iving
fire," and attribute to it a healing virtue. The ascription of medicinal
power to fire kindled by the friction of wood is said to be especially
characteristic of the Slavs who inhabit the Carpathian Mountains and the
Balkan peninsula. The mode in which they produce the need-fire differs
somewhat in different places. Thus in the Schar mountains of Servia the
task is entrusted to a boy and girl between eleven and fourteen years of
age. They are led into a perfectly dark room, and having stripped
themselves naked kindle the fire by rubbing two rollers of lime wood
against each other, till the friction produces sparks, which are caught
in tinder. The Serbs of Western Macedonia drive two oaken posts into the
ground, bore a round hole in the upper end of each, insert a roller of
lime wood in the holes, and set it revolving rapidly by means of a cord,
which is looped round the roller and worked by a bow. Elsewhere the
roller is put in motion by two men, who hold each one end of the cord
and pull it backwards and forwards forcibly between them. Bulgarian
shepherds sometimes kindle the need-fire by drawing a prism-shaped piece
of lime wood to and fro across the flat surface of a tree-stump in the
forest.[711] But in the neighbourhood of Kuestendil, in Bulgaria, the
need-fire is kindled by the friction of two pieces of oak wood and the
cattle are driven through it.[712]

[The need-fire in Russia and Poland; the need-fire in Slavonia.]

In many districts of Russia, also, "living fire" is made by the friction
of wood on St. John's Day, and the herds are driven through it, and the
people leap over it in the conviction that their health is thereby
assured; when a cattle-plague is raging, the fire is produced by rubbing
two pieces of oak wood against each other, and it is used to kindle the
lamps before the holy pictures and the censers in the churches.[713]
Thus it appears that in Russia the need-fire is kindled for the sake of
the cattle periodically as well as on special emergencies. Similarly in
Poland the peasants are said to kindle fires in the village streets on
St. Rochus's day and to drive the cattle thrice through them in order to
protect the animals against the murrain. The fire is produced by rubbing
a pole of poplar wood on a plank of poplar or fir wood and catching the
sparks in tow. The embers are carried home to be used as remedies in
sickness.[714] As practised in Slavonia, the custom of the need-fire
used to p