Lighting a Candle, 1600s Style – OR – How to light a candle without a match

I’m writing a short story set in the early 1600s.  At one point, my main character goes upstairs to the bedroom.  She needs a candle to light the way.  I’ve seen plenty of movies and read lots of stories where people use candlelight to climb stairs.  No worries, right?  

Wrong.  

That’s where I got stuck — how did people light a candle before there were matches?

Of course, you have to have a fire first (or start one).  During that period of time, the fireplace usually never went cold, and you transferred a flame to your candle wick with a device called a spill.  A spill is usually a thin strip of paper twisted in a spiral.  Thankfully, I can write a fireplace into the scene quite easily.  But in the 1600s, paper would not have been used.  Spills at that time were made of thin strips of wood or straw.  For convenience, spills were placed in vases and placed on the mantle.  Since I couldn’t use a paper spill for my story, I decided to go with a straw spill.  Then I changed it to wood after I made the homeowners a bit more affluent.  

Now my story shows a soft fire in the fireplace.  Right on top of the mantle sits a Majolica vase filled with spills, just waiting to be lit.  Now my character can go to bed!