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The hypothesis of Iamblichus, when he writes about the ecstatic or 'possessed' persons who cannot be injured by fire, is like that of modern spiritualists the 'spirit' or 'daemon' preserves them unharmed. I intentionally omit cases which are vaguely analogous to that of the Hirpi.
Once a year a fete of Soranus and Feronia was held, in the precinct of the goddess at Soracte. Servius, the old commentator on Virgil, confuses the Hirpi, not unnaturally, with the Sabine 'clan, the Hirpini.
For the purpose of the present inquiry I also omit all the rites of leaping sportfully, and of driving cattle through light fires. People are said 'pyras circumire et transilire in futuri mali averruncatione' to 'go round about and leap over lighted pyres for the purpose of averting future evils, as in Mannhardt's theory of the Hirpi.
Thomson's photograph of the scene is ill-developed, and the fumes of steam somewhat interfere with the effect. A rough copy is published in Folk-Lore for September, 1895, but the piece could only be reproduced by a delicate drawing with the brush. The parallel to the rite of the Hirpi is complete, except that red-hot stones, not the pyre of pine-embers, is used in Fiji. Mr.
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