Among the tribes of the Finnish-Ugrian stock in Europe the heathen

worship was performed for the most part in sacred groves, which were

always enclosed with a fence. Such a grove often consisted merely of

a glade or clearing with a few trees dotted about, upon which in

former times the skins of the sacrificial victims were hung. The

central point of the grove, at least among the tribes of the Volga,

was the sacred tree, beside which everything else sank into

insignificance. Before it the worshippers assembled and the priest

offered his prayers, at its roots the victim was sacrificed, and its

boughs sometimes served as a pulpit. No wood might be hewn and no

branch broken in the grove, and women were generally forbidden to

enter it.

But it is necessary to examine in some detail the notions on which

the worship of trees and plants is based. To the savage the world in

general is animate, and trees and plants are no exception to the

rule. He thinks that they have souls like his own, and he treats

them accordingly. "They say," writes the ancient vegetarian

Porphyry, "that primitive men led an unhappy life, for their

superstition did not stop at animals but extended even to plants.

For why should the slaughter of an ox or a sheep be a greater wrong

than the felling of a fir or an oak, seeing that a soul is implanted

in these trees also?" Similarly, the Hidatsa Indians of North

America believe that every natural object has its spirit, or to

speak more properly, its shade. To these shades some consideration

or respect is due, but not equally to all. For example, the shade of

the cottonwood, the greatest tree in the valley of the Upper

Missouri, is supposed to possess an intelligence which, if properly

approached, may help the Indians in certain undertakings; but the

shades of shrubs and grasses are of little account. When the

Missouri, swollen by a freshet in spring, carries away part of its

banks and sweeps some tall tree into its current, it is said that

the spirit of the tree cries, while the roots still cling to the

land and until the trunk falls with a splash into the stream.

Formerly the Indians considered it wrong to fell one of these

giants, and when large logs were needed they made use only of trees

which had fallen of themselves. Till lately some of the more

credulous old men declared that many of the misfortunes of their

people were caused by this modern disregard for the rights of the

living cottonwood. The Iroquois believed that each species of tree,

shrub, plant, and herb had its own spirit, and to these spirits it

was their custom to return thanks. The Wanika of Eastern Africa

fancy that every tree, and especially every coco-nut tree, has its

spirit; "the destruction of a cocoa-nut tree is regarded as

equivalent to matricide, because that tree gives them life and

nourishment, as a mother does her child." Siamese monks, believing

that there are souls everywhere, and that to destroy anything

whatever is forcibly to dispossess a soul, will not break a branch

of a tree, "as they will not break the arm of an innocent person."

These monks, of course, are Buddhists. But Buddhist animism is not a

philosophical theory. It is simply a common savage dogma

incorporated in the system of an historical religion. To suppose,

with Benfey and others, that the theories of animism and

transmigration current among rude peoples of Asia are derived from

Buddhism, is to reverse the facts.

Sometimes it is only particular sorts of trees that are supposed to

be tenanted by spirits. At Grbalj in Dalmatia it is said that among

great beeches, oaks, and other trees there are some that are endowed

with shades or souls, and whoever fells one of them must die on the

spot, or at least live an invalid for the rest of his days. If a

woodman fears that a tree which he has felled is one of this sort,

he must cut off the head of a live hen on the stump of the tree with

the very same axe with which he cut down the tree. This will protect

him from all harm, even if the tree be one of the animated kind. The

silk-cotton trees, which rear their enormous trunks to a stupendous

height, far out-topping all the other trees of the forest, are

regarded with reverence throughout West Africa, from the Senegal to

the Niger, and are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit.

Among the Ewespeaking peoples of the Slave Coast the indwelling god

of this giant of the forest goes by the name of Huntin. Trees in

which he specially dwells--for it is not every silk-cotton tree that

he thus honours--are surrounded by a girdle of palm-leaves; and

sacrifices of fowls, and occasionally of human beings, are fastened

to the trunk or laid against the foot of the tree. A tree

distinguished by a girdle of palm-leaves may not be cut down or

injured in any way; and even silk-cotton trees which are not

supposed to be animated by Huntin may not be felled unless the

woodman first offers a sacrifice of fowls and palm-oil to purge

himself of the proposed sacrilege. To omit the sacrifice is an

offence which may be punished with death. Among the Kangra mountains

of the Punjaub a girl used to be annually sacrificed to an old

cedar-tree, the families of the village taking it in turn to supply

the victim. The tree was cut down not very many years ago.

If trees are animate, they are necessarily sensitive and the cutting

of them down becomes a delicate surgical operation, which must be

performed with as tender a regard as possible for the feelings of

the sufferers, who otherwise may turn and rend the careless or

bungling operator. When an oak is being felled "it gives a kind of

shriekes or groanes, that may be heard a mile off, as if it were the

genius of the oake lamenting. E. Wyld, Esq., hath heard it severall

times." The Ojebways "very seldom cut down green or living trees,

from the idea that it puts them to pain, and some of their

medicine-men profess to have heard the wailing of the trees under

the axe." Trees that bleed and utter cries of pain or indignation

when they are hacked or burned occur very often in Chinese books,

even in Standard Histories. Old peasants in some parts of Austria

still believe that forest-trees are animate, and will not allow an

incision to be made in the bark without special cause; they have

heard from their fathers that the tree feels the cut not less than a

wounded man his hurt. In felling a tree they beg its pardon. It is

said that in the Upper Palatinate also old woodmen still secretly

ask a fine, sound tree to forgive them before they cut it down. So

in Jarkino the woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells. Before

the Ilocanes of Luzon cut down trees in the virgin forest or on the

mountains, they recite some verses to the following effect: "Be not

uneasy, my friend, though we fell what we have been ordered to

fell." This they do in order not to draw down on themselves the

hatred of the spirits who live in the trees, and who are apt to

avenge themselves by visiting with grievous sickness such as injure

them wantonly. The Basoga of Central Africa think that, when a tree

is cut down, the angry spirit which inhabits it may cause the death

of the chief and his family. To prevent this disaster they consult a

medicine-man before they fell a tree. If the man of skill gives

leave to proceed, the woodman first offers a fowl and a goat to the

tree; then as soon as he has given the first blow with the axe, he

applies his mouth to the cut and sucks some of the sap. In this way

he forms a brotherhood with the tree, just as two men become

blood-brothers by sucking each other's blood. After that he can cut

down his tree-brother with impunity.

But the spirits of vegetation are not always treated with deference

and respect. If fair words and kind treatment do not move them,

stronger measures are sometimes resorted to. The durian-tree of the

East Indies, whose smooth stem often shoots up to a height of eighty

or ninety feet without sending out a branch, bears a fruit of the

most delicious flavour and the most disgusting stench. The Malays

cultivate the tree for the sake of its fruit, and have been known to

resort to a peculiar ceremony for the purpose of stimulating its

fertility. Near Jugra in Selangor there is a small grove of

durian-trees, and on a specially chosen day the villagers used to

assemble in it. Thereupon one of the local sorcerers would take a

hatchet and deliver several shrewd blows on the trunk of the most

barren of the trees, saying, "Will you now bear fruit or not? If you

do not, I shall fell you." To this the tree replied through the

mouth of another man who had climbed a mangostin-tree hard by (the

durian-tree being unclimbable), "Yes, I will now bear fruit; I beg

of you not to fell me." So in Japan to make trees bear fruit two men

go into an orchard. One of them climbs up a tree and the other

stands at the foot with an axe. The man with the axe asks the tree

whether it will yield a good crop next year and threatens to cut it

down if it does not. To this the man among the branches replies on

behalf of the tree that it will bear abundantly. Odd as this mode of

horticulture may seem to us, it has its exact parallels in Europe.

On Christmas Eve many a South Slavonian and Bulgarian peasant swings

an axe threateningly against a barren fruit-tree, while another man

standing by intercedes for the menaced tree, saying, "Do not cut it

down; it will soon bear fruit." Thrice the axe is swung, and thrice

the impending blow is arrested at the entreaty of the intercessor.

After that the frightened tree will certainly bear fruit next year.

The conception of trees and plants as animated beings naturally

results in treating them as male and female, who can be married to

each other in a real, and not merely a figurative or poetical, sense

of the word. The notion is not purely fanciful, for plants like

animals have their sexes and reproduce their kind by the union of

the male and female elements. But whereas in all the higher animals

the organs of the two sexes are regularly separated between

different individuals, in most plants they exist together in every

individual of the species. This rule, however, is by no means

universal, and in many species the male plant is distinct from the

female. The distinction appears to have been observed by some

savages, for we are told that the Maoris "are acquainted with the

sex of trees, etc., and have distinct names for the male and female

of some trees." The ancients knew the difference between the male

and the female date-palm, and fertilised them artificially by

shaking the pollen of the male tree over the flowers of the female.

The fertilisation took place in spring. Among the heathen of Harran

the month during which the palms were fertilised bore the name of

the Date Month, and at this time they celebrated the marriage

festival of all the gods and goddesses. Different from this true and

fruitful marriage of the palm are the false and barren marriages of

plants which play a part in Hindoo superstition. For example, if a

Hindoo has planted a grove of mangos, neither he nor his wife may

taste of the fruit until he has formally married one of the trees,

as a bridegroom, to a tree of a different sort, commonly a

tamarind-tree, which grows near it in the grove. If there is no

tamarind to act as bride, a jasmine will serve the turn. The

expenses of such a marriage are often considerable, for the more

Brahmans are feasted at it, the greater the glory of the owner of

the grove. A family has been known to sell its golden and silver

trinkets, and to borrow all the money they could in order to marry a

mango-tree to a jasmine with due pomp and ceremony. On Christmas Eve

German peasants used to tie fruit-trees together with straw ropes to

make them bear fruit, saying that the trees were thus married.

In the Moluccas, when the clove-trees are in blossom, they are

treated like pregnant women. No noise may be made near them; no

light or fire may be carried past them at night; no one may approach

them with his hat on, all must uncover in their presence. These

precautions are observed lest the tree should be alarmed and bear no

fruit, or should drop its fruit too soon, like the untimely delivery

of a woman who has been frightened in her pregnancy. So in the East

the growing rice-crop is often treated with the same considerate

regard as a breeding woman. Thus in Amboyna, when the rice is in

bloom, the people say that it is pregnant and fire no guns and make

no other noises near the field, for fear lest, if the rice were thus

disturbed, it would miscarry, and the crop would be all straw and no

grain.

Sometimes it is the souls of the dead which are believed to animate

trees. The Dieri tribe of Central Australia regard as very sacred

certain trees which are supposed to be their fathers transformed;

hence they speak with reverence of these trees, and are careful that

they shall not be cut down or burned. If the settlers require them

to hew down the trees, they earnestly protest against it, asserting

that were they to do so they would have no luck, and might be

punished for not protecting their ancestors. Some of the Philippine

Islanders believe that the souls of their ancestors are in certain

trees, which they therefore spare. If they are obliged to fell one

of these trees, they excuse themselves to it by saying that it was

the priest who made them do it. The spirits take up their abode, by

preference, in tall and stately trees with great spreading branches.

When the wind rustles the leaves, the natives fancy it is the voice

of the spirit; and they never pass near one of these trees without

bowing respectfully, and asking pardon of the spirit for disturbing

his repose. Among the Ignorrotes, every village has its sacred tree,

in which the souls of the dead forefathers of the hamlet reside.

Offerings are made to the tree, and any injury done to it is

believed to entail some misfortune on the village. Were the tree cut

down, the village and all its inhabitants would inevitably perish.

In Corea the souls of people who die of the plague or by the

roadside, and of women who expire in childbirth, invariably take up

their abode in trees. To such spirits offerings of cake, wine, and

pork are made on heaps of stones piled under the trees. In China it

has been customary from time immemorial to plant trees on graves in

order thereby to strengthen the soul of the deceased and thus to

save his body from corruption; and as the evergreen cypress and pine

are deemed to be fuller of vitality than other trees, they have been

chosen by preference for this purpose. Hence the trees that grow on

graves are sometimes identified with the souls of the departed.

Among the Miao-Kia, an aboriginal race of Southern and Western

China, a sacred tree stands at the entrance of every village, and

the inhabitants believe that it is tenanted by the soul of their

first ancestor and that it rules their destiny. Sometimes there is a

sacred grove near a village, where the trees are suffered to rot and

die on the spot. Their fallen branches cumber the ground, and no one

may remove them unless he has first asked leave of the spirit of the

tree and offered him a sacrifice. Among the Maraves of Southern

Africa the burial-ground is always regarded as a holy place where

neither a tree may be felled nor a beast killed, because everything

there is supposed to be tenanted by the souls of the dead.

In most, if not all, of these cases the spirit is viewed as

incorporate in the tree; it animates the tree and must suffer and

die with it. But, according to another and probably later opinion,

the tree is not the body, but merely the abode of the tree-spirit,

which can quit it and return to it at pleasure. The inhabitants of

Siaoo, an East Indian island, believe in certain sylvan spirits who

dwell in forests or in great solitary trees. At full moon the spirit

comes forth from his lurking-place and roams about. He has a big

head, very long arms and legs, and a ponderous body. In order to

propitiate the wood-spirits people bring offerings of food, fowls,

goats, and so forth to the places which they are supposed to haunt.

The people of Nias think that, when a tree dies, its liberated

spirit becomes a demon, which can kill a coco-nut palm by merely

lighting on its branches, and can cause the death of all the

children in a house by perching on one of the posts that support it.

Further, they are of opinion that certain trees are at all times

inhabited by roving demons who, if the trees were damaged, would be

set free to go about on errands of mischief. Hence the people

respect these trees, and are careful not to cut them down.

Not a few ceremonies observed at cutting down haunted trees are

based on the belief that the spirits have it in their power to quit

the trees at pleasure or in case of need. Thus when the Pelew

Islanders are felling a tree, they conjure the spirit of the tree to

leave it and settle on another. The wily negro of the Slave Coast,

who wishes to fell an _ashorin_ tree, but knows that he cannot do it

so long as the spirit remains in the tree, places a little palm-oil

on the ground as a bait, and then, when the unsuspecting spirit has

quitted the tree to partake of this dainty, hastens to cut down its

late abode. When the Toboongkoos of Celebes are about to clear a

piece of forest in order to plant rice, they build a tiny house and

furnish it with tiny clothes and some food and gold. Then they call

together all the spirits of the wood, offer them the little house

with its contents, and beseech them to quit the spot. After that

they may safely cut down the wood without fearing to wound

themselves in so doing. Before the Tomori, another tribe of Celebes,

fell a tall tree they lay a quid of betel at its foot, and invite

the spirit who dwells in the tree to change his lodging; moreover,

they set a little ladder against the trunk to enable him to descend

with safety and comfort. The Mandelings of Sumatra endeavour to lay

the blame of all such misdeeds at the door of the Dutch authorities.

Thus when a man is cutting a road through a forest and has to fell a

tall tree which blocks the way, he will not begin to ply his axe

until he has said: "Spirit who lodgest in this tree, take it not ill

that I cut down thy dwelling, for it is done at no wish of mine but

by order of the Controller." And when he wishes to clear a piece of

forest-land for cultivation, it is necessary that he should come to

a satisfactory understanding with the woodland spirits who live

there before he lays low their leafy dwellings. For this purpose he

goes to the middle of the plot of ground, stoops down, and pretends

to pick up a letter. Then unfolding a bit of paper he reads aloud an

imaginary letter from the Dutch Government, in which he is strictly

enjoined to set about clearing the land without delay. Having done

so, he says: "You hear that, spirits. I must begin clearing at once,

or I shall be hanged."

Even when a tree has been felled, sawn into planks, and used to

build a house, it is possible that the woodland spirit may still be

lurking in the timber, and accordingly some people seek to

propitiate him before or after they occupy the new house. Hence,

when a new dwelling is ready the Toradjas of Celebes kill a goat, a

pig, or a buffalo, and smear all the woodwork with its blood. If the

building is a _lobo_ or spirit-house, a fowl or a dog is killed on

the ridge of the roof, and its blood allowed to flow down on both

sides. The ruder Tonapoo in such a case sacrifice a human being on

the roof. This sacrifice on the roof of a _lobo_ or temple serves

the same purpose as the smearing of blood on the woodwork of an

ordinary house. The intention is to propitiate the forest-spirits

who may still be in the timber; they are thus put in good humour and

will do the inmates of the house no harm. For a like reason people

in Celebes and the Moluccas are much afraid of planting a post

upside down at the building of a house; for the forest-spirit, who

might still be in the timber, would very naturally resent the

indignity and visit the inmates with sickness. The Kayans of Borneo

are of opinion that tree-spirits stand very stiffly on the point of

honour and visit men with their displeasure for any injury done to

them. Hence after building a house, whereby they have been forced to

ill-treat many trees, these people observe a period of penance for a

year during which they must abstain from many things, such as the

killing of bears, tiger-cats, and serpents.

2. Beneficent Powers of Tree-Spirits

WHEN a tree comes to be viewed, no longer as the body of the

tree-spirit, but simply as its abode which it can quit at pleasure,

an important advance has been made in religious thought. Animism is

passing into polytheism. In other words, instead of regarding each

tree as a living and conscious being, man now sees in it merely a

lifeless, inert mass, tenanted for a longer or shorter time by a

supernatural being who, as he can pass freely from tree to tree,

thereby enjoys a certain right of possession or lordship over the

trees, and, ceasing to be a tree-soul, becomes a forest god. As soon

as the tree-spirit is thus in a measure disengaged from each

particular tree, he begins to change his shape and assume the body

of a man, in virtue of a general tendency of early thought to clothe

all abstract spiritual beings in concrete human form. Hence in

classical art the sylvan deities are depicted in human shape, their

woodland character being denoted by a branch or some equally obvious

symbol. But this change of shape does not affect the essential

character of the tree-spirit. The powers which he exercised as a

tree-soul incorporate in a tree, he still continues to wield as a

god of trees. This I shall now attempt to prove in detail. I shall

show, first, that trees considered as animate beings are credited

with the power of making the rain to fall, the sun to shine, flocks

and herds to multiply, and women to bring forth easily; and, second,

that the very same powers are attributed to tree-gods conceived as

anthropomorphic beings or as actually incarnate in living men.

First, then, trees or tree-spirits are believed to give rain and

sunshine. When the missionary Jerome of Prague was persuading the

heathen Lithuanians to fell their sacred groves, a multitude of

women besought the Prince of Lithuania to stop him, saying that with

the woods he was destroying the house of god from which they had

been wont to get rain and sunshine. The Mundaris in Assam think that

if a tree in the sacred grove is felled the sylvan gods evince their

displeasure by withholding rain. In order to procure rain the

inhabitants of Monyo, a village in the Sagaing district of Upper

Burma, chose the largest tamarind-tree near the village and named it

the haunt of the spirit (_nat_) who controls the rain. Then they

offered bread, coco-nuts, plantains, and fowls to the guardian

spirit of the village and to the spirit who gives rain, and they

prayed, "O Lord _nat_ have pity on us poor mortals, and stay not the

rain. Inasmuch as our offering is given ungrudgingly, let the rain

fall day and night." Afterwards libations were made in honour of the

spirit of the tamarind-tree; and still later three elderly women,

dressed in fine clothes and wearing necklaces and earrings, sang the

Rain Song.

Again, tree-spirits make the crops to grow. Amongst the Mundaris

every village has its sacred grove, and "the grove deities are held

responsible for the crops, and are especially honoured at all the

great agricultural festivals." The negroes of the Gold Coast are in

the habit of sacrificing at the foot of certain tall trees, and they

think that if one of these were felled all the fruits of the earth

would perish. The Gallas dance in couples round sacred trees,

praying for a good harvest. Every couple consists of a man and

woman, who are linked together by a stick, of which each holds one

end. Under their arms they carry green corn or grass. Swedish

peasants stick a leafy branch in each furrow of their corn-fields,

believing that this will ensure an abundant crop. The same idea

comes out in the German and French custom of the Harvest-May. This

is a large branch or a whole tree, which is decked with ears of

corn, brought home on the last waggon from the harvest-field, and

fastened on the roof of the farmhouse or of the barn, where it

remains for a year. Mannhardt has proved that this branch or tree

embodies the tree-spirit conceived as the spirit of vegetation in

general, whose vivifying and fructifying influence is thus brought

to bear upon the corn in particular. Hence in Swabia the Harvest-May

is fastened amongst the last stalks of corn left standing on the

field; in other places it is planted on the corn-field and the last

sheaf cut is attached to its trunk.

Again, the tree-spirit makes the herds to multiply and blesses women

with offspring. In Northern India the _Emblica officinalis_ is a

sacred tree. On the eleventh of the month Phalgun (February)

libations are poured at the foot of the tree, a red or yellow string

is bound about the trunk, and prayers are offered to it for the

fruitfulness of women, animals, and crops. Again, in Northern India

the coco-nut is esteemed one of the most sacred fruits, and is

called Sriphala, or the fruit of Sri, the goddess of prosperity. It

is the symbol of fertility, and all through Upper India is kept in

shrines and presented by the priests to women who desire to become

mothers. In the town of Qua, near Old Calabar, there used to grow a

palm-tree which ensured conception to any barren woman who ate a nut

from its branches. In Europe the May-tree or May-pole is apparently

supposed to possess similar powers over both women and cattle. Thus

in some parts of Germany on the first of May the peasants set up

May-trees or May-bushes at the doors of stables and byres, one for

each horse and cow; this is thought to make the cows yield much

milk. Of the Irish we are told that "they fancy a green bough of a

tree, fastened on May-day against the house, will produce plenty of

milk that summer."

On the second of July some of the Wends used to set up an oak-tree

in the middle of the village with an iron cock fastened to its top;

then they danced round it, and drove the cattle round it to make

them thrive. The Circassians regard the pear-tree as the protector

of cattle. So they cut down a young pear-tree in the forest, branch

it, and carry it home, where it is adored as a divinity. Almost

every house has one such pear-tree. In autumn, on the day of the

festival, the tree is carried into the house with great ceremony to

the sound of music and amid the joyous cries of all the inmates, who

compliment it on its fortunate arrival. It is covered with candles,

and a cheese is fastened to its top. Round about it they eat, drink,

and sing. Then they bid the tree good-bye and take it back to the

courtyard, where it remains for the rest of the year, set up against

the wall, without receiving any mark of respect.

In the Tuhoe tribe of Maoris "the power of making women fruitful is

ascribed to trees. These trees are associated with the navel-strings

of definite mythical ancestors, as indeed the navel-strings of all

children used to be hung upon them down to quite recent times. A

barren woman had to embrace such a tree with her arms, and she

received a male or a female child according as she embraced the east

or the west side." The common European custom of placing a green

bush on May Day before or on the house of a beloved maiden probably

originated in the belief of the fertilising power of the

tree-spirit. In some parts of Bavaria such bushes are set up also at

the houses of newly-married pairs, and the practice is only omitted

if the wife is near her confinement; for in that case they say that

the husband has "set up a May-bush for himself." Among the South

Slavonians a barren woman, who desires to have a child, places a new

chemise upon a fruitful tree on the eve of St. George's Day. Next

morning before sunrise she examines the garment, and if she finds

that some living creature has crept on it, she hopes that her wish

will be fulfilled within the year. Then she puts on the chemise,

confident that she will be as fruitful as the tree on which the

garment has passed the night. Among the Kara-Kirghiz barren women

roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple-tree, in order

to obtain offspring. Lastly, the power of granting to women an easy

delivery at child-birth is ascribed to trees both in Sweden and

Africa. In some districts of Sweden there was formerly a _bardträd_

or guardian-tree (lime, ash, or elm) in the neighbourhood of every

farm. No one would pluck a single leaf of the sacred tree, any

injury to which was punished by ill-luck or sickness. Pregnant women

used to clasp the tree in their arms in order to ensure an easy

delivery. In some negro tribes of the Congo region pregnant women

make themselves garments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree,

because they believe that this tree delivers them from the dangers

that attend child-bearing. The story that Leto clasped a palm-tree

and an olive-tree or two laurel-trees, when she was about to give

birth to the divine twins Apollo and Artemis, perhaps points to a

similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain trees to facilitate

delivery.

X. Relics of Tree Worship in Modern Europe

FROM THE FOREGOING review of the beneficent qualities commonly

ascribed to tree-spirits, it is easy to understand why customs like

the May-tree or May-pole have prevailed so widely and figured so

prominently in the popular festivals of European peasants. In spring

or early summer or even on Midsummer Day, it was and still is in

many parts of Europe the custom to go out to the woods, cut down a

tree and bring it into the village, where it is set up amid general

rejoicings; or the people cut branches in the woods, and fasten them

on every house. The intention of these customs is to bring home to

the village, and to each house, the blessings which the tree-spirit

has in its power to bestow. Hence the custom in some places of

planting a May-tree before every house, or of carrying the village

May-tree from door to door, that every household may receive its

share of the blessing. Out of the mass of evidence on this subject a

few examples may be selected.

Sir Henry Piers, in his _Description of Westmeath,_ writing in 1682

says: "On May-eve, every family sets up before their door a green

bush, strewed over with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield

plentifully. In countries where timber is plentiful, they erect tall

slender trees, which stand high, and they continue almost the whole

year; so as a stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all

signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses." In

Northamptonshire a young tree ten or twelve feet high used to be

planted before each house on May Day so as to appear growing;

flowers were thrown over it and strewn about the door. "Among

ancient customs still retained by the Cornish, may be reckoned that

of decking their doors and porches on the first of May with green

boughs of sycamore and hawthorn, and of planting trees, or rather

stumps of trees, before their houses." In the north of England it

was formerly the custom for young people to rise a little after

midnight on the morning of the first of May, and go out with music

and the blowing of horns into the woods, where they broke branches

and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This done,

they returned about sunrise and fastened the flower-decked branches

over the doors and windows of their houses. At Abingdon in Berkshire

young people formerly went about in groups on May morning, singing a

carol of which the following are two of the verses:

"We've been rambling all the night,

And sometime of this day;

And now returning back again,

We bring a garland gay.

A garland gay we bring you here;

And at your door we stand;

It is a sprout well budded out,

The work of our Lord's hand."

At the towns of Saffron Walden and Debden in Essex on the first of

May little girls go about in parties from door to door singing a

song almost identical with the above and carrying garlands; a doll

dressed in white is usually placed in the middle of each garland.

Similar customs have been and indeed are still observed in various

parts of England. The garlands are generally in the form of hoops

intersecting each other at right angles. It appears that a hoop

wreathed with rowan and marsh marigold, and bearing suspended within

it two balls, is still carried on May Day by villagers in some parts

of Ireland. The balls, which are sometimes covered with gold and

silver paper, are said to have originally represented the sun and

moon.

In some villages of the Vosges Mountains on the first Sunday of May

young girls go in bands from house to house, singing a song in

praise of May, in which mention is made of the "bread and meal that

come in May." If money is given them, they fasten a green bough to

the door; if it is refused, they wish the family many children and

no bread to feed them. In the French department of Mayenne, boys who

bore the name of _Maillotins_ used to go about from farm to farm on

the first of May singing carols, for which they received money or a

drink; they planted a small tree or a branch of a tree. Near Saverne

in Alsace bands of people go about carrying May-trees. Amongst them

is a man dressed in a white shirt with his face blackened; in front

of him is carried a large May-tree, but each member of the band also

carries a smaller one. One of the company bears a huge basket, in

which he collects eggs, bacon, and so forth.

On the Thursday before Whitsunday the Russian villagers "go out into

the woods, sing songs, weave garlands, and cut down a young

birch-tree, which they dress up in woman's clothes, or adorn with

many-coloured shreds and ribbons. After that comes a feast, at the

end of which they take the dressed-up birch-tree, carry it home to

their village with joyful dance and song, and set it up in one of

the houses, where it remains as an honoured guest till Whitsunday.

On the two intervening days they pay visits to the house where their

'guest' is; but on the third day, Whitsunday, they take her to a

stream and fling her into its waters," throwing their garlands after

her. In this Russian custom the dressing of the birch in woman's

clothes shows how clearly the tree is personified; and the throwing

it into a stream is most probably a raincharm.

In some parts of Sweden on the eve of May Day lads go about carrying

each a bunch of fresh birch twigs wholly or partly in leaf. With the

village fiddler at their head, they make the round of the houses

singing May songs; the burden of their songs is a prayer for fine

weather, a plentiful harvest, and worldly and spiritual blessings.

One of them carries a basket in which he collects gifts of eggs and

the like. If they are well received, they stick a leafy twig in the

roof over the cottage door. But in Sweden midsummer is the season

when these ceremonies are chiefly observed. On the Eve of St. John

(the twenty-third of June) the houses are thoroughly cleansed and

garnished with green boughs and flowers. Young fir-trees are raised

at the doorway and elsewhere about the homestead; and very often

small umbrageous arbours are constructed in the garden. In Stockholm

on this day a leaf-market is held at which thousands of May-poles

(_Maj Stanger_), from six inches to twelve feet high, decorated with

leaves, flowers, slips of coloured paper, gilt egg-shells strung on

reeds, and so on, are exposed for sale. Bonfires are lit on the

hills, and the people dance round them and jump over them. But the

chief event of the day is setting up the May-pole. This consists of

a straight and tall sprucepine tree, stripped of its branches. "At

times hoops and at others pieces of wood, placed crosswise, are

attached to it at intervals; whilst at others it is provided with

bows, representing, so to say, a man with his arms akimbo. From top

to bottom not only the 'Maj Stang' (May-pole) itself, but the hoops,

bows, etc., are ornamented with leaves, flowers, slips of various

cloth, gilt egg-shells, etc.; and on the top of it is a large vane,

or it may be a flag." The raising of the May-pole, the decoration of

which is done by the village maidens, is an affair of much ceremony;

the people flock to it from all quarters, and dance round it in a

great ring. Midsummer customs of the same sort used to be observed

in some parts of Germany. Thus in the towns of the Upper Harz

Mountains tall fir-trees, with the bark peeled off their lower

trunks, were set up in open places and decked with flowers and eggs,

which were painted yellow and red. Round these trees the young folk

danced by day and the old folk in the evening. In some parts of

Bohemia also a May-pole or midsummer-tree is erected on St. John's

Eve. The lads fetch a tall fir or pine from the wood and set it up

on a height, where the girls deck it with nosegays, garlands, and

red ribbons. It is afterwards burned.

It would be needless to illustrate at length the custom, which has

prevailed in various parts of Europe, such as England, France, and

Germany, of setting up a village May-tree or May-pole on May Day. A

few examples will suffice. The puritanical writer Phillip Stubbes in

his _Anatomie of Abuses,_ first published at London in 1583, has

described with manifest disgust how they used to bring in the

May-pole in the days of good Queen Bess. His description affords us

a vivid glimpse of merry England in the olden time. "Against May,

Whitsonday, or other time, all the yung men and maides, olde men and

wives, run gadding over night to the woods, groves, hils, and

mountains, where they spend all the night in plesant pastimes; and

in the morning they return, bringing with them birch and branches of

trees, to deck their assemblies withall. And no mervaile, for there

is a great Lord present amongst them, as superintendent and Lord

over their pastimes and sportes, namely, Sathan, prince of hel. But

the chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their May-pole, which

they bring home with great veneration, as thus. They have twentie or

fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe having a sweet nose-gay of flouers

placed on the tip of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home this

May-pole (this stinkyng ydol, rather), which is covered all over

with floures and hearbs, bound round about with strings, from the

top to the bottome, and sometime painted with variable colours, with

two or three hundred men, women and children following it with great

devotion. And thus beeing reared up, with handkercheefs and flags

hovering on the top, they straw the ground rounde about, binde green

boughes about it, set up sommer haules, bowers, and arbors hard by

it. And then fall they to daunce about it, like as the heathen

people did at the dedication of the Idols, whereof this is a perfect

pattern, or rather the thing itself. I have heard it credibly

reported (and that _viva voce_) by men of great gravitie and

reputation, that of fortie, threescore, or a hundred maides going to

the wood over night, there have scaresly the third part of them

returned home againe undefiled."

In Swabia on the first of May a tall fir-tree used to be fetched

into the village, where it was decked with ribbons and set up; then

the people danced round it merrily to music. The tree stood on the

village green the whole year through, until a fresh tree was brought

in next May Day. In Saxony "people were not content with bringing

the summer symbolically (as king or queen) into the village; they

brought the fresh green itself from the woods even into the houses:

that is the May or Whitsuntide trees, which are mentioned in

documents from the thirteenth century onwards. The fetching in of

the May-tree was also a festival. The people went out into the woods

to seek the May (_majum quaerere_), brought young trees, especially

firs and birches, to the village and set them up before the doors of

the houses or of the cattle-stalls or in the rooms. Young fellows

erected such May-trees, as we have already said, before the chambers

of their sweethearts. Besides these household Mays, a great May-tree

or May-pole, which had also been brought in solemn procession to the

village, was set up in the middle of the village or in the

market-place of the town. It had been chosen by the whole community,

who watched over it most carefully. Generally the tree was stripped

of its branches and leaves, nothing but the crown being left, on

which were displayed, in addition to many-coloured ribbons and

cloths, a variety of victuals such as sausages, cakes, and eggs. The

young folk exerted themselves to obtain these prizes. In the greasy

poles which are still to be seen at our fairs we have a relic of

these old May-poles. Not uncommonly there was a race on foot or on

horseback to the May-tree--a Whitsunday pastime which in course of

time has been divested of its goal and survives as a popular custom

to this day in many parts of Germany." At Bordeaux on the first of

May the boys of each street used to erect in it a May-pole, which

they adorned with garlands and a great crown; and every evening

during the whole of the month the young people of both sexes danced

singing about the pole. Down to the present day May-trees decked

with flowers and ribbons are set up on May Day in every village and

hamlet of gay Provence. Under them the young folk make merry and the

old folk rest.

In all these cases, apparently, the custom is or was to bring in a

new May-tree each year. However, in England the village May-pole

seems as a rule, at least in later times, to have been permanent,

not renewed annually. Villages of Upper Bavaria renew their May-pole

once every three, four, or five years. It is a fir-tree fetched from

the forest, and amid all the wreaths, flags, and inscriptions with

which it is bedecked, an essential part is the bunch of dark green

foliage left at the top "as a memento that in it we have to do, not

with a dead pole, but with a living tree from the greenwood." We can

hardly doubt that originally the practice everywhere was to set up a

new May-tree every year. As the object of the custom was to bring in

the fructifying spirit of vegetation, newly awakened in spring, the

end would have been defeated if, instead of a living tree, green and

sappy, an old withered one had been erected year after year or

allowed to stand permanently. When, however, the meaning of the

custom had been forgotten, and the May-tree was regarded simply as a

centre for holiday merry-making, people saw no reason for felling a

fresh tree every year, and preferred to let the same tree stand

permanently, only decking it with fresh flowers on May Day. But even

when the May-pole had thus become a fixture, the need of giving it

the appearance of being a green tree, not a dead pole, was sometimes

felt. Thus at Weverham in Cheshire "are two May-poles, which are

decorated on this day (May Day) with all due attention to the

ancient solemnity; the sides are hung with garlands, and the top

terminated by a birch or other tall slender tree with its leaves on;

the bark being peeled, and the stem spliced to the pole, so as to

give the appearance of one tree from the summit." Thus the renewal

of the May-tree is like the renewal of the Harvest-May; each is

intended to secure a fresh portion of the fertilising spirit of

vegetation, and to preserve it throughout the year. But whereas the

efficacy of the Harvest-May is restricted to promoting the growth of

the crops, that of the May-tree or May-branch extends also, as we

have seen, to women and cattle. Lastly, it is worth noting that the

old May-tree is sometimes burned at the end of the year. Thus in the

district of Prague young people break pieces of the public May-tree

and place them behind the holy pictures in their rooms, where they

remain till next May Day, and are then burned on the hearth. In

Würtemberg the bushes which are set up on the houses on Palm Sunday

are sometimes left there for a year and then burnt.

So much for the tree-spirit conceived as incorporate or immanent in

the tree. We have now to show that the tree-spirit is often

conceived and represented as detached from the tree and clothed in

human form, and even as embodied in living men or women. The

evidence for this anthropomorphic representation of the tree-spirit

is largely to be found in the popular customs of European peasantry.

There is an instructive class of cases in which the tree-spirit is

represented simultaneously in vegetable form and in human form,

which are set side by side as if for the express purpose of

explaining each other. In these cases the human representative of

the tree-spirit is sometimes a doll or puppet, sometimes a living

person, but whether a puppet or a person, it is placed beside a tree

or bough; so that together the person or puppet, and the tree or

bough, form a sort of bilingual inscription, the one being, so to

speak, a translation of the other. Here, therefore, there is no room

left for doubt that the spirit of the tree is actually represented

in human form. Thus in Bohemia, on the fourth Sunday in Lent, young

people throw a puppet called Death into the water; then the girls go

into the wood, cut down a young tree, and fasten to it a puppet

dressed in white clothes to look like a woman; with this tree and

puppet they go from house to house collecting gratuities and singing

songs with the refrain:

"We carry Death out of the village,

We bring Summer into the village."

Here, as we shall see later on, the "Summer" is the spirit of

vegetation returning or reviving in spring. In some parts of our own

country children go about asking for pence with some small

imitations of May-poles, and with a finely-dressed doll which they

call the Lady of the May. In these cases the tree and the puppet are

obviously regarded as equivalent.

At Thann, in Alsace, a girl called the Little May Rose, dressed in

white, carries a small May-tree, which is gay with garlands and

ribbons. Her companions collect gifts from door to door, singing a

song:

"Little May Rose turn round three times,

Let us look at you round and round!

Rose of the May, come to the greenwood away,

We will be merry all.

So we go from the May to the roses."

In the course of the song a wish is expressed that those who give

nothing may lose their fowls by the marten, that their vine may bear

no clusters, their tree no nuts, their field no corn; the produce of

the year is supposed to depend on the gifts offered to these May

singers. Here and in the cases mentioned above, where children go

about with green boughs or garlands on May Day singing and

collecting money, the meaning is that with the spirit of vegetation

they bring plenty and good luck to the house, and they expect to be

paid for the service. In Russian Lithuania, on the first of May,

they used to set up a green tree before the village. Then the rustic

swains chose the prettiest girl, crowned her, swathed her in birch

branches and set her beside the May-tree, where they danced, sang,

and shouted "O May! O May!" In Brie (Isle de France) a May-tree is

erected in the midst of the village; its top is crowned with

flowers; lower down it is twined with leaves and twigs, still lower

with huge green branches. The girls dance round it, and at the same

time a lad wrapt in leaves and called Father May is led about. In

the small towns of the Franken Wald mountains in Northern Bavaria,

on the second of May, a _Walber_ tree is erected before a tavern,

and a man dances round it, enveloped in straw from head to foot in

such a way that the ears of corn unite above his head to form a

crown. He is called the _Walber,_ and used to be led in procession

through the streets, which were adorned with sprigs of birch.

Amongst the Slavs of Carinthia, on St. George's Day (the twentythird

of April), the young people deck with flowers and garlands a tree

which has been felled on the eve of the festival. The tree is then

carried in procession, accompanied with music and joyful

acclamations, the chief figure in the procession being the Green

George, a young fellow clad from head to foot in green birch

branches. At the close of the ceremonies the Green George, that is

an effigy of him, is thrown into the water. It is the aim of the lad

who acts Green George to step out of his leafy envelope and

substitute the effigy so adroitly that no one shall perceive the

change. In many places, however, the lad himself who plays the part

of Green George is ducked in a river or pond, with the express

intention of thus ensuring rain to make the fields and meadows green

in summer. In some places the cattle are crowned and driven from

their stalls to the accompaniment of a song:

"Green George we bring,

Green George we accompany,

May he feed our herds well.

If not, to the water with him."

Here we see that the same powers of making rain and fostering the

cattle, which are ascribed to the tree-spirit regarded as

incorporate in the tree, are also attributed to the tree-spirit

represented by a living man.

Among the gypsies of Transylvania and Roumania the festival of Green

George is the chief celebration of spring. Some of them keep it on

Easter Monday, others on St. George's Day (the twentythird of

April). On the eve of the festival a young willow tree is cut down,

adorned with garlands and leaves, and set up in the ground. Women

with child place one of their garments under the tree, and leave it

there over night; if next morning they find a leaf of the tree lying

on the garment, they know that their delivery will be easy. Sick and

old people go to the tree in the evening, spit on it thrice, and

say, "You will soon die, but let us live." Next morning the gypsies

gather about the willow. The chief figure of the festival is Green

George, a lad who is concealed from top to toe in green leaves and

blossoms. He throws a few handfuls of grass to the beasts of the

tribe, in order that they may have no lack of fodder throughout the

year. Then he takes three iron nails, which have lain for three days

and nights in water, and knocks them into the willow; after which he

pulls them out and flings them into a running stream to propitiate

the water-spirits. Finally, a pretence is made of throwing Green

George into the water, but in fact it is only a puppet made of

branches and leaves which is ducked in the stream. In this version

of the custom the powers of granting an easy delivery to women and

of communicating vital energy to the sick and old are clearly

ascribed to the willow; while Green George, the human double of the

tree, bestows food on the cattle, and further ensures the favour of

the water-spirits by putting them in indirect communication with the

tree.

Without citing more examples to the same effect, we may sum up the

results of the preceding pages in the words of Mannhardt: "The

customs quoted suffice to establish with certainty the conclusion

that in these spring processions the spirit of vegetation is often

represented both by the May-tree and in addition by a man dressed in

green leaves or flowers or by a girl similarly adorned. It is the

same spirit which animates the tree and is active in the inferior

plants and which we have recognised in the May-tree and the

Harvest-May. Quite consistently the spirit is also supposed to

manifest his presence in the first flower of spring and reveals

himself both in a girl representing a May-rose, and also, as giver

of harvest, in the person of the _Walber._ The procession with this

representative of the divinity was supposed to produce the same

beneficial effects on the fowls, the fruit-trees, and the crops as

the presence of the deity himself. In other words the mummer was

regarded not as an image but as an actual representative of the

spirit of vegetation; hence the wish expressed by the attendants on

the May-rose and the May-tree that those who refuse them gifts of

eggs, bacon, and so forth, may have no share in the blessings which

it is in the power of the itinerant spirit to bestow. We may

conclude that these begging processions with May-trees or May-boughs

from door to door ('bringing the May or the summer') had everywhere

originally a serious and, so to speak, sacramental significance;

people really believed that the god of growth was present unseen in

the bough; by the procession he was brought to each house to bestow

his blessing. The names May, Father May, May Lady, Queen of the May,

by which the anthropomorphic spirit of vegetation is often denoted,

show that the idea of the spirit of vegetation is blent with a

personification of the season at which his powers are most

strikingly manifested."

So far we have seen that the tree-spirit or the spirit of vegetation

in general is represented either in vegetable form alone, as by a

tree, bough, or flower; or in vegetable and human form

simultaneously, as by a tree, bough, or flower in combination with a

puppet or a living person. It remains to show that the

representation of him by a tree, bough, or flower is sometimes

entirely dropped, while the representation of him by a living person

remains. In this case the representative character of the person is

generally marked by dressing him or her in leaves or flowers;

sometimes, too, it is indicated by the name he or she bears.

Thus in some parts of Russia on St. George's Day (the twenty-third

of April) a youth is dressed out, like our Jack-in-the-Green, with

leaves and flowers. The Slovenes call him the Green George. Holding

a lighted torch in one hand and a pie in the other, he goes out to

the corn-fields, followed by girls singing appropriate songs. A

circle of brushwood is next lighted, in the middle of which is set

the pie. All who take part in the ceremony then sit down around the

fire and divide the pie among them. In this custom the Green George

dressed in leaves and flowers is plainly identical with the

similarly disguised Green George who is associated with a tree in

the Carinthian, Transylvanian, and Roumanian customs observed on the

same day. Again, we saw that in Russia at Whitsuntide a birch-tree

is dressed in woman's clothes and set up in the house. Clearly

equivalent to this is the custom observed on Whit-Monday by Russian

girls in the district of Pinsk. They choose the prettiest of their

number, envelop her in a mass of foliage taken from the birch-trees

and maples, and carry her about through the village.

In Ruhla as soon as the trees begin to grow green in spring, the

children assemble on a Sunday and go out into the woods, where they

choose one of their playmates to be the Little Leaf Man. They break

branches from the trees and twine them about the child till only his

shoes peep out from the leafy mantle. Holes are made in it for him

to see through, and two of the children lead the Little Leaf Man

that he may not stumble or fall. Singing and dancing they take him

from house to house, asking for gifts of food such as eggs, cream,

sausages, and cakes. Lastly, they sprinkle the Leaf Man with water

and feast on the food they have collected. In the Fricktal,

Switzerland, at Whitsuntide boys go out into a wood and swathe one

of their number in leafy boughs. He is called the Whitsuntide-lout,

and being mounted on horseback with a green branch in his hand he is

led back into the village. At the village-well a halt is called and

the leaf-clad lout is dismounted and ducked in the trough. Thereby

he acquires the right of sprinkling water on everybody, and he

exercises the right specially on girls and street urchins. The

urchins march before him in bands begging him to give them a

Whitsuntide wetting.

In England the best-known example of these leaf-clad mummers is the

Jack-in-the-Green, a chimney-sweeper who walks encased in a

pyramidal framework of wickerwork, which is covered with holly and

ivy, and surmounted by a crown of flowers and ribbons. Thus arrayed

he dances on May Day at the head of a troop of chimney-sweeps, who

collect pence. In Fricktal a similar frame of basketwork is called

the Whitsuntide Basket. As soon as the trees begin to bud, a spot is

chosen in the wood, and here the village lads make the frame with

all secrecy, lest others should forestall them. Leafy branches are

twined round two hoops, one of which rests on the shoulders of the

wearer, the other encircles his claves; holes are made for his eyes

and mouth; and a large nosegay crowns the whole. In this guise he

appears suddenly in the village at the hour of vespers, preceded by

three boys blowing on horns made of willow bark. The great object of

his supporters is to set up the Whitsuntide Basket on the village

well, and to keep it and him there, despite the efforts of the lads

from neighbouring villages, who seek to carry off the Whitsuntide

Basket and set it up on their own well.

In the class of cases of which the foregoing are specimens it is

obvious that the leaf-clad person who is led about is equivalent to

the May-tree, May-bough, or May-doll, which is carried from house to

house by children begging. Both are representatives of the

beneficent spirit of vegetation, whose visit to the house is

recompensed by a present of money or food.

Often the leaf-clad person who represents the spirit of vegetation

is known as the king or the queen; thus, for example, he or she is

called the May King, Whitsuntide King, Queen of May, and so on.

These titles, as Mannhardt observes, imply that the spirit

incorporate in vegetation is a ruler, whose creative power extends

far and wide.

In a village near Salzwedel a May-tree is set up at Whitsuntide and

the boys race to it; he who reaches it first is king; a garland of

flowers is put round his neck and in his hand he carries a May-bush,

with which, as the procession moves along, he sweeps away the dew.

At each house they sing a song, wishing the inmates good luck,

referring to the "black cow in the stall milking white milk, black

hen on the nest laying white eggs," and begging a gift of eggs,

bacon, and so on. At the village of Ellgoth in Silesia a ceremony

called the King's Race is observed at Whitsuntide. A pole with a

cloth tied to it is set up in a meadow, and the young men ride past

it on horseback, each trying to snatch away the cloth as he gallops

by. The one who succeeds in carrying it off and dipping it in the

neighbouring Oder is proclaimed King. Here the pole is clearly a

substitute for a May-tree. In some villages of Brunswick at

Whitsuntide a May King is completely enveloped in a May-bush. In

some parts of Thüringen also they have a May King at Whitsuntide,

but he is dressed up rather differently. A frame of wood is made in

which a man can stand; it is completely covered with birch boughs

and is surmounted by a crown of birch and flowers, in which a bell

is fastened. This frame is placed in the wood and the May King gets

into it. The rest go out and look for him, and when they have found

him they lead him back into the village to the magistrate, the

clergyman, and others, who have to guess who is in the verdurous

frame. If they guess wrong, the May King rings his bell by shaking

his head, and a forfeit of beer or the like must be paid by the

unsuccessful guesser. At Wahrstedt the boys at Whitsuntide choose by

lot a king and a high-steward. The latter is completely concealed in

a May-bush, wears a wooden crown wreathen with flowers, and carries

a wooden sword. The king, on the other hand, is only distinguished

by a nosegay in his cap, and a reed, with a red ribbon tied to it,

in his hand. They beg for eggs from house to house, threatening

that, where none are given, none will be laid by the hens throughout

the year. In this custom the high-steward appears, for some reason,

to have usurped the insignia of the king. At Hildesheim five or six

young fellows go about on the afternoon of Whit-Monday cracking long

whips in measured time and collecting eggs from the houses. The

chief person of the band is the Leaf King, a lad swathed so

completely in birchen twigs that nothing of him can be seen but his

feet. A huge head-dress of birchen twigs adds to his apparent

stature. In his hand he carries a long crook, with which he tries to

catch stray dogs and children. In some parts of Bohemia on

Whit-Monday the young fellows disguise themselves in tall caps of

birch bark adorned with flowers. One of them is dressed as a king

and dragged on a sledge to the village green, and if on the way they

pass a pool the sledge is always overturned into it. Arrived at the

green they gather round the king; the crier jumps on a stone or

climbs up a tree and recites lampoons about each house and its

inmates. Afterwards the disguises of bark are stripped off and they

go about the village in holiday attire, carrying a May-tree and

begging. Cakes, eggs, and corn are sometimes given them. At

Grossvargula, near Langensalza, in the eighteenth century a Grass

King used to be led about in procession at Whitsuntide. He was

encased in a pyramid of poplar branches, the top of which was

adorned with a royal crown of branches and flowers. He rode on

horseback with the leafy pyramid over him, so that its lower end

touched the ground, and an opening was left in it only for his face.

Surrounded by a cavalcade of young fellows, he rode in procession to

the town hall, the parsonage, and so on, where they all got a drink

of beer. Then under the seven lindens of the neighbouring

Sommerberg, the Grass King was stripped of his green casing; the

crown was handed to the Mayor, and the branches were stuck in the

flax fields in order to make the flax grow tall. In this last trait

the fertilising influence ascribed to the representative of the

tree-spirit comes out clearly. In the neighbourhood of Pilsen

(Bohemia) a conical hut of green branches, without any door, is

erected at Whitsuntide in the midst of the village. To this hut

rides a troop of village lads with a king at their head. He wears a

sword at his side and a sugar-loaf hat of rushes on his head. In his

train are a judge, a crier, and a personage called the Frog-flayer

or Hangman. This last is a sort of ragged merryandrew, wearing a

rusty old sword and bestriding a sorry hack. On reaching the hut the

crier dismounts and goes round it looking for a door. Finding none,

he says, "Ah, this is perhaps an enchanted castle; the witches creep

through the leaves and need no door." At last he draws his sword and

hews his way into the hut, where there is a chair, on which he seats

himself and proceeds to criticise in rhyme the girls, farmers, and

farm-servants of the neighbourhood. When this is over, the

Frog-flayer steps forward and, after exhibiting a cage with frogs in

it, sets up a gallows on which he hangs the frogs in a row. In the

neighbourhood of Plas the ceremony differs in some points. The king

and his soldiers are completely clad in bark, adorned with flowers

and ribbons; they all carry swords and ride horses, which are gay

with green branches and flowers. While the village dames and girls

are being criticised at the arbour, a frog is secretly pinched and

poked by the crier till it quacks. Sentence of death is passed on

the frog by the king; the hangman beheads it and flings the bleeding

body among the spectators. Lastly, the king is driven from the hut

and pursued by the soldiers. The pinching and beheading of the frog

are doubtless, as Mannhardt observes, a rain-charm. We have seen

that some Indians of the Orinoco beat frogs for the express purpose

of producing rain, and that killing a frog is a European rain-charm.

Often the spirit of vegetation in spring is represented by a queen

instead of a king. In the neighbourhood of Libchowic (Bohemia), on

the fourth Sunday in Lent, girls dressed in white and wearing the

first spring flowers, as violets and daisies, in their hair, lead

about the village a girl who is called the Queen and is crowned with

flowers. During the procession, which is conducted with great

solemnity, none of the girls may stand still, but must keep whirling

round continually and singing. In every house the Queen announces

the arrival of spring and wishes the inmates good luck and

blessings, for which she receives presents. In German Hungary the

girls choose the prettiest girl to be their Whitsuntide Queen,

fasten a towering wreath on her brow, and carry her singing through

the streets. At every house they stop, sing old ballads, and receive

presents. In the south-east of Ireland on May Day the prettiest girl

used to be chosen Queen of the district for twelve months. She was

crowned with wild flowers; feasting, dancing, and rustic sports

followed, and were closed by a grand procession in the evening.

During her year of office she presided over rural gatherings of

young people at dances and merry-makings. If she married before next

May Day, her authority was at an end, but her successor was not

elected till that day came round. The May Queen is common In France

and familiar in England.

Again the spirit of vegetation is sometimes represented by a king

and queen, a lord and lady, or a bridegroom and bride. Here again

the parallelism holds between the anthropomorphic and the vegetable

representation of the tree-spirit, for we have seen above that trees

are sometimes married to each other. At Halford in South

Warwickshire the children go from house to house on May Day, walking

two and two in procession and headed by a King and Queen. Two boys

carry a May-pole some six or seven feet high, which is covered with

flowers and greenery. Fastened to it near the top are two cross-bars

at right angles to each other. These are also decked with flowers,

and from the ends of the bars hang hoops similarly adorned. At the

houses the children sing May songs and receive money, which is used

to provide tea for them at the schoolhouse in the afternoon. In a

Bohemian village near Königgrätz on Whit-Monday the children play

the king's game, at which a king and queen march about under a

canopy, the queen wearing a garland, and the youngest girl carrying

two wreaths on a plate behind them. They are attended by boys and

girls called groomsmen and bridesmaids, and they go from house to

house collecting gifts. A regular feature in the popular celebration

of Whitsuntide in Silesia used to be, and to some extent still is,

the contest for the kingship. This contest took various forms, but

the mark or goal was generally the May-tree or May-pole. Sometimes

the youth who succeeded in climbing the smooth pole and bringing

down the prize was proclaimed the Whitsuntide King and his

sweetheart the Whitsuntide Bride. Afterwards the king, carrying the

May-bush, repaired with the rest of the company to the alehouse,

where a dance and a feast ended the merry-making. Often the young

farmers and labourers raced on horseback to the May-pole, which was

adorned with flowers, ribbons, and a crown. He who first reached the

pole was the Whitsuntide King, and the rest had to obey his orders

for that day. The worst rider became the clown. At the May-tree all

dismounted and hoisted the king on their shoulders. He nimbly

swarmed up the pole and brought down the May-bush and the crown,

which had been fastened to the top. Meanwhile the clown hurried to

the alehouse and proceeded to bolt thirty rolls of bread and to swig

four quart bottles of brandy with the utmost possible despatch. He

was followed by the king, who bore the May-bush and crown at the

head of the company. If on their arrival the clown had already

disposed of the rolls and the brandy, and greeted the king with a

speech and a glass of beer, his score was paid by the king;

otherwise he had to settle it himself. After church time the stately

procession wound through the village. At the head of it rode the

king, decked with flowers and carrying the May-bush. Next came the

clown with his clothes turned inside out, a great flaxen beard on

his chain, and the Whitsuntide crown on his head. Two riders

disguised as guards followed. The procession drew up before every

farmyard; the two guards dismounted, shut the clown into the house,

and claimed a contribution from the housewife to buy soap with which

to wash the clown's beard. Custom allowed them to carry off any

victuals which were not under lock and key. Last of all they came to

the house in which the king's sweetheart lived. She was greeted as

Whitsuntide Queen and received suitable presents--to wit, a

many-coloured sash, a cloth, and an apron. The king got as a prize,

a vest, a neck-cloth, and so forth, and had the right of setting up

the May-bush or Whitsuntide-tree before his master's yard, where it

remained as an honourable token till the same day next year. Finally

the procession took its way to the tavern, where the king and queen

opened the dance. Sometimes the Whitsuntide King and Queen succeeded

to office in a different way. A man of straw, as large as life and

crowned with a red cap, was conveyed in a cart, between two men

armed and disguised as guards, to a place where a mock court was

waiting to try him. A great crowd followed the cart. After a formal

trial the straw man was condemned to death and fastened to a stake

on the execution ground. The young men with bandaged eyes tried to

stab him with a spear. He who succeeded became king and his

sweetheart queen. The straw man was known as the Goliath.

In a parish of Denmark it used to be the custom at Whitsuntide to

dress up a little girl as the Whitsun-bride and a little boy as her

groom. She was decked in all the finery of a grown-up bride, and

wore a crown of the freshest flowers of spring on her head. Her

groom was as gay as flowers, ribbons, and knots could make him. The

other children adorned themselves as best they could with the yellow

flowers of the trollius and caltha. Then they went in great state

from farmhouse to farmhouse, two little girls walking at the head of

the procession as bridesmaids, and six or eight outriders galloping

ahead on hobby-horses to announce their coming. Contributions of

eggs, butter, loaves, cream, coffee, sugar, and tallow-candles were

received and conveyed away in baskets. When they had made the round

of the farms, some of the farmers' wives helped to arrange the

wedding feast, and the children danced merrily in clogs on the

stamped clay floor till the sun rose and the birds began to sing.

All this is now a thing of the past. Only the old folks still

remember the little Whitsun-bride and her mimic pomp.

We have seen that in Sweden the ceremonies associated elsewhere with

May Day or Whitsuntide commonly take place at Midsummer. Accordingly

we find that in some parts of the Swedish province of Blekinge they

still choose a Midsummer's Bride, to whom the "church coronet" is

occasionally lent. The girl selects for herself a Bridegroom, and a

collection is made for the pair, who for the time being are looked

on as man and wife. The other youths also choose each his bride. A

similar ceremony seems to be still kept up in Norway.

In the neighbourhood of Briançon (Dauphiné) on May Day the lads wrap

up in green leaves a young fellow whose sweetheart has deserted him

or married another. He lies down on the ground and feigns to be

asleep. Then a girl who likes him, and would marry him, comes and

wakes him, and raising him up offers him her arm and a flag. So they

go to the alehouse, where the pair lead off the dancing. But they

must marry within the year, or they are treated as old bachelor and

old maid, and are debarred the company of the young folks. The lad

is called the Bridegroom of the month of May. In the alehouse he

puts off his garment of leaves, out of which, mixed with flowers,

his partner in the dance makes a nosegay, and wears it at her breast

next day, when he leads her again to the alehouse. Like this is a

Russian custom observed in the district of Nerechta on the Thursday

before Whitsunday. The girls go out into a birch-wood, wind a girdle

or band round a stately birch, twist its lower branches into a

wreath, and kiss each other in pairs through the wreath. The girls

who kiss through the wreath call each other gossips. Then one of the

girls steps forward, and mimicking a drunken man, flings herself on

the ground, rolls on the grass, and feigns to fall fast asleep.

Another girl wakens the pretended sleeper and kisses him; then the

whole bevy trips singing through the wood to twine garlands, which

they throw into the water. In the fate of the garlands floating on

the stream they read their own. Here the part of the sleeper was

probably at one time played by a lad. In these French and Russian

customs we have a forsaken bridegroom, in the following a forsaken

bride. On Shrove Tuesday the Slovenes of Oberkrain drag a straw

puppet with joyous cries up and down the village; then they throw it

into the water or burn it, and from the height of the flames they

judge of the abundance of the next harvest. The noisy crew is

followed by a female masker, who drags a great board by a string and

gives out that she is a forsaken bride.

Viewed in the light of what has gone before, the awakening of the

forsaken sleeper in these ceremonies probably represents the revival

of vegetation in spring. But it is not easy to assign their

respective parts to the forsaken bridegroom and to the girl who

wakes him from his slumber. Is the sleeper the leafless forest or

the bare earth of winter? Is the girl who awakens him the fresh

verdure or the genial sunshine of spring? It is hardly possible, on

the evidence before us, to answer these questions.

In the Highlands of Scotland the revival of vegetation in spring

used to be graphically represented on St. Bride's Day, the first of

February. Thus in the Hebrides "the mistress and servants of each

family take a sheaf of oats, and dress it up in women's apparel, put

it in a large basket and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call

Briid's bed; and then the mistress and servants cry three times,

'Briid is come, Briid is welcome.' This they do just before going to

bed, and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes,

expecting to see the impression of Briid's club there; which if they

do, they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous

year, and the contrary they take as an ill omen." The same custom is

described by another witness thus: "Upon the night before Candlemas

it is usual to make a bed with corn and hay, over which some

blankets are laid, in a part of the house, near the door. When it is

ready, a person goes out and repeats three times, . . . 'Bridget,

Bridget, come in; thy bed is ready.' One or more candles are left

burning near it all night." Similarly in the Isle of Man "on the eve

of the first of February, a festival was formerly kept, called, in

the Manks language, _Laa'l Breeshey,_ in honour of the Irish lady

who went over to the Isle of Man to receive the veil from St.

Maughold. The custom was to gather a bundle of green rushes, and

standing with them in the hand on the threshold of the door, to

invite the holy Saint Bridget to come and lodge with them that

night. In the Manks language, the invitation ran thus: _'Brede,

Brede, tar gys my thie tar dyn thie ayms noght Foshil jee yn dorrys

da Brede, as lhig da Brede e heet staigh.'_ In English: 'Bridget,

Bridget, come to my house, come to my house to-night. Open the door

for Bridget, and let Bridget come in.' After these words were

repeated, the rushes were strewn on the floor by way of a carpet or

bed for St. Bridget. A custom very similar to this was also observed

in some of the Out-Isles of the ancient Kingdom of Man." In these

Manx and Highland ceremonies it is obvious that St. Bride, or St.

Bridget, is an old heathen goddess of fertility, disguised in a

threadbare Christian cloak. Probably she is no other than Brigit,

the Celtic goddess of fire and apparently of the crops.

Often the marriage of the spirit of vegetation in spring, though not

directly represented, is implied by naming the human representative

of the spirit, "the Bride," and dressing her in wedding attire. Thus

in some villages of Altmark at Whitsuntide, while the boys go about

carrying a May-tree or leading a boy enveloped in leaves and

flowers, the girls lead about the May Bride, a girl dressed as a

bride with a great nosegay in her hair. They go from house to house,

the May Bride singing a song in which she asks for a present and

tells the inmates of each house that if they give her something they

will themselves have something the whole year through; but if they

give her nothing they will themselves have nothing. In some parts of

Westphalia two girls lead a flower-crowned girl called the

Whitsuntide Bride from door to door, singing a song in which they

ask for eggs.

XI. The Influence of the Sexes on Vegetation

FROM THE PRECEDING examination of the spring and summer festivals of

Europe we may infer that our rude forefathers personified the powers

of vegetation as male and female, and attempted, on the principle of

homoeopathic or imitative magic, to quicken the growth of trees and

plants by representing the marriage of the sylvan deities in the

persons of a King and Queen of May, a Whitsun Bridegroom and Bride,

and so forth. Such representations were accordingly no mere symbolic

or allegorical dramas, pastoral plays designed to amuse or instruct

a rustic audience. They were charms intended to make the woods to

grow green, the fresh grass to sprout, the corn to shoot, and the

flowers to blow. And it was natural to suppose that the more closely

the mock marriage of the leaf-clad or flower-decked mummers aped the

real marriage of the woodland sprites, the more effective would be

the charm. Accordingly we may assume with a high degree of

probability that the profligacy which notoriously attended these

ceremonies was at one time not an accidental excess but an essential

part of the rites, and that in the opinion of those who performed

them the marriage of trees and plants could not be fertile without

the real union of the human sexes. At the present day it might

perhaps be vain to look in civilised Europe for customs of this sort

observed for the explicit purpose of promoting the growth of

vegetation. But ruder races in other parts of the world have

consciously employed the intercourse of the sexes as a means to

ensure the fruitfulness of the earth; and some rites which are

still, or were till lately, kept up in Europe can be reasonably

explained only as stunted relics of a similar practice. The

following facts will make this plain.

For four days before they committed the seed to the earth the

Pipiles of Central America kept apart from their wives "in order

that on the night before planting they might indulge their passions

to the fullest extent; certain persons are even said to have been

appointed to perform the sexual act at the very moment when the

first seeds were deposited in the ground." The use of their wives at

that time was indeed enjoined upon the people by the priests as a

religious duty, in default of which it was not lawful to sow the

seed. The only possible explanation of this custom seems to be that

the Indians confused the process by which human beings reproduce

their kind with the process by which plants discharge the same

function, and fancied that by resorting to the former they were

simultaneously forwarding the latter. In some parts of Java, at the

season when the bloom will soon be on the rice, the husbandman and

his wife visit their fields by night and there engage in sexual

intercourse for the purpose of promoting the growth of the crop. In

the Leti, Sarmata, and some other groups of islands which lie

between the western end of New Guinea and the northern part of

Australia, the heathen population regard the sun as the male

principle by whom the earth or female prínciple is fertilised. They

call him Upu-lera or Mr. Sun, and represent him under the form of a

lamp made of coco-nut leaves, which may be seen hanging everywhere

in their houses and in the sacred fig-tree. Under the tree lies a

large flat stone, which serves as a sacrificial table. On it the

heads of slain foes were and are still placed in some of the

islands. Once a year, at the beginning of the rainy season, Mr. Sun

comes down into the holy fig-tree to fertilise the earth, and to

facilitate his descent a ladder with seven rungs is considerately

placed at his disposal. It is set up under the tree and is adorned

with carved figures of the birds whose shrill clarion heralds the

approach of the sun in the east. On this occasion pigs and dogs are

sacrificed in profusion; men and women alike indulge in a

saturnalia; and the mystic union of the sun and the earth is

dramatically represented in public, amid song and dance, by the real

union of the sexes under the tree. The object of the festival, we

are told, is to procure rain, plenty of food and drink, abundance of

cattle and children and riches from Grandfather Sun. They pray that

he may make every she-goat to cast two or three young, the people to

multiply, the dead pigs to be replaced by living pigs, the empty

rice-baskets to be filled, and so on. And to induce him to grant

their requests they offer him pork and rice and liquor, and invite

him to fall to. In the Babar Islands a special flag is hoisted at

this festival as a symbol of the creative energy of the sun; it is

of white cotton, about nine feet high, and consists of the figure of

a man in an appropriate attitude. It would be unjust to treat these

orgies as a mere outburst of unbridled passion; no doubt they are

deliberately and solemnly organised as essential to the fertility of

the earth and the welfare of man.

The same means which are thus adopted to stimulate the growth of the

crops are naturally employed to ensure the fruitfulness of trees. In

some parts of Amboyna, when the state of the clove plantation

indicates that the crop is likely to be scanty, the men go naked to

the plantations by night, and there seek to fertilise the trees

precisely as they would impregnate women, while at the same time

they call out for "More cloves!" This is supposed to make the trees

bear fruit more abundantly.

The Baganda of Central Africa believe so strongly in the intimate

relation between the intercourse of the sexes and the fertility of

the ground that among them a barren wife is generally sent away,

because she is supposed to prevent her husband's garden from bearing

fruit. On the contrary, a couple who have given proof of

extraordinary fertility by becoming the parents of twins are

believed by the Baganda to be endowed with a corresponding power of

increasing the fruitfulness of the plantain-trees, which furnish

them with their staple food. Some little time after the birth of the

twins a ceremony is performed, the object of which clearly is to

transmit the reproductive virtue of the parents to the plantains.

The mother lies down on her back in the thick grass near the house

and places a flower of the plantain between her legs; then her

husband comes and knocks the flower away with his genital member.

Further, the parents go through the country performing dances in the

gardens of favoured friends, apparently for the purpose of causing

the plantain-trees to bear fruit more abundantly.

In various parts of Europe customs have prevailed both at spring and

harvest which are clearly based on the same crude notion that the

relation of the human sexes to each other can be so used as to

quicken the growth of plants. For example, in the Ukraine on St.

George's Day (the twenty-third of April) the priest in his robes,

attended by his acolytes, goes out to the fields of the village,

where the crops are beginning to show green above the ground, and

blesses them. After that the young married people lie down in

couples on the sown fields and roll several times over on them, in

the belief that this will promote the growth of the crops. In some

parts of Russia the priest himself is rolled by women over the

sprouting crop, and that without regard to the mud and holes which

he may encounter in his beneficent progress. If the shepherd resists

or remonstrates, his flock murmurs, "Little Father, you do not

really wish us well, you do not wish us to have corn, although you

do wish to live on our corn." In some parts of Germany at harvest

the men and women, who have reaped the corn, roll together on the

field. This again is probably a mitigation of an older and ruder

custom designed to impart fertility to the fields by methods like

those resorted to by the Pipiles of Central America long ago and by

the cultivators of rice in Java at the present time.

To the student who cares to track the devious course of the human

mind in its gropings after truth, it is of some interest to observe

that the same theoretical belief in the sympathetic influence of the

sexes on vegetation, which has led some peoples to indulge their

passions as a means of fertilising the earth, has led others to seek

the same end by directly opposite means. From the moment that they

sowed the maize till the time that they reaped it, the Indians of

Nicaragua lived chastely, keeping apart from their wives and

sleeping in a separate place. They ate no salt, and drank neither

cocoa nor _chicha,_ the fermented liquor made from maize; in short

the season was for them, as the Spanish historian observes, a time

of abstinence. To this day some of the Indian tribes of Central

America practise continence for the purpose of thereby promoting the

growth of the crops. Thus we are told that before sowing the maize

the Kekchi Indians sleep apart from their wives, and eat no flesh

for five days, while among the Lanquineros and Cajaboneros the

period of abstinence from these carnal pleasures extends to thirteen

days. So amongst some of the Germans of Transylvania it is a rule

that no man may sleep with his wife during the whole of the time

that he is engaged in sowing his fields. The same rule is observed

at Kalotaszeg in Hungary; the people think that if the custom were

not observed the corn would be mildewed. Similarly a Central

Australian headman of the Kaitish tribe strictly abstains from

marital relations with his wife all the time that he is performing

magical ceremonies to make the grass grow; for he believes that a

breach of this rule would prevent the grass seed from sprouting

properly. In some of the Melanesian islands, when the yam vines are

being trained, the men sleep near the gardens and never approach

their wives; should they enter the garden after breaking this rule

of continence the fruits of the garden would be spoilt.

If we ask why it is that similar beliefs should logically lead,

among different peoples, to such opposite modes of conduct as strict

chastity and more or less open debauchery, the reason, as it

presents itself to the primitive mind, is perhaps not very far to

seek. If rude man identifies himself, in a manner, with nature; if

he fails to distinguish the impulses and processes in himself from

the methods which nature adopts to ensure the reproduction of plants

and animals, he may leap to one of two conclusions. Either he may

infer that by yielding to his appetites he will thereby assist in

the multiplication of plants and animals; or he may imagine that the

vigour which he refuses to expend in reproducing his own kind, will

form as it were a store of energy whereby other creatures, whether

vegetable or animal, will somehow benefit in propagating their

species. Thus from the same crude philosophy, the same primitive

notions of nature and life, the savage may derive by different

channels a rule either of profligacy or of asceticism.

To readers bred in religion which is saturated with the ascetic

idealism of the East, the explanation which I have given of the rule

of continence observed under certain circumstances by rude or savage

peoples may seem far-fetched and improbable. They may think that

moral purity, which is so intimately associated in their minds with

the observance of such a rule, furnishes a sufficient explanation of

it; they may hold with Milton that chastity in itself is a noble

virtue, and that the restraint which it imposes on one of the

strongest impulses of our animal nature marks out those who can

submit to it as men raised above the common herd, and therefore

worthy to receive the seal of the divine approbation. However

natural this mode of thought may seem to us, it is utterly foreign

and indeed incomprehensible to the savage. If he resists on occasion

the sexual instinct, it is from no high idealism, no ethereal

aspiration after moral purity, but for the sake of some ulterior yet

perfectly definite and concrete object, to gain which he is prepared

to sacrifice the immediate gratification of his senses. That this is

or may be so, the examples I have cited are amply sufficient to

prove. They show that where the instinct of self-preservation, which

manifests itself chiefly in the search for food, conflicts or

appears to conflict with the instinct which conduces to the

propagation of the species, the former instinct, as the primary and

more fundamental, is capable of overmastering the latter. In short,

the savage is willing to restrain his sexual propensity for the sake

of food. Another object for the sake of which he consents to

exercise the same self-restraint is victory in war. Not only the

warrior in the field but his friends at home will often bridle their

sensual appetites from a belief that by so doing they will the more

easily overcome their enemies. The fallacy of such a belief, like

the belief that the chastity of the sower conduces to the growth of

the seed, is plain enough to us; yet perhaps the self-restraint

which these and the like beliefs, vain and false as they are, have

imposed on mankind, has not been without its utility in bracing and

strengthening the breed. For strength of character in the race as in

the individual consists mainly in the power of sacrificing the

present to the future, of disregarding the immediate temptations of

ephemeral pleasure for more distant and lasting sources of

satisfaction. The more the power is exercised the higher and

stronger becomes the character; till the height of heroism is

reached in men who renounce the pleasures of life and even life

itself for the sake of keeping or winning for others, perhaps in

distant ages, the blessings of freedom and truth.

XII. The Sacred Marriage

1. Diana as a Goddess of Fertility

WE have seen that according to a widespread belief, which is not

without a foundation in fact, plants reproduce their kinds through

the sexual union of male and female elements, and that on the

principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic this reproduction is

supposed to be stimulated by the real or mock marriage of men and

women, who masquerade for the time being as spirits of vegetation.

Such magical dramas have played a great part in the popular

festivals of Europe, and based as they are on a very crude

conception of natural law, it is clear that they must have been

handed down from a remote antiquity. We shall hardly, therefore, err

in assuming that they date from a time when the forefathers of the

civilised nations of Europe were still barbarians, herding their

cattle and cultivating patches of corn in the clearings of the vast

forests, which then covered the greater part of the continent, from

the Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean. But if these old spells and

enchantments for the growth of leaves and blossoms, of grass and

flowers and fruit, have lingered down to our own time in the shape

of pastoral plays and popular merry-makings, is it not reasonable to

suppose that they survived in less attenuated forms some two

thousand years ago among the civilised peoples of antiquity? Or, to

put it otherwise, is it not likely that in certain festivals of the

ancients we may be able to detect the equivalents of our May Day,

Whitsuntide, and Midsummer celebrations, with this difference, that

in those days the ceremonies had not yet dwindled into mere shows

and pageants, but were still religious or magical rites, in which

the actors consciously supported the high parts of gods and

goddesses? Now in the first chapter of this book we found reason to

believe that the priest who bore the title of King of the Wood at

Nemi had for his mate the goddess of the grove, Diana herself. May

not he and she, as King and Queen of the Wood, have been serious

counterparts of the merry mummers who play the King and Queen of

May, the Whitsuntide Bridegroom and Bride in modern Europe? and may

not their union have been yearly celebrated in a _theogamy_ or

divine marriage? Such dramatic weddings of gods and goddesses, as we

shall see presently, were carried out as solemn religious rites in

many parts of the ancient world; hence there is no intrinsic

improbability in the supposition that the sacred grove at Nemi may

have been the scene of an annual ceremony of this sort. Direct

evidence that it was so there is none, but analogy pleads in favour

of the view, as I shall now endeavour to show.

Diana was essentially a goddess of the woodlands, as Ceres was a

goddess of the corn and Bacchus a god of the vine. Her sanctuaries

were commonly in groves, indeed every grove was sacred to her, and

she is often associated with the forest god Silvanus in dedications.

But whatever her origin may have been, Diana was not always a mere

goddess of trees. Like her Greek sister Artemis, she appears to have

developed into a personification of the teeming life of nature, both

animal and vegetable. As mistress of the greenwood she would

naturally be thought to own the beasts, whether wild or tame, that

ranged through it, lurking for their prey in its gloomy depths,

munching the fresh leaves and shoots among the boughs, or cropping

the herbage in the open glades and dells. Thus she might come to be

the patron goddess both of hunters and herdsmen, just as Silvanus

was the god not only of woods, but of cattle. Similarly in Finland

the wild beasts of the forest were regarded as the herds of the

woodland god Tapio and of his stately and beautiful wife. No man

might slay one of these animals without the gracious permission of

their divine owners. Hence the hunter prayed to the sylvan deities,

and vowed rich offerings to them if they would drive the game across

his path. And cattle also seem to have enjoyed the protection of

those spirits of the woods, both when they were in their stalls and

while they strayed in the forest. Before the Gayos of Sumatra hunt

deer, wild goats, or wild pigs with hounds in the woods, they deem

it necessary to obtain the leave of the unseen Lord of the forest.

This is done according to a prescribed form by a man who has special

skill in woodcraft. He lays down a quid of betel before a stake

which is cut in a particular way to represent the Lord of the Wood,

and having done so he prays to the spirit to signify his consent or

refusal. In his treatise on hunting, Arrian tells us that the Celts

used to offer an annual sacrifice to Artemis on her birthday,

purchasing the sacrificial victim with the fines which they had paid

into her treasury for every fox, hare, and roe that they had killed

in the course of the year. The custom clearly implied that the wild

beasts belonged to the goddess, and that she must be compensated for

their slaughter.

But Diana was not merely a patroness of wild beasts, a mistress of

woods and hills, of lonely glades and sounding rivers; conceived as

the moon, and especially, it would seem, as the yellow harvest moon,

she filled the farmer's grange with goodly fruits, and heard the

prayers of women in travail. In her sacred grove at Nemi, as we have

seen, she was especially worshipped as a goddess of childbirth, who

bestowed offspring on men and women. Thus Diana, like the Greek

Artemis, with whom she was constantly identified, may be described

as a goddess of nature in general and of fertility in particular. We

need not wonder, therefore, that in her sanctuary on the Aventine

she was represented by an image copied from the many-breasted idol

of the Ephesian Artemis, with all its crowded emblems of exuberant

fecundity. Hence too we can understand why an ancient Roman law,

attributed to King Tullus Hostilius, prescribed that, when incest

had been committed, an expiatory sacrifice should be offered by the

pontiffs in the grove of Diana. For we know that the crime of incest

is commonly supposed to cause a dearth; hence it would be meet that

atonement for the offence should be made to the goddess of

fertility.

Now on the principle that the goddess of fertility must herself be

fertile, it behoved Diana to have a male partner. Her mate, if the

testimony of Servius may be trusted, was that Virbius who had his

representative, or perhaps rather his embodiment, in the King of the

Wood at Nemi. The aim of their union would be to promote the

fruitfulness of the earth, of animals, and of mankind; and it might

naturally be thought that this object would be more surely attained

if the sacred nuptials were celebrated every year, the parts of the

divine bride and bridegroom being played either by their images or

by living persons. No ancient writer mentions that this was done in

the grove at Nemi; but our knowledge of the Arician ritual is so

scanty that the want of information on this head can hardly count as

a fatal objection to the theory. That theory, in the absence of

direct evidence, must necessarily be based on the analogy of similar

customs practised elsewhere. Some modern examples of such customs,

more or less degenerate, were described in the last chapter. Here we

shall consider their ancient counterparts.

2. The Marriage of the Gods

AT BABYLON the imposing sanctuary of Bel rose like a pyramid above

the city in a series of eight towers or stories, planted one on the

top of the other. On the highest tower, reached by an ascent which

wound about all the rest, there stood a spacious temple, and in the

temple a great bed, magnificently draped and cushioned, with a

golden table beside it. In the temple no image was to be seen, and

no human being passed the night there, save a single woman, whom,

according to the Chaldean priests, the god chose from among all the

women of Babylon. They said that the deity himself came into the

temple at night and slept in the great bed; and the woman, as a

consort of the god, might have no intercourse with mortal man.

At Thebes in Egypt a woman slept in the temple of Ammon as the

consort of the god, and, like the human wife of Bel at Babylon, she

was said to have no commerce with a man. In Egyptian texts she is

often mentioned as "the divine consort," and usually she was no less

a personage than the Queen of Egypt herself. For, according to the

Egyptians, their monarchs were actually begotten by the god Ammon,

who assumed for the time being the form of the reigning king, and in

that disguise had intercourse with the queen. The divine procreation

is carved and painted in great detail on the walls of two of the

oldest temples in Egypt, those of Deir el Bahari and Luxor; and the

inscriptions attached to the paintings leave no doubt as to the

meaning of the scenes.

At Athens the god of the vine, Dionysus, was annually married to the

Queen, and it appears that the consummation of the divine union, as

well as the espousals, was enacted at the ceremony; but whether the

part of the god was played by a man or an image we do not know. We

learn from Aristotle that the ceremony took place in the old

official residence of the King, known as the Cattle-stall, which

stood near the Prytaneum or Town-hall on the north-eastern slope of

the Acropolis. The object of the marriage can hardly have been any

other than that of ensuring the fertility of the vines and other

fruit-trees of which Dionysus was the god. Thus both in form and in

meaning the ceremony would answer to the nuptials of the King and

Queen of May.

In the great mysteries solemnised at Eleusis in the month of

September the union of the sky-god Zeus with the corn-goddess

Demeter appears to have been represented by the union of the

hierophant with the priestess of Demeter, who acted the parts of god

and goddess. But their intercourse was only dramatic or symbolical,

for the hierophant had temporarily deprived himself of his virility

by an application of hemlock. The torches having been extinguished,

the pair descended into a murky place, while the throng of

worshippers awaited in anxious suspense the result of the mystic

congress, on which they believed their own salvation to depend.

After a time the hierophant reappeared, and in a blaze of light

silently exhibited to the assembly a reaped ear of corn, the fruit

of the divine marriage. Then in a loud voice he proclaimed, "Queen

Brimo has brought forth a sacred boy Brimos," by which he meant,

"The Mighty One has brought forth the Mighty." The corn-mother in

fact had given birth to her child, the corn, and her travail-pangs

were enacted in the sacred drama. This revelation of the reaped corn

appears to have been the crowning act of the mysteries. Thus through

the glamour shed round these rites by the poetry and philosophy of

later ages there still looms, like a distant landscape through a

sunlit haze, a simple rustic festival designed to cover the wide

Eleusinian plain with a plenteous harvest by wedding the goddess of

the corn to the sky-god, who fertilised the bare earth with genial

showers. Every few years the people of Plataea, in Boeotia, held a

festival called the Little Daedala, at which they felled an oak-tree

in an ancient oak forest. Out of the tree they carved an image, and

having dressed it as a bride, they set it on a bullock-cart with a

bridesmaid beside it. The image seems then to have been drawn to the

bank of the river Asopus and back to the town, attended by a piping

and dancing crowd. Every sixty years the festival of the Great

Daedala was celebrated by all the people of Boeotia; and at it all

the images, fourteen in number, which had accumulated at the lesser

festivals, were dragged on wains in procession to the river Asopus

and then to the top of Mount Cithaeron, where they were burnt on a

great pyre. The story told to explain the festivals suggests that

they celebrated the marriage of Zeus to Hera, represented by the

oaken image in bridal array. In Sweden every year a life-size image

of Frey, the god of fertility, both animal and vegetable, was drawn

about the country in a waggon attended by a beautiful girl who was

called the god's wife. She acted also as his priestess in his great

temple at Upsala. Wherever the waggon came with the image of the god

and his blooming young bride, the people crowded to meet them and

offered sacrifices for a fruitful year.

Thus the custom of marrying gods either to images or to human beings

was widespread among the nations of antiquity. The ideas on which

such a custom is based are too crude to allow us to doubt that the

civilised Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks inherited it from their

barbarous or savage forefathers. This presumption is strengthened

when we find rites of a similar kind in vogue among the lower races.

Thus, for example, we are told that once upon a time the Wotyaks of

the Malmyz district in Russia were distressed by a series of bad

harvests. They did not know what to do, but at last concluded that

their powerful but mischievious god Keremet must be angry at being

unmarried. So a deputation of elders visited the Wotyaks of Cura and

came to an understanding with them on the subject. Then they

returned home, laid in a large stock of brandy, and having made

ready a gaily decked waggon and horses, they drove in procession

with bells ringing, as they do when they are fetching home a bride,

to the sacred grove at Cura. There they ate and drank merrily all

night, and next morning they cut a square piece of turf in the grove

and took it home with them. After that, though it fared well with

the people of Malmyz, it fared ill with the people of Cura; for in

Malmyz the bread was good, but in Cura it was bad. Hence the men of

Cura who had consented to the marriage were blamed and roughly

handled by their indignant fellow-villagers. "What they meant by

this marriage ceremony," says the writer who reports it, "it is not

easy to imagine. Perhaps, as Bechterew thinks, they meant to marry

Keremet to the kindly and fruitful Mukylcin, the Earth-wife, in

order that she might influence him for good." When wells are dug in

Bengal, a wooden image of a god is made and married to the goddess

of water.

Often the bride destined for the god is not a log or a cloud, but a

living woman of flesh and blood. The Indians of a village in Peru

have been known to marry a beautiful girl, about fourteen years of

age, to a stone shaped like a human being, which they regarded as a

god (_huaca_). All the villagers took part in the marriage ceremony,

which lasted three days, and was attended with much revelry. The

girl thereafter remained a virgin and sacrificed to the idol for the

people. They showed her the utmost reverence and deemed her divine.

Every year about the middle of March, when the season for fishing

with the dragnet began, the Algonquins and Hurons married their nets

to two young girls, aged six or seven. At the wedding feast the net

was placed between the two maidens, and was exhorted to take courage

and catch many fish. The reason for choosing the brides so young was

to make sure that they were virgins. The origin of the custom is

said to have been this. One year, when the fishing season came

round, the Algonquins cast their nets as usual, but took nothing.

Surprised at their want of success, they did not know what to make

of it, till the soul or genius (_oki_) of the net appeared to them

in the likeness of a tall well-built man, who said to them in a

great passion, "I have lost my wife and I cannot find one who has

known no other man but me; that is why you do not succeed, and why

you never will succeed till you give me satisfaction on this head."

So the Algonquins held a council and resolved to appease the spirit

of the net by marrying him to two such very young girls that he

could have no ground of complaint on that score for the future. They

did so, and the fishing turned out all that could be wished. The

thing got wind among their neighbours the Hurons, and they adopted

the custom. A share of the catch was always given to the families of

the two girls who acted as brides of the net for the year.

The Oraons of Bengal worship the Earth as a goddess, and annually

celebrate her marriage with the Sun-god Dharme¯ at the time when the

_sa¯l_ tree is in blossom. The ceremony is as follows. All bathe,

then the men repair to the sacred grove (_sarna_), while the women

assemble at the house of the village priest. After sacrificing some

fowls to the Sun-god and the demon of the grove, the men eat and

drink. "The priest is then carried back to the village on the

shoulders of a strong man. Near the village the women meet the men

and wash their feet. With beating of drums and singing, dancing, and

jumping, all proceed to the priest's house, which has been decorated

with leaves and flowers. Then the usual form of marriage is

performed between the priest and his wife, symbolising the supposed

union between Sun and Earth. After the ceremony all eat and drink

and make merry; they dance and sing obscene songs, and finally

indulge in the vilest orgies. The object is to move the mother earth

to become fruitful." Thus the Sacred Marriage of the Sun and Earth,

personated by the priest and his wife, is celebrated as a charm to

ensure the fertility of the ground; and for the same purpose, on the

principle of homoeopathic magic, the people indulge in licentious

orgy.

It deserves to be remarked that the supernatural being to whom women

are married is often a god or spirit of water. Thus Mukasa, the god

of the Victoria Nyanza lake, who was propitiated by the Baganda

every time they undertook a long voyage, had virgins provided for

him to serve as his wives. Like the Vestals they were bound to

chastity, but unlike the Vestals they seem to have been often

unfaithful. The custom lasted until Mwanga was converted to

Christianity. The Akikuyu of British East Africa worship the snake

of a certain river, and at intervals of several years they marry the

snake-god to women, but especially to young girls. For this purpose

huts are built by order of the medicine-men, who there consummate

the sacred marriage with the credulous female devotees. If the girls

do not repair to the huts of their own accord in sufficient numbers,

they are seized and dragged thither to the embraces of the deity.

The offspring of these mystic unions appears to be fathered on God

(_ngai_); certainly there are children among the Akikuyu who pass

for children of God. It is said that once, when the inhabitants of

Cayeli in Buru--an East Indian island--were threatened with

destruction by a swarm of crocodiles, they ascribed the misfortune

to a passion which the prince of the crocodiles had conceived for a

certain girl. Accordingly, they compelled the damsel's father to

dress her in bridal array and deliver her over to the clutches of

her crocodile lover.

A usage of the same sort is reported to have prevailed in the

Maldive Islands before the conversion of the inhabitants to Islam.

The famous Arab traveller Ibn Batutah has described the custom and

the manner in which it came to an end. He was assured by several

trustworthy natives, whose names he gives, that when the people of

the islands were idolaters there appeared to them every month an

evil spirit among the jinn, who came from across the sea in the

likeness of a ship full of burning lamps. The wont of the

inhabitants, as soon as they perceived him, was to take a young

virgin, and, having adorned her, to lead her to a heathen temple

that stood on the shore, with a window looking out to sea. There

they left the damsel for the night, and when they came back in the

morning they found her a maid no more, and dead. Every month they

drew lots, and he upon whom the lot fell gave up his daughter to the

jinnee of the sea. The last of the maidens thus offered to the demon

was rescued by a pious Berber, who by reciting the Koran succeeded

in driving the jinnee back into the sea.

Ibn Batutah's narrative of the demon lover and his mortal brides

closely resembles a well-known type of folk-tale, of which versions

have been found from Japan and Annam in the East to Senegambia,

Scandinavia, and Scotland in the West. The story varies in details

from people to people, but as commonly told it runs thus. A certain

country is infested by a many-headed serpent, dragon, or other

monster, which would destroy the whole people if a human victim,

generally a virgin, were not delivered up to him periodically. Many

victims have perished, and at last it has fallen to the lot of the

king's own daughter to be sacrificed. She is exposed to the monster,

but the hero of the tale, generally a young man of humble birth,

interposes in her behalf, slays the monster, and receives the hand

of the princess as his reward. In many of the tales the monster, who

is sometimes described as a serpent, inhabits the water of a sea, a

lake, or a fountain. In other versions he is a serpent or dragon who

takes possession of the springs of water, and only allows the water

to flow or the people to make use of it on condition of receiving a

human victim.

It would probably be a mistake to dismiss all these tales as pure

inventions of the story-teller. Rather we may suppose that they

reflect a real custom of sacrificing girls or women to be the wives

of waterspirits, who are very often conceived as great serpents or

dragons.

XIII. The Kings of Rome and Alba

1. Numa and Egeria

FROM THE FOREGOING survey of custom and legend we may infer that the

sacred marriage of the powers both of vegetation and of water has

been celebrated by many peoples for the sake of promoting the

fertility of the earth, on which the life of animals and men

ultimately depends, and that in such rites the part of the divine

bridegroom or bride is often sustained by a man or woman. The

evidence may, therefore, lend some countenance to the conjecture

that in the sacred grove at Nemi, where the powers of vegetation and

of water manifested themselves in the fair forms of shady woods,

tumbling cascades, and glassy lake, a marriage like that of our King

and Queen of May was annually celebrated between the mortal King of

the Wood and the immortal Queen of the Wood, Diana. In this

connexion an important figure in the grove was the water-nymph

Egeria, who was worshipped by pregnant women because she, like

Diana, could grant them an easy delivery. From this it seems fairly

safe to conclude that, like many other springs, the water of Egeria

was credited with a power of facilitating conception as well as

delivery. The votive offerings found on the spot, which clearly

refer to the begetting of children, may possibly have been dedicated

to Egeria rather than to Diana, or perhaps we should rather say that

the water-nymph Egeria is only another form of the great

nature-goddess Diana herself, the mistress of sounding rivers as

well as of umbrageous woods, who had her home by the lake and her

mirror in its calm waters, and whose Greek counterpart Artemis loved

to haunt meres and springs. The identification of Egeria with Diana

is confirmed by a statement of Plutarch that Egeria was one of the

oak-nymphs whom the Romans believed to preside over every green

oak-grove; for, while Diana was a goddess of the woodlands in

general, she appears to have been intimately associated with oaks in

particular, especially at her sacred grove of Nemi. Perhaps, then,

Egeria was the fairy of a spring that flowed from the roots of a

sacred oak. Such a spring is said to have gushed from the foot of

the great oak at Dodona, and from its murmurous flow the priestess

drew oracles. Among the Greeks a draught of water from certain

sacred springs or wells was supposed to confer prophetic powers.

This would explain the more than mortal wisdom with which, according

to tradition, Egeria inspired her royal husband or lover Numa. When

we remember how very often in early society the king is held

responsible for the fall of rain and the fruitfulness of the earth,

it seems hardly rash to conjecture that in the legend of the

nuptials of Numa and Egeria we have a reminiscence of a sacred

marriage which the old Roman kings regularly contracted with a

goddess of vegetation and water for the purpose of enabling him to

discharge his divine or magical functions. In such a rite the part

of the goddess might be played either by an image or a woman, and if

by a woman, probably by the Queen. If there is any truth in this

conjecture, we may suppose that the King and Queen of Rome

masqueraded as god and goddess at their marriage, exactly as the

King and Queen of Egypt appear to have done. The legend of Numa and

Egeria points to a sacred grove rather than to a house as the scene

of the nuptial union, which, like the marriage of the King and Queen

of May, or of the vine-god and the Queen of Athens, may have been

annually celebrated as a charm to ensure the fertility not only of

the earth but of man and beast. Now, according to some accounts, the

scene of the marriage was no other than the sacred grove of Nemi,

and on quite independent grounds we have been led to suppose that in

that same grove the King of the Wood was wedded to Diana. The

convergence of the two distinct lines of enquiry suggests that the

legendary union of the Roman king with Egeria may have been a

reflection or duplicate of the union of the King of the Wood with

Egeria or her double Diana. This does not imply that the Roman kings

ever served as Kings of the Wood in the Arician grove, but only that

they may originally have been invested with a sacred character of

the same general kind, and may have held office on similar terms. To

be more explicit, it is possible that they reigned, not by right of

birth, but in virtue of their supposed divinity as representatives

or embodiments of a god, and that as such they mated with a goddess,

and had to prove their fitness from time to time to discharge their

divine functions by engaging in a severe bodily struggle, which may

often have proved fatal to them, leaving the crown to their

victorious adversary. Our knowledge of the Roman kingship is far too

scanty to allow us to affirm any one of these propositions with

confidence; but at least there are some scattered hints or

indications of a similarity in all these respects between the

priests of Nemi and the kings of Rome, or perhaps rather between

their remote predecessors in the dark ages which preceded the dawn

of legend.

2. The King as Jupiter