Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 545 pages of information about Balder the Beautiful, Volume I..

Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 545 pages of information about Balder the Beautiful, Volume I..

Sec. 8. The Need-fire, pp. 269-300.—­Need-fire kindled not at fixed periods but on occasions of distress and calamity, 269; the need-fire in the Middle Ages and down to the end of the sixteenth century, 270 sq.; mode of kindling the need-fire by the friction of wood, 271 sq.; the need-fire in Central Germany, particularly about Hildesheim, 272 sq.; the need-fire in the Mark, 273; in Mecklenburg, 274 sq.; in Hanover, 275 sq.; in the Harz Mountains, 276 sq.; in Brunswick, 277 sq.; in Silesia and Bohemia, 278 sq.; in Switzerland, 279 sq.; in Sweden and Norway, 280; among the Slavonic peoples, 281-286; in Russia and Poland, 281 sq.; in Slavonia, 282; in Servia, 282-284; in Bulgaria, 284-286; in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 286; in England, 286-289; in Yorkshire, 286-288; in Northumberland, 288 sq.; in Scotland, 289-297; Martin’s account of it in the Highlands, 289; the need-fire in Mull, 289 sq.; in Caithness, 290-292; W. Grant Stewart’s account of the need-fire, 292 sq.; Alexander Carmichael’s account, 293-295; the need-fire in Aberdeenshire, 296; in Perthshire, 296 sq.; in Ireland, 297; the use of need-fire a relic of the time when all fires were similarly kindled by the friction of wood, 297 sq.; the belief that need-fire cannot kindle if any other fire remains alight in the neighbourhood, 298 sq.; the need-fire among the Iroquois of North America, 299 sq.

Sec. 9. The Sacrifice of an Animal to stay a Cattle-plague, pp. 300-327.—­The burnt sacrifice of a calf in England and Wales, 300 sq.; burnt sacrifices of animals in Scotland, 301 sq.; calf burnt in order to break a spell which has been cast on the herd, 302 sq.; mode in which the burning of a bewitched animal is supposed to break the spell, 303-305; in burning the bewitched animal you burn the witch herself, 305; practice of burning cattle and sheep as sacrifices in the Isle of Man, 305-307; by burning a bewitched animal you compel the witch to appear, 307; magic sympathy between the witch and the bewitched animal, 308; similar sympathy between a were-wolf and his or her human shape, wounds inflicted on the animal are felt by the man or woman, 308; were-wolves in Europe, 308-310; in China, 310 sq.; among the Toradjas of Central Celebes, 311-313 sq.; in the Egyptian Sudan, 313 sq.; the were-wolf story in Petronius, 313 sq.; witches like were-wolves can temporarily transform themselves into animals, and wounds inflicted on the transformed animals appear on the persons of the witches, 315 sq.; instances of such transformations and wounds in Scotland, England, Ireland, France, and Germany, 316-321; hence the reason for burning bewitched animals is either to burn the witch herself or at all events to compel her to appear, 321 sq.; the like reason for burning bewitched things, 322 sq.; similarly by burning alive a person whose likeness a witch has assumed you compel the witch to disclose herself, 323; woman burnt alive as a witch in Ireland at the end of the nineteenth century, 323 sq.; bewitched animals sometimes buried alive instead of being burned, 324-326; calves killed and buried to save the rest of the herd, 326 sq.

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Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.