394 



JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [Vol. VIII. 



The an-keli-pujawa is not complete without the peli, or torch- 

 light procession round the infected villages, — a relic of the primeval 

 worship of Agni, the fire-god, cleansing and hallowing, which has 

 passed into the superstitious observance of widely separated coun- 

 tries, and is not unknown even in Christian England, — witness the 

 Easter fires, those of St. John's Day, Michaelmas, Martinmas, and 

 Christinas. The Midsummer or St. John's Day fires, which 

 were kindled at the season of the summer solstice, were of three 

 kinds : first, bonfires ; second, procession with burning brands 

 round the fields ; third, wheels blazing and set rolling. The bon- 

 fires were lighted for the purpose of scaring away the dragons 

 that poison the waters with the slime that fell from them at that 

 hot season, and therefore bones and all sorts of filth were thrown 

 into the fire that the smoke might be the fouler and more offensive to 

 the dragons. " Need fires " especially have retained their heathen 

 character unaltered, and are for the most part not confined to 

 particular days. 



They used to be lighted on the occasion of epidemics occurring 

 among cattle, and the custom is still observed here and there to this day. 

 Wherever it can be traced among people of German or Scandinavian 

 descent, the fire is always kindled by the friction of a wooden axle in 

 the nave of a waggon wheel, or in holes bored in one or two posts. 

 In either case the axle or roller is worked with a rope, which is wound 

 round it, and pulled to and fro with the greatest possible k speed by 

 two opposit3 groups of able-bodied men,* 



The axle working in the nave is equally symbolic of Nature's 

 creative energies, and the two forms of worship existed side by 

 side in England, certainly up to the thirteenth ..century. Kemble 

 (" The Saxons in England") quotes from the Chronicle of Laner- 

 cost for 1268 a.d, how "certain bestial persons, monks in garb 

 but not in mind, taught the country people to extract fire from 

 wood by friction, and to set up a 'simulacrum Priapi' as a means 

 of preserving their_.cattle from an epidemic pneumonia.f " — B. 



Hon. Sec. 



* Kelly, Indo-European Folk-lore, p. 48. f Id., p. 50. 



GEORGE J. A. SKEEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, COLOMBO, CEYLON. 



