Fire, the First Enshrined Divinity
…Fire, then, may well have been the first enshrined divinity of prehistoric man. Fire has the property of not being diminished when halved, but increased. Fire is luminous, like the sun and lightning, the only such thing on earth. Also, it is alive; in the warmth of the human body it is life itself, which departs when the body goes cold. It is prodigious in volcanoes, and, as we know from the lore of many primitive traditions, it has been frequently identified with a demoness of volcanoes, who presides over an afterworld where the dead enjoy an everlasting dance in marvelously dancing volcanic fires.
— Joseph Campbell, Myths To Live By, p. 36
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