A. L. Van Hasselt, _Volksbeschrijving van Midden-Sumatra_ (Leyden,
1882), p. 156.
Footnote 140:
W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), ii. 87.
Footnote 141:
I. M. van Baarda, “Île de Halma-heira,” _Bulletins de la Société
d’Anthropologie de Paris_, iv. (1893) p. 547.
Footnote 142:
L. Sternberg, “Die Religion der Gilyak,” _Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft_, viii. (1905) p. 246.
Footnote 143:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 83.
Footnote 144:
_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vii. (1843) p. 29.
Footnote 145:
A. Bastian, _Indonesien_, i. 17.
Footnote 146:
J. Perham, “Sea Dyak Religion,” _Journal of the Straits Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 10 (Dec. 1882), p. 217; H. Ling Roth, _The
Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i. 184.
Footnote 147:
W. Kükenthal, _Forschungsreise in den Molukken und in Borneo_
(Frankfort, 1896), pp. 265 _sq._
Footnote 148:
_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxv. (1896) p. 170.
Footnote 149:
E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 186, 188; compare
A. Bastian, _Völkerstämme am Brahmaputra_, p. 9.
Footnote 150:
E. T. Dalton, _op. cit._ p. 33; A. Bastian, _op. cit._ p. 16. Compare
L. A. Waddell, “The Tribes of the Brahmaputra Valley,” _Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxix. (1901) Part III. p. 16; W. Robertson
Smith, _The Religion of the Semites_, 2nd Ed., pp. 132 _sq._
Footnote 151:
E. T. Dalton, _op. cit._ p. 25; A. Bastian, _op. cit._ p. 37.
Footnote 152:
A. C. Kruijt, “Het koppensnellen der Toradja’s van Midden-Celebes en
zijne beteekenis,” _Verslagen en Mededeelingen der konink. Akademie
van Wetenschappen_, Afdeeling Letterkunde, IV. Reeks, iii. (1899) p.
195.
Footnote 153:
A. W. Niewenhuis, _In Centraal-Borneo_ (Leyden, 1900), i. 146; _id._,
_Quer durch Borneo_, i. (Leyden, 1904) p. 107.
Footnote 154:
_Id._, “Tweede Reis van Pontianak naar Samarinda,” _Tijdschrift van
het konink. Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap_, II. Serie,
xvii. (1900) p. 427.
Footnote 155:
J. Perham, “Sea Dyak Religion,” _Journal of the Straits Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society_, No. 10 (December 1882), p. 217; H. Ling Roth,
_The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i. 184.
Footnote 156:
B. Hagen, “Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Battareligion,” _Tijdschrift
voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde_, xxviii. 530, note.
Footnote 157:
W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 202.
Footnote 158:
E. Young, _The Kingdom of the Yellow Robe_ (Westminster, 1898), pp.
192 _sq._
Footnote 159:
J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan
States_, Part I. vol. i. (Rangoon, 1900) pp. 518 _sq._
Footnote 160:
Captain Macpherson, in _North Indian Notes and Queries_, ii. 112 §
428.
Footnote 161:
W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), ii. 91.
Footnote 162:
A. Bastian, _Die Völker des östlichen Asien_, i. 134. The authority
quoted by Bastian calls the people Curka Coles. As to the Larka Kols,
see E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 177 _sqq._
Footnote 163:
W. Crooke, _Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and
Oudh_, iv. 130.
Footnote 164:
S. Mateer, _The Land of Charity_ (London, 1871), p. 206.
Footnote 165:
B. A. Hely, in _Annual Report on British New Guinea for 1894-95_, p.
57.
Footnote 166:
T. J. Hutchinson, _Impressions of Western Africa_ (London, 1858), pp.
130 _sq._
Footnote 167:
Gallieni, “Mission dans le Haut Niger et à Ségou,” _Bulletin de la
Société de Géographie_ (Paris), viiime Série, v. (1883) pp. 577 _sq._
Footnote 168:
Ch. M. Doughty, _Travels in Arabia Deserta_ (Cambridge, 1888), i. 365.
Footnote 169:
Th. Bent, “The Yourouks of Asia Minor,” _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xx. (1891) p. 275.
Footnote 170:
Erasmus Stella, “De Borussiae antiquitatibus,” in Simon Grynaeus’s
_Novus Orbis regionum ac insularum veteribus incognitarum_ (Paris,
1532), p. 510; J. Lasicius (Lasiczki), “De diis Samagitarum
caeterorumque Sarmatarum,” in _Respublica sive Status regni Poloniae,
Lituaniae, Prussiae, Livoniae, etc._ (Leyden, 1627), pp. 299 _sq._; M.
C. Hartknoch, _Alt und neues Preussen_ (Frankfort and Leipsic, 1684),
p. 120. Lasiczki’s work has been reprinted by W. Mannhardt, in
_Magazin herausgegeben von der lettisch-lite-rärischen Gesellschaft_,
xiv. 82 _sqq._ (Mitau, 1868).
Footnote 171:
Mathias Michov, in Simon Grynaeus’s _Novus Orbis regionum ac insularum
veteribus incognitarum_ (Paris, 1532), p. 457.
Footnote 172:
J. G. Kohl, _Die deutsch-russischen Ostseeprovinzen_ (Dresden and
Leipsic, 1841), ii. 277.
Footnote 173:
Capt. E. C. Luard, _in Census of India, 1901_, xix. (Lucknow, 1902) p.
76.
Footnote 174:
J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, 4th ed., i. 497; compare _id._ ii.
540, 541.
Footnote 175:
Max Buch, _Die Wotjäken_ (Stuttgart, 1882), p. 124.
Footnote 176:
P. v. Stenin, “Ein neuer Beitrag zur Ethnographie der Tscheremissen,”
_Globus_, lviii. (1890) p. 204.
Footnote 177:
J. G. Dalyell, _Darker Superstitions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834),
p. 400.
Footnote 178:
J. G. Dalyell, _loc. cit._
Footnote 179:
J. Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_, p. 116.
Footnote 180:
H. R. Tate, “Further Notes on the Kikuyu Tribe of British East
Africa,” _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxiv. (1904) p.
263; _id._ “The Native Law of the Southern Gikuyu of British East
Africa,” _Journal of the African Society_, No. 35 (April 1910), pp.
242 _sq._
Footnote 181:
On the representations of Silvanus, the Roman wood-god, see H. Jordan
in L. Preller’s _Römische Mythologie_, 3rd Ed., i. 393 note; A.
Baumeister, _Denkmäler des classischen Altertums_, iii. 1665 _sq._ A
good representation of Silvanus bearing a pine branch is given in the
Sale Catalogue of H. Hoffmann, Paris, 1888, pt. ii.
Footnote 182:
Aeneas Sylvius, _Opera_ (Bâle, 1571), p. 418 [wrongly numbered 420];
compare Erasmus Stella, “De Borussiae antiquitatibus,” in _Novus Orbis
regionum ac insularum veteribus incognitarum_, p. 510.
Footnote 183:
E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 186.
Footnote 184:
J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, _Gazetteer of Upper Burmah and the
Shan States_, Part II. vol. iii. (Rangoon, 1901), pp. 63 _sq._
Footnote 185:
E. Aymonier, in _Cochinchine française: excursions et
reconnaissances_, No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), pp. 175 _sq._
Footnote 186:
L. Decle, _Three Years in Savage Africa_ (London, 1898), p. 489.
Footnote 187:
H. Schinz, _Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika_, pp. 295 _sq._
Footnote 188:
See above, vol. i. pp. 248, 250, 309.
Footnote 189:
Above, vol. i. p. 284.
Footnote 190:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_ (Berlin, 1875), pp. 158, 159, 170, 197,
214, 351, 514.
Footnote 191:
E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 188.
Footnote 192:
Villault, _Relation des costes appellées Guinée_ (Paris, 1669), pp.
266 _sq._; _Labat, Voyage du chevalier des Marchais en Guinée, isles
voisines, et à Cayenne_ (Paris, 1730), i. 338.
Footnote 193:
O. Baumann, _Usambara und seine Nachbargebiete_ (Berlin, 1891), p.
142.
Footnote 194:
C. E. X. Rochet d’Hericourt, _Voyage sur la côte orientale de la Mer
Rouge dans le pays d’Adel et le royaume de Choa_ (Paris, 1841), pp.
166 _sq._
Footnote 195:
L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_ (London, 1870), p. 266.
Footnote 196:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 190 _sqq._
Footnote 197:
W. Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und Feldkulte_ (Berlin, 1877), pp. 212
_sqq._
Footnote 198:
H. Low, Sarawak, p. 274; _id._, in _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_, xxv. (1896) p. 111.
Footnote 199:
T. H. Lewin, _Wild Races of South-Eastern India_ (London, 1870), p.
270.
Footnote 200:
J. Mackenzie, _Ten Years North of the Orange River_ (Edinburgh, 1871),
p. 385.
Footnote 201:
J. Campbell, _Travels in South Africa, Second Journey_ (London, 1822),
ii. 203.
Footnote 202:
Rev. J. Macdonald, MS. notes; compare _id._, _Light in Africa_, p.
210; _id._, in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xx. (1891)
p. 140. The Nubas will not cut shoots of the _nabac_ (a thorn-tree)
during the rainy season (_Missions Catholiques_, xiv. (1882) p. 460).
Among some of the hill-tribes of the Punjaub no one is allowed to cut
grass or any green thing with an iron sickle till the festival of the
ripening grain has been celebrated; otherwise the field-god would be
angry and send frost to destroy or injure the harvest (D. C. J.
Ibbetson, _Outlines of Panjab Ethnography_, p. 121).
Footnote 203:
“Ueber die Religion der heidnischen Tscheremissen im Gouvernement
Kasan,” _Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde_, N. F. iii. (1857) p.
150.
Footnote 204:
J. Biddulph, _Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh_, pp. 103 _sq._
Footnote 205:
J. Biddulph, _op. cit._ pp. 106 _sq._
Footnote 206:
W. Crooke, _Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_
(Westminster, 1896), ii. 102. See also Sir H. M. Elliot, _Memoirs on
the History, Folk-lore, and Distribution of the Races of the
North-Western Provinces of India_, edited by J. Beames, ii. 217,
where, however, the object of the prayers is said to be the
fruitfulness of the tree itself, not the fruitfulness of women,
animals, and cattle.
Footnote 207:
W. Crooke, _op. cit._ ii. 106.
Footnote 208:
Th. J. Hutchinson, _Impressions of Western Africa_, p. 128.
Footnote 209:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 161; E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten
und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_, p. 397; A. Peter, _Volksthümliches aus
Österreichisch-Schlesien_, ii. 286.
Footnote 210:
W. Camden, _Britannia_, ed. R. Gough (London, 1779), iii. 659.
Camden’s authority is Good, a writer of the sixteenth century.
Footnote 211:
_County Folk-lore: Suffolk_, collected and edited by Lady Eveline
Camilla Gurdon (London, 1893), p. 117.
Footnote 212:
Mr. E. F. Benson, in a letter to the author dated December 15, 1892.
Footnote 213:
_Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq._, edited by Lord Braybrooke, Second
Edition (London, 1828), ii. 209, under May 1st, 1667.
Footnote 214:
Lady Wilde, _Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of
Ireland_ (London, 1887), i. 196 _sq._ If an Irish housewife puts a
ring of rowan-tree or quicken, as it is also called, on the handle of
the churn-dash when she is churning, no witch can steal her butter (P.
W. Joyce, _Social History of Ancient Ireland_ (London, 1903), i. 236
_sq._).
Footnote 215:
W. Camden, _loc. cit._
Footnote 216:
W. Gregor, _Folk-lore of the North-east of Scotland_ (London, 1881),
p. 188.
Footnote 217:
J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and
Islands of Scotland_, p. 270, compare _ib._, pp. 7 _sqq._
Footnote 218:
J. G. Campbell, _op. cit._ pp. 11 _sq._ In Germany also the rowan-tree
is a charm against witchcraft (A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche
Volksaberglaube_, 2nd Ed., p. 106, § 145).
Footnote 219:
Sir John Rhys, “The Coligny Calendar,” _Proceedings of the British
Academy_, vol. iv. pp. 55 _sq._ of the offprint.
Footnote 220:
A. Kuhn, _Herabkunft des Feuers_ 2nd Ed., (Gütersloh, 1886), pp. 178
_sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Germanische Mythen_ (Berlin, 1858), pp. 17 _sq._
Footnote 221:
J. D. H. Temme, _Die Volkssagen der Altmark_ (Berlin, 1839), p. 85; E.
Sommer, _Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen_
(Halle, 1846), p. 149; A. Kuhn, _Sagen, Gebräuche und Märchen aus
Westfalen_, ii. p. 154, § 432, p. 155, § 436; A. Schleicher,
_Volkstümliches aus Sonnenberg_ (Weimar, 1858), p. 139; A. Peter,
_Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien_ (Troppau, 1865-67), ii.
252; R. Eisel, _Sagenbuch des Voigtlandes_ (Gera, 1871), p. 210;
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, p. 210; P.
Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i. (Leipsic,
1903) p. 109.
Footnote 222:
A. Kuhn, _Herabkunft des Feuers_, 2nd Ed., p. 166.
Footnote 223:
P. Drechsler, _op. cit._ i. 109 _sq._ Compare A. Peter, _loc. cit._
Footnote 224:
W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_ (Vienna
and Olmütz, 1893), p. 324.
Footnote 225:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalender aus Böhmen_, p. 210.
Footnote 226:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 174.
Footnote 227:
J. B. Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” _Verhandlungen der gelehrten Estnischen
Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_, vii. No. 2 (Dorpat, 1872), pp. 10 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, Baumkultus, pp. 407 _sq._
Footnote 228:
Potocki, _Voyage dans les steps d’Astrakhan et du Caucase_ (Paris,
1829), i. 309.
Footnote 229:
W. Foy, in _Archiv für Religionswissenschaft_, x. (1907) p. 551. For
details of the evidence see W. H. Goldie, M.D., “Maori Medical Lore,”
_Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute_, xxxvii.
(1904) pp. 93-95.
Footnote 230:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 163 _sqq._ To his authorities add for
France, A. Meyrac, _Traditions, coutumes, légendes et contes des
Ardennes_, pp. 84 _sqq._; L. F. Sauvé, _Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges_,
pp. 131 _sq._; Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et survivances_, v. 309
_sq._; Ch. Beauquier, _Les Mois en Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), pp.
69-72; F. Chapiseau, _Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche_ (Paris,
1902), ii. 109-111; for Silesia, F. Tetzner, “Die Tschechen und Mährer
in Schlesien,” _Globus_, lxxviii. (1900) p. 340; P. Drechsler, _Sitte,
Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i. 112 _sq._; for Moravia, W.
Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_, p. 26; for
Sardinia, R. Tennant, _Sardinia and its Resources_ (Rome and London,
1885), pp. 185 _sq._ In Brunswick the custom is observed at
Whitsuntide (R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_, p. 248).
Footnote 231:
_Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, i. 373.
Footnote 232:
F. S. Krauss, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven_, p.
35.
Footnote 233:
W. Radloff, _Proben der Volkslitteratur der nördlichen Türkischen
Stämme_, v. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1885).
Footnote 234:
E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 194; a similar
custom is practised among the Kurmis, _ibid._, p. 319. Among the
Mundas the custom seems now to have fallen into disuse (H. H. Risley,
_Tribes and Castes of Bengal: Ethnographic Glossary_, ii. 102).
Footnote 235:
The explanation has been suggested by Mr. W. Crooke (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxviii. (1899) p. 243). There are other
facts, however, which point to a different explanation, namely, that
the practice is intended to avert possible evil consequences from
bride or bridegroom. For example, “the superstition regarding a man’s
third marriage, prevalent in Barār and, I believe in other parts of
India, is not despised by the Vēlamās. A third marriage is unlucky.
Should a man marry a third wife, it matters not whether his former
wives be alive or not, evil will befall either him or that wife. No
father would give his girl to a man whose third wife she would be. A
man therefore, who has twice entered the married state and wishes to
mate yet once again, cannot obtain as a third wife any one who has
both the wit and the tongue to say no; a tree has neither, so to a
tree he is married. I have not been able to discover why the tree, or
rather shrub, called in Marāthī _ru’i_ and in Hindūstānī _madar_
(_Asclepias gigantea_), is invariably the victim selected in Barār,
nor do I know whether the shrub is similarly favoured in other parts
of India. The ceremony consists in the binding of a _mangal sūtra_
round the selected shrub, by which the bridegroom sits, while
turmeric-dyed rice (_akṣata_) is thrown over both him and the shrub.
This is the whole of the simple ceremony. He has gone through his
unlucky third marriage, and any lady whom he may favour after this
will be his fourth wife” (Captain Wolseley Haig, “Notes on the Vēlamā
Caste in Bārār,” _Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_, lxx. part
iii. (1901) p. 28). Again, the Vellalas of Southern India “observe a
curious custom (derived from Brāhmans) with regard to marriage, which
is not unknown in other communities. A man marrying a second wife
after the death of his first has to marry a plantain tree, and cut it
down before tying the _tāli_, and, in case of a third marriage, a man
has to tie a _tāli_ first to the erukkan (arka: _Calotropis gigantea_)
plant. The idea is that second and fourth wives do not prosper, and
the tree and the plant are accordingly made to take their places.”
(Mr. Hemingway, quoted by E. Thurston, _Castes and Tribes of Southern
India_, vii. 387). Tying the _tali_ to the bride is the common Hindoo
symbol of marriage, like giving the ring with us. As to these Indian
marriages to trees see further my _Totemism and Exogamy_, i. 32 _sq._,
iv. 210 _sqq._; _Panjab Notes and Queries_, ii. § 252, iii. §§ 12, 90,
562, iv. § 396; _North Indian Notes and Queries_, i. § 110; D. C. J.
Ibbetson, _Settlement Report of the Karnal District_, p. 155; H. H.
Risley, _Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, i. 531; Capt. E. C. Luard, in
_Census of India, 1901_, vol. xix. 76; W. Crooke, _Tribes and Castes
of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh_, ii. 363; _id._, _Popular
Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), ii.
115-121. I was formerly disposed to connect the custom with totemism,
but of this there seems to be no sufficient evidence.
Footnote 236:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 51 _sq._
Footnote 237:
Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, xvi.
236 _sq._
Footnote 238:
C. Bötticher, _Der Baumkultus der Hellenen_ (Berlin, 1856), pp. 30
_sq._
CHAPTER X
RELICS OF TREE-WORSHIP IN MODERN EUROPE
[Sidenote: May-trees in 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.
[Sidenote: May-trees and May-bushes in England.] 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.”[239] 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.[240] “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.”[241] In the north of
England it was [Sidenote: May garlands in England.] 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.[242] 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._”[243]
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.[244] 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. Thus on May morning the girls of the neighbouring villages
used to flock into Northampton bringing their garlands, which they
exhibited from house to house. The skeleton of the garland was formed of
two hoops of osier or hazel crossing each other at right angles, and so
twined with flowers and ribbons that no part of them could be seen. In
the centre of the garlands were placed gaily dressed dolls, one, two, or
three in number according to the size of the garland. The whole was
fixed to a staff about five feet long, by which it was carried. In
shewing their garlands the children chanted some simple ditties and
received in return pennies, which furnished forth a feast on their
return to their homes. A merry dance round the garland concluded the
festivity.[245] At Uttoxeter groups of children carry garlands of
flowers about the town on May Day. “The garlands consist of two hoops,
one passing through the other, which give the appearance of four
half-circles, and they are decorated with flowers and evergreens, and
surmounted with a bunch of flowers as a sort of crown, and in the centre
of the hoops is a pendant orange and flowers.” One or more of the
children carry a little pole or stick upright with a bunch of flowers
fastened to the top. They are themselves decorated with flowers and
ribbons, and receive pence from the houses which they visit.[246] At
Watford in Hertfordshire, groups of children, almost entirely girls, go
about the streets from door to door on May Day singing some verses, of
which two agree almost verbally with those which, as we have seen, are
sung at Abingdon in Berkshire. They are dressed in white, and adorned
with gay ribbons and sashes of many hues. “Two of the girls carry
between them on a stick what they call ‘the garland,’ which in its
simplest form, is made of two circular hoops, intersecting each other at
right angles; a more elaborate form has, in addition, smaller
semicircles inserted in the four angles formed by the meeting of the
hoops at the top of ‘the garland.’ These hoops are covered with any
wild-flowers in season, and are further ornamented with ribbons. The
‘garland’ in shape reminds me of the ‘Christmas’ which used to form the
centre of the Christmas decorations in Yorkshire some few years ago,
except that the latter had a bunch of mistletoe inside the hoops.”[247]
A similar custom was observed at Bampton-in-the-Bush in Oxfordshire down
to about the middle of the nineteenth century. The garland consisted of
two crossed hoops covered with moss, flowers, and ribbons. Two girls,
known as the Lady and her Maid, bore the garland between them on a
stick; and a boy called the Lord, who carried a stick dressed with
ribbons and flowers, collected contributions from the spectators. From
time to time the Lady sang a few lines and was then kissed by the
Lord.[248] At Sevenoaks in Kent the children carry boughs and garlands
from door to door on May Day. The boughs consist of sticks carried
upright with bunches of leaves and wild-flowers fastened to the top. The
garlands are formed of two hoops interlaced cross-wise and covered with
blue and yellow flowers from the woods and hedges. Sometimes the
garlands are fastened to the end of a stick carried perpendicularly,
sometimes they hang from the middle of a stick borne horizontally by two
children.[249] In the streets of Cambridge little girls regularly make
their appearance every May Day with female dolls enclosed in hoops,
which are covered with ribbons and flowers. These they shew to
passers-by, inviting them to remember the May Lady by paying a small sum
to her bearers.[250] At Salisbury girls go through the streets on May
Day in pairs, carrying between them on a stick a circular garland or
hoop adorned with flowers and bows; they visit the shops asking for
money. A similar custom is observed at Wilton a few miles from
Salisbury.[251] At Cawthorne in Yorkshire “on the first of May the
school-children came with hoops to beg for artificial flowers; these my
mother’s maid used to sew on to the hoops, which with ribbons and other
decorations, were used in decking out a tall May-pole planted in the
village.”[252] 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.[253]
[Sidenote: May customs in France, Germany, and Greece.] 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.[254] 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.[255] Among the Germans of Moravia on the third Sunday
before Easter, which goes by the name of _Laetare_ Sunday, it is
customary in some places for young girls to carry a small fir-tree about
from door to door, while they sing songs, for which they receive
presents. The tree is tricked out with many-coloured ribbons, and
sometimes with flowers and dyed egg-shells, and its branches are twined
together so as to form what is called a crown.[256] In Corfu the
children go about singing May songs on the first of May. The boys carry
small cypresses adorned with ribbons, flowers, and the fruits of the
season. They receive a glass of wine at each house. The girls carry
nosegays. One of them is dressed up like an angel, with gilt wings, and
scatters flowers.[257]
[Sidenote: Whitsuntide customs in Russia.] 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. “All over Russia every village and every town is
turned, a little before Whitsunday, into a sort of garden. Everywhere
along the streets the young birch-trees stand in rows, every house and
every room is adorned with boughs, even the engines upon the railway are
for the time decked with green leaves.”[258] In this Russian custom the
dressing of the birch in woman’s clothes shews how clearly the tree is
personified; and the throwing it into a stream is most probably a
rain-charm. In some villages of Altmark it was formerly the custom for
serving-men, grooms, and cowherds to go from farm to farm at Whitsuntide
distributing crowns made of birch branches and flowers to the farmers;
these crowns were hung up in the houses and left till the following
year.[259]
[Sidenote: May-trees in Germany and Sweden.] In the neighbourhood of
Zabern 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.[260] In some parts of
Sweden on the eve of May Day lads go about carrying each a bunch of
fresh-gathered birch twigs, wholly or partially 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.[261]
[Sidenote: Midsummer trees and poles in Sweden.] 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
Stănger_), 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
spruce-pine tree, stripped of its branches. “At times hoops and at
others pieces of wood, placed cross-wise, 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
Stăng’ (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.[262] 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. Many people
disguised themselves, and dramatic representations were given, amongst
others mock executions, at which the sufferer’s hat was knocked off
instead of his head. At the village of Lerbach in these fir-clad
mountains children would gather together on Midsummer Day, each with a
tiny fir-tree, which they made to revolve from left to right in the
direction of the sun, while they sang “The maiden turned herself about,”
or “Oh, thou dear Summertime! Oh, thou dear Summertime!”[263] 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.[264]
[Sidenote: Village May-poles in England.] 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.[265] 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
[Sidenote: Bringing in the May-pole.] 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.”[266] Of
the Cornish people their historian Borlase says: “From towns they make
excursions, on May eve, into the country, cut down a tall elm, bring it
into town with rejoicings, and having fitted a straight taper pole to
the end of it, and painted it, erect it in the most publick part, and
upon holidays and festivals dress it with garlands of flowers, or
ensigns and streamers.”[267] In Northumberland, down apparently to near
the end of the eighteenth century, young people of both sexes used to go
out early on May morning to gather the flowering thorn and the dew off
the grass, which they brought home with music and acclamations; then,
having dressed a pole on the green with garlands, they danced about it.
The dew was considered as a great cosmetic, and preserved the face from
wrinkles, blotches, and the traces of old age. A syllabub made of warm
milk from the cow, sweet cakes, and wine was prepared for the feast; and
a kind of divination, to discover who should be wedded first, was
practised by dropping a marriage-ring into the syllabub and fishing for
it with a ladle.[268] At Padstow in Cornwall, when shipbuilding was a
thriving industry of the port, the shipwrights used to erect a tall
May-pole at the top of Cross Street in the middle of a cross inlaid with
stone. The pole was gaily decorated with spring flowers and so forth.
But the custom has long been abandoned. A great feature of the
celebration of May Day at Padstow used to be the Hobby Horse, that is, a
man wearing a ferocious mask, who went dancing and singing before the
chief houses, accompanied by a great flower-bedecked crowd of men and
women, while the men fired pistols loaded with powder in all
directions.[269]
[Sidenote: Village May-trees and May-poles in Germany.] 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.[270] 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
Whitsuntide 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. In the great towns of our land the custom has developed into
sport, for our spring races are in their origin nothing but the old
German horse-races, in which the victor received a prize (generally a
red cloth) from the hand of a maiden, while the last rider was greeted
with jeers and gibes by the assembled community.”[271] The custom of the
May-tree is observed by the Wends of Saxony, as well as by the Germans.
The young men of the village choose the slimmest and tallest tree in the
wood, peel it and set it up on the village green. Its leafy top is
decked with cloths and ribbons presented by the girls. Here it stands,
towering high above the roofs, till Ascension Day, or in many places
till Whitsuntide. When it is being taken down, the young folk dance
round it, and the youth who catches and breaks off the leafy crown of
the falling tree is the hero of the day. Holding the green boughs aloft
he is carried shoulder-high, with music and joyous shouts, to the
ale-house, where the dance is resumed.[272] At Bordeaux on the
[Sidenote: May-poles and May-trees in France.] 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.[273]
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.[274] The Red
Karens of [Sidenote: May-poles among the Karens of Burma.] Upper Burma
hold a festival in April, at which the chief ceremony is the erection of
a post on ground set apart for the purpose in or near each village. A
new post is set up every year; the old ones are left standing, but are
not renewed if they fall or decay. Omens are first drawn from chicken
bones as to which tree will be the best to fell for the post, which day
will be the luckiest, and so on. A pole some twenty or thirty feet long
is then hewn from the tree and ornamented with a rudely carved capital.
On the lucky day all the villagers assemble and drag the pole to the
chosen spot. When it has been set up, the people dance “a rude sort of
May-pole dance” to the music of drums and gongs. Much pork is eaten and
much liquor drunk on this festive occasion.[275]
[Sidenote: Permanent May-poles.] 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.[276] 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.”[277] 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.”[278] Thus the renewal of the May-tree is like the renewal
of the Harvest-May;[279] 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, [Sidenote:
The May-tree burnt at the end of the year.] 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.[280] In Würtemberg
the bushes which are set up on the houses on Palm Sunday are sometimes
left there for a year and then burnt.[281] The _eiresione_ (the
Harvest-May of Greece) was perhaps burnt at the end of the year.[282]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Tree-spirit detached from the tree and represented in human
form.] So much for the tree-spirit conceived as incorporate or immanent
in the tree. We have now to shew 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. These will be described
presently, but before examining them we may notice an Esthonian
folk-tale which illustrates the same train of thought very clearly. Once
upon a time, so runs [Sidenote: Esthonian story of a tree-elf.] the
tale, a young peasant was busy raking the hay in a meadow, when on the
rim of the horizon a heavy thunder-cloud loomed black and angry, warning
him to make haste with his work before the storm should break. He
finished in time, and was wending his way homeward, when under a tree he
espied a stranger fast asleep. “He will be drenched to the skin,”
thought the good-natured young fellow to himself, “if I allow him to
sleep on.” So he stepped up to the sleeper and shaking him forcibly
roused him from his slumber. The stranger started up, and at sight of
the thunder-cloud, which now darkened the sky, he blenched, fumbled in
his pockets, and finding nothing in them wherewith to reward the
friendly swain, he said, “This time I am your debtor. But the time will
come when I shall be able to repay your kindness. Remember what I tell
you. You will enlist. You will be parted from your friends for years,
and one day a feeling of homesickness will come over you in a foreign
land. Then look up, and you will see a crooked birch-tree a few steps
from you. Go to it, knock thrice on the trunk, and ask, ‘Is the Crooked
One at home?’ The rest will follow.” With these words the stranger
hastened away and was out of sight in a moment. The peasant also went
his way, and soon forgot all about the matter. Well, time went by and
part of the stranger’s prophecy came true. For the peasant turned
soldier and served in a cavalry regiment for years. One day, when he was
quartered with his regiment in the north of Finland, it fell to his turn
to tend the horses while his comrades were roistering in the tavern.
Suddenly a great yearning for home, such as he had never known before,
came over the lonely trooper; tears started to his eyes, and dear
visions of his native land crowded on his soul. Then he bethought him of
the sleeping stranger in the wood, and the whole scene came back to him
as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. He looked up, and there,
strange to tell, he was aware of a crooked birch-tree right in front of
him. More in jest than in earnest he went up to it and did as the
stranger had bidden him. Hardly had the words, “Is the Crooked One at
home?” passed his lips when the stranger himself stood before him and
said, “I am glad you have come. I feared you had forgotten me. You wish
to be at home, do you not?” The trooper said yes, he did. Then the
Crooked One cried into the tree, “Young folks, which of you is the
fleetest?” A voice from the birch replied, “Father, I can run as fast as
a moor-hen flies.” “Well, I need a fleeter messenger to-day.” A second
voice answered, “I can run like the wind.” “I need a swifter envoy,”
said the father. Then a third voice cried, “I can run like the thought
of man.” “You are after my own heart. Fill a bag full of gold and take
it with my friend and benefactor to his home.” Then he caught the
soldier by the hat, crying, “The hat to the man, and the man to the
house!” The same moment the soldier felt his hat fly from his head. When
he looked about for it, lo! he was at home in the old familiar parlour
wearing his old peasant clothes, and the great sack of money stood
beside him. Yet on parade and at the roll-call he was never missed. When
the man who told this story was asked, “Who could the stranger be?” he
answered, “Who but a tree-elf?”[283]
[Sidenote: Tree-spirit represented simultaneously in vegetable and human
form.] 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._”[284]
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.[285] In these cases the tree and the puppet are obviously
regarded as equivalent.
[Sidenote: The Little May Rose.] 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.[286] 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!”[287] In Brie (Isle de France) a May-tree is set up 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.[288] In the small towns of the Franken Wald
[Sidenote: The _Walber_.] 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.[289]
[Sidenote: Green George in Carinthia.] Amongst the Slavs of Carinthia,
on St. George’s Day (the twenty-third 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._”[290]
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.
[Sidenote: Green George among the gypsies.] 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 twenty-third 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.[291] 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.
[Sidenote: Double representation of the tree-spirit by tree and man
among the Oraons.] An example of the double representation of the spirit
of vegetation by a tree and a living man is reported from Bengal. The
Oraons have a festival in spring while the sál-trees are in blossom,
because they think that at this time the marriage of earth is celebrated
and the sál flowers are necessary for the ceremony. On an appointed day
the villagers go with their priest to the Sarna, the sacred grove, a
remnant of the old sál forest in which a goddess Sarna Burhi, or woman
of the grove, is supposed to dwell. She is thought to have great
influence on the rain; and the priest arriving with his party at the
grove sacrifices to her five fowls, of which a morsel is given to each
person present. Then they gather the sál flowers and return laden with
them to the village. Next day the priest visits every house, carrying
the flowers in a wide open basket. The women of each house bring out
water to wash his feet as he approaches, and kneeling make him an
obeisance. Then he dances with them and places some of the sál flowers
over the door of the house and in the women’s hair. No sooner is this
done than the women empty their water-jugs over him, drenching him to
the skin. A feast follows, and the young people, with sál flowers in
their hair, dance all night on the village green.[292] Here, the
equivalence of the flower-bearing priest to the goddess of the flowering
tree comes out plainly. For she is supposed to influence the rain, and
the drenching of the priest with water is, doubtless, like the ducking
of the Green George in Carinthia and elsewhere, a rain-charm. Thus the
priest, as if he were the tree goddess herself, goes from door to door
dispensing rain and bestowing fruitfulness on each house, but especially
on the women. In some parts [Sidenote: Double representation of the
harvest-goddess Gauri by a bundle of plants and an unmarried girl.] of
India the harvest-goddess Gauri, the wife of Siva, is represented both
by an unmarried girl and by a bundle of the wild flowering balsam plant
touch-me-not (_Impatiens sp._), which is tied up in a mummy-like figure
with a woman’s mask, dress, and ornaments. Before being removed from the
soil to represent the goddess the plants are worshipped. The girl is
also worshipped. Then the bundle of plants is carried and the girl who
personates the goddess walks through the rooms of the house, while the
supposed footprints of Gauri herself are imprinted on the floor with red
paste. On entering each room the human representative of Gauri is asked,
“Gauri, Gauri, whither have you come and what do you see?” and the girl
makes appropriate replies. Then she is given a mouthful of sweets and
the mistress of the house says, “Come with golden feet and stay for
ever.” The plant-formed effigy of Gauri is afterwards worshipped as the
goddess herself and receives offerings of rice-cakes and pancakes. On
the third day it is thrown into a river or tank; then a handful of
pebbles or sand is brought home from the spot and thrown all over the
house and the trees to bring good luck to the house and to protect the
trees from vermin. A remarkable feature of the ceremonies is that the
goddess Gauri is supposed to be secretly followed by her husband Siva,
who remains hidden under the fold of her garment and is represented by a
_lôṭâ_, covered by a coco-nut and filled with rice, which is carefully
measured. After the image of Gauri has been thrown into the river or
tank, the rice in the _lôṭâ_ representing Siva is carefully measured
again, in order to see whether the quantity has increased or decreased,
and according to the result an abundant or a scanty harvest is
prognosticated.[293] Hence it appears that the whole ritual aims at
ensuring a plentiful crop of rice. In this case the spirit of vegetation
thus represented in duplicate by a living girl and the effigy of a woman
is a harvest goddess, not a tree-spirit, but the principle is the same.
[Sidenote: W. Mannhardt’s summary of the evidence.] 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, shew that the idea of the spirit of
vegetation is blent with a personification of the season at which his
powers are most strikingly manifested.”[294]
[Sidenote: Tree-spirit or vegetation-spirit represented by a person
alone.] Thus 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 shew 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.
[Sidenote: Green George in Russia.] 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 then 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.[295] 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, [Sidenote: Whitsuntide customs in Russia.] 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
a district of Little Russia they take round a “poplar,” represented by a
girl wearing bright flowers in her hair.[296] At Whitsuntide in Holland
poor women used to go about begging with a little girl called
Whitsuntide Flower (_Pinxterbloem_, perhaps a kind of iris); she was
decked with flowers and sat in a waggon. In North Brabant she wears the
flowers from which she takes her name and a song is sung:—
“_Whitsuntide Flower,
Turn yourself once round._”[297]
[Sidenote: May customs in France.] All over Provence on the first of May
pretty little girls are dressed in white, decked with crowns and wreaths
of roses, and set on seats or platforms strewn with flowers in the
streets, while their companions go about begging coppers for the Mayos
or Mayes, as they are called, from the passers-by.[298] In some parts of
the Ardennes on May Day a small girl, clad in white and wearing a
chaplet of flowers on her head, used to go from house to house with her
play-mates, collecting contributions and singing that it was May, the
month of May, the pretty month of May, that the wheat was tall, the
hawthorn in bloom, and the lark carolling in the sky.[299]
[Sidenote: The Little Leaf Man.] In Ruhla (Thüringen) 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 play-mates 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.[300] At
Röllshausen on the [Sidenote: Leaf-clad mummers at Whitsuntide.]
Schwalm, in Hesse, when afternoon service is over on Whitsunday, the
schoolboys and schoolgirls go out into the wood and there clothe a boy
from head to foot in leaves so that nobody would know him. He is called
the Little Whitsuntide Man. A procession is then formed. Two boys lead
their leaf-clad playfellow; two others precede him with a basket; and
two girls with another basket bring up the rear. Thus they go from house
to house singing hymns or popular songs and collecting eggs and cakes in
the baskets. When they have feasted on these, they strip their comrade
of his verdant envelope on an open place in front of the village.[301]
In some parts of Rhenish Bavaria at Whitsuntide a boy or lad is swathed
in the yellow blossom of the broom, the dark green twigs of the firs,
and other foliage. Thus attired he is known as the Quack and goes from
door to door, whirling about in the dance, while an appropriate song is
chanted and his companions levy contributions.[302] 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
(_Pfingstlümmel_), 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.[303]
[Sidenote: Jack-in-the-Green in England.] 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.[304] The ceremony
was witnessed at Cheltenham on the second of May 1892, by Dr. W. H. D.
Rouse, who has described in detail the costume of the performers. They
were all chimney-sweeps of the town. Jack-in-the-Green or the
Bush-carrier was enclosed in a wooden framework on which leaves were
fastened so as to make a thick cone about six feet high, topped with a
crown, which consisted of two wooden hoops placed crosswise and covered
with flowers. The leafy envelope was unbroken except for a single
opening through which peered the face of the mummer. From time to time
in their progress through the streets the performers halted, and three
of them, dressed in red, blue, and yellow respectively, tripped lightly
round the leaf-covered man to the inspiring strains of a fiddle and a
tin whistle on which two of their comrades with blackened faces
discoursed sweet music. The leader of the procession was a clown
fantastically clad in a long white pinafore or blouse with coloured
fringes and frills, and wearing on his head a beaver hat of the familiar
pattern, the crown of which hung loose and was adorned with ribbons and
a bird or a bundle of feathers. Large black rings surrounded his eyes,
and a red dab over mouth and chin lent a pleasing variety to his
countenance. He contributed to the public hilarity by flapping the
yellow fringe of his blouse with quaint gestures and occasionally
fanning himself languidly. His efforts were seconded by another
performer, who wore a red fool’s cap, all stuck with flowers, and a
white pinafore enriched with black human figures in front and a black
gridiron-like pattern, crossed diagonally by a red bar, at the back. Two
boys in white pinafores, with similar figures, or stars, on the breast,
and a fish on the back, completed the company. Formerly there used to be
a man in woman’s clothes, who personated the clown’s wife.[305] In some
parts also of France a young fellow is encased in a wicker framework
covered with leaves and is led about.[306] In Frickthal, in the Swiss
[Sidenote: The Whitsuntide Basket in Switzerland.] canton of Aargau, 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 calves;
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.[307] In the
neighbourhood of Ertingen (Würtemberg) a [Sidenote: The Lazy Man in
Würtemberg.] masker of the same sort, known as the Lazy Man
(_Latzmann_), goes about the village on Midsummer Day; he is hidden
under a great pyramidal or conical frame of wickerwork, ten or twelve
feet high, which is completely covered with sprigs of fir. He has a bell
which he rings as he goes, and he is attended by a suite of persons
dressed up in character—a footman, a colonel, a butcher, an angel, the
devil, the doctor, and so on. They march in Indian file and halt before
every house, where each of them speaks in character, except the Lazy
Man, who says nothing. With what they get by begging from door to door
they hold a feast.[308]
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.
[Sidenote: Leaf-clad representative of vegetation sometimes called a
King or Queen.] 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.[309]
[Sidenote: May-Kings at Whitsuntide in Germany and Bohemia.] 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.[310] 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.[311] 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.[312] At Wahrstedt in Brunswick the boys at Whitsuntide choose
by lot a king and a high-steward (_füstje-meier_). The latter is
completely concealed in a May-bush, wears a wooden crown wreathed 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.[313] At Hildesheim, in
Hanover, 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 [Sidenote: The Leaf
King.] 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.[314] 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.[315] At Grossvargula, near
Langensalza, in [Sidenote: The Grass King.] 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.[316] 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.[317] 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.[318] The pinching and beheading of the
frog are doubtless, as Mannhardt observes,[319] 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.[320]
[Sidenote: May-Queens and Whitsuntide Queens.] 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.[321] 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.[322] 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.[323] The May Queen is common in France[324] and familiar in
England. Thus at the adjoining [Sidenote: The May Queen in
Warwickshire.] villages of Cherrington and Stourton in south
Warwickshire, the Queen of May is still represented on May Day by a
small girl dressed in white and wearing a wreath of flowers on her head.
An older girl wheels the Queen in what is called a mail-cart, that is, a
child’s perambulator on two wheels. Another girl carries a money-box.
Four boys bear the May-pole, a conical framework formed of a high tripod
with a central shaft. The whole structure is encased in a series of five
hoops, which rise one above the other, diminishing in size from bottom
to top with the tapering of the cone. The hoops, as well as the tripod
and the central shaft, are all covered with whatever flowers happen to
be in bloom, such as marsh-marigolds, primroses, or blue-bells. To the
top of the central shaft is fastened a bunch of the flower called
crown-imperial, if it is in season. The lowest hoop is crossed by two
bars at right angles to each other, and the projecting ends of the bars
serve as handles, by which the four boys carry the May-pole. Each of the
bearers has a garland of flowers slung over his shoulder. Thus the
children go from house to house, singing their songs and receiving
money, which goes to provide a treat for them in the afternoon.[325]
[Sidenote: Spirit of vegetation represented simultaneously by a King and
Queen or a Bridegroom and Bride.] 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.[326]
At Halford in south Warwickshire the children go from house to house on
May Day, [Sidenote: Whitsuntide King and Queen.] 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
school-house in the afternoon.[327] 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.[328] 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 ale-house, 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.
Meantime the clown hurried to the ale-house 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 chin, 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 neckcloth, 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 [Sidenote:
King and Queen of May.] 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.[329] Near
Grenoble, in France, a king and queen are chosen on the first of May and
are set on a throne for all to see.[330] At Headington, near Oxford,
children used to carry garlands from door to door on May Day. Each
garland was borne by two girls, and they were followed by a lord and
lady—a boy and girl linked together by a white handkerchief, of which
each held an end, and dressed with ribbons, sashes, and flowers. At each
door they sang a verse:—
“_Gentlemen and ladies,
We wish you happy May;
We come to shew you a garland,
Because it is May-day._”
On receiving money the lord put his arm about his lady’s waist and
kissed her.[331] At Fleuriers in Switzerland on the seventh of May 1843
a May-bridegroom (_Époux de Mai_) and his bride were escorted in a
procession of over two hundred children, some of whom carried green
branches of beech. A number of May Fools were entrusted with the
delicate duty of going round with the hat. The proceeds of their tact
and industry furnished a banquet in the evening, and the day ended with
a children’s ball.[332] In some Saxon villages at Whitsuntide a lad and
a lass used to disguise themselves and hide in the bushes or high grass
outside the village. Then the whole village went out with music “to seek
the bridal pair.” When they found the couple they all gathered round
them, the music struck up, and the bridal pair was led merrily to the
village. In the evening they danced. In some places the bridal pair was
called the prince and the princess.[333]
[Sidenote: Whitsuntide Bridegroom and Bride in Denmark.] In a parish of
Denmark it used to be the custom at Whitsuntide to dress up a little
girl as the Whitsun-bride (_pinse-bruden_) 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.[334]
[Sidenote: Midsummer Bridegroom and Bride in Sweden and Norway.] We have
seen that in Sweden the ceremonies associated elsewhere with May Day or
Whitsuntide commonly take place at Midsummer.[335] 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.[336] A similar ceremony seems
to be still kept up in Norway, for a correspondent writes to me as
follows in reference to the Danish custom of the Whitsun-bride: “It may
interest you to know that on June 23, 1893, I witnessed at Ullensvang,
Hardanger, Norway, a ceremony almost exactly the same as that described
in your book. Wild flowers are scarce there, and the bride wore the
usual metal crown, the attendants for the most part wearing the pretty
Hardanger costume. The dancing took place in an unlighted barn, as the
farmer was afraid of fire. There were plenty of boys at the dance, but
so far as I can remember, none in the procession. The custom is clearly
dying out, and the somewhat reluctant bridegroom was the subject of a
good deal of chaff from his fellows.”[337] In Sardinia the Midsummer
couples are known as the Sweethearts of St. John, and their association
with the growth of plants is clearly brought out by the pots of
sprouting grain which form a principal part of the ceremony.[338]
[Sidenote: Forsaken Bridegroom or Bride of May or Whitsuntide.] 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 folk. The lad is called the bridegroom of the month of May
(_le fiancé du mois de 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.[339] 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.[340] 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.[341]
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 wakens him the fresh verdure or the genial sunshine of
spring? It is hardly possible, on the evidence before us, to answer
these questions. The Oraons of Bengal, it may be remembered, celebrate
the marriage of earth in the springtime, when the sál-tree is in
blossom.[342] But from this we can hardly argue that in the European
ceremonies the sleeping bridegroom is “the dreaming earth” and the girl
the spring blossoms.
[Sidenote: St. Bride in Scotland and the Isle of Man.] 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.”[343]
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.”[344] 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.”[345]
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 the Celtic
goddess Brigit, who will meet us again later on.[346]
[Sidenote: May Bride or Whitsuntide Bride.] 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.[347] 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.[348] At Waggum in Brunswick, when service is over on
Whitsunday, the village girls assemble, dressed in white or bright
colours, decked with flowers, and wearing chaplets of spring flowers in
their hair. One of them represents the May Bride, and carries a crown of
flowers on a staff as a sign of her dignity. As usual the children go
about from cottage to cottage singing and begging for eggs, sausages,
cakes, or money. In other parts of Brunswick it is a boy clothed all in
birch leaves who personates the May Bride.[349] In Bresse in the month
of May a girl called _la Mariée_ is tricked out with ribbons and
nosegays and is led about by a gallant. She is preceded by a lad
carrying a green May-tree, and appropriate verses are sung.[350]
Footnote 239:
Quoted by J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, i. 246 (ed. Bohn).
Footnote 240:
T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_ (London, 1876), p.
254.
Footnote 241:
W. Borlase, _The Natural History of Cornwall_ (Oxford, 1758), p. 294.
Footnote 242:
J. Brand, _op. cit._ i. 212 _sq._
Footnote 243:
T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _Popular British Customs_, p. 233.
Footnote 244:
R. Chambers, _Book of Days_ (London and Edinburgh, 1886), i. 578; T.
F. Thiselton Dyer, _op. cit._ pp. 237 _sq._
Footnote 245:
W. Hone, _Every Day Book_ (London, N.D.), ii. 615 _sq._; T. F.
Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, pp. 251 _sq._ At Polebrook
in Northamptonshire the verses sung by the children on their rounds
include two which are almost identical with those sung at Abingdon in
Berkshire. See Dyer, _op. cit._ pp. 255 _sq._ The same verses were
formerly sung on May Day at Hitchin in Hertfordshire (Hone, _Every Day
Book_, i. 567 _sq._; Dyer, _op. cit._ pp. 240 _sq._).
Footnote 246:
Dyer, _op. cit._ p. 263.
Footnote 247:
Percy Manning, in _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) pp. 403 _sq._
Footnote 248:
_Id._, in _Folk-lore_, viii. (1897) p. 308. Customs of the same sort
are reported also from Combe, Headington, and Islip, all in
Oxfordshire (Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, pp. 261 _sq._). See
below, pp. 90 _sq._
Footnote 249:
Dyer, _op. cit._ p. 243.
Footnote 250:
W. H. D. Rouse, in _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) p. 53. I have witnessed the
ceremony almost annually for many years. Many of the hoops have no
doll, and ribbons or rags of coloured cloth are more conspicuous than
flowers in their decoration.
Footnote 251:
J. P. Emslie, in _Folk-lore_, xi. (1900) p. 210.
Footnote 252:
_Memoirs of Anna Maria Wilhelmina Pickering_, edited by her son,
Spencer Pickering (London, 1903), pp. 160 _sq._
Footnote 253:
Lady Wilde, _Ancient Cures, Charms, and Usages of Ireland_ (London,
1890), pp. 101 _sq._ At the ancient Greek festival of the Daphnephoria
or “Laurel-bearing” a staff of olive-wood, decked with laurels, purple
ribbons, and many-coloured flowers, was carried in procession, and
attached to it were two large globes representing the sun and moon,
together with a number of smaller globes which stood for the stars.
See Proclus, quoted by Photius, _Bibliotheca_, p. 321, ed. Bekker.
Footnote 254:
E. Cortet, _Essai sur les fêtes religieuses_ (Paris, 1867) pp. 167
_sqq._
Footnote 255:
_Revue des traditions populaires_, ii. (1887) p. 200.
Footnote 256:
W. Müller, _Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren_ (Wien und
Olmütz, 1893), pp. 319 _sq._, 355-359.
Footnote 257:
_Folk-lore_, i. (1890) pp. 518 _sqq._
Footnote 258:
W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_ 2nd Ed., (London,
1872), pp. 234 _sq._
Footnote 259:
A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), p. 315.
Footnote 260:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 162.
Footnote 261:
L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_, p. 235.
Footnote 262:
L. Lloyd, _op. cit._ pp. 257 _sqq._
Footnote 263:
H. Pröhle, _Harzbilder_ (Leipsic, 1855), pp. 19 _sq._ Compare _id._,
in _Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde_, i. (1853)
pp. 81 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Germanische Mythen_, pp. 512 _sqq._; A.
Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_
(Leipsic, 1848), p. 390, § 80.
Footnote 264:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_ (Prague, N.D.), pp.
308 _sq._ A fuller description of the ceremony will be given later.
Footnote 265:
For the evidence see J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, i. 234 _sqq._;
W. Hone, _Every Day Book_, i. 547 _sqq._, ii. 574 _sqq._; R. Chambers,
_Book of Days_, i. 574 _sqq._; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular
Customs_, pp. 228 _sqq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 168 _sqq._
Footnote 266:
Phillip Stubbes, _The Anatomie of Abuses_, p. 149 (F. J. Furnivall’s
reprint). In later editions some verbal changes were made.
Footnote 267:
W. Borlase, _Natural History of Cornwall_ (Oxford, 1758), p. 294.
Footnote 268:
W. Hutchinson, _View of Northumberland_ (Newcastle, 1778), ii.
Appendix, pp. 13 _sq._; Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, p. 257.
Footnote 269:
“Padstow ‘Hobby Hoss,’” _Folklore_, xvi. (1905) pp. 59 _sq._
Footnote 270:
E. Meier, _Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben_
(Stuttgart, 1852), p. 396.
Footnote 271:
E. Mogk, in R. Wuttke’s _Sächsische Volkskunde_ 2nd Ed., (Dresden,
1901), pp. 309 _sq._
Footnote 272:
M. Rentsch, in R. Wuttke’s _op. cit._ p. 359.
Footnote 273:
A. De Nore, _Coutumes, mythes et traditions des provinces de France_
(Paris and Lyons, 1846), p. 137.
Footnote 274:
Bérenger-Féraud, _Superstitions et survivances_ (Paris, 1896), v. 308
_sq._ Compare _id._, _Reminiscences populaires de la Provence_, pp. 21
_sq._, 26, 27.
Footnote 275:
J. G. Scott and J. P. Hardiman, _Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shan
States_, part i. vol. i. (Rangoon, 1900) p. 529.
Footnote 276:
W. Hone, _Every Day Book_, i. 547 _sqq._; R. Chambers, _Book of Days_,
i. 571.
Footnote 277:
_Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, i. 372.
Footnote 278:
W. Hone, _Every Day Book_, ii. 597 _sq._ Mr. G. W. Prothero tells me
that about the year 1875 he saw a permanent May-pole decked with
flowers on May Day on the road between Cambridge and St. Neot’s, not
far from the turning to Caxton.
Footnote 279:
See above, pp. 47 _sq._
Footnote 280:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_, p. 217; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 566.
Footnote 281:
A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_ (Freiburg im Breisgau,
1861-1862), ii. 74 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 566.
Footnote 282:
Aristophanes, _Plutus_, 1054; W. Mannhardt, _Antike Wald- und
Feldkulte_, pp. 222 _sq._
Footnote 283:
Boecler-Kreutzwald, _Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche, Weisen und
Gewohnheiten_, pp. 112-114. Some traits in this story seem to suggest
that the return of the trooper to his old home was, like that of the
war-broken veteran in Campbell’s poem, only a soldier’s dream.
Footnote 284:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_, pp. 86 _sqq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 156.
Footnote 285:
R. Chambers, _Book of Days_, i. 573. Compare the Cambridge custom,
described above, p. 62.
Footnote 286:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 312.
Footnote 287:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 313.
Footnote 288:
_Ibid._ p. 314.
Footnote 289:
_Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iii. 357; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 312 _sq._ The word _Walber_ probably
comes from Walburgis, which is doubtless only another form of the
better known Walpurgis. The second of May is called Walburgis Day, at
least in this part of Bavaria.
Footnote 290:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 313 _sq._
Footnote 291:
H. von Wlislocki, _Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Zigeuner_
(Münster i. W., 1891), pp. 148 _sq._
Footnote 292:
E. T. Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 261.
Footnote 293:
B. A. Gupte, “Harvest Festivals in honour of Gauri and Ganesh,”
_Indian Antiquary_, xxxv. (1906) p. 61.
Footnote 294:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 315 _sq._
Footnote 295:
W. R. S. Ralston, _Russian Folk-tales_, p. 345. As to Green George see
above, pp. 75 _sq._
Footnote 296:
W. R. S. Ralston, _Songs of the Russian People_, p. 234.
Footnote 297:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 318; J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_,
4th ed., ii. 657.
Footnote 298:
A. de Nore, _Coutumes, mythes et traditions des provinces de France_,
pp. 17 _sq._; Bérenger-Féraud, _Réminiscences populaires de la
Provence_, pp. 1 _sq._
Footnote 299:
A. Meyrac, _Traditions, coutumes, légendes et contes des Ardennes_
(Charleville, 1890), pp. 79-82. The girl was called the Trimouzette. A
custom of the same general character was practised down to recent
times in the Jura (Bérenger-Féraud, _Réminiscences populaires de la
Provence_, p. 18).
Footnote 300:
F. A. Reimann, _Deutsche Volksfeste im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_
(Weimar, 1839), pp. 159 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 320; A.
Witzschel, _Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_, p. 211.
Footnote 301:
W. Kolbe, _Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebräuche im Lichte der
heidnischen Vorzeit_ (Marburg, 1888), p. 70.
Footnote 302:
_Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern_, iv. 2, pp.
359 _sq._ Similarly in the Département de l’Ain (France) on the first
of May eight or ten boys unite, clothe one of their number in leaves,
and go from house to house begging (W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p.
318).
Footnote 303:
E. Hoffmann-Krayer, “Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) p.
252.
Footnote 304:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 322; W. Hone, _Every-Day Book_, i. 583
_sqq._; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, pp. 230 _sq._
Footnote 305:
W. H. D. Rouse, “May-Day in Cheltenham,” _Folk-lore_, iv. (1893) pp.
50-53. On May Day 1891 I saw a Jack-in-the-Green in the streets of
Cambridge.
Footnote 306:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 323.
Footnote 307:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 323; H. Herzog, _Schweizerische
Volksfeste, Sitten und Gebräuche_ (Aarau, 1884), pp. 248 _sq._
Footnote 308:
A. Birlinger, _Volksthümliches aus Schwaben_, ii. 114 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 325.
Footnote 309:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 314 _sq._
Footnote 310:
A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_,
p. 380.
Footnote 311:
F. Tetzner, “Die Tschechen und Mährer in Schlesien,” _Globus_, lxviii
(1900) p. 340.
Footnote 312:
A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ pp. 383 _sq._; W. Mannhardt,
_Baumkultus_, p. 342.
Footnote 313:
R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), pp. 249
_sq._
Footnote 314:
K. Seifart, _Sagen, Märchen, Schwänke und Gebräuche aus Stadt und
Stift Hildesheim_, Zweite Auflage (Hildesheim, 1889), pp. 180 _sq._
Footnote 315:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_, pp. 260 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 342 _sq._
Footnote 316:
F. A. Reimann, _Deutsche Volksfeste im neunzehnten Jahrhundert_, pp.
157-159; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 347 _sq._; A. Witzschel,
_Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen_ (Vienna, 1878), p. 203.
Footnote 317:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_, pp. 253 _sqq._
Footnote 318:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_, p. 262; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 353 _sq._
Footnote 319:
_Baumkultus_, p. 355.
Footnote 320:
Above, vol. i. pp. 292, 293.
Footnote 321:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_, p. 93; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 344.
Footnote 322:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 343 _sq._
Footnote 323:
T. F. Thiselton Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, pp. 270 _sq._
Footnote 324:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 344 _sqq._; E. Cortet, _Fêtes
religieuses_, pp. 160 _sqq._; D. Monnier, _Traditions populaires
comparées_, pp. 282 _sqq._; Bérenger-Féraud, _Réminiscences populaires
de la Provence_, pp. 17 _sq._; Ch. Beauquier, _Les Mois en
Franche-Comté_ (Paris, 1900), pp. 65-69. In Franche-Comté she seems to
be generally known as _l’épousée_, “the spouse.”
Footnote 325:
From information given me by Mabel Bailey, in the service of Miss A.
Wyse of Halford. My informant’s father is a native of Stourton, and
she herself has spent much of her life there. I conjecture that the
conical flower-bedecked structure may once have been borne by a mummer
concealed within it. Compare the customs described above, pp. 82 _sq._
Footnote 326:
Above, pp. 24 _sqq._
Footnote 327:
From information given me by Miss A. Wyse of Halford.
Footnote 328:
Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, _Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen_, pp. 265 _sq._; W.
Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 422.
Footnote 329:
P. Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_, i.
(Leipsic, 1903) pp. 125-129.
Footnote 330:
D. Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparées_ (Paris, 1854), p. 304;
E. Cortet, _Fêtes religieuses_, p. 161; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p.
423.
Footnote 331:
J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, i. 233 _sq._; W. Mannhardt,
_Baumkultus_, p. 424. We have seen (p. 62) that a custom of the same
sort used to be observed at Bampton-in-the-Bush in Oxfordshire.
Footnote 332:
E. Hoffmann-Krayer, “Fruchtbarkeitsriten im schweizerischen
Volksbrauch,” _Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde_, xi. (1907) pp.
257 _sq._
Footnote 333:
E. Sommer, _Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Sachsen und Thüringen_
(Halle, 1843), pp. 151 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, pp. 431 _sq._
The custom is now obsolete (E. Mogk, in R. Wuttke’s _Sächsische
Volkskunde_, 2nd Ed., Dresden, 1901, p. 309).
Footnote 334:
H. F. Feilberg, in _Folk-lore_, vi. (1895) pp. 194 _sq._
Footnote 335:
See above, p. 65.
Footnote 336:
L. Lloyd, _Peasant Life in Sweden_, p. 257.
Footnote 337:
Mr. W. C. Crofts, in a letter to me dated February 3, 1901, 9
Northwich Terrace, Cheltenham.
Footnote 338:
For details see _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, Second Edition, pp. 202 _sq._
Footnote 339:
This custom was told to W. Mannhardt by a French prisoner in the war
of 1870-71 (_Baumkultus_, p. 434).
Footnote 340:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 434 _sq._
Footnote 341:
_Ibid._ p. 435.
Footnote 342:
See above, pp. 76 _sq._
Footnote 343:
M. Martin, _Description of the Western Islands of Scotland_ (London,
1673 [1703]), p. 119; _id._ in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii.
613; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 436. According to Martin, the
ceremony took place on Candlemas Day, the second of February. But this
seems to be a mistake. See J. G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second
Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_, pp. 247 _sq._ The
Rev. James Macdonald, of Reay in Caithness, was assured by old people
that the sheaf used in making Briid’s bed was the last sheaf cut at
harvest (J. Macdonald, _Religion and Myth_, p. 141). Later on we shall
see that the last sheaf is often regarded as embodying the spirit of
the corn, and special care is therefore taken of it.
Footnote 344:
John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth
Century_, edited by Alex. Allardyce (Edinburgh, 1888), ii. 447. At
Ballinasloe in County Galway it is customary to fasten a cross of
twisted corn in the roof of the cottages on Candlemas Day. The cross
is fastened by means of a knife stuck through a potato, and remains in
its place for months, if not for a year. This custom (of which I was
informed by Miss Nina Hill in a letter dated May 5, 1898) may be
connected with the Highland one described in the text.
Footnote 345:
J. Train, _Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man_
(Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), ii. 116.
Footnote 346:
See below, pp. 240 _sqq._ Brigit is the true original form of the
name, which has been corrupted into Breed, Bride, and Bridget. See
Douglas Hyde, _A Literary History of Ireland_ (London, 1899), p. 53,
note 2.
Footnote 347:
A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_, pp. 318 _sqq._; W. Mannhardt,
_Baumkultus_, p. 437.
Footnote 348:
W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 438.
Footnote 349:
R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 248.
Footnote 350:
D. Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparées_, pp. 283 _sq._; E.
Cortet, _Fêtes religieuses_, pp. 162 _sq._; W. Mannhardt,
_Baumkultus_, pp. 439 _sq._
CHAPTER XI
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SEXES ON VEGETATION
[Sidenote: The marriage of the King and Queen of May intended to promote
the growth of vegetation by homoeopathic magic.] 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[351] 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.
[Sidenote: Intercourse of the sexes practised in order to make the crops
grow.] 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.[352] 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 the
month of December, when the alligator pears begin to ripen, the Indians
of Peru used to hold a festival called _Acatay mita_ in order to make
the fruit grow mellow. The festival lasted five days and nights, and was
preceded by a fast of five days during which they ate neither salt nor
pepper and refrained from their wives. At the festival men and boys
assembled stark naked in an open space among the orchards, and ran from
there to a distant hill. Any woman whom they overtook on the way they
violated.[353] 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.[354] 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 principle 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.[355] Among the Tangkhuls of Manipur, before the
rice is sown and when it is reaped, the boys and girls have a tug-of-war
with a tough rope of twisted creeper. Great jars of beer are set ready,
and the strictness of their ordinary morality is broken by a night of
unbridled licence.[356] 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.