Pyre

“ As he lay face down on the grass, seizing it with both hands, he longed for death, to be burned on a pyre of pine wood on a high hill, to have his ashes scattered wide and broadcast, to be thrown into the space he longed for while living, but he feared that such a luxury of resolution into the elements would be too costly. ”

“ I walk a long time; the open air is as close as a room, the sky is somber, and the long columns of stagnant smoke are stationary like the remains of some barbaric pyre. I leave the shorn rice-fields and the harvest-fields of slime ”

“ Now the end for the gods comes indeed.
"The Daughter of the God springs upon the horse and with one bound they leap into the middle of the flames. Yet, as soon as they are there, they are gone, nor can I see the hero there any more. The pyre all falls together; but in the middle of its hot, red embers I see something brighter than all the rest. It is the ring. The water of the river rises and rises till it flows over the fire and puts it out. Then on the surface, swimming and playing about as always, I see the river nymphs. They have found the ring, and their treasure is their own again. ”

“ My own eyes have seen of such human carcasses, sixty thrown together in one huge pile with sufficiency of wood and over thirty in a smaller one near, all roasting, frying and burning to ashes with a thick black smoke going up from the dreadful pyre ”

“ Work more and laugh less; the pyre is not yet high enough. What does it avail that you rose at early dawn in order to finish your daily tasks before your companions, if you now only frolic instead of hastening the work on the pyre? I am quite sure that more than one impatient look is being cast up here from the valley below, and that more than one voice is saying: 'What may they be up to on the hill that they do not yet give us the signal? ”

“ Then they adorned the funeral pyre with garlands of flowers, with golden vessels and rings, with finely wrought weapons and rich necklets and armlets; and when this was done they carried out the fair body of Balder the Beautiful, and bearing it reverently upon their shields they laid it upon the pyre. ”

“ From its youth it has fought the storm, and when the storm has tired it has still stood, tattered but glorious.
Every fall in one great flaming pyre as of a burning bush wherein there is Divinity, they have blazed and burned before our wondering eyes. ”

“ There were three pyres, low-smouldering, close by the river-bank, and men stirred with long poles among the ashes to make sure that the incineration started the evening before should be complete; there was one pyre that looked as though it had been lit long after dawn—another newly lit—and there were two pyres building.
It was those two new ones that held her attention, and finally decided her to hold her course. She wanted to make sure. The smell of burning—the unoutlined, only guessed-at ghastliness—would probably have killed her courage yet, before she came close enough to really see ”

“ A fire burning in an extemporised grate of iron bars and bricks near the ground, composed of dry wood, blazed merrily, throwing up spirals of flame and a light, pungent smoke. The purpose was obvious enough. At this grate were to be kindled the brands by means of which the pyre was to be lighted simultaneously in three places. ”

“ It is natural that the pyre should take the shape of an altar and that cypress branches should lean against the sides.
Upon the summit of this pile is laid Silius on his bier; incense and unguents are shed over him; wreaths and other offerings, often of no little value, are cast upon the heap. While loud cries of lamentation are being raised by the company present, a near kinsman approaches the pile with a torch, and, turning his face away, sets fire to the whole structure. ”

“ What is before you but everything that can console the mind and gratify the ambition. With your excellent daughter and the timber-yard hard by, you may calculate on a really handsome funeral pyre—plenty of olive wood and fragrant pine logs from the Cebennæ. ”

“ At this command the people dispersed to collect fuel for a funeral pyre. They brought logs and branches of dry tawa timber from the surrounding bush and from the firewood piles in the rear of the wharés, and a huge pile of wood was built in the centre of the marae. Even the little naked children came running up with their little hands full of sticks to cast upon the heap. ”

“ Interspersed throughout the mass of ashes filling the basin were many small pieces of bone and teeth converted into animal charcoal, and bits of flint, perhaps weapons, shivered and broken by the fierce heat of the pyre. I also observed many minute scales of burnt mica and shell, but found no part of any pipe or other object carved in stone, or of pottery. ”

“ There are funeral pyres of wood where the relatives are carrying out the last offices for the dead. Some prowling pariah dogs, of the lean yellow breed, and a few impertinent crows are hovering about, hoping that some scraps may fall to their share. The dead bodies are rolled up in white and red cloth and lie with their feet in the blessed water awaiting their burning.
Men are bringing logs of wood to pile upon the pyres, others are poking about in the ashes of the last burned to see if maybe an anklet or ear-ring has fallen off and may be scavenged. ”

“ The Greeks obey; where yet the embers glow,
Wide o’er the pile the sable wine they throw,
And deep subsides the ashy heap below.
Next the white bones his sad companions place,
With tears collected, in the golden vase.
The sacred relics to the tent they bore;
The urn a veil of linen covered o’er.
That done, they bid the sepulchre aspire,
And cast the deep foundations round the pyre;
High in the midst they heap the swelling bed
Of rising earth, memorial of the dead.
The swarming populace the chief detains,
And leads amidst a wide extent of plains ”

“ The body is placed upon the pyre, which generally in the case of the poor people who come here is insufficiently large, a scanty supply of gums and fragrant oils is provided, the nearest male relative applies the torch himself—and then there remains nothing but to sit for hours and watch the dread process, and at the conclusion if the burning is complete to collect264 the ashes and scatter them on the water, and if not to throw the charred remains themselves into the sacred river. ”

“ NE summer night a great army of pine trees settled down in a quiet valley to rest. They were a tall, dark, grave-looking company.
They held their heads high in the air, for they were the only trees in the world who knew the wonderful secret of fire.
High above this valley, on the hillside, lived a little company of oaks.
They were young, brave, and strong-hearted.
When they saw the great band of pines marching into the valley, the tallest one said:
“Let us make them divide the gift of fire with us.”
“No,” said the oldest, wisest oak, “we must not risk, foolishly, the lives of our acorns. ”

“ The continued rushing sound of the fire, and the sighing of the hot wind, sounds monotonously on the ear, or interrupted only by an occasional crash, as from time to time some mighty tree succumbs to its fate, and the forest trembles at the fall of its verdant patriarchs. ”

“ Stretched beneath tall, sombre pines; a great camp fire, and by the fire, men, old, wrinkled, and ugly; deformed, blear eyed, wry faced women; lithe, stately young men; pretty but simpering maidens, naked children, all intently listening, or laughing and talking at times, their strange faces and dusky forms lit up with the glare of the pine-knot fire. ”

“ The voices of birds and insects being hushed, nothing is audible but the harsh roar of the rivers, and occasionally, rising far above it, that of the forest fires. At night we were literally surrounded by them; some smouldering, like the shale-heaps at a colliery, others fitfully bursting forth, whilst others again stalked along with a steadily increasing and enlarging flame, shooting out great tongues of fire, which spared nothing as they advanced with irresistible might. ”

“ Dead resinous branches of pine are licked up by the tongues of flame, and in an hour’s time the whole forest will be blazing, and a mark has been daubed across the country which will endure a hundred years. ”

“ They make a smokeless fire that gives off a fine aroma and much heat. In its ruddy glow is home, its flickering flames weaving an ever-changing tapestry on the gathering dusk, the black pines standing like beneficient genii watching over the altar flame in the snow.
Many a woodland thing will stand at gaze just beyond the circle of this campfire whose flare may shine back from the eyes of a wandering deer. More likely it will shine from the eyes of the only night bird of the winter woods, an owl. ”

“ But they were not to be beaten by so little: collecting a quantity of dry wood they piled it beneath the pine and set fire to it. In less time than it takes to tell the pine began to burn and to flame like a candle blown by the wind. ”

“ Walking on in the dark, we saw the distant flickering forest fires crawling here and there like incandescent snakes along or up the mountain-side: these are caused by the igniting of the grass, shrubs, and undergrowth by the natives, the flames not unfrequently spreading and playing havoc among the finest trees of the forest. ”

“ A red fire glowing in a cave mouth, and a wind-bent tree close beside, and by the fire a man straining into the night at some unseen danger; a cave man, clad in skins, broad-shouldered long-armed, ferocious, brutal—but unafraid. ”

“ The pines, whose presence in the woods is always a benediction, stand ready with the best fire kindling in the world. Their twigs light at the flare of a match. The larger limbs will fire from these and send flames leaping high. ”

“ The leeward woods are thick with a blinding, stifling smoke, through which all the wild creatures of the forest flee in terror, whither they know not—by chance to safety, by equal chance perhaps to a terrible death in the surging deluge of fire. ”

“ Wrapping up the fire-stick in a bundle of dry grass and leaves, he reascends the tree, and, when he has reached the entrance of the burrow, he whirls the bundle round his head until the fire spreads through the mass, and the grass bursts into flame. ”

“ It had been weeks since rain had fallen upon the forest and the underbrush was like tinder. Great trees became in an instant towers of flame as the fire roared onward like a living thing. The animals, their fur singed by sparks and their eyes red and smarting with smoke, sought the water holes, the strong shouldering the weak aside to get the best places, great fierce animals, once the terror of the forest, whimpering like frightened cubs.
For days the air about the cabin of the Hermit had been hazy and had carried the faint scent of smoke, which grew ever thicker. ”

“ After the fire has consumed all the dry grass on the plain, and, from it, done the same up to the top of the highest mountain, the large ravines, or gullies, made by the torrents falling from the higher ground, being shaded by their depth, and their being in possession of the last water that runs, are the latest to take fire, though full of every sort of herbage. The large bamboos, hollow canes, and such like plants, growing as thick as they can stand, retain their greenness, and are not dried enough for burning till the fire has cleared the grass from all the rest of the country. ”

“ Through some deep-cut oriel of the trees have I watched the sun begin to sink, each moment burning brighter, and then suddenly its great brand of fire would fall, reddening each tree trunk, and crimson billows of clouds come rolling eastward. ”

“ The wood and foliage of coniferous trees like spruce, fir, and pine are so full of turpentine and resin that they burn like tinder. The heat is almost beyond the power of words to express. The fire does not seem to burn in a steady manner, the flames just breathe upon an immense tree and it becomes a blackened skeleton which will burn for hours. ”

“ Rarely does a forest fire make so [Pg 146] clean a sweep; generally it burns away the smaller limbs and the foliage, leaving the tree standing all blackened and bristling. This fire, like thousands of others, consumed the litter carpet on the forest floor and the mossy covering of the rocks; it ate the underbrush, devoured the foliage, charred and burned the limbs, and blackened the trunks. Behind was a dead forest in a desolate field, a territory with millions of bristling, mutilated trees, a forest ruin impressively picturesque and pathetic. ”

“ A sheet of flame, beginning with the size of a spark, would overspread the hillside, advancing on the wings of the wind with the roaring, rushing sound of many hosts, where the grass was thick, shooting huge forked tongues high into the air, and tall trees, the patriarchs of the forest, yielded their lives to the blast. ”

“ The action of a fire in a lodge-pole forest is varied. If the forest be an old one, even with much rubbish 192 on the ground the heat is not so intense as in a young growth. Where trees are scattered the flames crawl from tree to tree, the needles of which ignite like flash-powder and make beautiful rose-purple flames. ”

“ Here, in the woods, was protection from the wind, but the branches aloft were moving and tossing from the fury of the gale above. The usual murmuring of the pines had become a roar. Great drops of rain, shaken from this surging vault, fell in fitful but copious showers. This constant roar,–not unlike the ocean in a gale,–the sombre light, the helpless and perhaps dying man before her, the chill and mortal dampness of all and everything around, for an instant congealed her courage and took away her strength. ”

“ The forest is fired in several places every summer, with a view to keeping down the scrub, and giving a chance of growth to the grass and the larger forest trees. These burn for several consecutive days, and at night the glare from them, lighting up the adjacent horizon, and the wind at one time whirling along vast clouds of smoke, and again throwing up sheets of flame and myriads of burning particles, produce an effect as grand as can be imagined. Here, then, in the glade, we paused, disposed ourselves in an extended line, slipped four dogs, and gave the word, "go seek." ”