that "the inhabitants here did also make use of a fire called
_Tin-egin, i.e._ a forced fire, or fire of necessity, which they used as
an antidote against the plague or murrain in cattle; and it was
performed thus: all the fires in the parish were extinguished, and then
eighty-one married men, being thought the necessary number for effecting
this design, took two great planks of wood, and nine of them were
employed by turns, who by their repeated efforts rubbed one of the
planks against the other until the heat thereof produced fire; and from
this forced fire each family is supplied with new fire, which is no
sooner kindled than a pot full of water is quickly set on it, and
afterwards sprinkled upon the people infected with the plague, or upon
the cattle that have the murrain. And this they all say they find
successful by experience: it was practised in the main land, opposite to
the south of Skie, within these thirty years."[727]

[The need-fire in the island of Mull; sacrifice of a heifer.]

In the island of Mull, one of the largest of the Hebrides, the need-fire
was kindled as late as 1767. "In consequence of a disease among the
black cattle the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they
esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel
and nine spindles of oakwood. They extinguished every fire in every
house within sight of the hill; the wheel was then turned from east to
west over the nine spindles long enough to produce fire by friction. If
the fire were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect.
They failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to
the obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out
for what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his
servants they contrived to have them extinguished and on that morning
raised their fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and
burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own
hearths from the pile and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of
incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came over as
master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the
fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked
to repeat the spell, he said, the sin of repeating it once had brought
him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again. The whole
country believed him accursed."[728]