ABSTRACT
The universal phenomenon of fire is well documented. Bronowski, in his scientific and literary tour de force, The Ascent of Man, states that ‘Fire has been known to early man for about four hundred thousand years, we think. That implies that fire had already been discovered by Homo erectus.’1 Fire is a powerful symbol, as is evident from a consideration of mythology. For example, in ancient Egyptian myth, the Phoenix was said to live for hundreds of years, burn itself to death and then rise again from the ashes of its funeral pyre – an association between fire and life eternal that is echoed in the perpetual flames that burn at national war memorials to those fallen in battle. This legend of birth, death and rebirth appears to have a universal fascination for it demonstrates parallels with the myths surrounding the re-creation of life as exemplified in the form of Frankenstein’s Monster. It also appears in the ubiquitous life and death myth of the vampire, the subject of numerous novels, films and plays.2 In Greek mythology, as we shall see, Prometheus, having stolen fire from the Gods, was condemned to the everlasting torment of having his liver torn out by vultures. In less mythical and more practical fashion it is interesting to note here that the Greeks also used fire for the destruction of the bodies of those who had taken their own lives. (They also cut off the hand by which the
suicides had killed themselves and buried it separately.) Roman culture also had a ‘goddess of the domestic hearth named Vesta, who, in due course, was worshipped in a temple tended by virgin priestesses’.3
