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The usual occasion for performing the rite was an outbreak of plague or cattle-disease, for which the need-fire was believed to be an infallible remedy. The animals which were subjected to it included cows, pigs, horses, and sometimes geese.
Theory that the fires at the festivals are purificatory, being intended to burn up all harmful things, 341; the purificatory or destructive effect of the fires is often alleged by the people who light them, and there is no reason to reject this explanation, 341 sq.; the great evil against which the fire at the festivals appears to be directed is witchcraft, 342; among the evils for which the fire-festivals are deemed remedies the foremost is cattle-disease, and cattle-disease is often supposed to be an effect of witchcraft, 343 sq.; again, the bonfires are thought to avert hail, thunder, lightning, and various maladies, all of which are attributed to the maleficent arts of witches, 344 sq.; the burning wheels rolled down hill and the burning discs thrown into the air may be intended to burn the invisible witches, 345 sq.; on this view the fertility supposed to follow the use of fire results indirectly from breaking the spells of witches, 346; on the whole the theory of the purificatory or destructive intention of the fire-festivals seems the more probable, 346.
And even at the dinner-parties of the professional families the subjects of discussion were corn, cattle-disease, sowing and reaping, fencing and planting; while politics were viewed by them less from their own standpoint of burgesses with rights and privileges than from the standpoint of their country neighbours.
My mind has been much exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind.
So I should reason, if I had pleuro-pneumonia in my drove of cattle. "NEWARK, N. J., June 11, 1860." "I notice that a good deal of alarm is felt in different parts of the country about what is called the cattle-disease. "From the diagnosis given in the papers, I have no doubt this is pleuro-pneumonia, with which I had some acquaintance a few years ago.
In the north-east of Aberdeenshire and the neighbourhood, when the cattle-disease known as the "quarter-ill" broke out, "the 'muckle wheel' was set in motion and turned till fire was produced. From this virgin flame fires were kindled in the byres.
This, no doubt, makes it harder to recover a fugitive chattel; but the existence of human nature in a man here and there is surely one of those accidents to be counted on at least as often as fire, shipwreck, or the cattle-disease; and the man who chooses to put his money into these images of his Maker cut in ebony should be content to take the incident risks along with the advantages.
In Perthshire the need-fire was kindled as a remedy for cattle-disease as late as 1826.
This, no doubt, makes it harder to recover a fugitive chattel; but the existence of human nature in a man here and there is surely one of those accidents to be counted on at least as often as fire, shipwreck, or the cattle-disease; and the man who chooses to put his money into these images of his Maker cut in ebony should be content to take the incident risks along with the advantages.
My mind has been much exercised of late on the subject of two epidemics, which, showing themselves formerly in a few sporadic cases, have begun to set in with the violence of the cattle-disease: I mean Eloquence and Statuary. They threaten to render the country unfit for human habitation, except by the Deaf and Blind.
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