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Thus in Lincolnshire, when the cattle plague was so prevalent in 1866, there was, I believe, not a single cowshed in Marshland but had its wicken cross over the door; and other charms more powerful than this were in some cases resorted to. I never heard of the use of the needfire in the Marsh, though it was, I believe, used on the wolds not many miles off.
The fire in the farmer's house, etc., was immediately quenched with water, a fire kindled from this needfire, both in the farm-houses and offices, and the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which preserved them from the murrain." The last recorded case of the need-fire in Caithness happened in 1809 or 1810.
"Ah, good father, pardon my fright and confusion," Christina tried to murmur, but at that moment a sudden glow and glare of light broke out on the eastern rock, illuminating the fast darkening little church with a flickering glare, that made her start in terror as if the fires of heaven were threatening this stolen marriage; but the friar and Eberhard both exclaimed, "The Needfire alight already!"
That which is right towards either side still reveals itself at the due moment, whether it be to act or to hold still. And verily, Ebbo, what thou didst say even now has set me on a strange thought of mine own dream, that which heralded the birth of thyself and thy brother. As thou knowest, it seemed to me that I was watching two sparkles from the extinguished Needfire wheel.
'Needfire' therefore means nothing less than a fire which was kindled for 'clinching' anew the bond between earthly life and the primal spiritual order at times when for one reason or another there was a call for this. This explanation of the 'needfire' throws light also on the Roman custom of re-kindling annually the sacred fire in the Temple of Vesta.
Young men rushed along it, and then bounded over the diminished pile, amid loud shouts of laughter and either admiration or derision; and, in the meantime, a variety of odd, recusant noises, grunts, squeaks, and lowings proceeding from the darkness were explained to the startled little bride by her husband to come from all the cattle of the mountain farms around, who were to have their weal secured by being driven through the Needfire.
By the influence of this operation, the machinations and spells of witchcraft are rendered null and void." In various parts of the Highlands of Scotland the needfire was still kindled during the first half of the nineteenth century, as we learn from the following account: "Tein-eigin, neid-fire, need-fire, forced fire, fire produced by the friction of wood or iron against wood.
However, their proprietor, Jobst, counted them out all safe on the other side, and there only resulted some sighs and lamentations among the seniors, such as Hatto and Ursel, that it boded ill to have the Needfire trodden out by an old sow. All the castle live-stock were undergoing the same ceremony.
But what makes it nearly certain that this was once the invariable mode of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the analogy of the needfire, which has almost always been produced by the friction of wood, and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel.
In one place, apparently not far from Wolfenbüttel, the needfire is said to have been kindled, contrary to custom, by the smith striking a spark from the cold anvil. At Gandersheim down to about the beginning of the nineteenth century the need-fire was lit in the common way by causing a cross-bar to revolve rapidly on its axis between two upright posts.
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