habitants even of large towns made no scruple of resorting to
it. For example, in the month of July 1792 sickness broke out among the
cattle belonging to the town of Sternberg; some of the beasts died
suddenly, and so the people resolved to drive all the survivors through
a need-fire. On the tenth day of July the magistrates issued a
proclamation announcing that next morning before sunrise a need-fire
would be kindled for the behoof of all the cattle of the town, and
warning all the inhabitants against lighting fires in their kitchens
that evening. So next morning very early, about two o'clock, nearly the
whole population was astir, and having assembled outside one of the
gates of the town they helped to drive the timid cattle, not without
much ado, through three separate need-fires; after which they dispersed
to their homes in the unalterable conviction that they had rescued the
cattle from destruction. But to make assurance doubly sure they deemed
it advisable to administer the rest of the ashes as a bolus to the
animals. However, some people in Mecklenburg used to strew the ashes of
the need-fire on fields for the purpose of protecting the crops against
vermin. As late as June 1868 a traveller in Mecklenburg saw a couple of
peasants sweating away at a rope, which they were pulling backwards and
forwards so as to make a tarry roller revolve with great speed in the
socket of an upright post. Asked what they were about, they vouchsafed
no reply; but an old woman who appeared on the scene from a neighbouring
cottage was more communicative. In the fulness of her heart she confided
to the stranger that her pigs were sick, that the two taciturn bumpkins
were her sons, who were busy extracting a need-fire from the roller, and
that, when they succeeded, the flame would be used to ignite a heap of
rags and brushwood, through which the ailing swine would be driven. She
further explained that the persons who kindle a need-fire should always
be two brothers or at least bear the same Christian name.[697]

[The mode of kindling the need-fire in Hanover.]

In the summer of 1828 there was much sickness among the pigs and the
cows of Eddesse, a village near Meinersen, in the south of Hanover. When
all ordinary measures to arrest the malady failed, the farmers met in
solemn conclave on the village green and determined that next morning
there should be a need-fire. Thereupon the head man of the village sent
word from house to house that