e are elicited, and with their appearance the
children fancy that the mist will vanish.[707] We may conjecture that
this method of dispersing a mist, which is now left to children, was
formerly practised in all seriousness by grown men in Switzerland. It is
thus that religious or magical rites dwindle away into the sports of
children. In the canton of the Grisons there is still in common use an
imprecation, "Mist, go away, or I'll heal you," which points to an old
custom of burning up the fog with fire. A longer form of the curse
lingers in the Vallee des Bagnes of the canton Valais. It runs thus:
"Mist, mist, fly, fly, or St. Martin will come with a sheaf of straw to
burn your guts, a great log of wood to smash your brow, and an iron
chain to drag you to hell."[708]

[The mode of kindling the need-fire in Sweden and Norway; the need-fire
as a protection against witchcraft.]

In Sweden the need-fire is called, from the mode of its production,
either _vrid-eld_, "turned fire," or _gnid-eld_, "rubbed fire." Down to
near the end of the eighteenth century the need-fire was kindled, as in
Germany, by the violent rubbing of two pieces of wood against each
other; sometimes nine different kinds of wood were used for the purpose.
The smoke of the fire was deemed salutary; fruit-trees and nets were
fumigated with it, in order that the trees might bear fruit and the nets
catch fish. Cattle were also driven through the smoke.[709] In Sundal, a
narrow Norwegian valley, shut in on both sides by precipitous mountains,
there lived down to the second half of the nineteenth century an old man
who was very superstitious. He set salmon-traps in the river Driva,
which traverses the valley, and he caught many fish both in spring and
autumn. When his fishing went wrong, he kindled _naueld_ ("need-fire")
or _gnideild_ ("rubbed fire," "friction fire") to counteract the
witchcraft, which he believed to be the cause of his bad luck. He set up
two planks near each other, bored a hole in each, inserted a pointed rod
in the holes, and twisted a long cord round the rod. Then he pulled the
cord so as to make the rod revolve rapidly. Thus by reason of the
friction he at last drew fire from the wood. That contented him, for "he
believed that the witchery was thus rendered powerless, and that good
luck in his fishing was now ensured."[710]

[The need-fire among the Slavonic peoples.]

Slavonic peoples hold the need-fire in high esteem. They call it "l