orresponding season in the northern hemisphere.

[The burning wheels and discs of the fire-festivals may be direct
imitations of the sun.]

Not only the date of some of the festivals but the manner of their
celebration suggests a conscious imitation of the sun. The custom of
rolling a burning wheel down a hill, which is often observed at these
ceremonies, might well pass for an imitation of the sun's course in the
sky, and the imitation would be especially appropriate on Midsummer Day
when the sun's annual declension begins. Indeed the custom has been thus
interpreted by some of those who have recorded it.[809] Not less
graphic, it may be said, is the mimicry of his apparent revolution by
swinging a burning tar-barrel round a pole.[810] Again, the common
practice of throwing fiery discs, sometimes expressly said to be shaped
like suns, into the air at the festivals may well be a piece of
imitative magic. In these, as in so many cases, the magic force may be
supposed to take effect through mimicry or sympathy: by imitating the
desired result you actually produce it: by counterfeiting the sun's
progress through the heavens you really help the luminary to pursue his
celestial journey with punctuality and despatch. The name "fire of
heaven," by which the midsummer fire is sometimes popularly known,[811]
clearly implies a consciousness of a connexion between the earthly and
the heavenly flame.

[The wheel sometimes used to kindle the fire by friction may also be an
imitation of the sun.]

Again, the manner in which the fire appears to have been originally
kindled on these occasions has been alleged in support of the view that
it was intended to be a mock-sun. As some scholars have perceived, it is
highly probable that at the periodic festivals in former times fire was
universally obtained by the friction of two pieces of wood.[812] We have
seen that it is still so procured in some places both at the Easter and
the midsummer festivals, and that it is expressly said to have been
formerly so procured at the Beltane celebration both in Scotland and
Wales.[813] But what makes it nearly certain that this was once the
invariable mode of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the
analogy of the need-fire, which has almost always been produced by the
friction of wood, and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel. It is a
plausible conjecture that the wheel employed for this purpose represents
the sun,[814] and if the fire