In the county of Caithness, forming the extreme northeast corner of the mainland of Scotland, the practice of the need-fire survived down at least to about 1788.  We read that “in those days, when the stock of any considerable farmer was seized with the murrain, he would send for one of the charm-doctors to superintend the raising of a need-fire.  It was done by friction, thus; upon any small island, where the stream of a river or burn ran on each side, a circular booth was erected, of stone and turf, as it could be had, in which a semicircular or highland couple of birch, or other hard wood, was set; and, in short, a roof closed on it.  A straight pole was set up in the centre of this building, the upper end fixed by a wooden pin to the top of the couple, and the lower end in an oblong trink in the earth or floor; and lastly, another pole was set across horizontally, having both ends tapered, one end of which was supported in a hole in the side of the perpendicular pole, and the other in a similar hole in the couple leg.  The horizontal stick was called the auger, having four short arms or levers fixed in its centre, to work it by; the building having been thus finished, as many men as could be collected in the vicinity, (being divested of all kinds of metal in their clothes, etc.), would set to work with the said auger, two after two, constantly turning it round by the arms or levers, and others occasionally driving wedges of wood or stone behind the lower end of the upright pole, so as to press it the more on the end of the auger:  by this constant friction and pressure, the ends of the auger would take fire, from which a fire would be instantly kindled, and thus the needfire would be accomplished.  The fire in the farmer’s house, etc., was immediately quenched with water, a fire kindled from this needfire, both in the farm-houses and offices, and the cattle brought to feel the smoke of this new and sacred fire, which preserved them from the murrain."[730]

[The need-fire in Caithness.]

The last recorded case of the need-fire in Caithness happened in 1809 or 1810.  At Houstry, Dunbeath, a crofter named David Gunn had made for himself a kail-yard and in doing so had wilfully encroached on one of those prehistoric ruins called brochs, which the people of the neighbourhood believed to be a fairy habitation.  Soon afterwards a murrain broke out among the cattle of the district and carried off many beasts.  So the wise men put their heads together and resolved to light a teine-eigin or need-fire as the best way of stopping the plague.  They cut a branch from a tree in a neighbouring wood, stripped it of bark, and carried it to a small island in the Houstry Burn.  Every fire in the district having been quenched, new fire was made by the friction of wood in the island, and from this sacred flame all the hearths of the houses were lit afresh.  One of the sticks used in making the fire was preserved down to about the end of the nineteenth century; apparently the mode of operation was the one known as the fire-drill:  a pointed stick was twirled in a hole made in another stick till fire was elicited by the friction.[731]