Reddit reviews Fire

"The simpler peoples have no doubts; the fire, for them, is living. It understands speech – so say no ill in its presence; it grows old and feeble, no matter how well fed, and must once a year be re-kindled; the fire-sticks are man and woman, and the spark is born between them; the reaching flames carry the seed of life, and a virgin lies close at her peril.

The old words linger, and make us half believe. We feed and tend a fire, as if it were horse or child. It eats, devours, runs, spits, and roars. It lies as a sleeper, springs to life, and dies. Its dwelling-place, the hearth, stands for man’s dwelling-place, the home. And ashen pale is the color of coming death.

Quench once meant, both to put out a blaze, and to kill a man; kindle, to light a fire and to give birth to young. And even yet, as spelling shows, our kin and our own kind are those kindled from the same ancestral fire."