(M242) The need-fire is still in use in some parts of Switzerland, but it seems to have degenerated into a children's game and to be employed rather for the dispersal of a mist than for the prevention or cure of cattle-plague. In some cantons it goes by the name of "mist-healing," while in others it is called "butter-churning." On a misty or rainy day a number of children will shut themselves up in a stable or byre and proceed to make fire for the purpose of improving the weather. The way in which they make it is this. A boy places a board against his breast, takes a peg pointed at both ends, and, setting one end of the peg against the board on his breast, presses the other end firmly against a second board, the surface of which has been flaked into a nap. A string is tied round the peg, and two other boys pull it to and fro, till through the rapid motion of the point of the peg a hole is burnt in the flaked board, to which tow or dry moss is then applied as a tinder. In this way fire and smoke 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 Vallée 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)
(M243) 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)