CHAPTER II.

HEAT.

Demons of Fire--Agni--Asmodeus--Prometheus--Feast of fire--Moloch
--Tophet--Genii of the lamp--Bel-fires--Hallowe'en--Negro
superstitions--Chinese fire-god--Volcanic and incendiary demons--
Mangaian fire-demon--Demons' fear of water.


Fire was of old the element of fiends. No doubt this was in part due to
the fact that it also was a devouring element. Sacrifices were burnt;
the demon visibly consumed them. But the great flame-demons represent
chiefly the destructive and painful action of intense heat. They
originate in regions of burning desert, of sunstroke, and drouth.

Agni, the Hindu god of fire, was adored in Vedic hymns as the twin
of Indra.

'Thy appearance is fair to behold, thou bright-faced Agni, when like
gold thou shinest at hand; thy brightness comes like the lightning
of heaven; thou showest splendour like the splendour of the bright sun.

'Adorable and excellent Agni, emit the moving and graceful smoke.

'The flames of Agni are luminous, powerful, fearful, and not to
be trusted.

'I extol the greatness of that showerer of rain, whom men celebrate
as the slayer of Vritra: the Agni, Vaiswanara, slew the stealer of
the waters.'

The slaying of Vritra, the monster, being the chief exploit of Indra,
Agni could only share in it as being the flame that darted with
Indra's weapon, the disc (of the sun).

'Thou (Agni) art laid hold off with difficulty, like the young of
tortuously twining snakes, thou who art a consumer of many forests
as a beast is of fodder.'

Petrifaction awaits all these glowing metaphors of early time. Verbal
inspiration will make Agni a literally tortuous serpent and consuming
fire. His smoke, called Kali (black), is now the name of Siva's
terrible bride.

Much is said in Vedic hymns of the method of producing the sacred
flame symbolising Agni; namely, the rubbing together of two sticks. 'He
it is whom the two sticks have engendered, like a new-born babe.' It
is a curious coincidence that a similar phrase should describe 'the
devil on two sticks,' who has come by way of Persia into European
romance. Asmodeus was a lame demon, and his 'two sticks' as 'Diable
Boiteux' are crutches; but his lameness may be referable to the
attenuated extremities suggested by spires of flame--'tortuously
twining snakes,'--rather than to the rabbinical myth that he broke
his leg on his way to meet Solomon. Benfey identified Asmodeus as
Zend Aêshma-daêva, demon of lust. His goat-feet and fire-coal eyes
are described by Le Sage, and the demon says he was lamed by falling
from the air, like Vulcan, when contending with Pillardoc. It is not
difficult to imagine how flame engendered by the rubbing of sticks
might have attained personification as sensual passion, especially
among Zoroastrians, who would detach from the adorable Fire all
associations of evil. It would harmonise well with the Persian
tendency to diabolise Indian gods, that they should note the lustful
character occasionally ascribed to Agni in the Vedas. 'Him alone,
the ever-youthful Agni, men groom like a horse in the evening and
at dawn; they bed him as a stranger in his couch; the light of Agni,
the worshipped male, is lighted.' Agni was the Indian 'Brulefer' or
love-charmer, and patron of marriage; the fire-god Hephaistos was the
husband of Aphrodite; the day of the Norse thunder-and-lightning god
Thor (Thursday), is in Scandinavian regions considered the luckiest
for marriages.

The process of obtaining fire by friction is represented by a nobler
class of myths than that referred to. In the Mahábhárata the gods
and demons together churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality;
and they use for their churning-stick the mountain Manthara. This word
appears in pramantha, which means a fire-drill, and from it comes the
great name of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven, and conferred
on mankind a boon which rendered them so powerful that the jealousy
and wrath of Zeus were excited. This fable is generally read in its
highly rationalised and mystical form, and on this account belongs to
another part of our general subject; but it may be remarked here that
the Titan so terribly tortured by Zeus could hardly have been regarded,
originally, as the friend of man. At the time when Zeus was a god
genuinely worshipped--when he first stood forth as the supplanter of
the malign devourer Saturn--it could have been no friend of man who
was seen chained on the rock for ever to be the vulture's prey. It
was fire in some destructive form which must have been then associated
with Prometheus, and not that power by which later myths represented
his animating with a divine spark the man of clay. The Hindu myth
of churning the ocean for the immortal draught, even if it be proved
that the ocean is heaven and the draught lightning, does not help us
much. The traditional association of Prometheus with the Arts might
almost lead one to imagine that the early use of fire by some primitive
inventor had brought upon him the wrath of his mates, and that Zeus'
thunderbolts represented some early 'strike' against machinery.

It is not quite certain that it may not have been through some
euphemistic process that Fire-worship arose in Persia. Not only does
fire occupy a prominent place in the tortures inflicted by Ahriman
in the primitive Parsee Inferno, but it was one of the weapons by
which he attempted to destroy the heavenly child Zoroaster. The evil
magicians kindled a fire in the desert and threw the child on it;
but his mother, Dogdo, found him sleeping tranquilly on the flames,
which were as a pleasant bath, and his face shining like Zohore and
Moschteri (Jupiter and Mercury). [31] The Zoroastrians also held
that the earth would ultimately be destroyed by fire; its metals and
minerals, ignited by a comet, would form streams which all souls would
have to pass through: they would be pleasant to the righteous, but
terrible to the sinful,--who, however, would come through, purified,
into paradise, the last to arrive being Ahriman himself.

The combustible nature of many minerals under the surface of the
earth,--which was all the realm of Hades (invisible),--would assist
the notion of a fiery abode for the infernal gods. Our phrase 'plutonic
rock' would then have a very prosaic sense. Pliny says that in his time
sulphur was used to keep off evil spirits, and it is not impossible
that it first came to be used as a medicine by this route. [32]

Fire-festivals still exist in India, where the ancient raiment of Agni
has been divided up and distributed among many deities. At the popular
annual festival in honour of Dharma Rajah, called the Feast of Fire,
the devotees walk barefoot over a glowing fire extending forty feet. It
lasts eighteen days, during which time those that make a vow to keep
it must fast, abstain from women, lie on the bare ground, and walk
on a brisk fire. The eighteenth day they assemble on the sound of
instruments, their heads crowned with flowers, their bodies daubed
with saffron, and follow the figures of Dharma Rajah and Draupadi
his wife in procession. 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. Some
carry their children in their arms, and others lances, sabres, and
standards. After the ceremony the people press to collect the ashes
to rub their foreheads with, and obtain from devotees the flowers
with which they were adorned, and which they carefully preserve. [33]

The passion of Agni reappears in Draupadi purified by fire for
her five husbands, and especially her union with Dharma Rajah,
son of Yama, is celebrated in this unorthodox passion-feast. It has
been so much the fashion for travellers to look upon all 'idolatry'
with biblical eyes, that we cannot feel certain with Sonnerat that
there was anything more significant in the carrying of children by
the devotees, than the supposition that what was good for the parent
was equally beneficial to the child. But the identification of Moloch
with an Aryan deity is not important; the Indian Feast of Fire and
the rites of Moloch are derived by a very simple mental process
from the most obvious aspects of the Sun as the quickening and the
consuming power in nature. The child offered to Moloch was offered
to the god by whom he was generated, and as the most precious of all
the fruits of the earth for which his genial aid was implored and his
destructive intensity deprecated. Moloch, a word that means 'king,'
was a name almost synonymous with human sacrifice. It was in all
probability at first only a local (Ammonite) personification growing
out of an ancient shrine of Baal. The Midianite Baal accompanied the
Israelites into the wilderness, and that worship was never thoroughly
eradicated. In the Egyptian Confession of Faith, which the initiated
took even into their graves inscribed upon a scroll, the name of
God is not mentioned, but is expressed only by the words Nuk pu Nuk,
'I am he who I am.' [34] The flames of the burning bush, from which
these same words came to Moses, were kindled from Baal, the Sun;
and we need not wonder that while the more enlightened chiefs of
Israel preserved the higher ideas and symbols of the countries they
abandoned, the ignorant would still cling to Apis (the Golden Calf),
to Ashtaroth, and to Moloch. Amos (v. 26), and after him Stephen the
martyr (Acts vii. 43), reproach the Hebrews with having carried into
the wilderness the tabernacle of their god Moloch. And though the
passing of children through the fire to Moloch was, by the Mosaic Law,
made a capital crime, the superstition and the corresponding practice
retained such strength that we find Solomon building a temple to Moloch
on the Mount of Olives (1 Kings xi. 7), and, long after, Manasseh
making his son pass through the fire in honour of the same god.

It is certain from the denunciations of the prophets [35] that the
destruction of children in these flames was actual. From Jeremiah
xix. 6, as well as other sources, we know that the burnings took
place in the Valley of Tophet or Hinnom (Gehenna). The idol Moloch
was of brass, and its throne of brass; its head was that of a calf,
and wore a royal crown; its stomach was a furnace, and when the
children were placed in its arms they were consumed by the fierce
heat,--their cries being drowned by the beating of drums; from which,
toph meaning a 'drum,' the place was also called Tophet. In the fierce
war waged against alien superstitions by Josiah, he defiled Gehenna,
filling it with ordure and dead men's bones to make it odious, 'that
no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire
to Moloch' (2 Kings xxiii. 10), and a perpetual fire was kept there
to consume the filth of Jerusalem.

From this horrible Gehenna, with its perpetual fire, its loathsome
worm, its cruelties, has been derived the picture of a never-ending
Hell prepared for the majority of human beings by One who, while they
live on earth, sends the rain and sunshine alike on the evil and the
good. Wo Chang, a Chinaman in London, has written to a journal [36]
his surprise that our religious teachers should be seized with such
concern for the victims of Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, while
they are so calm in view of the millions burning, and destined to
burn endlessly, in the flames of hell. Our Oriental brothers will
learn a great deal from our missionaries; among other things, that
the theological god of Christendom is still Moloch.

The Ammonites, of whom Moloch was the special demon, appear to have
gradually blended with the Arabians. These received from many sources
their mongrel superstitions, but among them were always prominent
the planet-gods and fire-gods, whom their growing monotheism (to use
the word still in a loose sense) transformed to powerful angels and
genii. The genii of Arabia are slaves of the lamp; they are evoked
by burning tufts of hair; they ascend as clouds of smoke. Though, as
subordinate agents of the Fire-fiend, they may be consumed by flames,
yet those who so fight them are apt to suffer a like fate, as in the
case of the Lady of Beauty in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Many
stories of this kind preceded the declarations of the Old Testament,
that Jehovah breathes fire and brimstone, his breath kindling Tophet;
and also the passages of the Koran, and of the New Testament describing
Satan as a fiery fiend.

Various superstitions connecting infernal powers with fire survive
among the Jews of some remote districts of Europe. The Passover
is kept a week by the Jewish inhabitants in the villages on the
Vosges mountains and on the banks of the Rhine. The time of omer is
the interval between the Passover and Pentecost, the seven weeks
elapsing from the departure from Egypt and the giving of the law,
marked in former days by the offering of an omer of barley daily at
the temple. It is considered a fearful time, during which every Jew is
particularly exposed to the evil influence of evil spirits. There is
something dangerous and fatal in the air; every one should be on the
watch, and not tempt the schedim (demons) in any way. Have a strict
eye upon your cattle, say the Jews, for the sorceress will get into
your stables, mount your cows and goats, bring diseases upon them,
and turn their milk sour. In the latter case, try to lay your hand
upon the suspected person; shut her up in a room with a basin of sour
milk, and beat the milk with a hazel-wand, pronouncing God's name
three times. Whilst you are doing this, the sorceress will make great
lamentation, for the blows are falling upon her. Only stop when you see
blue flames dancing on the surface of the milk, for then the charm is
broken. If at nightfall a beggar comes to ask for a little charcoal to
light his fire, be very careful not to give it, and do not let him go
without drawing him three times by his coat-tail; and without losing
time, throw some large handfuls of salt on the fire. In all of which
we may trace traditions of parched wildernesses and fiery serpents,
as well as of Abraham's long warfare with the Fire-worshippers, until,
according to the tradition, he was thrown into the flames he refused
to worship.

It is probable that in all the popular superstitions which now
connect devils and future punishments with fire are blended both the
apotheosis and the degradation of demons. The first and most universal
of deities being the Sun, whose earthly representative is fire, the
student of Comparative Mythology has to pick his way very carefully
in tracing by any ethnological path the innumerable superstitions of
European folklore in which Fire-worship is apparently reflected. The
collection of facts and records contained in a work so accessible to
all who care to pursue the subject as that of Brand and his editors,
[37] renders it unnecessary that I should go into the curious facts
to any great extent here. The uniformity of the traditions by which
the midsummer fires of Northern Europe have been called Baal-fires or
Bel-fires warrant the belief that they are actually descended from
the ancient rites of Baal, even apart from the notorious fact that
they have so generally been accompanied by the superstition that
it is a benefit to children to leap over or be passed through such
fires. That this practice still survives in out-of-the way places of
the British Empire appears from such communications as the following
(from the Times), which are occasionally addressed to the London
journals:--'Lerwick (Shetland), July 7, 1871.--Sir,--It may interest
some of your readers to know that last night (being St. John's Eve,
old style) I observed, within a mile or so of this town, seven bonfires
blazing, in accordance with the immemorial custom of celebrating the
Midsummer solstice. These fires were kindled on various heights around
the ancient hamlet of Sound, and the children leaped over them, and
'passed through the fire to Moloch,' just as their ancestors would
have done a thousand years ago on the same heights, and their still
remoter progenitors in Eastern lands many thousand years ago. This
persistent adherence to mystic rites in this scientific epoch seems
to me worth taking note of.--A. J.'

To this may be added the following recent extract from a Scotch
journal:--

'Hallowe'en was celebrated at Balmoral Castle with unusual ceremony,
in the presence of her Majesty, the Princess Beatrice, the ladies
and gentlemen of the royal household, and a large gathering of the
tenantry. The leading features of the celebration were a torchlight
procession, the lighting of large bonfires, and the burning in effigy
of witches and warlocks. Upwards of 150 torch-bearers assembled at
the castle as dark set in, and separated into two parties, one band
proceeding to Invergelder, and the other remaining at Balmoral. The
torches were lighted at a quarter before six o'clock, and shortly
after the Queen and Princess Beatrice drove to Invergelder, followed
by the Balmoral party of torchbearers. The two parties then united
and returned in procession to the front of Balmoral Castle, where
refreshments were served to all, and dancing was engaged in round a
huge bonfire. Suddenly there appeared from the rear of the Castle a
grotesque apparition representing a witch with a train of followers
dressed like sprites, who danced and gesticulated in all fashions. Then
followed a warlock of demoniac shape, who was succeeded by another
warlock drawing a car, on which was seated the figure of a witch,
surrounded by other figures in the garb of demons. The unearthly
visitors having marched several times round the burning pile,
the principal figure was taken from the car and tossed into the
flames amid the burning of blue lights and a display of crackers
and fireworks. The health of her Majesty the Queen was then pledged,
and drunk with Highland honours by the assembled hundreds. Dancing
was then resumed, and was carried on till a late hour at night.'

The Sixth Council of Constantinople (an. 680), by its sixty-fifth
canon, forbids these fires in the following terms:--'Those bonefires
that are kindled by certain people before their shops and houses,
over which also they use ridiculously to leap, by a certain ancient
custom, we command them from henceforth to cease. Whoever, therefore,
shall do any such thing, if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed;
if he be a layman, let him be excommunicated. For in the Fourth Book
of the Kings it is thus written: And Manasseh built an altar to all
the host of heaven, in the two courts of the Lord's house, and made
his children to pass through the fire.' There is a charming naïveté
in this denunciation. It is no longer doubtful that this 'bonefire'
over which people leaped came from the same source as that Gehenna
from which the Church derived the orthodox theory of hell, as we have
already seen. When Shakespeare speaks (Macbeth) of 'the primrose way
to the everlasting bonfire,' [38] he is, with his wonted felicity,
assigning the flames of hell and the fires of Moloch and Baal their
right archæological relation.

In my boyhood I have often leaped over a bonfire in a part of the
State of Virginia mainly settled by Scotch families, with whom
probably the custom migrated thither. In the superstitions of the
negroes of that and other Southern States fire plays a large part,
but it is hardly possible now to determine whether they have drifted
there from Africa or England. Sometimes there are queer coincidences
between their notions and some of the early legends of Britain. Thus,
the tradition of the shepherd guided by a distant fire to the entrance
of King Arthur's subterranean hall, where a flame fed by no fuel
coming through the floor reveals the slumbering monarch and his court,
resembles somewhat stories I have heard from negroes of their being led
by distant fires to lucky--others say unlucky--or at any rate enchanted
spots. A negro belonging to my father told me that once, as he was
walking on a country road, he saw a great fire in the distance; he
supposed it must be a house on fire, and hastened towards it, meantime
much puzzled, since he knew of no house in that direction. As he went
on his way he turned into a small wood near which the fire seemed to
be, but when he emerged, all he found was a single fire-coal burning
in the path. There were no other traces whatever of fire, but just
then a large dog leaped past him with a loud bark and disappeared.

In a letter on 'Voudouism in Virginia,' which appeared in the New
York Tribune, dated Richmond, September 17, 1875, occurs an account
of a class of superstitions generally kept close from the whites,
as I have always believed because of their purely African origin. As
will be seen, fire represents an important element in the superstitious
practices.

'If an ignorant negro is smitten with a disease which he cannot
comprehend, he often imagines himself the victim of witchcraft,
and having no faith in 'white folks' physic' for such ailments,
must apply to one of these quacks. A physician residing near this
city was invited by such a one to witness his mode of procedure
with a dropsical patient for whom the physician in question had
occasionally charitably prescribed. Curiosity led him to attend the
seance, having previously informed the quack that since the case was
in such hands he relinquished all connection with it. On the coverlet
of the bed on which the sick man lay was spread a quantity of bones,
feathers, and other trash. The charlatan went through with a series of
so-called conjurations, burned feathers, hair, and tiny fragments of
wood in a charcoal furnace, and mumbled gibberish past the physician's
comprehension. He then proceeded to rip open the pillows and bolsters,
and took from them some queer conglomerations of feathers. These he
said had caused all the trouble. Sprinkling a whitish powder over them,
he burnt them in his furnace. A black offensive smoke was produced,
and he announced triumphantly that the evil influence was destroyed
and that the patient would surely get well. He died not many days
later, believing, in common with all his friends and relatives, that
the conjurations of the 'trick doctor' had failed to save him only
because resorted to too late.'

The following account of a spell from which his wife was rescued,
was given me by a negro in Virginia:--

'The wizard,' to quote the exact words of my informant, 'threw a stick
on a chest; the stick bounded like a trapball three times; then he
opened the chest, took out something looking like dust or clay, and
put it into a cup with water over a fire; then he poured it over a
board (after chopping it three times), which he then put up beneath
the shingles of the house. Returning to the chest he took a piece of
old chain, near the length of my hand, took a hoe and buried the chain
near the sill of the door of my wife's house where she would pass;
then he went away. I saw my wife coming and called to her not to pass,
and to go for a hoe and dig up the place. She did this, and I took
up the chain, which burned the ends of all my fingers clean off. The
same night the conjuror came back: my wife took two half dollars and
a quarter in silver and threw them on the ground before him. The man
seemed as if he was shocked, and then offered her his hand, which
she refused to take, as I had bid her not to let him touch her. He
left and never came to the house again. The spell was broken.'

I am convinced that this is a pure Voudou procedure, and it is
interesting in several regards. The introduction of the chain may have
been the result of the excitement of the time, for it was during the
war when negroes were breaking their chains. The fire and water show
how wide-spread in Africa is that double ordeal which, as we have
seen, is well known in the kingdom of Dahomey. [39] But the mingling
of 'something like dust' with the water held in a cup over the fire,
is strongly suggestive of the Jewish method of preparing holy water,
'the water of separation.' 'For an unclean person they shall take of
the dust of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running
water shall be put thereto in a vessel.' [40] The fiery element
of the mixture was in this case imported with the ashes of the red
heifer. As for this sacrifice of the red heifer itself [41] it was
plainly the propitiation of a fiery demon. In Egypt red hair and red
animals of all kinds were considered infernal, and all the details
of this sacrifice show that the colour of this selected heifer was
typical. The heifer was not a usual sacrifice: a red one was obviously
by its colour marked for the genii of fire--the terrible Seven--and
not to be denied them. Its blood was sprinkled seven times before the
tabernacle, and the rest was utterly consumed--including the hide,
which is particularly mentioned--and the ashes taken to make the
'water of separation.' Calmet notes, in this connection, that the
Apis of India was red-coloured.

The following interesting story of the Chinese Fire-god was supplied
to Mr. Dennys [42] by Mr. Playfair of H.M. Consulate, to whom it was
related in Peking:--

'The temples of the God of Fire are numerous in Peking, as is natural
in a city built for the most part of very combustible materials. The
idols representing the god are, with one exception, decked with red
beards, typifying by their colour the element under his control. The
exceptional god has a white beard, and 'thereby hangs a tale.'

'A hundred years ago the Chinese imperial revenue was in much
better case than it is now. At that time they had not yet come into
collision with Western Powers, and the word 'indemnity' had not,
so far, found a place in their vocabulary; internal rebellions were
checked as soon as they broke out, and, in one word, Kien Lung was in
less embarrassed circumstances than Kwang Hsu; he had more money to
spend, and did lay out a good deal in the way of palaces. His favourite
building, and one on which no expense had been spared, was the 'Hall of
Contemplation.' This hall was of very large dimensions; the rafters and
the pillars which supported the roof were of a size such as no trees
in China furnish now-a-days. They were not improbably originally sent
as an offering by the tributary monarch of some tropical country, such
as Burmah or Siam. Two men could barely join hands round the pillars;
they were cased in lustrous jet-black lacquer, which, while adding to
the beauty of their appearance, was also supposed to make them less
liable to combustion. Indeed, every care was taken that no fire should
approach the building; no lighted lamp was allowed in the precincts,
and to have smoked a pipe inside those walls would have been punished
with death. The floor of the hall was of different-coloured marbles,
in a mosaic of flowers and mystic Chinese characters, always kept
polished like a mirror. The sides of the room were lined with rare
books and precious manuscripts. It was, in short, the finest palace
in the imperial city, and it was the pride of Kien Lung.

'Alas for the vanity of human wishes! In spite of every precaution,
one night a fire broke out, and the Hall of Contemplation was in
danger. The Chinese of a century ago were not without fire-engines,
and though miserably inefficient as compared with those of our London
fire brigade, they were better than nothing, and a hundred of them
were soon working round the burning building. The Emperor himself
came out to superintend their efforts and encourage them to renewed
exertions. But the hall was doomed; a more than earthly power was
directing the flames, and mortal efforts were of no avail. For on
one of the burning rafters Kien Lung saw the figure of a little old
man, with a long white beard, standing in a triumphant attitude. 'It
is the God of Fire,' said the Emperor, 'we can do nothing;' so the
building was allowed to blaze in peace. Next day Kien Lung appointed a
commission to go the round of the Peking temples in order to discover
in which of them there was a Fire-god with a white beard, that he
might worship him, and appease the offended deity. The search was
fruitless; all the Fire-gods had red beards. But the commission had
done its work badly; being highly respectable mandarins of genteel
families, they had confined their search to such temples as were
in good repair and of creditable exterior. Outside the north gate
of the imperial city was one old, dilapidated, disreputable shrine
which they had overlooked. It had been crumbling away for years, and
even the dread figure of the God of Fire, which sat above the altar,
had not escaped desecration. 'Time had thinned his flowing locks,'
and the beard had fallen away altogether. One day some water-carriers
who frequented the locality thought, either in charity or by way
of a joke, that the face would look the better for a new beard. So
they unravelled some cord, and with the frayed-out hemp adorned the
beardless chin. An official passing the temple one day peeped in out
of curiosity, and saw the hempen beard. 'Just the thing the Emperor
was inquiring about,' said he to himself, and he took the news to
the palace without delay. Next day there was a state visit to the
dilapidated temple, and Kien Lung made obeisance and vowed a vow.

'O Fire-god,' said he, 'thou hast been wroth with me in that I have
built me palaces, and left thy shrine unhonoured and in ruins. Here do
I vow to build thee a temple surpassed by none other of the Fire-gods
in Peking; but I shall expect thee in future not to meddle with
my palaces.'

'The Emperor was as good as his word. The new temple is on the site of
the old one, and the Fire-god has a flowing beard of fine white hair.'

In the San Francisco Bulletin, I recently read a description of the
celebration by the Chinese in that city of their Feast for the Dead,
in which there are some significant features. The chief attention
was paid, says the reporter, to a figure 'representing what answers
in their theology to our devil, and whom they evidently think it
necessary to propitiate before proceeding with their worship over
individual graves.' This figure is on the west side of their temple;
before and around it candles and joss-sticks were kept burning. On
the east side was the better-looking figure, to which they paid
comparatively little attention.

It was of course but natural that the demons of fire should
gradually be dispelled from that element in its normal aspects, as
its uses became more important through human invention, and its evil
possibilities were mastered. Such demons became gradually located in
the region of especially dangerous fires, as volcanoes and boiling
springs. The Titan whom the ancients believed struggling beneath
Ætna remained there as the Devil in the christian age. St. Agatha
is said to have prevented his vomiting fire for a century by her
prayers. St. Philip ascended the same mountain, and with book and
candle pronounced a prayer of exorcism, at which three devils came
out like fiery flying stones, crying, 'Woe is us! we are still hunted
by Peter through Philip the Elder!' The volcanoes originated the
belief that hell is at the earth's centre, and their busy Vulcans of
classic ages have been easily transformed into sulphurous lords of
the christian Hell. Such is the mediæval Haborym, demon of arson,
with his three heads--man, cat, and serpent--who rides through the
air mounted on a serpent, and bears in his hand a flaming torch. The
astrologers assigned him command of twenty-six legions of demons in
hell, and the superstitious often saw him laughing on the roofs of
burning houses. [43] But still more dignified is Raum, who commands
thirty legions, and who destroys villages; hence, also, concerned in
the destructions of war, he became the demon who awards dignities;
and although this made his usual form of apparition on the right bank
of the Rhine that of the Odinistic raven, on the left bank he may be
detected in the little red man who was reported as the familiar of
Napoleon I. during his career.

Among Mr. Gill's South Pacific myths is one of a Prometheus, Maui, who
by assistance of a red pigeon gets from the subterranean fire-demon
the secret of producing fire (by rubbing sticks), the demon (Mauike)
being then consumed with his realm, and fire being brought to the
upper world to remain the friend of man. In Vedic legend, when the
world was enveloped in darkness, the gods prayed to Agni, who suddenly
burst out as Tvashtri--pure fire, the Vedic Vulcan--to the dismay of
the universe. In Eddaic sagas, Loki was deemed the most voracious of
beings until defeated in an eating match with Logi (devouring fire).

Survivals of belief in the fiery nature of demons are very
numerous. Thus it is a very common belief that the Devil cannot touch
or cross water, and may therefore be escaped by leaping a stream. This
has sometimes been supposed to have something to do with the purifying
character of water; but there are many instances in Christian folklore
where the Devil is shown quite independent of even holy water if it
is not sprinkled on him or does not wet his feet. Thus in the Norfolk
legend concerning St. Godric, the Devil is said to have thrown the
vessel with its holy water at the saint's head out of anger at his
singing a canticle which the Virgin taught him. But when the Devil
attacked him in various ferocious animal shapes, St. Godric escaped
by running into the Wear, where he sometimes stood all night in water
up to his neck.

The Kobolds get the red jackets they are said to wear from their fiery
nature. Originally the lar familiaris of Germany, the Kobold became
of many varieties; but in one line he has been developed from the
house-spirit, whose good or evil temper was recognised in the comforts
or dangers of fire, to a special Stone-demon. The hell-dog in Faust's
room takes refuge from the spell of 'Solomon's Key' behind the stone,
and is there transformed to human shape. The German maidens read many
pretty oracles in the behaviour of the fire, and the like in that of
its fellow Wahrsager the house-dog. It is indeed a widespread notion
that imps and witches lurk about the fireside, obviously in cat and
dog, and ride through the air on implements that usually stand about
the fire,--shovel, tongs, or broom. In Paris it was formerly the
custom to throw twenty-four cats into the fire on St. John's night,
the animals being, according to M. De Plancy, emblems of the devil. So
was replaced the holocaust of human witches, until at last civilisation
rang out its curfew for all such fires as that.