Tribes of the Malay Peninsula light fires near a mother at childbirth, to scare away the evil spirits.[1] Such notions extend to higher levels of civilization. In Southern India, where for fear of pervading spirits only pressing need will induce a man to go abroad after sundown, the unlucky wight who has to venture into the dark will carry a firebrand to keep off the spectral foes. Even in broad daylight, the Hindu lights lamps to keep off the demons,[2] a ceremony which is to be noticed again at a Chinese wedding.[3] In Europe, the details of the use of fire to drive off demons and witches are minute and explicit. The ancient Norse colonists in Iceland carried fire round the lands they intended to occupy, to expel the evil spirits. Such ideas have brought into existence a whole group of Scandinavian customs, still remembered in the country, but dying out in practice. Till a child is baptized, the fire must never be let out, lest the trolls should be able to steal the infant; a live coal must be cast after the mother as she goes to be churched, to prevent the trolls from carrying her off bodily or bewitching her; a live coal is to be thrown after a troll-wife or witch as she quits a house, and so forth.[4] Into modern times, the people of the Hebrides continued to protect the mother and child from evil spirits, by carrying fire round them.[5] In modern Bulgaria, on the Feast of St. Demetrius, lighted candles are placed in the stables and the wood-shed, to prevent evil spirits from entering into
- ↑ 'Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. i. pp. 270, 298; vol. ii. 'N. S.' p. 117.
- ↑ Roberts, 'Oriental Illustrations,' p. 531; Colebrook in 'As. Res.' vol. vii. p. 274.
- ↑ Doolittle, 'Chinese,' vol. i. p. 77.
- ↑ Hyltén-Cavallius, 'Wärend och Wirdarne,' vol. i. p. 191; Atkinson, 'Glossary of Cleveland Dial.' p. 597. [Prof. Liebrecht, in 'Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,' vol. v. 1873, p. 99, adds comparison of the still usual German custom of keeping a light burning in the lying-in room till the child is baptized (Wuttke, 2nd ed. No. 583), and the similar ancient Roman practice whence the goddess Candelifera had her name (note to 2nd. ed.).]
- ↑ Martin, 'Western Islands,' in Pinkerton, vol. iii. p. 612.
Müller, p. 273 (Caribs); Cranz, 'Grönland,' p. 301; Schoolcraft, 'Indian Tribes,' part iii. p. 140.
