' Sometimes the heart
and part of the liver and lungs were cut out, and hung over the
fireplace instead of the fore-feet. Boiling them was at times
substituted for hanging them over the hearth." Compare W. Henderson,
_Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the
Borders_ (London, 1879), p. 167: "A curious aid to the rearing of cattle
came lately to the knowledge of Mr. George Walker, a gentleman of the
city of Durham. During an excursion of a few miles into the country, he
observed a sort of rigging attached to the chimney of a farmhouse well
known to him, and asked what it meant. The good wife told him that they
had experienced great difficulty that year in rearing their calves; the
poor little creatures all died off, so they had taken the leg and thigh
of one of the dead calves, and hung it in a chimney by a rope, since
which they had not lost another calf." In the light of facts cited below
(pp. 315 _sqq._) we may conjecture that the intention of cutting off the
legs or cutting out the heart, liver, and lungs of the animals and
hanging them up or boiling them, is by means of homoeopathic magic to
inflict corresponding injuries on the witch who cast the fatal spell on
the cattle.

[737] _The Mirror_, 24th June, 1826, quoted by J. M. Kemble, _The Saxons
in England_ (London, 1849), i. 360 note 2.

[738] Leland L. Duncan, "Fairy Beliefs and other Folklore Notes from
County Leitrim," _Folk-lore_, vii. (1896) pp. 181 _sq._

[739] (Sir) Edward B. Tylor, _Researches into the Early History of
Mankind_, Third Edition (London, 1878), pp. 237 _sqq._; _The Magic Art
and the Evolution of Kings_, ii. 207 _sqq._

[740] For some examples of such extinctions, see _The Magic Art and the
Evolution of Kings_, ii. 261 _sqq._, 267 _sq._; _Spirits of the Corn and
of the Wild_, i. 311, ii. 73 _sq._; and above, pp. 124 _sq._, 132-139.
The reasons for extinguishing fires ceremonially appear to vary with the
occasion. Sometimes the motive seems to be a fear of burning or at least
singeing a ghost, who is hovering invisible in the air; sometimes it is
apparently an idea that a fire is old and tired with burning so long,
and that it must be relieved of the fatiguing duty by a young and
vigorous flame.

[741] Above, pp. 147, 154. The same custom appears to have been observed
in Ireland. See above, p. 158.

[742] J.N.B. Hewitt, "New Fire among the Iroquois," _The American
Anthropologist_, ii. (1889) p. 319.

[743] J.