Another element of pagan sun-worship continues to the present time in the Easter fires, which abound especially in Northern Europe. Fire is regarded as a living thing, in Teutonic mythology. It is often spoken of as a bird, the “Red Cock.” _Notfuer_, “Need-fire,” is yet produced by friction, at certain times. Such fire is deemed sacred. On such occasions all fires in the neighborhood are extinguished, that they may be rekindled from the _Notfuer_. This fire is yet used to ward off evil, and to cure diseases in domestic animals. Traces of sex-worship appear in connection with the producing of this sacred fire; “two chaste boys” must pull the ropes which produce the friction necessary to generate the fire; and a “chaste youth” must strike the light for curing the disease known as “St. Anthony’s fire.” In Scotland such fire is held as a safeguard against the “bewitching of domestic animals.” GRIMM, who is the highest authority on the mythology of Northern Europe, has abundant material touching all forms of fire-worship in that region. Here is a single extract with reference to _Easter Fires_. “At all the cities, towns and villages of the country, towards evening on the first (or third) day of Easter, there is lighted every year, on mountain and hill, a great fire of straw turf and wood, amidst a concourse and jubilation, not only of the young, but of many grown up people. On the Weser, especially in Schaumburg, they tie up a tar barrel on a fir tree wrapt around with straw, and set it on fire at night. Men and maids, and all who come dance, exulting and singing, hats are waved, handkerchiefs thrown into the fire. The mountains all around are lighted up, and it is an elevating spectacle, scarcely paralleled by any thing else, to survey the country for many miles around from one of the higher points, and in every direction at once to see a vast number of these bonfires, brighter or fainter, blazing up to heaven. In some places they marched up the hill in stately procession, carrying white rods: by turns they sang Easter hymns, grasping each other’s hands, and at the Hallelujah, clashed their rods together. They liked to carry some of the fire home with them.