Fire ritual

“ As Fire in the Rig Veda is not only the altar-fire, but also common, every-day fire, so, too, in the epic this god is the material flame, and as such even performs his greatest deeds for his worshippers. ”

“ In due time the body is restored to its resting place on the funeral pyre, the fire is lighted, and the whole mass flares up in flame and smoke, consuming not only the body, but along with it the decorations, including paintings of numerous demons, among whom may be an Englishman with a gun! ”

“ Mortals, shrinking from the responsibility of a high destiny and dreading to know how divine the Divine would have them, always imagine an avatar of some one not lower than a half-god when a gift of great price comes to the world. And fire is a very priceless and beautiful boon,—not, as most know it, in imprisonment, barred with iron, or in sooty chimneys, or in mad revolt of conflagration,—but as it grows in a flashing pyramid out in camp in the free woods, with eager air hurrying in on every side to feed its glory. ”

“ All the people look and wonder,
This the chorus of the women:
"Whence are rising all these smoke-clouds,
Why this dreadful fire in Northland?
Is not like the smoke of camp-fires,
Is too large for fires of shepherds!" ”

“ Against that curtain of blaze, strangely beautiful in its sinuous strength, I watch the black silhouettes of men running hither and thither like rats, gutting the houses, looting the stores, tearing the hearts out of the homes. The fire seems a great bird, and from its nest of furnace heat it spreads its flapping wings over the city. ”

“ The first is the rude, barbarous adoration of the actual flame which he watches writhing, devouring, roaring like a wild animal; the second belongs to an advanced generalization that any individual fire is a manifestation of one general elemental being, the fire god.”135 In a tropical country it would naturally be associated with the worship of the sun, and with that of the sainted dead as the medium by which the spirit wings its way to the other world. Among many races fire is provided for the ghost after interment, to enable it to warm itself and cook its food. ”

“ They danced also round this fire; for what feast is there without a dance? and the most active leaped over it. Each on departing took away a fire-brand, great or small, and the remains were scattered to the wind, which, at the same time that it dispersed the ashes, was thought to expel every evil. ”

“ This latter view is strongly supported by the testimony of the people who celebrate the fire-festivals, since a popular name for the custom of kindling the fires is "burning the witches," effigies of witches are sometimes consumed in the flames, and the fires, their embers, or their ashes are supposed to furnish protection against witchcraft. On the other hand there is little to show that the effigies or the animals burnt in the fires are regarded by the people as representatives of the vegetation-spirit, and that the bonfires are sun-charms. ”

“ The most credulous examine the ways in which the flame burns and draw good or bad omens accordingly. Others, after leaping through the flames crosswise, pass their little children through them thrice, fully persuaded that the little ones will then be able to walk at once. In some places the shepherds make their sheep tread the embers of the extinct fire in order to preserve them from the foot-rot. Here you may see about midnight an old woman grubbing among the cinders of the pyre to find the hair of the Holy Virgin or Saint [pg 183] John, which she deems an infallible specific against fever. ”

“ They have their marriage ceremony, their fire temples and their funeral rites. They have sometimes been called fire worshipers and sun worshipers, but they simply regard fire as the purest thing known and therefore accept it as a symbol of the invisible god. Fire is kept burning in their temples, and when a new temple is to be dedicated, fire is collected from the homes of persons engaged in the principal industries and occupations, and this mingled fire is used to kindle another fire and this new fire another until the ninth fire is lighted, and this becomes the altar fire. ”

“ While they are smouldering and sending forth volumes of smoke across the fields, young men kindle broom-stumps, soaked in pitch, at the bonfires and then, brandishing the stumps, which emit showers of sparks, they chase one another or dance with the girls round the burning pile. Shots, too, are fired, and shouts raised. The fire, the smoke, the shots, and the shouts are all intended to scare away the witches, who are let loose on this witching day, and who would certainly work harm to the crops and the cattle, if they were not deterred by these salutary measures. ”

“ The fact of their being strictly forbidden, when kindling a fire, to lift their eyes from it until the wood has been well ignited and smoke proceeds from it would suggest the idea that there is either a superstition attached to this operation or that fire is also an object of veneration with them. ”

“ It was the greatest force in nature. It was fire. On one hand, I seemed cool and calculated the chances; on the other, I had flashes in my brain, and kept crying out crazily, in a voice like a whisper: “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
But presently the wall of fire rolled by and took the roar with it. Dense billows of smoke followed, and hid everything in opaque darkness. I heard the hiss of failing sparks and the crackle of burning wood, and occasionally the crash of a failing branch. It was intolerably hot, but I could stand the heat better than the air. ”

“ Obviously the two theories postulate two very different conceptions of the fire which plays the principal part in the rites. On the one view, the fire, like sunshine in our latitude, is a genial creative power which fosters the growth of plants and the development of all that makes for health and happiness; on the other view, the fire is a fierce destructive power which blasts and consumes all the noxious elements, whether spiritual or material, that menace the life of men, of animals, and of plants. ”

“ The fire of their hearth is as a sacred flame to them, which must be tended and cared for with unremitting zeal, which harks back to the days [149] of paganism when the fire was looked upon as the most sacred thing in their religion, and was kept ever burning in their temples and public places ”

“ A great hand reaches out from the unseen and regulates the affairs of man. It reaches out from that great spiritual Flame which nourishes all created things, the never dying fire that burns on the sacred altar of Cosmos—that great fire which is the spirit of God.
If we turn again to the races now dead, we shall, if we look, find the cause of their destruction. The light had gone out. When the flame within the body is withdrawn, the body is dead. When the light was taken from the altar, the temple was no longer the dwelling place of a living God. ”

“ As far back as our history goes we find that fire has played an important part in the religious ceremonial of the human race. In practically every religion we find the sacred altar fires, which were guarded by the priests and vestals with greater care than their own lives. ”

“ The fire was advancing rapidly and the heat was terrific. Choking and gasping in the stinging resinous smoke, the men strove in frenzy of haste to complete the fire-break before the flames should reach them. ”

“ It kindles with difficulty; clouds of smoke arise; a flame is seen at intervals, flashing out here and there; as the fire gains strength, it surrounds, it pierces the fuel; presently it leaps and roars in triumph—the nature of the wood is being transformed into the nature of fire. Then, the struggle over, the crackling ceases, the smoke is gone, there is left a tranquil, friendly brightness, for the master-element has subdued all into itself. ”

“ The Father of the Gods and the Fire God go down into it, and the smoke comes thicker and blacker, and hides everything but those two, and I see them climbing down and down over the rough, sharp rocks, toward the caverns of the dwarfs, while the little tongues of flame shoot out at them from the fissures, as if they were trying to catch and burn and sting them, just as they shoot out from between the black, charred sticks here before our eyes. ”

“ The domestic fire was a type of all these attributes, and seemed to bring might and majesty, and wild nature and a spiritual essence, into our in most home, and yet to dwell with us in such friendliness that its mysteries and marvels excited no dismay. ”

“ But we are not dependent on inference, however rational, for a knowledge of the fact that fire was an object of adoration to our heathen ancestors, even so late as the eleventh century; for in the laws of Cnut fire appears as one of the objects the worship of which is forbidden.”
“Fire seems to have always had the firmest hold upon the wonderment and then the adoration of the infant mind. ”

“ So remarkable is its liking for fire, that we might imagine it to be the Avis incendiaria of the ancients; it has been known to pluck the burning wick from a lamp and swallow it, or to draw small live coals from the hearth for this purpose, without any apparent ill effect, and so to delight in smoke as to take every opportunity of throwing a scrap of rag, wood, or paper into the grate, for the pleasure of seeing the light clouds ascend as it is consumed by the flames. ”

“ Now in the case of the fire-festivals the destructive aspect of fire is one upon which the people dwell again and again; and it is highly significant that the great evil against which the fire is directed appears to be witchcraft. ”

“ The whole of the ancient world believed that the origin of fire must be divine. And the various steps can be clearly traced by which the worship, originally accorded to the nature-power itself, was transferred to a spirit behind the power, and centred at last on the supreme Deity.
For primitive man, as Max Müller well points out, the phenomena of fire would present a dual aspect—on the one hand as a fatal and destructive element, on the other hand, as a beneficent and even homely agency. ”

“ The fire was kindled by the will of God, when the people found favour in His sight, being a sign that He accepted their hospitality and their offerings. For the fire is the finest and noblest element beneath the sphere of the moon. ”

“ It is well for us to understand that we ourselves are the cube altar upon which and in which burns the altar fire. For many centuries the Initiate of fire has been nourishing and guarding the Spiritual Flame within himself, as the ancient priests watched day and night the altar fires of Vesta’s temple.
The ever burning lamp of the alchemist, which having burned thousands of years without fuel in the catacombs of Rome, is but a symbol of this same spiritual fire within himself. ”

“ Although earth, air, water, and the sun were long venerated as objects of worship, as containing the life principle, in process of time it is observed that fire attracted the highest regard of human beings, and on their altars the sacred flame, said to have been kindled from heaven, was kept burning uninterruptedly from year to year, and from age to age, by bands of priests "whose special duty it was to see that the sacred flame was never extinguished." ”

“ FIREWORKS were not known to antiquity.—It is certainly a modern invention. If ever the ancients employed fires at their festivals, it was only for religious purposes.
Fire, in primæval ages, was a symbol of respect, or an instrument of terror. In both these ways God manifested himself to man. In the holy writings he compares himself sometimes to an ardent fire, to display his holiness and his purity; sometimes he renders himself visible under the form of a burning bush, to express himself to be as formidable as a devouring fire: again, he rains sulphur ”

“ He said to the first man, "What of your fire?"
And the man said, "I found folk struggling in darkness, and I made a torch of my fire, and showed them the way; now is it well-nigh wasted, yet still it burns."
And he in white said, "It is well; this fire shall never die."
Then came the second, and of him, too, that one asked, "What of your fire?"
And he said, "I found men shivering, with nought to warm them, and I gave my fire, that they might live, and not die."
And he in white answered again, "It is well; this fire too shall never die." ”

“ When they come to the fire, they stir it to animate its activity, and take a little of the ashes, with which they rub their foreheads; and when the gods have been carried three times round it they walk over a hot fire, about forty feet. ”

“ There wasn't any more oil and I wasn't going out to search for any at this time of night. The very thought of feeling about among the unseen trees out there again made me shudder. I found a stub of candle and lit it, but it wasn't going to last long.
So I built a huge fire. On that sultry summer night I had a blaze going that near melted me. But I didn't mind feeling warm so long as I could feel more secure. And bright firelight was a sight better than absolute darkness. ”

“ And living fire leaps up to greet
The song of Wohelo."
As they chanted the words the girls acted out with gestures the dancing ghosts, the brooding forest, the rubbing sticks and the leaping fire. So they proceeded through the strange measures, ending up in a close circle around the fire, all making the hand sign of fire together. ”

“ The bold little firemen inside the enclosure trying to scare away the god of fire by bright clothing, and literally sitting on the flames in their light-coloured coats, form a scene never to be forgotten. They seem to bear charmed lives as they dash among the flames, putting the fire out with their hands, and in a very short time too. ”