human
gpt
The elder fire-gods, Agni and Rudra, he says,
human
and he regards Prometheus as the Greek form of this word. He calls attention to the fact that Diodorus says of the celebrated Titan, that
gpt
The discoverer of the chark, or
human
an instrument for obtaining fire by artificial means, would be so great a benefactor to a people that had to suffer all the inconveniences resulting from occasional fireless hearths, that we may well understand why he should be invested by his astonished and delighted fellow-savages with miraculous or supernatural powers.[11] Doubtless the production of fire by the rubbing together of two pieces of dry timber preceded this discovery, but, under many circumstances, the operation must have been a most laborious one, and ofttimes impracticable. But with the
gpt
the result was nearly as certain as when flint, steel, and tinder were employed for this purpose. It was a very simple instrument indeed, but it has nevertheless exercised a marvellous influence on the destinies of mankind. It consisted merely of a piece of soft dry wood with a hole drilled in its centre, into which a rod of hard wood, ash, or oak, was placed, and caused to revolve with rapidity by a cord, passed round it, being pulled and slackened at each end alternately. A wheel and its axle have hence become types of the sun and the thunderbolt. Fire produced in this original way was considered sacred. Even the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Kelts, and some Christian populations until recent times, adopted the same or a similar process in the lighting of fires connected with religious ceremonies. Mr. Kelly says
human
The Vedic chark was made from the wood of two sacred trees;
gpt
Kelly adds:--
human
The idea of marriage, suggested by such a union of the two trees, is also developed in the Veda with great amplitude and minuteness of detail, and is a very prominent element in the whole cycle of myths connected with the chark. Doubtless, we have here exposed the root of the entire system of phallic worship, stripped of much, if not all, of the grossness afterwards attendant upon it. It appears that amongst the Peruvians, who were sun-worshippers, the great national festival was held at the summer solstice. They collected the rays of that luminary in a concave mirror, by which means they rekindled their fires. Sometimes, indeed, they obtained their
gpt
by friction of wood. Amongst the Mexicans likewise grand religious celebrations took place at the close of the fifty-second year, when the extinguished fires were rekindled
human
This is a very general practice amongst savage tribes at the present day. Mr. Angus says some of the western tribes of Australia
gpt
Should that of one tribe unfortunately become extinguished, there was nothing for it but journeying to a neighbouring encampment and borrowing a light. The Tasmanians are in the same predicament. The Fegeeans obtain fire by friction. So do other South Sea Islanders, as well as many of the North American Indians. The Dacotahs and Iroquois use an instrument not unlike the drilling bow at present employed for a certain class of work in Europe. According to Father Gabian, fire was utterly unknown to the natives of the Ladrone Islands
human
from a superstitious reverence of its sacred character, is yet very common in various parts of Germany, Scotland, and Ireland, and even in England. Mr. Kemble quotes, from the Lanercost Chronicle, of the year 1268, a denunciation by the pious writer, of a practice which
gpt
had taught the ignorant peasantry. This practice consisted in the extraction of fire from wood by friction, and the setting up of what he styles a
human
with a view to protect their cattle from disease. This image of Priapus is supposed to refer to the sun-god Fro or Fricco, who, according to Wolf, was worshipped until a very recent period in Belgium, under the form of Priapus. Priapus, the god of gardens or fertility, was the son of Bacchus and Venus. In the more mountainous portions of Wales a remnant of evidently heathen image-worship, of a somewhat similar character, survived till relatively modern times. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, an idol, or what old Fuller calls
gpt
was removed from the diocese of St. Asaph, and publicly burnt in Smithfield. This image was known by the name of
human
Darvell Gatheron;
gpt
of tradition, as Dasent expresses it. He says:--
human
In consequence of a disease amongst the black cattle, the people agreed to perform an incantation, though they esteemed it a wicked thing. They carried to the top of Carnmoor a wheel and nine spindles, long enough to produce fire by friction. If the fire were not produced before noon, the incantation lost its effect. They failed for several days running. They attributed this failure to the obstinacy of one householder, who would not let his fires be put out for what he considered so wrong a purpose. However, by bribing his servants, they contrived to have them extinguished, and on that morning raised their fire. They then sacrificed a heifer, cutting in pieces and burning, while yet alive, the diseased part. They then lighted their own hearths from the pile, and ended by feasting on the remains. Words of incantation were repeated by an old man from Morven, who came as the master of the ceremonies, and who continued speaking all the time the fire was being raised. This man was living a beggar at Bellochroy. Asked to repeat the spell, he said the sin of repeating it once had brought him to beggary, and that he dared not say those words again. Many other instances might be cited in Scotland and Ireland: but the one most to the present purpose is related by Mr. T. T. Wilkinson, in which a Lancashire man