252 FlREj COOKING, AND VESSELS. 



its last phase, tlie invention of lucifer matclies in our own day, 

 is fast spreading over the world, and bringing most other fire- 

 makinff instruments down to the condition of curious reHcs of 

 a past time. 



But though some of the higher methods date far back in the 

 history of the Old World, the employment of the wooden fric- 

 tion-apparatus in Europe, even for the practical purposes of 

 ordinaiy life, has come up through the classical and medigeval 

 times into the last century, and for all we know it may still 

 exist. Pliny speaks of its finding a use among the outposts of 

 armies and among shepherds, a stone to strike fire with not 

 being always to be had ;^ and in a remarkable account dating 

 from 1768, which will be quoted presently, its use by Russian 

 peasants for making fire in the woods is spoken of as an exist- 

 ing custom, just as, at a much more recent date, it is men- 

 tioned that the Portuguese Brazilians still have recourse to the 

 fire-di'ill, when no other means of getting a light are forth- 

 coming.^ For the most part, however, the early use of the in- 

 strument in the Old World is only to be traced in ancient 

 myths, in certain ceremonial practices which have been brought 

 down unchanged iuto a new state of culture, and in descrip- 

 tions by Greek and Roman writers of the art. It had lost, 

 even then, its practical importance in everyday life, though lin- 

 gering on, as it still does in our own day, in i-ites for which it 

 . was necessaiy to use pure wild fire, not the tame fire that lay 

 like a domestic animal upon the hearth. 



The traditions of inventors of the art of fire-making by the 

 friction of wood have in so far an historical value, that they 

 bring clearly into view a period when this was the usual practice. 

 There is a Chinese myth that points to such a state of things, 

 and which moreover presents, in the story of the " fire-bird," 

 an analoo-y with a set of myths belonging to our own race, 

 which may well be due to a deep-lying ethnological connexion. 

 " A great sage went to walk beyond the bounds of the moon 

 and the sun ; he saw a tree, and on this tree a bird, which 

 pecked at it and made fire come forth. The sage was struck 



' Pliny, XTi. 77. 



- Pr. Max. v.Wied., ' Eeise iiiicli Brasilien' (1815-7), vol. ii. p. 19. 



