ordeal by fire

Ceramics already symbolise the mystery of purification that we inherit from the ancients, and porcelain contains the most extreme form of this in that its ordeal is the most intense (although it has to be recongnised that there are other strands of 'ordeal by fire' ceramics which positively encourage not the 'purification' of the material, but the visual record of the effects of the process, for example in anagama firing).

GORDON STRACHAN will face his first ordeal by fire as Celtic's new manager a mere three weeks into the season.

A climactic scene occurs when Marnie is arrested as a witch and to escape certain death she agrees to a witch trial in which she undergoes an ordeal by fire. This is described in great detail, and Jordan explains at the end of the book that this trial is authentic: "the words and rituals recorded here were used in such ordeals."

As his textbook Ordeal by Fire (3d ed.; Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2001) indicates, it was the "first turning point" of the war, a battle whose political and diplomatic consequences far outweighed those around the Bloody Lane.

The game was rubbish but credit to an honourable man for surviving his ordeal by fire without getting his fingers burned.

The atmosphere inside the Stadium of Light was electric as the Geordies - backed by 2,000 fans in a crowd of 42,192 - showed they were ready for the ordeal by fire.

This was an ordeal by fire, of which he has given an account in his classic primer for law school students, One L.

Ruin came suddenly when one of his disciples accepted an ordeal by fire to prove Savonarola's holiness.

With the publication of Ordeal by Fire (1982) and Battle Cry of Freedom (1988), McPherson, a historian at Princeton University, established himself as America's most eminent and accessible chronicler of the Civil War.

The final chapter, after the agni parishka, the ritual ordeal by fire which actually is the instrument of her liberation, and after Wynn's death, serves as an epilogue: Dev leaves her, probably not to return; and alone, Anjali finds peace and the hope of a new beginning in the company of her Moslem friend Fatmah, "Fatmah-la-Balance."

For the most part, the book reads more like the breathless, feverish jottings of a college intern going through his ordeal by fire than the work of a professional journalist: "If we could somehow pull it off," the author muses, "it would be the journalistic equivalent of walking on the moon ...

But both Rama and the people fear that Sita has been defiled by her sojourn with the demon - king, and although she successfully undergoes an ordeal by fire, Rama sends her away.

'It appeared to be an ordeal by fire as the fire occurred even while it has been raining for some days," some analysts commented.

So Tranmere's defenders can't expect to be spared their ordeal by fire.

EVERY working day is an ordeal by fire for Sarah Haynes,a vegetable buyer with Tesco.