Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/91

Rh fertility, or of the tree which is the more primitive form of the rite.

One of the agencies which help to secure the promotion of fertility is fire. It is both a purifier and an agency for the dispersal of mana. Among races which, like the Hindus, practise cremation of the dead, it slays the foul Pisāchas, the impersonation of bodily corruption, and releases the purified soul to join the Pitri, or sainted dead. It conveys the sweet savour, the mana of the sacrifice, with that of the firstfruits which are cast into it, and spreads their refreshing influence far and wide. Here the functions of the removal of the influences which check fertility and the invigoration of fertility itself meet and combine: the mana dispersed by the flames performs both objects. Hence it is hardly necessary, as Mr. Hartland does, in order to account for the practice of passing men or animals through the fire, to accept the theory of Mannhardt or Dr. Frazer that we have here a magical method of securing a due supply of sunshine, the sun being a well-known source of fertility, particularly as Dr. Frazer himself, in his last treatment of this subject, has abandoned this view. At the same time, some of us may still be inclined to accept the belief that, as in the case of the Celtic Samhain, men thought it necessary to assist the powers of growth which were in danger and eclipse in the winter, by the agency of fire.