If
the fire were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect.
They failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to
the obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out
for what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his
servants they contrived to have them extinguished and on that morning
raised their fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and
burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own
hearths from the pile and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of
incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came over as
master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the
fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked
to repeat the spell, he said, the sin of repeating it once had brought
him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again. The whole
country believed him accursed."[728] From this account we see that in
Mull the kindling of the need-fire as a remedy for cattle disease was
accompanied by the sacrifice of one of the diseased animals; and though
the two customs are for the most part mentioned separately by our
authorities, we may surmise that they were often, perhaps usually,
practised together for the purpose of checking the ravages of sickness
in the herds.[729]
[The need-fire in Caithness.]
In the county of Caithness, forming the extreme northeast corner of the
mainland of Scotland, the practice of the need-fire survived down at
least to about 1788.
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