Note (return) — Chapter IV

In England the earliest notice of the need-fire seems to be contained in the Chronicle of Lanercost for the year 1268. The annalist tells with pious horror how, when an epidemic was raging in that year among the cattle, "certain beastly men, monks in garb but not in mind, taught the idiots of their country to make fire by the friction of wood and to set up an image of Priapus, whereby they thought to succour the animals."720 The use of the need-fire is particularly attested for the counties of Yorkshire and Northumberland. Thus in Yorkshire down to the middle of the eighteenth century "the favourite remedy of the country people, not only in the way of cure, but of prevention, was an odd one; it was to smoke the cattle almost to suffocation, by kindling straw, litter, and other combustible matter about them. The effects of this mode of cure are not stated, but the most singular part of it was that by which it was reported to have been discovered. An angel (says the legend), descended into Yorkshire, and there set a large tree on fire; the strange appearance of which or else the savour of the smoke, incited the cattle around (some of which were infected) to draw near the miracle, when they all either received an immediate cure or an absolute prevention of the disorder. It is not affirmed that the angel staid to speak to anybody, but only that he left a written direction for the neighbouring people to catch this supernatural fire, and to communicate it from one to another with all possible speed throughout the country; and in case it should be extinguished and utterly lost, that then new fire, of equal virtue, might be obtained, not by any common method, but by rubbing two pieces of wood together till they ignited. Upon what foundation this story stood, is not exactly known, but it put the farmers actually into a hurry of communicating flame and smoke from one house to another with wonderful speed, making it run like wildfire over the country."721 Again, we read that "the father of the writer, who died in 1843, in his seventy-ninth year, had a perfect remembrance of a great number of persons, belonging to the upper and middle classes of his native parish of Bowes, assembling on the banks of the river Greta to work for need-fire. A disease among cattle, called the murrain, then prevailed to a very great extent through that district of Yorkshire. The cattle were made to pass through the smoke raised by this miraculous fire, and their cure was looked upon as certain, and to neglect doing so was looked upon as wicked. This fire was produced by the violent and continued friction of two dry pieces of wood until such time as it was thereby obtained. 'To work as though one was working for need-fire' is a common proverb in the North of England."722 At Ingleton, a small town nestling picturesquely at the foot of the high hill of Ingleborough in western Yorkshire, "within the last thirty years or so it was a common practice to kindle the so-called 'Need-fire' by rubbing two pieces of wood briskly together, and setting ablaze a large heap of sticks and brushwood, which were dispersed, and cattle then driven through the smoking brands. This was thought to act as a charm against the spread or developement of the various ailments to which cattle are liable, and the farmers seem to have had great faith in it."723 Writing about the middle of the nineteenth century, Kemble tells us that the will-fire or need-fire had been used in Devonshire for the purpose of staying a murrain within the memory of man.724