The poles that were used to make the need-fire,
together with the wood that was employed as a winch, are sometimes
burned with the rest of the fuel, sometimes carefully preserved after
the cattle have been thrice driven through the flames."[693]
[The mode of kindling the need-fire about Hildesheim.]
Sometimes the need-fire was known as the "wild fire," to distinguish it
no doubt from the tame fire produced by more ordinary methods. The
following is Grimm's account of the mode of kindling it which prevailed
in some parts of Central Germany, particularly about Hildesheim, down
apparently to the first half of the nineteenth century: "In many places
of Lower Saxony, especially among the mountains, the custom prevails of
preparing the so-called 'wild fire' for the purpose of preventing
cattle-plague; and through it first the pigs, then the cows, and last of
all the geese are driven. The proceedings on the occasion are as
follows. The principal farmers and parishioners assemble, and notice is
served to every inhabitant to extinguish entirely all fire in his house,
so that not even a spark remains alight in the whole village. Then young
and old repair to a road in a hollow, usually towards evening, the women
carrying linen, and the men wood and tow. Two oaken poles are driven
into the ground about a foot and a half from each other. Each pole has
in the side facing the other a socket into which a cross-piece as thick
as a man's arm is fitted.
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