eep them in violent
motion till fire leaps forth. Perhaps there may be other ways of
generating or kindling this fire, but they are all directed simply at
the cure of the cattle. After passing twice or thrice through the fire
the cattle are driven to their stalls or to pasture, and the heap of
wood that had been collected is destroyed, but in some places every
householder must take with him a brand, extinguish it in a washing-tub
or trough, and put it in the manger where the cattle are fed, where it
must lie for some time. The poles that were used to make the need-fire,
together with the wood that was employed as a winch, are sometimes
burned with the rest of the fuel, sometimes carefully preserved after
the cattle have been thrice driven through the flames."[693]

[The mode of kindling the need-fire about Hildesheim.]

Sometimes the need-fire was known as the "wild fire," to distinguish it
no doubt from the tame fire produced by more ordinary methods. The
following is Grimm's account of the mode of kindling it which prevailed
in some parts of Central Germany, particularly about Hildesheim, down
apparently to the first half of the nineteenth century: "In many places
of Lower Saxony, especially among the mountains, the custom prevails of
preparing the so-called 'wild fire' for the purpose of preventing
cattle-plague; and through it first the pigs, then the cows, and last of
all the geese are driven. The proceedings on the occasion are as
follows. The principal farmers and parishioners assemble, and notice is
served to every inhabitant to extinguish entirely all fire in his house,
so that not even a spark remains alight in the whole village. Then young
and old repair to a road in a hollow, usually towards evening, the women
carrying linen, and the men wood and tow. Two oaken poles are driven
into the ground about a foot and a half from each other. Each pole has
in the side facing the other a socket into which a cross-piece as thick
as a man's arm is fitted. The sockets are stuffed with linen, and the
cross-piece is rammed in as tight as possible, while the poles are bound
together at the top by ropes. A rope is wound about the round, smooth
cross-piece, and the free ends of the rope at both sides are gripped by
several persons, who pull the cross-piece to and fro with the utmost
rapidity, till through the friction the linen in the sockets takes fire.
The sparks of the linen are immediately caught in tow or oakum and waved