Bonfires continued to be a key part of the festival in the modern era. All hearth fires and candles would be doused before the bonfire was lit, generally on a mountain or hill.[2][14] Ronald Hutton writes that "To increase the potency of the holy flames, in Britain at least they were often kindled by the most primitive of all means, of friction between wood."[5] In the 19th century, for example, John Ramsay described Scottish Highlanders kindling a need-fire or force-fire at Beltane. Such a fire was deemed sacred.[5] In the 19th century, the ritual of driving cattle between two fires—as described in Sanas Cormaic almost 1000 years before—was still practised across most of Ireland and in parts of Scotland.[5] Sometimes the cattle would be driven "around" a bonfire or be made to leap over flames or embers. The people themselves would do likewise.[5] In the Isle of Man, people ensured that the smoke blew over them and their cattle.[6] When the bonfire had died down, people would daub themselves with its ashes and sprinkle it over their crops and livestock.[5] Burning torches from the bonfire would be taken home, where they would be carried around the house or boundary of the farmstead[15] and would be used to re-light the hearth.[5] From these rituals, it is clear that the fire was seen as having protective powers.[5] Similar rituals were part of May Day, Midsummer or Easter customs in other parts of the British Isles and mainland Europe.[16] According to Frazer, the fire rituals are a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic. According to one theory, they were meant to mimic the Sun and to "ensure a needful supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants". According to another, they were meant to symbolically "burn up and destroy all harmful influences".[17]