' Replying to
his grandchild, an old man in Lewis said ... 'Mary! sonnie, it were
worse for me to do that for thee than to go between the two great fires
of Beul.'
"The neid-fire was resorted to in imminent or actual calamity upon the
first day of the quarter, and to ensure success in great or important
events.
[The needfire in Arran.]
"The writer conversed with several persons who saw the neid-fire made,
and who joined in the ceremony. As mentioned elsewhere, a woman in Arran
said that her father, and the other men of the townland, made the
neid-fire on the knoll on _La buidhe Bealltain_--Yellow Day of Beltane.
They fed the fire from _cuaile mor conaidh caoin_--great bundles of
sacred faggots brought to the knoll on Beltane Eve. When the sacred fire
became kindled, the people rushed home and brought their herds and drove
them through and round the fire of purification, to sain them from the
_bana bhuitseach mhor Nic Creafain Mac Creafain_--the great arch witch
Mac Crauford, now Crawford. That was in the second decade of this
century.
[The need-fire in North Uist.]
"John Macphail, Middlequarter, North Uist, said that the last occasion
on which the neid-fire was made in North Uist was _bliadhna an
t-sneachda bhuidhe_--the year of the yellow snow--1829 (?). The snow lay
so deep and remained so long on the ground, that it became yellow. Some
suggest that the snow was originally yellow, as snow is occasionally
red.
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