The fire in the farmer's house, etc.,
was immediately quenched with water, a fire kindled from this needfire,
both in the farm-houses and offices, and the cattle brought to feel the
smoke of this new and sacred fire, which preserved them from the
murrain."[730]
[The need-fire in Caithness.]
The last recorded case of the need-fire in Caithness happened in 1809 or
1810. At Houstry, Dunbeath, a crofter named David Gunn had made for
himself a kail-yard and in doing so had wilfully encroached on one of
those prehistoric ruins called _brochs_, which the people of the
neighbourhood believed to be a fairy habitation. Soon afterwards a
murrain broke out among the cattle of the district and carried off many
beasts. So the wise men put their heads together and resolved to light a
_teine-eigin_ or need-fire as the best way of stopping the plague. They
cut a branch from a tree in a neighbouring wood, stripped it of bark,
and carried it to a small island in the Houstry Burn. Every fire in the
district having been quenched, new fire was made by the friction of wood
in the island, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the houses
were lit afresh. One of the sticks used in making the fire was preserved
down to about the end of the nineteenth century; apparently the mode of
operation was the one known as the fire-drill: a pointed stick was
twirled in a hole made in another stick till fire was elicited by the
friction.
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