The bonfires so kindled
were composed of wood of nine different sorts; there were three such
bonfires, and the cattle were driven round them with great gravity and
devotion.[702]
[The mode of kindling the need-fire in Silesia and Bohemia.]
In Silesia, also, need-fires were often employed for the purpose of
curing a murrain or preventing its spread. While all other lights within
the boundaries were extinguished, the new fire was produced by the
friction of nine kinds of wood, and the flame so obtained was used to
kindle heaps of brushwood or straw to which every inhabitant had
contributed. Through these fires the cattle, both sick and sound, were
driven in the confident expectation that thereby the sick would be
healed and the sound saved from sickness.[703] When plague breaks out
among the herds at Dobischwald, in Austrian Silesia, a splinter of wood
is chipped from the threshold of every house, the cattle are driven to a
cross-road, and there a tree, growing at the boundary, is felled by a
pair of twin brothers. The wood of the tree and the splinters from the
thresholds furnish the fuel of a bonfire, which is kindled by the
rubbing of two pieces of wood together. When the bonfire is ablaze, the
horns of the cattle are pared and the parings thrown into the flames,
after which the animals are driven through the fire. This is believed to
guard the herd against the plague.[704] The Germans of Western Bohemia
resort to similar measures for staying a murrain.
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