A string
is tied round the peg, and two other boys pull it to and fro, till
through the rapid motion of the point of the peg a hole is burnt in the
flaked board, to which tow or dry moss is then applied as a tinder. In
this way fire and smoke are elicited, and with their appearance the
children fancy that the mist will vanish.[707] We may conjecture that
this method of dispersing a mist, which is now left to children, was
formerly practised in all seriousness by grown men in Switzerland. It is
thus that religious or magical rites dwindle away into the sports of
children. In the canton of the Grisons there is still in common use an
imprecation, "Mist, go away, or I'll heal you," which points to an old
custom of burning up the fog with fire. A longer form of the curse
lingers in the Vallee des Bagnes of the canton Valais. It runs thus:
"Mist, mist, fly, fly, or St. Martin will come with a sheaf of straw to
burn your guts, a great log of wood to smash your brow, and an iron
chain to drag you to hell."[708]
[The mode of kindling the need-fire in Sweden and Norway; the need-fire
as a protection against witchcraft.]
In Sweden the need-fire is called, from the mode of its production,
either _vrid-eld_, "turned fire," or _gnid-eld_, "rubbed fire." Down to
near the end of the eighteenth century the need-fire was kindled, as in
Germany, by the violent rubbing of two pieces of wood against each
other; sometimes nine different kinds of wood were used for the purpose.
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