, ‘it being considered lucky to keep the 
flame from the clavie all the rest of the year.’! The Lanarkshire example 
is not so perfect, the continuous life.of the house-fire, lighted from the 
village pile, being represented only for the period of transition from old 
year to new year,and not for the actual year, it being considered ‘ un- 
lucky to give out a light to anyone on the morning of the new year.’ ? 
The Irish example falls into line by the evidence of Sir William Wilde 
that ‘portions of the extinguished [village] fire are generally retained in 
each family’ ’—a form which we may accept as an obvious divergence from 
the continuous house-fire. In the Manx evidence we once more get a per- 
fect form. There is not one of the native families ‘but keeps a small 
quantity of fire continually burning, no one daring to depend on his 
neighbour’s vigilance in a thing which he imagines is of such consequence, 
everyone consequently believing that if it should happen that no fire were 
to be found throughout the island most terrible revolution and mischief 
would immediately ensue.’ The Western Islands example again is not 
so clear, Martin simply saying that ‘the fires in the parish were extin- 
guished,’° each family being then supplied with new flame from the 
village-fire ; but there can be little doubt that the continuous life of the 
house-fire is here symbolised if not actually recorded. In one of the 
islands of St. Kilda the evidence is complete. Turf fires are always kept 
burning, and if one happens to go out a live turf is borrowed from a 
neighbour. The fires of St. Kilda have probably been burning for 
centuries. The fact of continuous life and its symbolisation in a recog- 
nised form are therefore both represented in these examples. 
In the next group of examples we have the house-fires kept alive 
perpetually without renewal from the village-fire. This divergence from 
the more primitive form need not surprise us. The more archaic 
elements in the fire-cult would be the first to die out before the march of 
new social and economical ideas, and these are undoubtedly those ele- 
1 Folklore Journal, vii. 12. 
* N. and Q. 2nd Series, ix. 322. 
3 Trish Popular Superstitions, 49. 
4 Waldron, Description uf the Isle of Man, p. 7. 
5 Martin, Western Islands, 113. 
® Proc. Soc. Antig. Scot. xii. 191. Lucifer matches are only used by the minister, 
and there is no flint and steei on the island 
