[816] At Obermedlingen, in Swabia, the "fire
of heaven," as it was called, was made on St. Vitus's Day (the fifteenth
of June) by igniting a cartwheel, which, smeared with pitch and plaited
with straw, was fastened on a pole twelve feet high, the top of the pole
being inserted in the nave of the wheel. This fire was made on the
summit of a mountain, and as the flame ascended, the people uttered a
set form of words, with eyes and arms directed heavenward.[817] Here the
fixing of a wheel on a pole and igniting it suggests that originally the
fire was produced, as in the case of the need-fire, by the revolution of
a wheel. The day on which the ceremony takes place (the fifteenth of
June) is near midsummer; and we have seen that in Masuren fire is, or
used to be, actually made on Midsummer Day by turning a wheel rapidly
about an oaken pole,[818] though it is not said that the new fire so
obtained is used to light a bonfire. However, we must bear in mind that
in all such cases the use of a wheel may be merely a mechanical device
to facilitate the operation of fire-making by increasing the friction;
it need not have any symbolical significance.
[The influence which the fires are supposed to exert on the weather and
vegetation may be thought to be due to an increase of solar heat
produced by the fires.]
Further, the influence which these fires, whether periodic or
occasional, are supposed to exert on the weather and vegetation may be
cited in support of the view that they are sun-charms, since the effects
ascribed to them resemble those of sunshine.
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