We must assume, then, that the pagan fires were produced by the friction of dry wood, and possibly in connection with an ever-burning fire. In either case the priests officiating at the various circles must have had a place handy where the wood was kept dry or the fire kept burning, and on this ground alone we may again inquire whether such structures as Maeshowe at the Stenness circle, the Fougou at that of the Merry Maidens, and indeed chambered barrows and cairns generally, were not used for these purposes amongst others; whether indeed they were not primarily built for the living and not for the dead, and whether this will explain the finding of traces of fires and of hollowed stones in them, as well as some points in their structure. Mr. MacRitchie[36] has brought together several of these points, among them fireplaces and flues for carrying away smoke.
At both solstices it would appear that a special fire-rite was practised. This consisted of tying straw on a wheel and rolling it when lighted down a hill. There is much evidence for the wheel at the summer, but less at the winter, solstice; still, we learn from the old Runic _fasti_ that a wheel was used to denote the festival of Christmas. With regard to the summer solstice I quote the following from Hazlitt (under John, St.):--
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--The Carro, Florence. From Baring-Gould’s _Strange Survivals_.]
“Durandus, speaking of the rites of the Feast of St. John Baptist, informs us of this curious circumstance, that in some places they roll a wheel about to signify that the sun, then occupying the highest place in the Zodiac, is beginning to descend. ‘Rotam quoque hoc die in quibusdam locis volvunt, ad significandum quod Sol altissimum tunc locum in Cœlo occupet, et descendere incipiat in Zodiaco.’ Harl. MSS. 2345 (on vellum), Art. 100, is an account of the rites of St. John Baptist’s Eve, in which the wheel is also mentioned. In the amplified account of these ceremonies given by Naogeorgus, we read that this wheel was taken up to the top of a mountain and rolled down thence; and that, as it had previously been covered with straw, twisted about it and set on fire, it appeared at a distance as if the sun had been falling from the sky. And he further observes, that the people imagine that all their ill-luck rolls away from them together with this wheel. At Norwich, says a writer in _Current Notes_ for March, 1854, the rites of St. John the Baptist were anciently observed, ‘when it was the custom to turn or roll a wheel about, in signification of the sun’s annual course, or the sun, then occupying the highest place in the Zodiac, was about descending.’”