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Title: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third
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Author: James George Frazer

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN
BOUGH: A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION (THIRD EDITION,
VOL. 02 OF 12) ***

The Golden Bough, A Study in Magic and Religion

The Golden Bough
A Study in Magic and Religion
By

Sir James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D.,
Litt.D.
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool.

Third Edition.
Vol. II.
Part I
The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings
Vol. II
Macmillan and Co., Limited
St. Martin’s Street, London

1917

Third Edition March 1911

Reprinted July 1911, 1913, 1917

CONTENTS

Chapter VIII.—Departmental Kings of Nature Pp. 1-6
The King of the Wood at Nemi probably a departmental king of nature;
Kings of Rain in Africa; Kings of Fire and Water in Cambodia.

Chapter IX.—The Worship of Trees Pp. 7-58
§ 1. Tree-spirits—Great forests of ancient Europe; tree-worship practised by
all Aryan races in Europe; trees regarded as animate; tree-spirits, sacrifices
to trees; trees sensitive to wounds; apologies for cutting down trees;
bleeding trees; trees threatened to make them bear fruit; attempts to deceive
spirits of trees and plants; trees married to each other; trees in blossom and
rice in bloom treated like pregnant women; trees tenanted by the souls of
the dead; trees as the abode, not the body, of spirits; ceremonies at felling
trees; propitiating tree-spirits in house-timber; sacred trees the abode of
spirits; sacred groves.
§ 2. Beneficent Powers of Tree-spirits—Tree-spirit develops into
anthropomorphic deity of the woods; tree-spirits give rain and sunshine;
tree-spirits make crops to grow; the Harvest May and kindred customs; tree-
spirits make herds and women fruitful; green boughs protect against
witchcraft; influence of tree-spirits on cattle among the Wends, Esthonians,
and Circassians; tree-spirits grant offspring or easy delivery to women.

Chapter X.—Relics of Tree-worship in Modern Europe Pp. 59-96
May-trees in Europe, especially England; May-garlands in England; May
customs in France, Germany, and Greece; Whitsuntide customs in Russia;
May-trees in Germany and Sweden; Midsummer trees and poles in Sweden;
village May-poles in England and Germany; tree-spirit detached from tree

and represented in human form, Esthonian tale; tree-spirit represented
simultaneously in vegetable and human form; the Little May Rose; the
Walber; Green George; double representation of tree-spirit by tree and man
among the Oraons; double representation of harvest-goddess Gauri; W.
Mannhardt’s conclusions; tree-spirit or vegetation-spirit represented by a
person alone; leaf-clad mummers (Green George, Little Leaf Man, Jack-in-
the-Green, etc.); leaf-clad mummers called Kings or Queens (King and
Queen of May, Whitsuntide King, etc.); Whitsuntide Bridegroom and Bride;
Midsummer Bridegroom and Bride; the Forsaken Bridegroom or Bride; St.
Bride in Scotland and the Isle of Man; May Bride or Whitsuntide Bride.

Chapter XI.—The Influence of the Sexes on Vegetation Pp. 97-119
The marriage of the King and Queen of May intended to promote the
growth of vegetation by homoeopathic magic; intercourse of the sexes
practised to make the crops grow and fruit-trees to bear fruit; parents of
twins supposed to fertilise the bananas in Uganda; relics of similar customs
in Europe; continence practised in order to make the crops grow; incest and
illicit love supposed to blight the fruits of the earth by causing drought or
excessive rain; traces of similar beliefs as to the blighting effect of adultery
and incest among the ancient Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Irish; possible
influence of such beliefs on the institution of the forbidden degrees of
kinship; explanation of the seeming contradiction of the foregoing customs;
indirect benefit to humanity of some of these superstitions.

Chapter XII.—The Sacred Marriage Pp. 120-170
§ 1. Diana as a Goddess of Fertility—Dramatic marriages of gods and
goddesses as a charm to promote vegetation; Diana as a goddess of the
woodlands; sanctity of holy groves in antiquity; the breaking of the Golden
Bough a solemn rite, not a mere piece of bravado; Diana a goddess of the
teeming life of nature, both animal and vegetable; deities of woodlands
naturally the patrons of the beasts of the woods; the crowning of hunting
dogs on Diana’s day a purification for their slaughter of the beasts of the
wood; as goddess of the moon, especially the yellow harvest moon, Diana a
goddess of crops and of childbirth; as a goddess of fertility Diana needed a
male partner.

§ 2. The Marriage of the Gods—Marriages of the gods in Babylonia and
Assyria; marriage of the god Ammon to the Queen of Egypt; Apollo and his
prophetess at Patara; Artemis and the Essenes at Ephesus; marriage of
Dionysus and the Queen at Athens; marriage of Zeus and Demeter at
Eleusis; marriage of Zeus and Hera at Plataea; marriage of Zeus and Hera in
other parts of Greece; the god Frey and his human wife in Sweden; similar
rites in ancient Gaul; marriages of gods to images or living women among
uncivilised peoples; custom of the Wotyaks; custom of the Peruvian
Indians; marriage of a woman to the Sun among the Blackfoot Indians;
marriage of girls to fishing-nets among the Hurons and Algonquins;
marriage of the Sun-god and Earth-goddess among the Oraons; marriage of
women to gods in India and Africa; marriage of women to water-gods and
crocodiles; virgin sacrificed as a bride to the jinnee of the sea in the
Maldive Islands.
§ 3. Sacrifices to Water-spirits—Stories of the Perseus and Andromeda
type; water-spirits conceived as serpents or dragons; sacrifices of human
beings to water-spirits; water-spirits as dispensers of fertility; water-spirits
bestow offspring on women; love of river-spirits for women in Greek
mythology; the Slaying of the Dragon at Furth in Bavaria; St. Romain and
the Dragon at Rouen.

Chapter XIII.—The Kings of Rome and Alba Pp. 171-194
§ 1. Numa and Egeria—Egeria a nymph of water and the oak, perhaps a
form of Diana; marriage of Numa and Egeria a reminiscence of the
marriage of the King of Rome to a goddess of water and vegetation.
§ 2. The King as Jupiter—The Roman king personated Jupiter and wore his
costume; the oak crown as a symbol of divinity; personation of the dead by
masked men among the Romans; the kings of Alba as personifications of
Jupiter; legends of the deaths of Roman kings point to their connexion with
the thunder-god; local Jupiters in Latium; the oak-groves of ancient Rome;
Latian Jupiter on the Alban Mount; woods of Latium in antiquity; Latin
worship of Jupiter like the Druidical worship of the oak; sacred marriage of
Jupiter and Juno; Janus and Carnathe Flamen Dialis and Flaminica as
representatives of Jupiter and Juno; marriage of the Roman king to the oak-
goddess.

Chapter XIV.—The King’s Fire Pp. 195-206
Sacred marriage of the Fire-god with a woman; legends of the birth of Latin
kings from Vestal Virgins impregnated by the fire; Vestal Virgins as wives
of the Fire-god; the Vestal fire originally the fire on the king’s hearth; the
round temple of Vesta a copy of the old round hut of the early Latins; rude
pottery used in Roman ritual; superstitions as to the making of pottery;
sanctity of the storeroom at Rome; the temple of Vesta with its sacred fire a
copy of the king’s house.

Chapter XV.—The Fire-drill Pp. 207-226
Vestal fire at Rome rekindled by the fire-drill; use of the fire-drill by
savages; the fire-sticks regarded by savages as male and female; fire-
customs of the Herero; sacred fire among the Herero maintained in the
chief’s hut by his unmarried daughter; the Herero chief as priest of the
hearth; sacred Herero fire rekindled by fire-sticks, which are regarded as
male and female, and are made from the sacred ancestral tree; the sacred
Herero hearth a special seat of the ancestral spirits; sacred fire-sticks of the
Herero represent deceased ancestors; sacred fire-boards as family deities
among the Koryaks and Chuckchees.

Chapter XVI.—Father Jove and Mother Vesta Pp. 227-252
Similarity between the fire-customs of the Herero and the ancient Latins;
rites performed by the Vestals for the fertility of the earth and the fecundity
of cattle; the Vestals as embodiments of Vesta, a mother-goddess of fertility;
the domestic fire as a fecundating agent in marriage ritual; newborn
children and the domestic fire; reasons for ascribing a procreative virtue to
fire; fire kindled by friction by human representatives of the Fire-father and
Fire-mother; fire kindled by friction by boy and girl or by man and woman;
human fire-makers sometimes married, sometimes unmarried; holy fire and
virgins of St. Brigit in Ireland; the oaks of Erin; virgin priestesses of fire in
ancient Peru and Mexico; the Agnihotris or fire-priests of the Brahmans;
kinds of wood employed for fire-sticks in India and ancient Greece.

Chapter XVII.—The Origin of Perpetual Fires Pp. 253-265

Custom of perpetual fires probably originated in motives of convenience;
races reported to be ignorant of the means of making fire; fire probably
used by men before they knew how to kindle it; savages carry fire with
them as a matter of convenience; Prometheus the fire-bringer; perpetual
fires maintained by chiefs and kings; fire extinguished at king’s death.

Chapter XVIII.—The Succession to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium Pp.
266-323
The sacred functions of Latin kings in general probably the same as those of
the Roman kings; question of the rule of succession to the Latin kingship;
list of Alban kings; list of Roman kings; Latin kingship apparently
transmitted in female line to foreign husbands of princesses; miraculous
births of kings explained on this hypothesis; marriage of princesses to men
of inferior rank in Africa; traces of female descent of kingship in Greece;
and in Scandinavia; reminiscence of such descent in popular tales; female
descent of kingship among the Picts, the Lydians, the Danes, and the
Saxons; traces of female kinship or mother-kin among the Aryans, the Picts,
and the Etruscans; mother-kin may survive in royal families after it has
been superseded by father-kin among commoners; the Roman kings
plebeians, not patricians; the first consuls at Rome heirs to the throne
according to mother-kin; attempt of Tarquin to change the line of succession
from the female to the male line; the hereditary principle compatible with
the elective principle in succession to the throne; combination of the
hereditary with the elective principle in succession to the kingship in Africa
and Assam; similar combination perhaps in force at Rome; personal
qualities required in kings and chiefs; succession to the throne determined
by a race; custom of racing for a bride; contests for a bride other than a
race; the Flight of the King (Regifugium) at Rome perhaps a relic of a
contest for the kingdom and the hand of a princess; confirmation of this
theory from the practice of killing a human representative of Saturn at the
Saturnalia; violent ends of Roman kings; death of Romulus on the Nonae
Caprotinae (7th July), an old licentious festival like the Saturnalia for the
fertilisation of the fig; violent deaths of other Roman kings; succession to
Latin kingship perhaps decided by single combat; African parallels; Greek
and Italian kings may have personated Cronus and Saturn before they
personated Zeus and Jupiter.

Chapter XIX.—St. George and the Parilia Pp. 324-348
The early Italians a pastoral as well as agricultural people; the shepherds’
festival of the Parilia on 21st April; intention of the festival to ensure the
welfare of the flocks and herds and to guard them against witches and
wolves; festival of the same kind still held in Eastern Europe on 23rd April,
St. George’s Day; precautions taken by the Esthonians against witches and
wolves on St. George’s Day, when they drive out the cattle to pasture for the
first time; St. George’s Day a pastoral festival in Russia; among the
Ruthenians, among the Huzuls of the Carpathians; St. George as the patron
of horses in Silesia and Bavaria; St. George’s Day among the Saxons and
Roumanians of Transylvania; St. George’s Day a herdsman’s festival among
the Walachians, Bulgarians, and South Slavs; precautions taken against
witches and wolves whenever the cattle are driven out to pasture for the
first time, as in Prussia and Sweden; these parallels illustrate some features
of the Parilia; St. George as a personification of trees or vegetation in
general; St. George as patron of childbirth and love; St. George seems to
have displaced an old Aryan god of the spring, such as the Lithuanian
Pergrubiusk.

Chapter XX.—The Worship of the Oak Pp. 349-375
§ 1. The Diffusion of the Oak in Europe—Jupiter the god of the oak, the
sky, and thunder; of these attributes the oak is probably primary and the sky
and thunder secondary; Europe covered with oak forests in prehistoric
times; remains of oaks found in peat-bogs; ancient lake dwellings built on
oaken piles; evidence of classical writers as to oak forests in antiquity; oak-
woods in modern Europe.
§ 2. The Aryan God of the Oak and the Thunder—Aryan worship of the oak
and of the god of the oak; Zeus as the god of the oak, the thunder, and the
rain in ancient Greece; Jupiter as the god of the oak, the thunder, and the
rain in ancient Italy; Celtic worship of the oak; Donar and Thor the Teutonic
gods of the oak and thunder; Perun the god of the oak and thunder among
the Slavs; Perkunas the god of the oak and thunder among the Lithuanians;
Taara the god of the oak and thunder among the Esthonians; Parjanya, the
old Indian god of thunder, rain, and fertility; gods of thunder and rain in
America, Africa, and the Caucasus; traces of the worship of the oak in

modern Europe; in the great European god of the oak, the thunder, and the
rain, the original element seems to have been the oak.

Chapter XXI.—Dianus and Diana Pp. 376-387
Recapitulation: rise of sacred kings endowed with magical or divine
powers; the King of the Wood at Nemi seems to have personified Jupiter the
god of the oak and to have mated with Diana the goddess of the oak; Dianus
(Janus) and Diana originally dialectically different forms of Jupiter and
Juno; Janus (Dianus) not originally a god of doors; double-headed figure of
Janus (Dianus) derived from a custom of placing him as sentinel at
doorways; parallel custom among the negroes of Surinam; originally the
King of the Wood at Nemi represented Dianus (Janus), a duplicate form of
Jupiter, the god of the oak, the thunder, and the sky.
INDEX Pp. 389-417

CHAPTER VIII
DEPARTMENTAL KINGS OF NATURE

The preceding investigation has proved that the same union of sacred
Departmental kings of functions with a royal title which meets us in the
nature.
King of the Wood at Nemi, the Sacrificial King at
Rome, and the magistrate called the King at Athens, occurs frequently
outside the limits of classical antiquity and is a common feature of societies
at all stages from barbarism to civilisation. Further, it appears that the royal
priest is often a king, not only in name but in fact, swaying the sceptre as
well as the crosier. All this confirms the traditional view of the origin of the
titular and priestly kings in the republics of ancient Greece and Italy. At
least by shewing that the combination of spiritual and temporal power, of
which Graeco-Italian tradition preserved the memory, has actually existed
in many places, we have obviated any suspicion of improbability that might
have attached to the tradition. Therefore we may now fairly ask, May not
the King of the Wood have had an origin like that which a probable
tradition assigns to the Sacrificial King of Rome and the titular King of
Athens? In other words, may not his predecessors in office have been a line
of kings whom a republican revolution stripped of their political power,
leaving them only their religious functions and the shadow of a crown?
There are at least two reasons for answering this question in the negative.
One reason is drawn from the abode of the priest of Nemi; the other from
his title, the King of the Wood. If his predecessors had been kings in the
ordinary sense, he would surely have been found residing, like the fallen
kings of Rome and Athens, in the city of which the sceptre had passed from
him. This city must have been Aricia, for there was none nearer. But Aricia
was three miles off from his forest sanctuary by the lake shore. If he
reigned, it was not in the city, but in the greenwood. Again his title, King of
the Wood, hardly allows us to suppose that he had ever been a king in the
common sense of the word. More likely he was a king of nature, and of a

special side of nature, namely, the woods from which he took his title. If we
could find instances of what we may call departmental kings of nature, that
is of persons supposed to rule over particular elements or aspects of nature,
they would probably present a closer analogy to the King of the Wood than
the divine kings we have been hitherto considering, whose control of nature
is general rather than special. Instances of such departmental kings are not
wanting.
Kings of rain in On a hill at Bomma near the mouth of the Congo
Africa.
dwells Namvulu Vumu, King of the Rain and
[1]
Storm. Of some of the tribes on the Upper Nile we are told that they have
no kings in the common sense; the only persons whom they acknowledge as
such are the Kings of the Rain, Mata Kodou, who are credited with the
power of giving rain at the proper time, that is in the rainy season. Before
the rains begin to fall at the end of March the country is a parched and arid
desert; and the cattle, which form the people’s chief wealth, perish for lack
of grass. So, when the end of March draws on, each householder betakes
himself to the King of the Rain and offers him a cow that he may make the
blessed waters of heaven to drip on the brown and withered pastures. If no
shower falls, the people assemble and demand that the king shall give them
rain; and if the sky still continues cloudless, they rip up his belly, in which
he is believed to keep the storms. Amongst the Bari tribe one of these Rain
Kings made rain by sprinkling water on the ground out of a handbell.[2]
Priesthood of the Among tribes on the outskirts of Abyssinia a
Alfai.
similar office exists and has been thus described by
an observer. “The priesthood of the Alfai, as he is called by the Barea and
Kunama, is a remarkable one; he is believed to be able to make rain. This
office formerly existed among the Algeds and appears to be still common to
the Nuba negroes. The Alfai of the Barea, who is also consulted by the
northern Kunama, lives near Tembadere on a mountain alone with his
family. The people bring him tribute in the form of clothes and fruits, and
cultivate for him a large field of his own. He is a kind of king, and his office
passes by inheritance to his brother or sister’s son. He is supposed to
conjure down rain and to drive away the locusts. But if he disappoints the
people’s expectation and a great drought arises in the land, the Alfai is
stoned to death, and his nearest relations are obliged to cast the first stone at
him. When we passed through the country, the office of Alfai was still held

by an old man; but I heard that rain-making had proved too dangerous for
him and that he had renounced his office.”[3]
Kings of Fire and In the backwoods of Cambodia live two
Water in Cambodia.
mysterious sovereigns known as the King of the
Fire and the King of the Water. Their fame is spread all over the south of the
great Indo-Chinese peninsula; but only a faint echo of it has reached the
West. Down to a few years ago no European, so far as is known, had ever
seen either of them; and their very existence might have passed for a fable,
were it not that till lately communications were regularly maintained
between them and the King of Cambodia, who year by year exchanged
presents with them. The Cambodian gifts were passed from tribe to tribe till
they reached their destination; for no Cambodian would essay the long and
perilous journey. The tribe amongst whom the Kings of Fire and Water
reside is the Chréais or Jaray, a race with European features but a sallow
complexion, inhabiting the forest-clad mountains and high tablelands which
separate Cambodia from Annam. Their royal functions are of a purely
mystic or spiritual order; they have no political authority; they are simple
peasants, living by the sweat of their brow and the offerings of the faithful.
According to one account they live in absolute solitude, never meeting each
other and never seeing a human face. They inhabit successively seven
towers perched upon seven mountains, and every year they pass from one
tower to another. People come furtively and cast within their reach what is
needful for their subsistence. The kingship lasts seven years, the time
necessary to inhabit all the towers successively; but many die before their
time is out. The offices are hereditary in one or (according to others) two
royal families, who enjoy high consideration, have revenues assigned to
them, and are exempt from the necessity of tilling the ground. But naturally
the dignity is not coveted, and when a vacancy occurs, all eligible men
(they must be strong and have children) flee and hide themselves. Another
account, admitting the reluctance of the hereditary candidates to accept the
crown, does not countenance the report of their hermit-like seclusion in the
seven towers. For it represents the people as prostrating themselves before
the mystic kings whenever they appear in public, it being thought that a
terrible hurricane would burst over the country if this mark of homage were
omitted. Probably, however, these are mere fables such as commonly shed a
glamour of romance over the distant and unknown. A French officer, who
had an interview with the redoubtable Fire King in February 1891, found

him stretched on a bamboo couch, diligently smoking a long copper pipe,
and surrounded by people who paid him no great deference. In spite of his
mystic vocation the sorcerer had no charm or talisman about him, and was
in no way distinguishable from his fellows except by his tall stature.
Another writer reports that the two kings are much feared, because they are
supposed to possess the evil eye; hence every one avoids them, and the
potentates considerately cough to announce their approach and to allow
people to get out of their way. They enjoy extraordinary privileges and
immunities, but their authority does not extend beyond the few villages of
their neighbourhood. Like many other sacred kings, of whom we shall read
in the sequel, the Kings of Fire and Water are not allowed to die a natural
death, for that would lower their reputation. Accordingly when one of them
is seriously ill, the elders hold a consultation and if they think he cannot
recover they stab him to death. His body is burned and the ashes are piously
collected and publicly honoured for five years. Part of them is given to the
widow, and she keeps them in an urn, which she must carry on her back
when she goes to weep on her husband’s grave.
Supernatural powers We are told that the Fire King, the more important
of the Kings of Fire
and Water.
of the two, whose supernatural powers have never
been questioned, officiates at marriages, festivals,
and sacrifices in honour of the Yan or spirit. On these occasions a special
place is set apart for him; and the path by which he approaches is spread
with white cotton cloths. A reason for confining the royal dignity to the
same family is that this family is in possession of certain famous talismans
which would lose their virtue or disappear if they passed out of the family.
These talismans are three: the fruit of a creeper called Cui, gathered ages
ago at the time of the last deluge, but still fresh and green; a rattan, also
very old but bearing flowers that never fade; and lastly, a sword containing
a Yan or spirit, who guards it constantly and works miracles with it. The
spirit is said to be that of a slave, whose blood chanced to fall upon the
blade while it was being forged, and who died a voluntary death to expiate
his involuntary offence. By means of the two former talismans the Water
King can raise a flood that would drown the whole earth. If the Fire King
draws the magic sword a few inches from its sheath, the sun is hidden and
men and beasts fall into a profound sleep; were he to draw it quite out of the
scabbard, the world would come to an end. To this wondrous brand
sacrifices of buffaloes, pigs, fowls, and ducks are offered for rain. It is kept

swathed in cotton and silk; and amongst the annual presents sent by the
King of Cambodia were rich stuffs to wrap the sacred sword.
Gifts sent by the In return the Kings of Fire and Water sent him a
Kings of Fire and
Water to the King of
huge wax candle and two calabashes, one full of
Cambodia. rice and the other of sesame. The candle bore the
impress of the Fire King’s middle finger, and was
probably thought to contain the seed of fire, which the Cambodian monarch
thus received once a year fresh from the Fire King himself This holy candle
was kept for sacred uses. On reaching the capital of Cambodia it was
entrusted to the Brahmans, who laid it up beside the regalia, and with the
wax made tapers which were burned on the altars on solemn days. As the
candle was the special gift of the Fire King, we may conjecture that the rice
and sesame were the special gift of the Water King. The latter was doubtless
king of rain as well as of water, and the fruits of the earth were boons
conferred by him on men. In times of calamity, as during plague, floods,
and war, a little of this sacred rice and sesame was scattered on the ground
“to appease the wrath of the maleficent spirits.” Contrary to the common
usage of the country, which is to bury the dead, the bodies of both these
mystic monarchs are burnt, but their nails and some of their teeth and bones
are religiously preserved as amulets. It is while the corpse is being
consumed on the pyre that the kinsmen of the deceased magician flee to the
forest and hide themselves for fear of being elevated to the invidious
dignity which he has just vacated. The people go and search for them, and
the first whose lurking place they discover is made King of Fire or Water.[4]
These, then, are examples of what I have called departmental kings of
nature. But it is a far cry to Italy from the forests of Cambodia and the
sources of the Nile. And though Kings of Rain, Water, and Fire have been
found, we have still to discover a King of the Wood to match the Arician
priest who bore that title. Perhaps we shall find him nearer home.

CHAPTER IX
THE WORSHIP OF TREES

§ 1. Tree-spirits

Great forests of In the religious history of the Aryan race in Europe
ancient Europe.
the worship of trees has played an important part.
Nothing could be more natural. For at the dawn of history Europe was
covered with immense primaeval forests, in which the scattered clearings
must have appeared like islets in an ocean of green. Down to the first
century before our era the Hercynian forest stretched eastward from the
Rhine for a distance at once vast and unknown; Germans whom Caesar
questioned had travelled for two months through it without reaching the
end.[5] Four centuries later it was visited by the Emperor Julian, and the
solitude, the gloom, the silence of the forest appear to have made a deep
impression on his sensitive nature. He declared that he knew nothing like it
in the Roman empire.[6] In our own country the wealds of Kent, Surrey, and
Sussex are remnants of the great forest of Anderida, which once clothed the
whole of the south-eastern portion of the island. Westward it seems to have
stretched till it joined another forest that extended from Hampshire to
Devon. In the reign of Henry II. the citizens of London still hunted the wild
bull and the boar in the woods of Hampstead. Even under the later
Plantagenets the royal forests were sixty-eight in number. In the forest of
Arden it was said that down to modern times a squirrel might leap from tree
to tree for nearly the whole length of Warwickshire.[7] The excavation of
ancient pile-villages in the valley of the Po has shewn that long before the
rise and probably the foundation of Rome the north of Italy was covered
with dense woods of elms, chestnuts, and especially of oaks.[8] Archaeology
is here confirmed by history; for classical writers contain many references
to Italian forests which have now disappeared.[9] As late as the fourth
century before our era Rome was divided from central Etruria by the
dreaded Ciminian forest, which Livy compares to the woods of Germany.
No merchant, if we may trust the Roman historian, had ever penetrated its
pathless solitudes: and it was deemed a most daring feat when a Roman
general, after sending two scouts to explore its intricacies, led his army into
the forest and, making his way to a ridge of the wooded mountains, looked
down on the rich Etrurian fields spread out below.[10] In Greece beautiful

woods of pine, oak, and other trees still linger on the slopes of the high
Arcadian mountains, still adorn with their verdure the deep gorge through
which the Ladon hurries to join the sacred Alpheus; and were still, down to
a few years ago, mirrored in the dark blue waters of the lonely lake of
Pheneus; but they are mere fragments of the forests which clothed great
tracts in antiquity, and which at a more remote epoch may have spanned the
Greek peninsula from sea to sea.[11]
Tree-worship From an examination of the Teutonic words for
practised by all the
Aryan races in
“temple” Grimm has made it probable that
Europe. amongst the Germans the oldest sanctuaries were
natural woods.[12] However this may be, tree-
worship is well attested for all the great European families of the Aryan
stock. Amongst the Celts the oak-worship of the Druids is familiar to every
one,[13] and their old word for a sanctuary seems to be identical in origin and
meaning with the Latin némus, a grove or woodland glade, which still
survives in the name of Nemi.[14] Sacred groves were common among the
ancient Germans, and tree-worship is hardly extinct amongst their
descendants at the present day.[15] How serious that worship was in former
times may be gathered from the ferocious penalty appointed by the old
German laws for such as dared to peel the bark of a standing tree. The
culprit’s navel was to be cut out and nailed to the part of the tree which he
had peeled, and he was to be driven round and round the tree till all his guts
were wound about its trunk.[16] The intention of the punishment clearly was
to replace the dead bark by a living substitute taken from the culprit; it was
a life for a life, the life of a man for the life of a tree. At Upsala, the old
religious capital of Sweden, there was a sacred grove in which every tree
was regarded as divine.[17] The heathen Slavs worshipped trees and groves.
[18]
The Lithuanians were not converted to Christianity till towards the close
of the fourteenth century, and amongst them at the date of their conversion
the worship of trees was prominent. Some of them revered remarkable oaks
and other great shady trees, from which they received oracular responses.
Some maintained holy groves about their villages or houses, where even to
break a twig would have been a sin. They thought that he who cut a bough
in such a grove either died suddenly or was crippled in one of his limbs.[19]
Proofs of the prevalence of tree-worship in ancient Greece and Italy are
abundant.[20] In the sanctuary of Aesculapius at Cos, for example, it was
forbidden to cut down the cypress-trees under a penalty of a thousand

drachms.[21] But nowhere, perhaps, in the ancient world was this antique
form of religion better preserved than in the heart of the great metropolis
itself. In the Forum, the busy centre of Roman life, the sacred fig-tree of
Romulus was worshipped down to the days of the empire, and the withering
of its trunk was enough to spread consternation through the city.[22] Again,
on the slope of the Palatine Hill grew a cornel-tree which was esteemed one
of the most sacred objects in Rome. Whenever the tree appeared to a passer-
by to be drooping, he set up a hue and cry which was echoed by the people
in the street, and soon a crowd might be seen running helter-skelter from all
sides with buckets of water, as if (says Plutarch) they were hastening to put
out a fire.[23]
Tree-worship among Among the tribes of the Finnish-Ugrian stock in
the Finnish-Ugrian
peoples.
Europe the heathen worship was performed for the
most part in sacred groves, which were always
enclosed with a fence. Such a grove often consisted merely of a glade or
clearing with a few trees dotted about, upon which in former times the skins
of the sacrificial victims were hung. The central point of the grove, at least
among the tribes of the Volga, was the sacred tree, beside which everything
else sank into insignificance. Before it the worshippers assembled and the
priest offered his prayers, at its roots the victim was sacrificed, and its
boughs sometimes served as a pulpit. No wood might be hewn and no
branch broken in the grove, and women were generally forbidden to enter
it. The Ostyaks and Woguls, two peoples of the Finnish-Ugrian stock in
Siberia, had also sacred groves in which nothing might be touched, and
where the skins of the sacrificed animals were suspended; but these groves
were not enclosed with fences.[24] Near Kuopio, in Finland, there was a
famous grove of ancient moss-grown firs, where the people offered
sacrifices and practised superstitious customs down to about 1650, when a
sturdy veteran of the Thirty Years’ War dared to cut it down at the bidding
of the pastor. Sacred groves now hardly exist in Finland, but sacred trees to
which offerings are brought are still not very uncommon. On some firs the
skulls of bears are nailed, apparently that the hunter may have good luck in
the chase.[25] The Ostyaks are said never to have passed a sacred tree
without shooting an arrow at it as a mark of respect. In many places they
hung furs and skins on the holy trees in the forest; but having observed that
these furs were often appropriated and carried off by unscrupulous
travellers, they adopted the practice of hewing the trunks into great blocks,

which they decked with their offerings and preserved in safe places. The
custom marks a transition from the worship of trees to the worship of idols
carved out of the sacred wood. Within their sacred groves no grass or wood
might be cut, no game hunted, no fish caught, not even a draught of water
drunk. When they passed them in their canoes, they were careful not to
touch the land with the oar, and if the journey through the hallowed ground
was long, they laid in a store of water before entering on it, for they would
rather suffer extreme thirst than slake it by drinking of the sacred stream.
The Ostyaks also regarded as holy any tree on which an eagle had built its
nest for several years, and they spared the bird as well as the tree. No
greater injury could be done them than to shoot such an eagle or destroy its
nest.[26]
Trees are regarded by But it is necessary to examine in some detail the
the savage as
animate.
notions on which the worship of trees and plants is
based. To the savage the world in general is
animate, and trees and plants are no exception to the rule. He thinks that
they have souls like his own, and he treats them accordingly. “They say,”
writes the ancient vegetarian Porphyry, “that primitive men led an unhappy
life, for their superstition did not stop at animals but extended even to
plants. For why should the slaughter of an ox or a sheep be a greater wrong
than the felling of a fir or an oak, seeing that a soul is implanted in these
trees also?”[27] Similarly, the Hidatsa Indians of North America believe that
every natural object has its spirit, or to speak more properly, its shade. To
these shades some consideration or respect is due, but not equally to all. For
example, the shade of the cottonwood, the greatest tree in the valley of the
Upper Missouri, is supposed to possess an intelligence which, if properly
approached, may help the Indians in certain undertakings; but the shades of
shrubs and grasses are of little account. When the Missouri, swollen by a
freshet in spring, carries away part of its banks and sweeps some tall tree
into its current, it is said that the spirit of the tree cries while the roots still
cling to the land and until the trunk falls with a splash into the stream.
Formerly the Indians considered it wrong to fell one of these giants, and
when large logs were needed they made use only of trees which had fallen
of themselves. Till lately some of the more credulous old men declared that
many of the misfortunes of their people were caused by this modern
disregard for the rights of the living cottonwood.[28] The Iroquois believed
that each species of tree, shrub, plant, and herb had its own spirit, and to

these spirits it was their custom to return thanks.[29] The Wanika of Eastern
Africa fancy that every tree, and especially every coco-nut tree, has its
spirit; “the destruction of a cocoa-nut tree is regarded as equivalent to
matricide, because that tree gives them life and nourishment, as a mother
does her child.”[30] In the Yasawu islands of Fiji a man will never eat a coco-
nut without first asking its leave—“May I eat you, my chief?”[31] Among the
Thompson Indians of British Columbia young people addressed the
following prayer to the sunflower root before they ate the first roots of the
season: “I inform thee that I intend to eat thee. Mayest thou always help me
to ascend, so that I may always be able to reach the tops of mountains, and
may I never be clumsy! I ask this from thee, Sunflower-Root. Thou art the
greatest of all in mystery.” To omit this prayer would have made the eater of
the root lazy, and caused him to sleep long in the morning. We are not told,
but may conjecture, that these Indians ascribed to the sunflower the sun’s
power of climbing above the mountain-tops and of rising betimes in the
morning; hence whoever ate of the plant, with all the due formalities, would
naturally acquire the same useful properties. It is not so easy to say why
women had to observe continence in cooking and digging the root, and
why, when they were cooking it, no man might come near the oven.[32] The
Dyaks ascribe souls to trees, and do not dare to cut down an old tree. In
some places, when an old tree has been blown down, they set it up, smear it
with blood, and deck it with flags “to appease the soul of the tree.”[33]
Siamese monks, believing that there are souls everywhere, and that to
destroy anything whatever is forcibly to dispossess a soul, will not break a
branch of a tree, “as they will not break the arm of an innocent person.”[34]
These monks, of course, are Buddhists. But Buddhist animism is not a
philosophical theory. It is simply a common savage dogma incorporated in
the system of an historical religion. To suppose with Benfey and others that
the theories of animism and transmigration current among rude peoples of
Asia are derived from Buddhism, is to reverse the facts. Buddhism in this
respect borrowed from savagery, not savagery from Buddhism.[35]
According to Chinese belief, the spirits of plants are never shaped like
plants but have commonly the form either of human beings or of animals,
for example bulls and serpents. Occasionally at the felling of a tree the tree-
spirit has been seen to rush out in the shape of a blue bull.[36] In China “to
this day the belief in tree-spirits dangerous to man is obviously strong. In
southern Fuhkien it deters people from felling any large trees or chopping

off heavy branches, for fear the indwelling spirit may become irritated and
visit the aggressor or his neighbours with disease and calamity. Especially
respected are the green banyan or ch’îng, the biggest trees to be found in
that part of China. In Amoy some people even show a strong aversion from
planting trees, the planters, as soon as the stems have become as thick as
their necks, being sure to be throttled by the indwelling spirits. No
explanation of this curious superstition was ever given us. It may account to
some extent for the almost total neglect of forestry in that part of China, so
that hardly any except spontaneous trees grow there.”[37]
Particular sorts of Sometimes it is only particular sorts of trees that
trees tenanted by
spirits; sacrifices to
are supposed to be tenanted by spirits. At Grbalj in
tree-spirits. Dalmatia it is said that among great beeches, oaks,
and other trees there are some that are endowed
with shades or souls, and whoever fells one of them must die on the spot, or
at least live an invalid for the rest of his days. If a woodman fears that a tree
which he has felled is one of this sort, he must cut off the head of a live hen
on the stump of the tree with the very same axe with which he cut down the
tree. This will protect him from all harm, even if the tree be one of the
animated kind.[38] The silk-cotton trees, which rear their enormous trunks to
Silk-cotton trees in a stupendous height, far out-topping all the other
West Africa.
trees of the forest, are regarded with reverence
throughout West Africa, from the Senegal to the Niger, and are believed to
be the abode of a god or spirit. Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the
Slave Coast the indwelling god of this giant of the forest goes by the name
of Huntin. Trees in which he specially dwells—for it is not every silk-cotton
tree that he thus honours—are surrounded by a girdle of palm-leaves; and
sacrifices of fowls, and occasionally of human beings, are fastened to the
trunk or laid against the foot of the tree. A tree distinguished by a girdle of
palm-leaves may not be cut down or injured in any way; and even silk-
cotton trees which are not supposed to be animated by Huntin may not be
felled unless the woodman first offers a sacrifice of fowls and palm-oil to
purge himself of the proposed sacrilege. To omit the sacrifice is an offence
Sycamores in ancient which may be punished with death.[39] Everywhere
Egypt.
in Egypt on the borders of the cultivated land, and
even at some distance from the valley of the Nile, you meet with fine
sycamores standing solitary and thriving as by a miracle in the sandy soil;
their living green contrasts strongly with the tawny hue of the surrounding

landscape, and their thick impenetrable foliage bids defiance even in
summer to the noonday sun. The secret of their verdure is that their roots
strike down into rills of water that trickle by unseen sluices from the great
river. Of old the Egyptians of every rank esteemed these trees divine, and
paid them regular homage. They gave them figs, raisins, cucumbers,
vegetables, and water in earthenware pitchers, which charitable folk filled
afresh every day. Passers-by slaked their thirst at these pitchers in the sultry
hours, and paid for the welcome draught by a short prayer. The spirit that
animated these beautiful trees generally lurked unseen, but sometimes he
would shew his head or even his whole body outside the trunk, but only to
retire into it again.[40] People in Congo set calabashes of palm-wine at the
foot of certain trees for the trees to drink when they are thirsty.[41] The
Sacred trees in Africa, Wanika of Eastern Africa pay special honour to the
Syria, and Patagonia.
spirits of coco-nut palms in return for the many
benefits conferred on them by the trees. To cut down a coco-nut palm is an
inexpiable offence, equivalent to matricide. They sacrifice to the tree on
many occasions. When a man in gathering the coco-nuts has fallen from the
palm, they attribute it to the wrath of the tree-spirit, and resort to the oddest
means of appeasing him.[42] The Masai particularly reverence the subugo
tree, the bark of which has medical properties, and a species of parasitic fig
which they call retete. The green figs are eaten by boys and girls, and older
people propitiate the tree by pouring the blood of a goat at the foot of the
trunk and strewing grass on the branches.[43] The natives of the Bissagos
Islands, off the west coast of Africa, sacrifice dogs, cocks, and oxen to their
sacred trees, but they eat the flesh of the victims and leave only the horns,
fastened to the trees, for the spirits.[44] In a Turkish village of Northern Syria
there is a very old oak-tree which the people worship, burning incense to it
and bringing offerings as they would to a shrine.[45] In Patagonia, between
the Rio Negro and the Rio Colorado, there stands solitary an ancient acacia-
tree with a gnarled and hollow trunk. The Indians revere it as the abode of a
spirit, and hang offerings of blankets, ponchos, ribbons, and coloured
threads on it, so that the tree presents the aspect of an old clothes’ shop, the
tattered, weather-worn garments drooping sadly from the boughs. No Indian
passes it without leaving something, if it be only a little horse-hair which he
ties to a branch. The hollow trunk contains offerings of tobacco, beads, and
sometimes coins. But the best evidence of the sanctity of the tree are the
bleached skeletons of many horses which have been killed in honour of the

spirit; for the horse is the most precious sacrifice that these Indians can
offer. They slaughter the animal also to propitiate the spirits of the deep and
Sacrifices to trees. rapid rivers which they have often to ford or swim.
[46]
The Kayans of Central Borneo ascribe souls to the trees which yield the
poison they use to envenom their arrows. They think that the spirit of the
tasem tree (Antiaris toxicaria) is particularly hard to please; but if the wood
has a strong and agreeable scent, they know that the man who felled the tree
must have contrived by his offerings to mollify the peevish spirit.[47] In
some of the Louisiade Islands there are certain large trees under which the
natives hold their feasts. These trees seem to be regarded as endowed with
souls; for a portion of the feast is set aside for them, and the bones of pigs
and of human beings are everywhere deeply imbedded in their branches.[48]
Among the Kangra mountains of the Punjaub a girl used to be annually
sacrificed to an old cedar-tree, the families of the village taking it in turn to
supply the victim. The tree was cut down not very many years ago.[49] On
Christmas Eve it is still customary in some parts of Germany to gird fruit-
trees with ropes of straw on which the sausages prepared for the festival
have lain. This is supposed to make the trees bear fruit. In the Mark of
Brandenburg the person who ties the straw round the trees says, “Little tree,
I make you a present, and you will make me one.” The people say that if the
trees receive gifts, they will bestow gifts in return. The custom, which is
clearly a relic of tree-worship, is often observed on New Year’s night or at
any time between Christmas and Twelfth Night.[50]
Trees supposed to be If trees are animate, they are necessarily sensitive
sensitive and to feel
wounds.
and the cutting of them down becomes a delicate
surgical operation, which must be performed with
as tender a regard as possible for the feelings of the sufferers, who
otherwise may turn and rend the careless or bungling operator. When an oak
is being felled “it gives a kind of shriekes or groanes, that may be heard a
mile off, as if it were the genius of the oake lamenting. E. Wyld, Esq., hath
heard it severall times.”[51] The Ojebways “very seldom cut down green or
living trees, from the idea that it puts them to pain, and some of their
medicine-men profess to have heard the wailing of the trees under the
axe.”[52] Trees that bleed and utter cries of pain or indignation when they are
hacked or burned occur very often in Chinese books, even in Standard
Histories.[53] Old peasants in some parts of Austria still believe that forest-
trees are animate, and will not allow an incision to be made in the bark

without special cause; they have heard from their fathers that the tree feels
Apologies offered to the cut not less than a wounded man his hurt. In
trees for cutting them
down.
felling a tree they beg its pardon.[54] It is said that in
the Upper Palatinate also old woodmen still
secretly ask a fine, sound tree to forgive them before they cut it down.[55] So
in Jarkino the woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells.[56] Before the
Ilocanes of Luzon cut down trees in the virgin forest or on the mountains,
they recite some verses to the following effect: “Be not uneasy, my friend,
though we fell what we have been ordered to fell.” This they do in order not
to draw down on themselves the hatred of the spirits who live in the trees,
and who are apt to avenge themselves by visiting with grievous sickness
such as injure them wantonly.[57] When the Tagalogs of the Philippines wish
to pluck a flower, they ask leave of the genius (nono) of the flower to do so;
when they are obliged to cut down a tree they beg pardon of the genius of
the tree and excuse themselves by saying that it was the priest who bade
them fell it.[58] Among the Tigre-speaking tribes in the north of Abyssinia
people are afraid to fell a green and fruit-bearing tree lest they incur the
curse of God, which is heard in the groaning of the tree as it sinks to the
ground. But if a man is bold enough to cut down such a tree, he will say to
it, “Thy curse abide in thee,” or he will allege that it was not he but an
elephant or a rhinoceros that knocked it down.[59] Amongst the Hos of
Togoland, in West Africa, when a man wishes to make palm-wine he hires
woodmen to fell the trees. They go into the palm-wood, set some meal on
the ground and say to the wood, “That is your food. The old man at home
sent us to cut you down. We are still children who know nothing at all. The
old man at home has sent us.” They say this because they think that the
wood is a spirit and that it is angry with them.[60] Before a Karo Batak cuts
down a tree, he will offer it betel and apologies; and if in passing the place
afterwards he should see the tree weeping or, as we should say, exuding sap,
he hastens to console it by sprinkling the blood of a fowl on the stump.[61]
The Basoga of Central Africa think that when a tree is cut down the angry
spirit which inhabits it may cause the death of the chief and his family. To
prevent this disaster they consult a medicine-man before they fell a tree. If
the man of skill gives leave to proceed, the woodman first offers a fowl and
a goat to the tree; then as soon as he has given the first blow with the axe,
he applies his mouth to the cut and sucks some of the sap. In this way he
forms a brotherhood with the tree, just as two men become blood-brothers

by sucking each other’s blood. After that he can cut down his tree-brother
with impunity.[62] An ancient Indian ritual directs that in preparing to fell a
tree the woodman should lay a stalk of grass on the spot where the blow is
to fall, with the words, “O plant, shield it!” and that he should say to the
axe, “O axe, hurt it not!” When the tree had fallen, he poured melted butter
on the stump, saying, “Grow thou out of this, O lord of the forest, grow
with a hundred shoots! May we grow with a thousand shoots!” Then he
anointed the severed stem and wound a rope of grass round it.[63]
Bleeding trees. Again, when a tree or plant is cut it is sometimes
thought to bleed. Some Indians dare not cut a certain plant, because there
comes out a red juice which they take for the blood of the plant.[64] In
Samoa there was a grove of trees which no one dared hew down. Once
some strangers tried to do so, but blood flowed from the tree, and the
sacrilegious strangers fell ill and died.[65] Down to 1859 there stood a sacred
larch-tree at Nauders in the Tyrol which was thought to bleed whenever it
was cut; moreover people fancied that the steel pierced the woodman’s
body to the same depth that it pierced the tree, and that the wound on his
body would not heal until the bark closed over the scar on the trunk. So
sacred was the tree that no one would gather fuel or cut timber near it; and
to curse, scold, or quarrel in its neighbourhood was regarded as a crying sin
which would be supernaturally punished on the spot. Angry disputants were
often hushed with the warning whisper, “Don’t, the sacred tree is here.”[66]
Trees threatened in But the spirits of vegetation are not always treated
order to make them
bear fruit.
with deference and respect. If fair words and kind
treatment do not move them, stronger measures are
sometimes resorted to. The durian-tree of the East Indies, whose smooth
stem often shoots up to a height of eighty or ninety feet without sending out
a branch, bears a fruit of the most delicious flavour and the most disgusting
stench. The Malays cultivate the tree for the sake of its fruit, and have been
known to resort to a peculiar ceremony for the purpose of stimulating its
fertility. Near Jugra in Selangor there is a small grove of durian-trees, and
on a specially chosen day the villagers used to assemble in it. Thereupon
one of the local sorcerers would take a hatchet and deliver several shrewd
blows on the trunk of the most barren of the trees, saying, “Will you now
bear fruit or not? If you do not, I shall fell you.” To this the tree replied
through the mouth of another man who had climbed a mangostin-tree hard

by (the durian-tree being unclimbable), “Yes, I will now bear fruit; I beg
you not to fell me.”[67] So in Japan to make trees bear fruit two men go into
an orchard. One of them climbs up a tree and the other stands at the foot
with an axe. The man with the axe asks the tree whether it will yield a good
crop next year and threatens to cut it down if it does not. To this the man
among the branches replies on behalf of the tree that it will bear abundantly.
[68]
Odd as this mode of horticulture may seem to us, it has its exact parallels
in Europe. On Christmas Eve many a South Slavonian and Bulgarian
peasant swings an axe threateningly against a barren fruit-tree, while
another man standing by intercedes for the menaced tree, saying, “Do not
cut it down; it will soon bear fruit.” Thrice the axe is swung, and thrice the
impending blow is arrested at the entreaty of the intercessor. After that the
frightened tree will certainly bear fruit next year.[69] So at the village of
Ucria in Sicily, if a tree obstinately refuses to bear fruit, the owner pretends
to hew it down. Just as the axe is about to fall, a friend intercedes for the
tree, begging him to have patience for one year more, and promising not to
interfere again if the culprit has not mended his ways by then. The owner
grants his request, and the Sicilians say that a tree seldom remains deaf to
such a menace. The ceremony is performed on Easter Saturday.[70] In
Armenia the same pantomime is sometimes performed by two men for the
same purpose on Good Friday.[71] In the Abruzzi the ceremony takes place
before sunrise on the morning of St. John’s Day (Midsummer Day). The
owner threatens the trees which are slow to bear fruit. Thrice he walks
round each sluggard repeating his threat and striking the trunk with the head
of an axe.[72] In Lesbos, when an orange-tree or a lemon-tree does not bear
fruit, the owner will sometimes set a looking-glass before the tree; then
standing with an axe in his hand over against the tree and gazing at its
reflection in the glass he will feign to fall into a passion and will say aloud,
“Bear fruit, or I’ll cut you down.”[73] When cabbages merely curl their
leaves instead of forming heads as they ought to do, an Esthonian peasant
will go out into the garden before sunrise, clad only in his shirt, and armed
with a scythe, which he sweeps over the refractory vegetables as if he
meant to cut them down. This intimidates the cabbages and brings them to a
sense of their duty.[74]
Attempts to deceive If European peasants thus know how to work on
the spirits of trees and
plants.
the fears of cabbages and fruit-trees, the subtle
Malay has learned how to overreach the simple

souls of the plants and trees that grow in his native land. Thus, when a
bunch of fruit hangs from an aren palm-tree, and in reaching after it you
tread on some of the fallen fruit, the Galelareese say that you ought to grunt
like a wild boar in order that your feet may not itch. The chain of reasoning
seems weak to a European mind, but the natives find no flaw in it. They
have observed that wild boars are fond of the fruit, and run freely about
among it as it lies on the ground. From this they infer that the animal’s feet
are proof against the itch which men suffer through treading on the fruit;
and hence they conclude that if, by grunting in a natural and life-like
manner, you can impress the fruit with the belief that you are a pig, it will
treat your feet as tenderly as the feet of his friends the real pigs.[75] Again,
pregnant women in Java sometimes take a fancy to eat the wild species of a
particular plant (Colocasia antiquorum), which, on account of its
exceedingly pungent taste, is not commonly used as food by human beings,
though it is relished by pigs. In such a case it becomes the husband’s duty to
go and look for the plant, but before he gathers it he takes care to grunt
loudly, in order that the plant may take him for a pig, and so mitigate the
pungency of its flavour.[76] Again, in the Madiun district of Java there grows
a plant of which the fruit is believed to be injurious for men, but not for
apes. The urchins who herd buffaloes, and to whom nothing edible comes
amiss, eat this fruit also; but before plucking it they take the precaution of
mimicking the voices of apes, in order to persuade the plant that its fruit is
destined for the maw of these creatures.[77] Once more, the Javanese scrape
the rind of a certain plant (Sarcolobus narcoticus) into a powder, with
which they poison such dangerous beasts as tigers and wild boars. But the
rind is believed not to be a poison for men. Hence the person who gathers
the plant has to observe certain precautions in order that its baneful quality
may not be lost in passing through his hands. He approaches it naked and
creeping on all fours to make the plant think that he is a ravenous beast and
not a man, and to strengthen the illusion he bites the stalk. After that the
deadly property of the rind is assured. But even when the plant has been
gathered and the powder made from it in strict accordance with certain
superstitious rules, care is still needed in handling the powder, which is
regarded as alive and intelligent. It may not be brought near a corpse, nor
may a corpse be carried past the house in which the powder is kept. For if
either of these things were to happen, the powder, seeing the corpse, would
hastily conclude that it had already done its work, and so all its noxious

quality would be gone.[78] The Indians of the Upper Orinoco extract a
favourite beverage from certain palm-trees which grow in their forests. In
order to make the trees bear abundance of fruit the medicine-men blow
sacred trumpets under them; but how this is supposed to produce the
desired effect does not appear. The trumpets (botutos) are objects of
religious veneration; no woman may look on them under pain of death.
Candidates for initiation into the mystery of the trumpets must be men of
good character and celibate. The initiated members scourge each other, fast,
and practise other austerities.[79]
Trees married to each The conception of trees and plants as animated
other.
beings naturally results in treating them as male
and female, who can be married to each other in a real, and not merely a
figurative or poetical sense of the word. The notion is not purely fanciful,
for plants like animals have their sexes and reproduce their kind by the
union of the male and female elements. But whereas in all the higher
animals the organs of the two sexes are regularly separated between
different individuals, in most plants they exist together in every individual
of the species. This rule, however, is by no means universal, and in many
species the male plant is distinct from the female. The distinction appears to
have been observed by some savages, for we are told that the Maoris “are
acquainted with the sex of trees, etc., and have distinct names for the male
Artificial fertilisation and female of some trees.”[80] The ancients knew
of the date-palm.
the difference between the male and the female
date-palm, and fertilised them artificially by shaking the pollen of the male
tree over the flowers of the female.[81] The fertilisation took place in spring.
Among the heathen of Harran the month during which the palms were
fertilised bore the name of the Date Month, and at this time they celebrated
the marriage festival of all the gods and goddesses.[82] Different from this
true and fruitful marriage of the palm are the false and barren marriages of
Marriages of trees in plants which play a part in Hindoo superstition.
India.
For example, if a Hindoo has planted a grove of
mangos, neither he nor his wife may taste of the fruit until he has formally
married one of the trees, as a bridegroom, to a tree of a different sort,
commonly a tamarind-tree, which grows near it in the grove. If there is no
tamarind to act as bride, a jasmine will serve the turn. The expenses of such
a marriage are often considerable, for the more Brahmans are feasted at it,
the greater the glory of the owner of the grove. A family has been known to

sell its golden and silver trinkets, and to borrow all the money they could in
order to marry a mango-tree to a jasmine with due pomp and ceremony.[83]
According to another account of the ceremony, a branch of a bar tree is
brought and fixed near one of the mango trees in the grove to represent the
bar or bridegroom, and both are wrapt round with the same piece of cloth
by the owner of the grove and his wife. To complete the ceremony a
bamboo basket containing the bride’s belongings and dowry on a miniature
scale is provided; and after the Brahman priest has done his part, vermilion,
the emblem of a completed marriage, is applied to the mango as to a bride.
[84]
Marriage of the holy Another plant which figures as a bride in
basil.
Hindoo rites is the tulasi or Holy Basil (Ocymum
sanctum). It is a small shrub, not too big to be grown in a large flower-pot,
and is often placed in rooms; indeed there is hardly a respectable Hindoo
family that does not possess one. In spite of its humble appearance, the
shrub is pervaded by the essence of Vishnu and his wife Lakshmi, and is
itself worshipped daily as a deity. The following prayer is often addressed
to it: “I adore that tulasi in whose roots are all the sacred places of
pilgrimage, in whose centre are all the deities, and in whose upper branches
are all the Vedas.” The plant is especially a woman’s divinity, being
regarded as an embodiment of Vishnu’s wife Lakshmi, or of Rama’s wife
Sita, or of Krishna’s wife Rukmini. Women worship it by walking round it
and praying or offering flowers and rice to it. Now this sacred plant, as the
embodiment of a goddess, is annually married to the god Krishna in every
Hindoo family. The ceremony takes place in the month Karttika or
November. In Western India they often bring an idol of the youthful Krishna
in a gorgeous palanquin, followed by a long train of attendants, to the house
of a rich man to be wedded to the basil; and the festivities are celebrated
with great pomp.[85] Again, as the wife of Vishnu, the holy basil is married
to the Salagrama, a black fossil ammonite which is regarded as an
embodiment of Vishnu. In North-Western India this marriage of the plant to
the fossil has to be performed before it is lawful to taste of the fruit of a new
orchard. A man holding the fossil personates the bridegroom, and another
holding the basil represents the bride. After burning a sacrificial fire, the
officiating Brahman puts the usual questions to the couple about to be
united. Bride and bridegroom walk six times round a small spot marked out
in the centre of the orchard.[86] Further, no well is considered lucky until the
Salagrama has been solemnly wedded to the holy basil, which stands for

the garden that the well is intended to water. The relations assemble; the
owner of the garden represents the bridegroom, while a kinsman of his wife
personates the bride. Gifts are given to the Brahmans, a feast is held in the
garden, and after that both garden and well may be used without danger.[87]
The same marriage of the sacred fossil to the sacred plant is celebrated
annually by the Rajah of Orchha at Ludhaura. A former Rajah used to spend
a sum equal to about thirty thousand pounds, being one-fourth of his
revenue, upon the ceremony. On one occasion over a hundred thousand
people are said to have been present at the rite, and to have been feasted at
the expense of the Rajah. The procession consisted of eight elephants,
twelve hundred camels, and four thousand horses, all mounted and
elegantly caparisoned. The most sumptuously decorated of the elephants
carried the fossil god to pay his bridal visit to the little shrub goddess. On
such an occasion all the rites of a regular marriage are performed, and
afterwards the newly-wedded couple are left to repose together in the
temple till the next year.[88] On Christmas Eve German peasants used to tie
fruit-trees together with straw ropes to make them bear fruit, saying that the
trees were thus married.[89]
Trees in blossom and In the Moluccas, when the clove-trees are in
rice in bloom treated
like pregnant women.
blossom, they are treated like pregnant women. No
noise may be made near them; no light or fire may
be carried past them at night; no one may approach them with his hat on, all
must uncover in their presence. These precautions are observed lest the tree
should be alarmed and bear no fruit, or should drop its fruit too soon, like
the untimely delivery of a woman who has been frightened in her
pregnancy.[90] So in the East the growing rice-crop is often treated with the
same considerate regard as a breeding woman. Thus in Amboyna, when the
rice is in bloom, the people say that it is pregnant and fire no guns and make
no other noises near the field, for fear lest, if the rice were thus disturbed, it
would miscarry, and the crop would be all straw and no grain.[91] The
Javanese also regard the bloom on the rice as a sign that the plant is
pregnant; and they treat it accordingly, by mingling in the water that
irrigates the fields a certain astringent food prepared from sour fruit, which
is believed to be wholesome for women with child.[92] In some districts of
Western Borneo there must be no talk of corpses or demons in the fields,
else the spirit of the growing rice would be frightened and flee away to
Java.[93] The Toboongkoos of Central Celebes will not fire a gun in a

ricefield, lest the rice should be frightened away.[94] The Chams of Binh-
Thuan, in Cochin-China, do not dare to touch the rice in the granary at mid-
day, because the rice is then asleep, and it would be both rude and
dangerous to disturb its noonday slumber.[95] In Orissa growing rice is
“considered as a pregnant woman, and the same ceremonies are observed
with regard to it as in the case of human females.”[96] In Poso, a district of
Central Celebes, when the rice-ears are beginning to form, women go
through the field feeding the young ears with soft-boiled rice to make them
grow fast. They carry the food in calabashes, and grasping the ears in their
hands bend them over into the vessels that they may partake of the
strengthening pap. The reason for boiling the rice soft is that the ears are
regarded as young children who could not digest rice cooked in the usual
way.[97] The Tomori of Central Celebes feed the ripening rice by touching it
with the contents of a broken egg.[98] When the grain begins to form, the
people of Gayo, a district of northern Sumatra, regard the rice as pregnant
and feed it with a pap composed of rice-meal, coco-nut, and treacle, which
they deposit on leaves in the middle and at the corners of the field. And
when the crop is plentiful and the rice has been threshed, they give it water
to drink in a pitcher, which they bury to the neck in the heap of grain.[99]
Trees supposed to be Sometimes it is the souls of the dead which are
tenanted by the souls
of the dead.
believed to animate trees. The Dieri tribe of South
Australia regard as very sacred certain trees which
are supposed to be their fathers transformed; hence they speak with
reverence of these trees, and are careful that they shall not be cut down or
burned. If the settlers require them to hew down the trees, they earnestly
protest against it, asserting that were they to do so they would have no luck,
and might be punished for not protecting their ancestors.[100] Some of the
Philippine Islanders believe that the souls of their ancestors are in certain
trees, which they therefore spare. If they are obliged to fell one of these
trees, they excuse themselves to it by saying that it was the priest who made
them do it. The spirits take up their abode, by preference, in tall and stately
trees with great spreading branches. When the wind rustles the leaves, the
natives fancy it is the voice of the spirit; and they never pass near one of
these trees without bowing respectfully, and asking pardon of the spirit for
disturbing his repose. Among the Ignorrotes, in the district of Lepanto,
every village has its sacred tree, in which the souls of the dead forefathers
of the hamlet reside. Offerings are made to the tree, and any injury done to

it is believed to entail some misfortune on the village. Were the tree cut
down, the village and all its inhabitants would inevitably perish.[101] The
natives of Bontoc, a province in the north of Luzon, cut down the woods
near their villages, but leave a few fine trees standing as the abode of the
spirits of their ancestors (anitos); and they honour the spirits by depositing
food under the trees.[102] The Dyaks believe that when a man dies by
accident, as by drowning, it is a sign that the gods mean to exclude him
from the realms of bliss. Accordingly his body is not buried, but carried into
the forest and there laid down. The souls of such unfortunates pass into
trees or animals or fish, and are much dreaded by the Dyaks, who abstain
from using certain kinds of wood, or eating certain sorts of fish, because
they are supposed to contain the souls of the dead.[103] Once, while walking
with a Dyak through the jungle, Sir Hugh Low observed that his
companion, after raising his sword to strike a great snake, suddenly arrested
his arm and suffered the reptile to escape. On asking the reason, he was told
by the Dyak that the bush in front of which they were standing had been a
man, a kinsman of his own, who, dying some ten years before, had
appeared in a dream to his widow and told her that he had become that
particular bamboo-tree. Hence the ground and everything on it was sacred,
and the serpent might not be interfered with. The Dyak further related that
in spite of the warning given to the woman in the vision, a man had been
hardy enough to cut a branch of the tree, but that the fool had paid for his
temerity with his life, for he died soon afterwards. A little bamboo altar
stood in front of the bush, on which the remnants of offerings presented to
the spirit of the tree were still visible when Sir Hugh Low passed that way.
[104]

In Corea the souls of people who die of the plague or by the roadside, and
of women who expire in childbed, invariably take up their abode in trees.
To such spirits offerings of cake, wine, and pork are made on heaps of
stones piled under the trees.[105] In China it has been customary from time
immemorial to plant trees on graves in order thereby to strengthen the soul
of the deceased and thus to save his body from corruption; and as the
evergreen cypress and pine are deemed to be fuller of vitality than other
trees, they have been chosen by preference for this purpose. Hence the trees
that grow on graves are sometimes identified with the souls of the departed.
[106]
Among the Miao-Kia, an aboriginal race of Southern and Western
China, a sacred tree stands at the entrance of every village, and the

inhabitants believe that it is tenanted by the soul of their first ancestor and
that it rules their destiny. Sometimes there is a sacred grove near a village,
where the trees are suffered to rot and die on the spot. Their fallen branches
cumber the ground, and no one may remove them unless he has first asked
leave of the spirit of the tree and offered him a sacrifice.[107] Among the
Maraves of Southern Africa the burial-ground is always regarded as a holy
place where neither a tree may be felled nor a beast killed, because
everything there is supposed to be tenanted by the souls of the dead.[108]
Trees supposed to be inhabited by spirits of the dead are reported to be
common in Southern Nigeria.[109] Thus in the Indem tribe on the Cross River
every village has a big tree into which the souls of the villagers are believed
to pass at death. Hence they will not allow these trees to be cut, and they
sacrifice to them when people are ill.[110] Other natives of the Cross River
say that the big tree of the village is “their Life,” and that anybody who
breaks a bough of it will fall sick or die unless he pays a fine to the chief.[111]
Some of the mountaineers on the north-west coast of New Guinea think that
the spirits of their ancestors live on the branches of trees, on which
accordingly they hang rags of red or white cotton, always in the number of
seven or a multiple of seven; also, they place food on the trees or hang it in
baskets from the boughs.[112] Among the Buryats of Siberia the bones of a
deceased shaman are deposited in a hole hewn in the trunk of a great fir,
which is then carefully closed up. Thenceforth the tree goes by the name of
the shaman’s fir, and is looked upon as his abode. Whoever cuts down such
a tree will perish with all his household. Every tribe has its sacred grove of
firs in which the bones of the dead shamans are buried. In treeless regions
these firs often form isolated clumps on the hills, and are visible from afar.
[113]
The Lkungen Indians of British Columbia fancy that trees are
transformed men, and that the creaking of the branches in the wind is their
voice.[114] In Croatia, they say that witches used to be buried under old trees
in the forest, and that their souls passed into the trees and left the villagers
in peace.[115] A tree that grows on a grave is regarded by the South Slavonian
peasant as a sort of fetish. Whoever breaks a twig from it hurts the soul of
the dead, but gains thereby a magic wand, since the soul embodied in the
twig will be at his service.[116] This reminds us of the story of Polydorus in
Virgil,[117] and of the bleeding pomegranate that grew on the grave of the
fratricides Eteocles and Polynices at Thebes[118]. Similar stories are told far
away from the classic lands of Italy and Greece. In an Annamite tale an old

fisherman makes an incision in the trunk of a tree which has drifted ashore;
but blood flows from the cut, and it appears that an empress with her three
daughters, who had been cast into the sea, are embodied in the tree.[119] On
the Slave Coast of West Africa the negroes tell how from the mouldering
bones of a little boy, who had been murdered by his brother in the forest,
there sprang up an edible fungus, which spoke and revealed the crime to the
child’s mother when she attempted to pluck it.[120]
Trees sometimes In most, if not all, of these cases the spirit is
conceived not as the
body but merely as
viewed as incorporate in the tree; it animates the
the abode of spirits. tree and must suffer and die with it. But, according
to another and probably later opinion, the tree is
not the body, but merely the abode of the tree-spirit, which can quit it and
return to it at pleasure. The inhabitants of Siaoo, an island of the Sangi
group in the East Indies, believe in certain sylvan spirits who dwell in
forests or in great solitary trees. At full moon the spirit comes forth from his
lurking-place and roams about. He has a big head, very long arms and legs,
and a ponderous body. In order to propitiate the wood-spirits people bring
offerings of food, fowls, goats, and so forth to the places which they are
supposed to haunt.[121] The people of Nias think that, when a tree dies, its
liberated spirit becomes a demon, which can kill a coco-nut palm by merely
lighting on its branches, and can cause the death of all the children in a
house by perching on one of the posts that support it. Further, they are of
opinion that certain trees are at all times inhabited by roving demons who,
if the trees were damaged, would be set free to go about on errands of
mischief. Hence the people respect these trees, and are careful not to cut
them down.[122] On the Tanga coast of East Africa mischievous sprites reside
in great trees, especially in the fantastically shaped baobabs. Sometimes
they appear in the shape of ugly black beings, but as a rule they enter
unseen into people’s bodies, from which, after causing much sickness and
misery, they have to be cast out by the sorcerer.[123] The Warramunga tribe
of Central Australia believe that certain trees are the abode of disembodied
human spirits waiting to be born again. No woman will strike one of these
trees with an axe, lest the blow might disturb one of the spirits, who might
come forth from the tree and enter her body.[124] In the Galla region of East
Africa, where the vegetation is magnificent, there are many sacred trees, the
haunts of jinn. Most of them belong to the sycamore and maple family, but
they do not all exhale an equal odour of sanctity. The watêsa, with its edible

fruit, is least revered; people climb it to get the fruit, and this disturbs the
jinn, who naturally do not care to linger among its boughs. The gute tubi,
which has no edible fruit, is more sacred. Every Galla tribe has its sacred
tree, which is always one individual of a particular species called lafto.
When a tree has been consecrated by a priest it becomes holy, and no
branch of it may be broken. Such trees are loaded with long threads,
woollen bands, and bracelets; the blood of animals is poured on their roots
and sometimes smeared on their trunks, and pots full of butter, milk, and
flesh are placed among the branches or on the ground under them. In many
Galla tribes women may not tread on the shadow of sacred trees or even
approach the trees.[125]
Ceremonies at felling Not a few ceremonies observed at cutting down
trees.
haunted trees are based on the belief that the spirits
have it in their power to quit the trees at pleasure or in case of need. Thus
when the Pelew Islanders are felling a tree, they conjure the spirit of the tree
to leave it and settle on another.[126] The wily negro of the Slave Coast, who
wishes to fell an ashorin tree, but knows that he cannot do it so long as the
spirit remains in the tree, places a little palm-oil on the ground as a bait, and
then, when the unsuspecting spirit has quitted the tree to partake of this
dainty, hastens to cut down its late abode.[127] The Alfoors of Poso, in
Central Celebes, believe that great trees are inhabited by demons in human
form, and the taller the tree the more powerful the demon. Accordingly they
are careful not to fell such trees, and they leave offerings at the foot of them
for the spirits. But sometimes, when they are clearing land for cultivation, it
becomes necessary to cut down the trees which cumber it. In that case the
Alfoor will call to the demon of the tree and beseech him to leave his abode
and go elsewhere, and he deposits food under the tree as provision for the
spirit on his journey. Then, and not till then, he may fell the tree. Woe to the
luckless wight who should turn a tree-spirit out of his house without giving
him due notice![128] When the Toboongkoos of Central Celebes are about to
clear a piece of forest in order to plant rice, they build a tiny house and
furnish it with tiny clothes and some food and gold. Then they call together
all the spirits of the wood, offer them the little house with its contents, and
beseech them to quit the spot. After that they may safely cut down the wood
without fearing to wound themselves in so doing.[129] Before the Tomori of
Central Celebes fell a tall tree they lay a quid of betel at its foot, and invite
the spirit who dwells in the tree to change his lodging; moreover, they set a

little ladder against the trunk to enable him to descend with safety and
comfort.[130] The Sundanese of the Eastern Archipelago drive golden or
silver nails into the trunk of a sacred tree for the sake of expelling the tree-
spirit before they hew down his abode.[131] They seem to think that, though
the nails will hurt him, his vanity will be soothed by the reflection that they
are of gold or silver. In Rotti, an island to the south of Timor, when they fell
a tree to make a coffin, they sacrifice a dog as compensation to the tree-
spirit whose property they are thus making free with.[132] Before the Gayos
of Northern Sumatra clear a piece of forest for the purpose of planting
tobacco or sugar-cane, they offer a quid of betel to the spirit whom they call
the Lord of the Wood, and beg his leave to quarter themselves on his
domain.[133] The Mandelings of Sumatra endeavour to lay the blame of all
such misdeeds at the door of the Dutch authorities. Thus when a man is
cutting a road through a forest and has to fell a tall tree which blocks the
way, he will not begin to ply his axe until he has said: “Spirit who lodgest in
this tree, take it not ill that I cut down thy dwelling, for it is done at no wish
of mine but by order of the Controller.” And when he wishes to clear a
piece of forest-land for cultivation, it is necessary that he should come to a
satisfactory understanding with the woodland spirits who live there before
he lays low their leafy dwellings. For this purpose he goes to the middle of
the plot of ground, stoops down, and pretends to pick up a letter. Then
unfolding a bit of paper he reads aloud an imaginary letter from the Dutch
Government, in which he is strictly enjoined to set about clearing the land
without delay. Having done so, he says: “You hear that, spirits. I must begin
clearing at once, or I shall be hanged.”[134] When the Tagales of the
Philippines are about to fell a tree which they believe to be inhabited by a
spirit, they excuse themselves to the spirit, saying: “The priest has ordered
us to do it; the fault is not ours, nor the will either.”[135] There is a certain
tree called rara which the Dyaks believe to be inhabited by a spirit. Before
they cut down one of these trees they strike an axe into the trunk, leave it
there, and call upon the spirit either to quit his dwelling or to give them a
sign that he does not wish it to be meddled with. Then they go home. Next
day they visit the tree, and if they find the axe still sticking in the trunk,
they can fell the tree without danger; there is no spirit in it, or he would
certainly have ejected the axe from his abode. But if they find the axe lying
on the ground, they know that the tree is inhabited and they will not fell it;
for it must surely have been the spirit of the tree in person who expelled the

intrusive axe. Some sceptical Europeans, however, argue that what casts out
the axe is strychnine in the sap rather than the tree-spirit. They say that if
the sap is running, the axe must necessarily be forced out by the action of
heat and the expansion of the exuding gutta; whereas if the axe remains in
the trunk, this only shews that the tree is not vigorous but ready to die.[136]
Before they cut down a great tree, the Indians in the neighbourhood of
Santiago Tepehuacan hold a festival in order to appease the tree and so
prevent it from hurting anybody in its fall.[137] In the Greek island of
Siphnos, if woodmen have to fell a tree which they regard as possessed by a
spirit, they are most careful, when it falls, to prostrate themselves humbly
and in silence lest the spirit should chastise them as it escapes. Sometimes
they put a stone on the stump of the tree to prevent the egress of the spirit.
[138]
In some parts of Sumatra, so soon as a tree is felled, a young tree is
planted on the stump, and some betel and a few small coins are also placed
on it.[139] The purpose of the ceremony seems plain. The spirit of the tree is
offered a new home in the young tree planted on the stump of the old one,
and the offering of betel and money is meant to compensate him for the
disturbance he has suffered. Similarly, when the Maghs of Bengal were
obliged by Europeans to cut down trees which the natives believed to be
tenanted by spirits, one of them was always ready with a green sprig, which
he ran and placed in the middle of the stump when the tree fell, “as a
propitiation to the spirit which had been displaced so roughly, pleading at
the same time the orders of the strangers for the work.”[140] In Halmahera,
however, the motive for placing a sprig on the stump is said to be to deceive
the spirit into thinking that the fallen stem is still growing in its old place.
[141]
The Gilyaks insert a stick with curled shavings on the stump of the tree
which they have felled, believing that in this way they give back to the
dispossessed tree-spirit his life and soul.[142] German woodmen make a cross
upon the stump while the tree is falling, in the belief that this enables the
spirit of the tree to live upon the stump.[143] Before the Katodis fell a forest
tree, they choose a tree of the same kind and worship it by presenting a
coco-nut, burning incense, applying a red pigment, and begging it to bless
the undertaking.[144] The intention, perhaps, is to induce the spirit of the
former tree to shift its quarters to the latter. In clearing a wood, a
Galelareese must not cut down the last tree till the spirit in it has been
induced to go away.[145] When the Dyaks fell the jungle on the hills, they
often leave a few trees standing on the hill-tops as a refuge for the

dispossessed tree-spirits.[146] Sailing up the Baram river in Sarawak you pass
from time to time a clearing in the forest where manioc is cultivated. In the
middle of every one of these clearings a solitary tree is always left standing
as a home for the ejected spirits of the wood. Its boughs are stripped off, all
but the topmost, and just under its leafy crown two cross-pieces are fastened
from which rags dangle.[147] Similarly in India, the Gonds allow a grove of
typical trees to remain as a home or reserve for the woodland spirits when
they are clearing away a jungle.[148] The Mundaris have sacred groves which
were left standing when the land was cleared, lest the sylvan gods,
disquieted at the felling of the trees, should abandon the place.[149] The Miris
in Assam are unwilling to break up new land for cultivation so long as there
is fallow land available; for they fear to offend the spirits of the woods by
hewing down trees needlessly.[150] On the other hand, when a child has been
lost, the Padams of Assam think that it has been stolen by the spirits of the
wood; so they retaliate on the spirits by felling trees till they find the child.
The spirits, fearing to be left without a tree in which to lodge, give up the
child, and it is found in the fork of a tree.[151]
Propitiating tree- Even when a tree has been felled, sawn into
spirits in house-
timber.
planks, and used to build a house, it is possible that
the woodland spirit may still be lurking in the
timber, and accordingly some people seek to propitiate him before or after
they occupy the new house. Hence, when a new dwelling is ready the
Toradjas of Central Celebes kill a goat, a pig, or a buffalo, and smear all the
woodwork with its blood. If the building is a lobo or spirit-house, a fowl or
a dog is killed on the ridge of the roof, and its blood allowed to flow down
on both sides. The ruder Tonapoo in such a case sacrifice a human being on
the roof. This sacrifice on the roof of a lobo or temple serves the same
purpose as the smearing of blood on the woodwork of an ordinary house.
The intention is to propitiate the forest-spirits who may still be in the
timber; they are thus put in good humour and will do the inmates of the
house no harm. For a like reason people in Celebes and the Moluccas are
much afraid of planting a post upside down at the building of a house; for
the forest-spirit, who might still be in the timber, would very naturally
resent the indignity and visit the inmates with sickness.[152] The Bahaus or
Kayans of central Borneo are of opinion that tree-spirits stand very stiffly
on the point of honour and visit men with their displeasure for any injury
done to them. Hence after building a house, whereby they have been forced

to illtreat many trees, these people observe a period of penance for a year,
during which they must abstain from many things, such as the killing of
bears, tiger-cats, and serpents. The period of taboo is brought to an end by a
ceremony at which head-hunting, or the pretence of it, plays a part. The
Ooloo-Ayar Dyaks on the Mandai river are still more punctilious in their
observance of taboos after building a house. The length of the penance
depends chiefly on the kind of timber used in the construction of the
dwelling. If the timber was the valuable ironwood, the inmates of the house
must deny themselves various dainties for three years. But the spirits of
humbler trees are less exacting.[153] When the Kayans have felled an
ironwood tree in order to cut it up into planks for a roof, they will offer a
pig to the spirits of the tree, hoping thus to prevent the spirits from
molesting the souls of persons assembled under the roof.[154]
Sacred trees the abode Thus the tree is regarded, sometimes as the body,
of spirits.
sometimes as merely the house of the tree-spirit;
and when we read of sacred trees which may not be cut down because they
are the seat of spirits, it is not always possible to say with certainty in which
way the presence of the spirit in the tree is conceived. In the following
cases, perhaps, the trees are regarded as the dwelling-place of the spirits
rather than as their bodies. The Sea Dyaks point to many a tree as sacred
because it is the abode of a spirit or spirits, and to cut one of these down
would provoke the spirit’s anger, who might avenge himself by visiting the
sacrilegious woodman with sickness.[155] The Battas of Sumatra have been
known to refuse to cut down certain trees because they were the abode of
mighty spirits who would resent the injury.[156] One of the largest and
stateliest of the forest trees in Perak is known as toallong; it has a very
poisonous sap which produces great irritation when it comes into contact
with the skin. Many trees of this species have large hollow knobs on their
trunks where branches have been broken off. These knobs are looked upon
by the Malays as houses of spirits, and they object strongly to cut down
trees that are thus disfigured, believing that the man who fells one of them
will die within the year. When clearings are made in the forest these trees
are generally left standing to the annoyance and expense of planters.[157] The
Siamese fear to cut down any very fine trees lest they should incur the
anger of the powerful spirits who inhabit them.[158] The En, a tribe of Upper
Burma, worship the spirits of hills and forests, and over great tracts of
country they will not lay out fields for fear of offending the spirits. They

say that if a tree is felled a man dies.[159] In every Khond village a large
grove, generally of sâl trees (Shorea robusta), is dedicated to the forest god,
whose favour is sought by the sacrifice of birds, hogs, and sheep, together
with an offering of rice and an addled egg. This sacred grove is religiously
preserved. The young trees are occasionally pruned, but not a twig may be
cut for use without the formal consent of the village and the ceremonial
propitiation of the god.[160] In some parts of Berar the holy groves are so
carefully preserved, that during the annual festivals held in them it is
customary to gather and burn solemnly all dead and fallen branches and
trees.[161] The Larka Kols of India believe that the tops of trees are the abode
of spirits who are disturbed by the felling of the trees and will take
vengeance.[162] The Parahiya, a Dravidian tribe of Mirzapur, think that evil
spirits live in the sâl, pîpal, and mahua trees; they make offerings to such
trees and will not climb into their branches.[163] In Travancore demons are
supposed to reside in certain large old trees, which it would be sacrilegious
and dangerous to hew down. A rough stone is generally placed at the foot of
one of these trees as an image or emblem, and turmeric powder is rubbed on
it.[164] Some of the Western tribes of British New Guinea dread certain
female devils who inhabit large trees and are very dangerous. Trees
supposed to be the abode of these demons are treated with much respect and
never cut down.[165] Near Old Calabar there is a ravine full of the densest
and richest vegetation, whence a stream of limpid water flows purling to the
river. The spot was considered by a late king to be hallowed ground, the
residence of Anansa, the tutelary god of Old Calabar. The people had strict
orders to revere the grove, and no branch of it might be cut.[166] Among the
Bambaras of the Upper Niger every village has its sacred tree, generally a
tamarind, which is supposed to be the abode of the fetish and is carefully
preserved. The fetish is consulted on every important occasion, and
sacrifices of sheep, dogs, and fowls, accompanied with offerings of millet
and fruits, are made under the sacred tree.[167] In the deserts of Arabia a
modern traveller found a great solitary acacia-tree which the Bedouins
believed to be possessed by a jinnee. Shreds of cotton and horns of goats
hung among the boughs and nails were knocked into the trunk. An Arab
strongly dissuaded the traveller from cutting a branch of the tree, assuring
him that it was death to do so.[168] The Yourouks, who inhabit the southern
coasts of Asia Minor and the heights of Mount Taurus, have sacred trees
which they never cut down from fear of driving away the spirits that own

them.[169] The old Prussians believed that gods inhabited tall trees, such as
oaks, from which they gave audible answers to enquirers; hence these trees
were not felled, but worshipped as the homes of divinities. Amongst the
trees thus venerated by them was the elder-tree.[170] The Samagitians thought
that if any one ventured to injure certain groves, or the birds or beasts in
them, the spirits would make his hands or feet crooked.[171] Down to the
nineteenth century the Esthonians stood in such awe of many trees, which
they considered as the seat of mighty spirits, that they would not even pluck
a flower or a berry on the ground where the shadow of the trees fell, much
less would they dare to break a branch from the tree itself.[172]
Sacred groves. Even where no mention is made of wood-spirits,
we may generally assume that when trees or groves are sacred and
inviolable, it is because they are believed to be either inhabited or animated
by sylvan deities. In Central India the bar tree (Ficus Indica) and the pipal
(Ficus religiosa) are sacred, and every child learns the saying that “it is
better to die a leper than pluck a leaf of a pipal, and he who can wound a
bar will kick his little sister.”[173] In Livonia there is a sacred grove in which,
if any man fells a tree or breaks a branch, he will die within the year.[174] The
Wotyaks have sacred groves. A Russian who ventured to hew a tree in one
of them fell sick and died next day.[175] The heathen Cheremiss of South-
Eastern Russia have sacred groves, and woe to him who dares to fell one of
the holy trees. If the author of the sacrilege is unknown, they take a cock or
a goose, torture it to death and then throw it on the fire, while they pray to
the gods to punish the sinner and cause him to perish like the bird.[176] Near
a chapel of St. Ninian, in the parish of Belly, there stood more than a
century and a half ago a row of trees, “all of equal size, thick planted for
about the length of a butt,” which were “looked upon by the superstitious
papists as sacred trees, from which they reckon it sacrilege to take so much
as a branch or any of the fruit.”[177] So in the island of Skye some two
hundred and fifty years ago there was a holy lake, “surrounded by a fair
wood, which none presumes to cut”; and those who ventured to infringe its
sanctity by breaking even a twig either sickened on the spot or were visited
afterwards by “some signal inconvenience.”[178] Sacrifices offered at cutting
down trees are doubtless meant to appease the wood-spirits. In Gilgit it is
usual to sprinkle goat’s blood on a tree of any kind before felling it.[179] The
Akikuyu of British East Africa hold the mugumu or mugomo tree, a species
of fig, sacred on account of its size and fine appearance; hence they do not

ruthlessly cut it down like all other trees which cumber a patch of ground
that is to be cleared for tillage. Groves of this tree are sacred. In them no
axe may be laid to any tree, no branch broken, no firewood gathered, no
grass burnt; and wild animals which have taken refuge there may not be
molested. In these sacred groves sheep and goats are sacrificed and prayers
are offered for rain or fine weather or in behalf of sick children. The whole
meat of the sacrifices is left in the grove for God (Ngai) to eat; the fat is
placed in a cleft of the trunk or in the branches as a tit-bit for him. He lives
up in the boughs but comes down to partake of the food.[180]

§ 2. Beneficent Powers of Tree-Spirits

Transition of tree- When a tree comes to be viewed, no longer as the
spirit into
anthropomorphic
body of the tree-spirit, but simply as its abode
deity of the woods. which it can quit at pleasure, an important advance
has been made in religious thought. Animism is
passing into polytheism. In other words, instead of regarding each tree as a
living and conscious being, man now sees in it merely a lifeless, inert mass,
tenanted for a longer or shorter time by a supernatural being who, as he can
pass freely from tree to tree, thereby enjoys a certain right of possession or
lordship over the trees, and, ceasing to be a tree-soul, becomes a forest god.
As soon as the tree-spirit is thus in a measure disengaged from each
particular tree, he begins to change his shape and assume the body of a
man, in virtue of a general tendency of early thought to clothe all abstract
spiritual beings in concrete human form. Hence in classical art the sylvan
deities are depicted in human shape, their woodland character being
denoted by a branch or some equally obvious symbol.[181] But this change of
shape does not affect the essential character of the tree-spirit. The powers
which he exercised as a tree-soul incorporate in a tree, he still continues to
wield as a god of trees. This I shall now attempt to prove in detail. I shall
shew, first, that trees considered as animate beings are credited with the
power of making the rain to fall, the sun to shine, flocks and herds to
multiply, and women to bring forth easily; and, second, that the very same
powers are attributed to tree-gods conceived as anthropomorphic beings or
as actually incarnate in living men.
Trees supposed to First, then, trees or tree-spirits are believed to give
give rain and
sunshine.
rain and sunshine. When the missionary Jerome of
Prague was persuading the heathen Lithuanians to
fell their sacred groves, a multitude of women besought the Prince of
Lithuania to stop him, saying that with the woods he was destroying the
house of god from which they had been wont to get rain and sunshine.[182]
The Mundaris in Assam think that if a tree in the sacred grove is felled the
sylvan gods evince their displeasure by withholding rain.[183] In order to
procure rain the inhabitants of Monyo, a village in the Sagaing district of

Upper Burma, chose the largest tamarind-tree near the village and named it
the haunt of the spirit (nat) who controls the rain. Then they offered bread,
coco-nuts, plantains, and fowls to the guardian spirit of the village and to
the spirit who gives rain, and they prayed, “O Lord nat have pity on us poor
mortals, and stay not the rain. Inasmuch as our offering is given
ungrudgingly, let the rain fall day and night.” Afterwards libations were
made in honour of the spirit of the tamarind-tree; and still later three elderly
women, dressed in fine clothes and wearing necklaces and earrings, sang
the Rain Song.[184] In Cambodia each village or province has its sacred tree,
the abode of a spirit. If the rains are late the people sacrifice to the tree.[185]
In time of drought the elders of the Wakamba in East Africa assemble and
take a calabash of cider and a goat to a baobab-tree, where they kill the goat
but do not eat it.[186] When Ovambo women go out to sow corn they take
with them in the basket of seed two green branches of a particular kind of
tree (Peltophorum africanum Sond.), one of which they plant in the field
along with the first seed sown. The branch is believed to have the power of
attracting rain; hence in one of the native dialects the tree goes by the name
of the “rain-bush.”[187] To extort rain from the tree-spirit a branch is
sometimes dipped in water, as we have seen above.[188] In such cases the
spirit is doubtless supposed to be immanent in the branch, and the water
thus applied to the spirit produces rain by a sort of sympathetic magic,
exactly as we saw that in New Caledonia the rain-makers pour water on a
skeleton, believing that the soul of the deceased will convert the water into
rain.[189] There is hardly room to doubt that Mannhardt is right in explaining
as a rain-charm the European custom of drenching with water the trees
which are cut at certain popular festivals, as midsummer, Whitsuntide, and
harvest.[190]
Tree-spirits supposed Again, tree-spirits make the crops to grow.
to make the crops
grow.
Amongst the Mundaris every village has its sacred
grove, and “the grove deities are held responsible
for the crops, and are especially honoured at all the great agricultural
festivals.”[191] The negroes of the Gold Coast are in the habit of sacrificing at
the foot of certain tall trees, and they think that if one of these were felled
all the fruits of the earth would perish.[192] Before harvest the Wabondëi of
East Africa sacrifice a goat to the spirit that lives in baobab-trees; the blood
is poured into a hole at the foot of one of the trees. If the sacrifice were
omitted the spirit would send disease and death among the people.[193] The

Gallas dance in couples round sacred trees, praying for a good harvest.
Every couple consists of a man and woman, who are linked together by a
stick, of which each holds one end. Under their arms they carry green corn
or grass.[194] Swedish peasants stick a leafy branch in each furrow of their
The Harvest-May. corn-fields, believing that this will ensure an
[195]
abundant crop. The same idea comes out in the German and French
custom of the Harvest-May. This is a large branch or a whole tree, which is
decked with ears of corn, brought home on the last waggon from the
harvest-field, and fastened on the roof of the farmhouse or of the barn,
where it remains for a year. Mannhardt has proved that this branch or tree
embodies the tree-spirit conceived as the spirit of vegetation in general,
whose vivifying and fructifying influence is thus brought to bear upon the
corn in particular. Hence in Swabia the Harvest-May is fastened amongst
the last stalks of corn left standing on the field; in other places it is planted
on the corn-field and the last sheaf cut is attached to its trunk.[196] The
Harvest-May of Germany has its counterpart in the eiresione of ancient
Greece.[197] The eiresione was a branch of olive or laurel, bound about with
ribbons and hung with a variety of fruits. This branch was carried in
procession at a harvest festival and was fastened over the door of the house,
where it remained for a year. The object of preserving the Harvest-May or
the eiresione for a year is that the life-giving virtue of the bough may foster
the growth of the crops throughout the year. By the end of the year the
virtue of the bough is supposed to be exhausted and it is replaced by a new
one. Following a similar train of thought some of the Dyaks of Sarawak are
careful at the rice harvest to take up the roots of a certain bulbous plant,
which bears a beautiful crown of white and fragrant flowers. These roots
are preserved with the rice in the granary and are planted again with the
seed-rice in the following season; for the Dyaks say that the rice will not
grow unless a plant of this sort be in the field.[198]
Customs like the Customs like that of the Harvest-May appear to
Harvest-May in India
and Africa.
exist in India and Africa. At a harvest festival of
the Lhoosai of South-Eastern India the chief goes
with his people into the forest and fells a large tree, which is then carried
into the village and set up in the midst. Sacrifice is offered, and spirits and
rice are poured over the tree. The ceremony closes with a feast and a dance,
at which the unmarried men and girls are the only performers.[199] Among
the Bechuanas the hack-thorn is very sacred, and it would be a serious

offence to cut a bough from it and carry it into the village during the rainy
season. But when the corn is ripe in the ear the people go with axes, and
each man brings home a branch of the sacred hack-thorn, with which they
repair the village cattle-yard.[200] According to another authority, it is a rule
with the Bechuanas that “neither the hook-thorn nor the milk-tree must be
cut down while the corn is on the ground, for this, they think, would prevent
rain. When I was at Lattakoo, though Mr. Hamilton stood in much need of
some milk-tree timber, he durst not supply himself till all the corn was
gathered in.”[201] Many tribes of South-Eastern Africa will not cut down
timber while the corn is green, fearing that if they did so, the crops would
be destroyed by blight, hail, or early frost.[202] The heathen Cheremiss, in the
Russian Government of Kasan, will not fell trees, mow grass, or dig the
ground while the corn is in bloom.[203] Again, the fructifying power of the
tree is put forth at seed-time as well as at harvest. Among the Aryan tribes
of Gilgit, on the north-western frontier of India, the sacred tree is the Chili,
a species of cedar (Juniperus excelsa). At the beginning of wheat-sowing
the people receive from the rajah’s granary a quantity of wheat, which is
placed in a skin mixed with sprigs of the sacred cedar. A large bonfire of the
cedar wood is lighted, and the wheat which is to be sown is held over the
smoke. The rest is ground and made into a large cake, which is baked on the
same fire and given to the ploughman.[204] Here the intention of fertilising
the seed by means of the sacred cedar is unmistakable.
Fertilising virtue In all these cases the power of fostering the growth
attributed to trees.
of crops, and, in general, of cultivated plants, is
ascribed to trees. The ascription is not unnatural. For the tree is the largest
and most powerful member of the vegetable kingdom, and man is familiar
with it before he takes to cultivating corn. Hence he naturally places the
feebler and, to him, newer plant under the dominion of the older and more
powerful.
Tree-spirits make Again, the tree-spirit makes the herds to multiply
herds to multiply and
women to bring forth.
and blesses women with offspring. The sacred
Chili or cedar of Gilgit was supposed to possess
this virtue in addition to that of fertilising the corn. At the commencement
of wheat-sowing three chosen unmarried youths, after undergoing daily
washing and purification for three days, used to start for the mountain
where the cedars grew, taking with them wine, oil, bread, and fruit of every

kind. Having found a suitable tree they sprinkled the wine and oil on it,
while they ate the bread and fruit as a sacrificial feast. Then they cut off the
branch and brought it to the village, where, amid general rejoicing, it was
placed on a large stone beside running water. “A goat was then sacrificed,
its blood poured over the cedar branch, and a wild dance took place, in
which weapons were brandished about, and the head of the slaughtered goat
was borne aloft, after which it was set up as a mark for arrows and bullet-
practice. Every good shot was rewarded with a gourd full of wine and some
of the flesh of the goat. When the flesh was finished the bones were thrown
into the stream and a general ablution took place, after which every man
went to his house taking with him a spray of the cedar. On arrival at his
house he found the door shut in his face, and on his knocking for admission,
his wife asked, ‘What have you brought?’ To which he answered, ‘If you
want children, I have brought them to you; if you want food, I have brought
it; if you want cattle, I have brought them; whatever you want, I have it.’
The door was then opened and he entered with his cedar spray. The wife
then took some of the leaves, and pouring wine and water on them placed
them on the fire, and the rest were sprinkled with flour and suspended from
the ceiling. She then sprinkled flour on her husband’s head and shoulders,
and addressed him thus, ‘Ai Shiri Bagerthum, son of the fairies, you have
come from far!’ Shiri Bagerthum, ‘the dreadful king,’ being the form of
address to the cedar when praying for wants to be fulfilled. The next day the
wife baked a number of cakes, and taking them with her, drove the family
goats to the Chili stone. When they were collected round the stone, she
began to pelt them with pebbles, invoking the Chili at the same time.
According to the direction in which the goats ran off, omens were drawn as
to the number and sex of the kids expected during the ensuing year. Walnuts
and pomegranates were then placed on the Chili stone, the cakes were
distributed and eaten, and the goats followed to pasture in whatever
direction they showed a disposition to go. For five days afterwards this song
was sung in all the houses:—

‘Dread Fairy King, I sacrifice before you,
How nobly do you stand! you have filled up my house,
You have brought me a wife when I had not one,
Instead of daughters you have given me sons.
You have shown me the ways of right,
You have given me many children.’”[205]

Fertilising virtue Here the driving of the goats to the stone on which
attributed to trees.
the cedar had been placed is clearly meant to
impart to them the fertilising influence of the cedar. In Northern India the
Emblica officinalis is a sacred tree. On the eleventh of the month Phalgun
(February) libations are poured at the foot of the tree, a red or yellow string
is bound about the trunk, and prayers are offered to it for the fruitfulness of
women, animals, and crops.[206] Again, in Northern India the coco-nut is
esteemed one of the most sacred fruits, and is called Sriphala, or the fruit of
Sri, the goddess of prosperity. It is the symbol of fertility, and all through
Upper India is kept in shrines and presented by the priests to women who
desire to become mothers.[207] In the town of Qua, near Old Calabar, there
used to grow a palm-tree which ensured conception to any barren woman
Influence of May- who ate a nut from its branches.[208] In Europe the
trees on cattle.
May-tree or May-pole is apparently supposed to
possess similar powers over both women and cattle. Thus in some parts of
Germany on the first of May the peasants set up May-trees or May-bushes
at the doors of stables and byres, one for each horse and cow; this is thought
to make the cows yield much milk.[209] Of the Irish we are told that “they
fancy a green bough of a tree, fastened on May-day against the house, will
produce plenty of milk that summer.”[210] In Suffolk there was an old
custom, observed in most farm-houses, that any servant who could bring in
a branch of hawthorn in blossom on the first of May was entitled to a dish
of cream for breakfast.[211] Similarly, “in parts of Cornwall, till certainly ten
years ago, any child who brought to a dairy on May morning a piece of
hawthorn in bloom, or a piece of fresh bracken, long enough to surround the
earthenware bowl in which cream is kept, was given a bowl of cream.”[212]
On May Day English milkmaids used to dance with garlands on their pails.
One May morning long ago Pepys on his way to Westminster saw many of
them dancing thus to the music of a fiddle while pretty Nel Gwynne, in her

smock sleeves and bodice, watched them from the door of her lodgings in
Drury-lane.[213]
May-tree or May- However in these and similar European customs it
bush a protection
against witchcraft.
seems that the influence of the tree, bush, or bough
is really protective rather than generative; it does
not so much fill the udders of the cows as prevent them from being drained
dry by witches, who ride on broomsticks or pitchforks through the air on
the Eve of May Day (the famous Walpurgis Night) and make great efforts to
steal the milk from the cattle. Hence the many precautions which the
prudent herdsman must take to guard his beasts at this season from the raids
of these baleful creatures. For example, on May morning the Irish scatter
primroses on the threshold, keep a piece of red-hot iron on the hearth, or
twine branches of whitethorn and mountain-ash or rowan about the door. To
save the milk they cut and peel boughs of mountain-ash (rowan), and bind
the twigs round the milk-pails and the churn.[214] According to a writer of the
sixteenth century, whose description is quoted by Camden, the Irish
“account every woman who fetches fire on May-day a witch, nor will they
give it to any but sick persons, and that with an imprecation, believing she
will steal all the butter the next summer. On May day they kill all the hares
they find among their cattle, supposing them the old women who have
designs on the butter. They imagine the butter so stolen may be recovered if
they take some of the thatch hanging over the door and burn it.”[215] In the
north-east of Scotland pieces of rowan-tree and woodbine, or of rowan
alone, used to be placed over the doors of the cow-houses on May Day to
keep the witches from the kine; and a still better way of attaining the same
object was to tie a cross of rowan-tree wood with a scarlet thread to each
animal’s tail.[216] The Highlanders of Scotland believe that on Beltane eve,
that is the night before May Day, the witches go about in the shape of hares
and suck the milk from the cows. To guard against their depredations tar
was put behind the ears of the cattle and at the root of the tail, and the house
was hung with rowan-tree.[217] For the same reason the Highlanders say that
the peg of the cow-shackle and the handle and cross of the churn-staff
should always be made of rowan, because that is the most potent charm
against witchcraft.[218] In the Isle of Man on May Day, old style, people
carried crosses of rowan in their hats and fastened May-flowers over their
doors as a protection against elves and witches, and for the same purpose
they tied crosses of rowan to the tails of the cattle. Also women washed

their faces in the dew early on May morning in order to secure good luck, a
fine complexion, and immunity from witches. Further, the break of day on
that morning was the signal for setting the ling or gorse on fire, which was
done for the sake of burning out the witches, who are wont to take the shape
of hares. In some places, indeed, as in the Lezayre parish, the practice was
to burn gorse in the hedge of every field to drive away the witches, who are
still feared in the Isle of Man.[219] In Norway and Denmark branches of
Precautions against rowan are similarly used to protect houses and
witchcraft on May
Day and Walpurgis
cattle-stalls against witches on Walpurgis Night,
Night. and there, too, it is thought that the churn-staff
should be made of rowan.[220] In Germany a
common way of keeping witches from the cattle on Walpurgis Night is to
chalk up three crosses on the door of the cowhouse.[221] Branches of
buckthorn stuck in the muck-heaps on the eve of May Day answer the same
purpose.[222] In Silesia the precautions taken at this season against witches
are many and various; for example, pieces of buckthorn are nailed
crosswise over the door of the cowhouse; pitchforks and harrows, turned
upside down, with the prongs pointing outwards, are placed at the doors;
and a sod of fresh turf from a meadow is laid before the threshold and
strewed with marsh-marigolds. Before the witches can pass the threshold,
they must count every blade of grass in the turf and every petal of the
marigolds; and while they are still counting the day breaks and their power
is gone. For the same reason little birch-trees are set up at the house-door,
because the witches cannot enter the house till they have counted all the
leaves; and before they have done the sum it is broad daylight, and they
must flee away with the shadows.[223] On Walpurgis Night the Germans of
Moravia put knives under the threshold of the cowhouse and twigs of birch
at the door and in the muck-heap to keep the witches from the cows.[224] For
the same purpose the Bohemians at this season lay branches of gooseberry
bushes, hawthorn, and wild rose-trees on the thresholds of the cowhouses,
because the witches are caught by the thorns and can get no farther.[225] We
now see why thorny trees and bushes, whether hawthorn, buckthorn, or
what not, afford protection against witchcraft: they serve as prickly hedges
through which the witches cannot force their way. But this explanation
clearly does not apply to the mountain-ash and the birch.
Influence of tree- On the second of July some of the Wends used to
spirits on cattle
set up an oak-tree in the middle of the village with

among the Wends, an iron cock fastened to its top; then they danced
Esthonians, and
Circassians. round it, and drove the cattle round it to make them
thrive.[226] Some of the Esthonians believe in a
mischievous spirit called Metsik, who lives in the forest and has the weal of
the cattle in his hands. Every year a new image of him is prepared. On an
appointed day all the villagers assemble and make a straw man, dress him
in clothes, and take him to the common pasture-land of the village. Here the
figure is fastened to a high tree, round which the people dance noisily. On
almost every day of the year prayer and sacrifice are offered to him that he
may protect the cattle. Sometimes the image of Metsik is made of a corn-
sheaf and fastened to a tall tree in the wood. The people perform strange
antics before it to induce Metsik to guard the corn and the cattle.[227] The
Circassians regard the pear-tree as the protector of cattle. So they cut down
a young pear-tree in the forest, branch it, and carry it home, where it is
adored as a divinity. Almost every house has one such pear-tree. In autumn,
on the day of the festival, the tree is carried into the house with great
ceremony to the sound of music and amid the joyous cries of all the
inmates, who compliment it on its fortunate arrival. It is covered with
candles, and a cheese is fastened to its top. Round about it they eat, drink,
and sing. Then they bid the tree good-bye and take it back to the courtyard,
where it remains for the rest of the year, set up against the wall, without
receiving any mark of respect.[228]
Tree-spirits grant In the Tuhoe tribe of Maoris “the power of making
offspring or an easy
delivery to women.
women fruitful is ascribed to trees. These trees are
associated with the navel-strings of definite
mythical ancestors, as indeed the navel-strings of all children used to be
hung upon them down to quite recent times. A barren woman had to
embrace such a tree with her arms, and she received a male or a female
child according as she embraced the east or the west side.”[229] The common
European custom of placing a green bush on May Day before or on the
house of a beloved maiden probably originated in the belief of the
fertilising power of the tree-spirit.[230] In some parts of Bavaria such bushes
are set up also at the houses of newly-married pairs, and the practice is only
omitted if the wife is near her confinement; for in that case they say that the
husband has “set up a May-bush for himself.”[231] Among the South
Slavonians a barren woman, who desires to have a child, places a new
chemise upon a fruitful tree on the eve of St. George’s Day. Next morning

before sunrise she examines the garment, and if she finds that some living
creature has crept on it, she hopes that her wish will be fulfilled within the
year. Then she puts on the chemise, confident that she will be as fruitful as
the tree on which the garment has passed the night.[232] Among the Kara-
Kirghiz barren women roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple-
tree, in order to obtain offspring.[233] Some of the hill-tribes of India have a
custom of marrying the bride and bridegroom to two trees before they are
married to each other. For example, among the Mundas the bride touches
with red lead a mahwá-tree, clasps it in her arms, and is tied to it; and the
bridegroom goes through a like ceremony with a mango-tree.[234] The
intention of the custom may perhaps be to communicate to the newly-
wedded pair the vigorous reproductive power of the trees.[235] Lastly, the
power of granting to women an easy delivery at child-birth is ascribed to
trees both in Sweden and Africa. In some districts of Sweden there was
formerly a bårdträd or guardian-tree (lime, ash, or elm) in the
neighbourhood of every farm. No one would pluck a single leaf of the
sacred tree, any injury to which was punished by ill-luck or sickness.
Pregnant women used to clasp the tree in their arms in order to ensure an
easy delivery.[236] In some negro tribes of the Congo region pregnant women
make themselves garments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree, because
they believe that this tree delivers them from the dangers that attend child-
bearing.[237] The story that Leto clasped a palm-tree and an olive-tree or two
laurel-trees, when she was about to give birth to the divine twins Apollo and
Artemis, perhaps points to a similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain
trees to facilitate delivery.[238]

CHAPTER X
RELICS OF TREE-WORSHIP IN MODERN EUROPE

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.
May-trees and May- Sir Henry Piers, in his Description of Westmeath,
bushes in England.
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 formerly the custom for young people to rise a

May garlands in little after midnight on the morning of the first of
England.
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]
May customs in In some villages of the Vosges Mountains on the
France, Germany, and
Greece.
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]
Whitsuntide customs On the Thursday before Whitsunday the Russian
in Russia.
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]
May-trees in In the neighbourhood of Zabern in Alsace bands of
Germany and
Sweden.
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]
Midsummer trees and But in Sweden midsummer is the season when
poles in Sweden.
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]
Village May-poles in It would be needless to illustrate at length the
England.
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 with great
Bringing in the May- veneration, as thus. They have twentie or fortie
pole.
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]
Village May-trees and In Swabia on the first of May a tall fir-tree used to
May-poles in
Germany.
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 first of May the
May-poles and May- boys of each street used to erect in it a May-pole,
trees in France.
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
May-poles among the and the old folk rest.[274] The Red Karens of Upper
Karens of Burma.
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]
Permanent May- In all these cases, apparently, the custom is or was
poles.
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, it is
The May-tree burnt at worth noting that the old May-tree is sometimes
the end of the year.
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]

Tree-spirit detached So much for the tree-spirit conceived as
from the tree and
represented in human
incorporate or immanent in the tree. We have now
form. 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
Esthonian story of a a time, so runs the tale, a young peasant was busy
tree-elf.
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]
Tree-spirit There is an instructive class of cases in which the
represented
simultaneously in
tree-spirit is represented simultaneously in
vegetable and human vegetable form and in human form, which are set
form. 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.
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
The Walber. about.[288] In the small towns of the Franken Wald
mountains in Northern Bavaria, on the second of May, a Walber tree is
erected before a tavern, and a man dances round it, enveloped in straw from
head to foot in such a way that the ears of corn unite above his head to form
a crown. He is called the Walber, and used to be led in procession through
the streets, which were adorned with sprigs of birch.[289]
Green George in Amongst the Slavs of Carinthia, on St. George’s
Carinthia.
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.
Green George among Among the gypsies of Transylvania and Roumania
the gypsies.
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.
Double representation An example of the double representation of the
of the tree-spirit by
tree and man among
spirit of vegetation by a tree and a living man is
the Oraons. 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 of India the
Double representation harvest-goddess Gauri, the wife of Siva, is
of the harvest-goddess
Gauri by a bundle of
represented both by an unmarried girl and by a
bundle of the wild flowering balsam plant touch-

plants and an me-not (Impatiens sp.), which is tied up in a
unmarried girl.
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.
W. Mannhardt’s Without citing more examples to the same effect,
summary of the
evidence.
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]
Tree-spirit or Thus far we have seen that the tree-spirit or the
vegetation-spirit
represented by a
spirit of vegetation in general is represented either
person alone. 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.
Green George in Thus in some parts of Russia on St. George’s Day
Russia.
(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, we saw that in
Whitsuntide customs Russia at Whitsuntide a birch-tree is dressed in
in Russia.
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]

May customs in All over Provence on the first of May pretty little
France.
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]
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
Leaf-clad mummers collected.[300] At Röllshausen on the Schwalm, in
at Whitsuntide.
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]
Jack-in-the-Green in In England the best-known example of these leaf-
England.
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 Whitsuntide the Swiss canton of Aargau, a similar frame of
Basket in
Switzerland.
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
The Lazy Man in (Würtemberg) a masker of the same sort, known as
Würtemberg.
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.
Leaf-clad Often the leaf-clad person who represents the spirit
representative of
vegetation sometimes
of vegetation is known as the king or the queen;
called a King or thus, for example, he or she is called the May
Queen. 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]
May-Kings at In a village near Salzwedel a May-tree is set up at
Whitsuntide in
Germany and
Whitsuntide and the boys race to it; he who
Bohemia. 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
The Leaf King. houses. The chief person of the band is the Leaf
King, a lad swathed so completely in birchen twigs that nothing of him can
be seen but his feet. A huge head-dress of birchen twigs adds to his apparent
stature. In his hand he carries a long crook, with which he tries to catch
stray dogs and children.[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
The Grass King. Langensalza, in the eighteenth century a Grass
King used to be led about in procession at Whitsuntide. He was encased in a
pyramid of poplar branches, the top of which was adorned with a royal
crown of branches and flowers. He rode on horseback with the leafy
pyramid over him, so that its lower end touched the ground, and an opening
was left in it only for his face. Surrounded by a cavalcade of young fellows,
he rode in procession to the town hall, the parsonage, and so on, where they
all got a drink of beer. Then under the seven lindens of the neighbouring

Sommerberg, the Grass King was stripped of his green casing; the crown
was handed to the Mayor, and the branches were stuck in the flax fields in
order to make the flax grow tall.[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]
May-Queens and Often the spirit of vegetation in spring is
Whitsuntide Queens.
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
The May Queen in adjoining villages of Cherrington and Stourton in
Warwickshire.
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]
Spirit of vegetation Again the spirit of vegetation is sometimes
represented
simultaneously by a
represented by a king and queen, a lord and lady,
King and Queen or a or a bridegroom and bride. Here again the
Bridegroom and parallelism holds between the anthropomorphic
Bride.
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

Whitsuntide King and May Day, walking two and two in procession and
Queen.
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 large as
King and Queen of life and crowned with a red cap, was conveyed in a
May.
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]
Whitsuntide In a parish of Denmark it used to be the custom at
Bridegroom and Bride
in Denmark.
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]
Midsummer We have seen that in Sweden the ceremonies
Bridegroom and Bride
in Sweden and
associated elsewhere with May Day or Whitsuntide
Norway. 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]
Forsaken Bridegroom In the neighbourhood of Briançon (Dauphiné) on
or Bride of May or
Whitsuntide.
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.
St. Bride in Scotland In the Highlands of Scotland the revival of
and the Isle of Man.
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]
May Bride or Often the marriage of the spirit of vegetation in
Whitsuntide Bride.
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]

CHAPTER XI
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SEXES ON VEGETATION

The marriage of the From the preceding examination of the spring and
King and Queen of
May intended to
summer festivals of Europe we may infer that our
promote the growth of rude forefathers personified the powers of
vegetation by vegetation as male and female, and attempted, on
homoeopathic magic.
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.
Intercourse of the For four days before they committed the seed to
sexes practised in
the earth the Pipiles of Central America kept apart

order to make the from their wives “in order that on the night before
crops grow.
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.
Intercourse of the The same means which are thus adopted to
sexes practised in
order to make trees
stimulate the growth of the crops are naturally
bear fruit. employed to ensure the fruitfulness of trees. The
work known as The Agriculture of the Nabataeans
contained apparently a direction that the grafting of a tree upon another tree
of a different sort should be done by a damsel, who at the very moment of
inserting the graft in the bough should herself be subjected to treatment
which can only be regarded as a direct copy of the operation she was
performing on the tree.[357] In some parts of Amboyna, when the state of the
clove plantation indicates that the crop is likely to be scanty, the men go
naked to the plantations by night, and there seek to fertilise the trees
precisely as they would impregnate women, while at the same time they call
out for “More cloves!” This is supposed to make the trees bear fruit more
abundantly.[358] In Java when a palm tree is to be tapped for wine, the man
who proposes to relieve the tree of its superfluous juices deems it necessary
to approach the palm in the character of a lover and a husband, as well as of
a son. When he comes upon a palm which he thinks suitable, he will not
begin cutting at the trunk until he has intimated as delicately as he can the
reasons which lead him to perform that surgical operation, and the ardent
affection which he cherishes for the tree. For this purpose he holds a
dialogue with the palm, in which he naturally speaks in the character of the
tree as well as in his own. “O mother endang-reni!” he begins, “for the sake

of you I have let myself be drenched by the rain and scorched by the sun;
long have I sought you! Now at last have I found you. How ardently have I
longed for you! Often before have you given me the breast. Yet I still thirst.
Therefore now I ask for four potfuls more.” “Well, fair youth,” replies the
tree, “I have always been here. What is the reason that you have sought
me?” “The reason I have sought you is that I have heard you suffer from
incontinentia urinae.” “So I do,” says the tree. “Will you marry me?” says
the man. “That I will,” says the tree, “but first you must plight your troth
and recite the usual confession of faith.” On that the man takes a rattan leaf
and wraps it round the palm as a pledge of betrothal, after which he says the
creed: “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.” The
maidenly and orthodox scruples of the tree having thus been satisfied, he
embraces it as his bride. At first he attaches only a small dish to the trunk to
receive the juices which exude from the cut in the bark; a large dish might
frighten the tree. In fastening the dish to the palm he says, “Bok-endang-
reni! your child is languishing away for thirst. He asks you for a drink.” The
tree replies, “Let him slake his thirst! Mother’s breasts are full to
overflowing.”[359] We have already seen that in some parts of Northern India
a mock marriage between two actors is performed in honour of a newly-
planted orchard,[360] no doubt for the purpose of making it bear fruit. In the
Nicobar Islands a pregnant woman is taken into the gardens in order to
impart the blessing of fertility to the plants.[361]
In Uganda parents of The Baganda of Central Africa believe so strongly
twins are supposed to
fertilise the plantains.
in the intimate relation between the intercourse of
the sexes and the fertility of the ground that among
them a barren wife is generally sent away because she is supposed to
prevent her husband’s garden from bearing fruit. On the contrary, a couple
who have given proof of extraordinary fertility by becoming the parents of
twins are believed by the Baganda to be endowed with a corresponding
power of increasing the fruitfulness of the plantain-trees, which furnish
them with their staple food. Some little time after the birth of the twins a
ceremony is performed, the object of which clearly is to transmit the
reproductive virtue of the parents to the plantains. The mother lies down on
her back in the thick grass near the house and places a flower of the plantain
between her legs; then her husband comes and knocks the flower away with
his genital member. Further, the parents go through the country, performing
dances in the gardens of favoured friends, apparently for the purpose of

causing the plantain-trees to bear fruit more abundantly. The same belief in
the fertilising power of such parents probably explains why in Uganda the
father of twins is inviolable and may go into anybody’s garden and take the
produce at will. To distinguish him from the common herd his hair is cut in
a special way, and he wears little bells at his ankles which tinkle as he
walks. His sacred character is further manifested by a rule which he must
observe after the round of visits has been paid, and the dances in the
gardens are over. He has to remain at home until the next time that the army
goes forth to battle, and in the interval he may neither dress his hair nor cut
his finger-nails. When war has been proclaimed, his whole body is shaved
and his nails cut. The clipped hair and nails he ties up in a ball, which he
takes with him to the war, along with the bark cloth which he wore at the
dances. When he has killed a foe, he crams the ball into the dead man’s
mouth, ties the bark-cloth round his neck, and leaves them there on the
battlefield.[362] Apparently the ceremony is intended to rid him of the
peculiar sanctity or state of taboo which he contracted by the birth of twins,
and to facilitate his return to ordinary life. For, to the mind of the savage, as
we shall see later on, sanctity has its dangers and inconveniences, and the
sacred man may often be glad to divest himself of it by stripping himself of
those separable parts of his person—the hair and nails—to which the holy
contagion is apt to cling.
Relics of similar In various parts of Europe customs have prevailed
customs in Europe.
both at spring and harvest which are clearly based
on the same crude notion that the relation of the human sexes to each other
can be so used as to quicken the growth of plants. For example, in the
Ukraine on St. George’s Day (the twenty-third of April) the priest in his
robes, attended by his acolytes, goes out to the fields of the village, where
the crops are beginning to shew green above the ground, and blesses them.
After that the young married people lie down in couples on the sown fields
and roll several times over on them, in the belief that this will promote the
growth of the crops. In some parts of Russia the priest himself is rolled by
women over the sprouting crop, and that without regard to the mud and
holes which he may encounter in his beneficent progress. If the shepherd
resists or remonstrates, his flock murmurs, “Little Father, you do not really
wish us well, you do not wish us to have corn, although you do wish to live
on our corn.”[363] In England it seems to have been customary for young
couples to roll down a slope together on May Day; on Greenwich-hill the

custom was practised at Easter and Whitsuntide,[364] as it was till lately
practised near Dublin on Whitmonday.[365] When we consider how closely
these seasons, especially May Day and Whitsuntide, are associated with
ceremonies for the revival of plant life in spring, we shall scarcely doubt
that the custom of rolling in couples at such times had originally the same
significance which it still has in Russia; and when further we compare this
particular custom with the practice of representing the vernal powers of
vegetation by a bridal pair, and remember the traditions which even in our
own country attach to May Day,[366] we shall probably do no injustice to our
forefathers if we conclude that they once celebrated the return of spring
with grosser rites, of which the customs I have referred to are only a stunted
survival. Indeed, these rites in their grossest form are said to be still
observed in various parts of Holland at Whitsuntide.[367] In some parts of
Germany at harvest the men and women, who have reaped the corn, roll
together on the field.[368] This again is probably a mitigation of an older and
ruder custom designed to impart fertility to the fields by methods like those
resorted to by the Pipiles of Central America long ago and by the cultivators
of rice in Java at the present time. In Poso, when the rice-crop is not
thriving, the farmer’s wife sets bowls of rice and betel in various parts of
the field; then she lies down, draws her petticoat over her head, and
pretends to fall asleep. But one of her children thereupon mimics the
crowing of a cock, and at the sound she gets up, “because a new day has
dawned.” The intention of this ceremony, which the natives could not or
would not explain to the Dutch missionary who reports it, may be to place
the woman at the disposal of the god of the field. We are expressly told that
there is a special god of the rice-fields named Puwe-wai, and that the
ceremony in question is performed in his honour.[369]
Continence practised To the student who cares to track the devious
in order to make the
crops grow.
course of the human mind in its gropings after
truth, it is of some interest to observe that the same
theoretical belief in the sympathetic influence of the sexes on vegetation,
which has led some peoples to indulge their passions as a means of
fertilising the earth, has led others to seek the same end by directly opposite
means. From the moment that they sowed the maize till the time that they
reaped it, the Indians of Nicaragua lived chastely, keeping apart from their
wives and sleeping in a separate place. They ate no salt, and drank neither
cocoa nor chicha, the fermented liquor made from maize; in short the

season was for them, as the Spanish historians observe, a time of
abstinence.[370] To this day some of the Indian tribes of Central America
practise continence for the purpose of thereby promoting the growth of the
crops. Thus we are told that before sowing the maize the Kekchi Indians
sleep apart from their wives, and eat no flesh for five days, while among the
Lanquineros and Cajaboneros the period of abstinence from these carnal
pleasures extends to thirteen days.[371] So amongst some of the Germans of
Transylvania it is a rule that no man may sleep with his wife during the
whole of the time that he is engaged in sowing his fields.[372] The same rule
is observed at Kalotaszeg in Hungary; the people think that if the custom
were not observed the corn would be mildewed.[373] Similarly a Central
Australian headman of the Kaitish tribe strictly abstains from marital
relations with his wife all the time that he is performing magical ceremonies
to make the grass grow; for he believes that a breach of this rule would
prevent the grass seed from sprouting properly.[374] In some of the
Melanesian islands, when the yam vines are being trained, the men sleep
near the gardens and never approach their wives; should they enter the
garden after breaking this rule of continence the fruits of the garden would
be spoilt.[375] In the Motu tribe of New Guinea, when rain has fallen
plentifully and there is promise of a good crop of bananas, one of the chief
men becomes holy or taboo, and must live apart from his wife and eat only
certain kinds of food. He bids the young men beat the drum and dance, “in
order that by so doing there may be a large harvest. If the dancing is not
given, there will be an end to the good growth; but if it is continued, all will
go well. People come in from other villages to assist, and will dance all
night.”[376] In the Mekeo district of British New Guinea, when a taboo has
been put on the coco-nuts and areca-nuts to promote their growth, some
fourteen or fifteen men act as watchmen to enforce the taboo. Every
evening they go round the village armed with clubs and wearing masks or
so covered with leaves that nobody would know them. All the time they are
in office they may not chew betel nor drink coco-nut water, lest the areca-
nuts (which are eaten with betel) and the coco-nuts should fail. Moreover,
they may not live with their wives; indeed, they may not even look at a
woman, and if they pass one they must keep their eyes on the ground.[377]
Among the Kabuis of Manipur, before the rice is sown and when it is
reaped, the strictest chastity has to be observed, especially by the religious
head of the village, who, besides always taking the omens on behalf of the

villagers, is the first to sow and the first to reap.[378] Some of the tribes of
Assam believe that so long as the crops remain ungarnered, the slightest
incontinence might ruin all.[379] In the incense-growing region of Arabia in
antiquity there were three families charged with the special care of the
incense-trees. They were called sacred, and at the time when they cut the
trees or gathered the incense they were forbidden to pollute themselves with
women or with the contact of the dead; the observance of these rules of
ceremonial purity was believed to increase the supply of incense.[380]
Apparently the incense itself was deemed holy, for on being gathered it was
deposited in the sanctuary of the Sun, where the merchants inspected and
purchased it.[381] With ancient Greek husbandmen it was a maxim that olives
should always be planted and gathered by pure boys and virgins; the
uncommon fruitfulness of the olive-trees at Anazarbus in Cilicia was
attributed to their being tended by young and innocent children. In default
of such workers, the olive-gatherer had to swear that he had been faithful to
his own wife; for his fidelity was believed to ensure an abundant crop of
fruit the following year.[382]
Illicit love supposed Again, the sympathetic relation supposed to exist
to blight the fruits of
the earth.
between the commerce of the sexes and the fertility
of the earth manifests itself in the belief that illicit
love tends, directly or indirectly, to mar that fertility and to blight the crops.
[383]
Such a belief prevails, for example, among the Karens of Burma. They
imagine that adultery or fornication has a powerful influence to injure the
harvest. Hence if the crops have been bad for a year or two, and no rain
falls, the villagers set down the dearth to secret sins of this kind, and say
that the God of heaven and earth is angry with them on that account; and
they all unite in making an offering to appease him. Further, whenever
adultery or fornication is detected, the elders decide that the sinners must
buy a hog and kill it. Then the woman takes one foot of the hog, and the
man takes another, and they scrape out furrows in the ground with each
foot, and fill the furrows with the blood of the hog. Next they scratch the
ground with their hands and pray: “God of heaven and earth, God of the
mountains and hills, I have destroyed the productiveness of the country. Do
not be angry with me, do not hate me; but have mercy on me, and
compassionate me. Now I repair the mountains, now I heal the hills, and the
streams and the lands. May there be no failure of crops, may there be no
unsuccessful labours, or unfortunate efforts in my country. Let them be

dissipated to the foot of the horizon. Make thy paddy fruitful, thy rice
abundant. Make the vegetables to flourish. If we cultivate but little, still
grant that we may obtain a little.” After each has prayed thus, they return to
the house and say they have repaired the earth.[384] The Battas of Sumatra
think that if an unmarried woman is big with child, it is necessary to give
her in marriage at once, even to a man of lower rank; for otherwise the
people will be infested by tigers, and the crops in the field will not yield an
abundant return. The crime of incest, in their opinion, would blast the whole
harvest if the wrong were not speedily repaired. Epidemics and other
calamities that affect the whole people are almost always traced by them to
incest, by which is to be understood any marriage that conflicts with their
customs.[385]
Dyak belief that Similar views are held by various tribes of Borneo.
lewdness may cause
bad weather and spoil
Thus when the rain pours down steadily day after
the crops. day and week after week, and the crops are rotting
in the fields, the Dyaks of Borneo come to the
conclusion that some one has been indulging in fleshly lusts; so the elders
lay their heads together and adjudicate on all cases of incest and bigamy,
and purify the earth with the blood of pigs, which appears to possess in a
high degree the valuable property of atoning for moral guilt. For three days
the villages are tabooed and all labour discontinued; the inhabitants remain
at home, and no strangers are admitted. Not long ago the offenders, whose
lewdness had thus brought the whole country into danger, would have been
punished with death or at least slavery. A Dyak may not marry his first
cousin unless he first performs a special ceremony called bergaput to avert
evil consequences from the land. The couple repair to the water-side, fill a
small pitcher with their personal ornaments, and sink it in the river; or
instead of a jar they fling a chopper and a plate into the water. A pig is then
sacrificed on the bank, and its carcase, drained of blood, is thrown in after
the jar. Next the pair are pushed into the water by their friends and ordered
to bathe together. Lastly, a joint of bamboo is filled with pig’s blood, and
the couple perambulate the country and the villages round about, sprinkling
the blood on the ground. After that they are free to marry. This is done, we
are told, for the sake of the whole country, in order that the rice may not be
blasted.[386] The Bahaus or Kayans, a tribe in the interior of Borneo, believe
Kayan belief that that adultery is punished by the spirits, who visit
adultery or fornication
the whole tribe with failure of the crops and other

spoils the harvest. misfortunes. Hence in order to avert these
calamities from the innocent members of the tribe, the two culprits, with all
their possessions, are put in quarantine on a gravel bank in the middle of the
river; then in order thoroughly to disinfect them, pigs and fowls are killed,
and with the blood priestesses smear the property of the guilty pair. Finally
the two are set on a raft, with sixteen eggs, and allowed to drift down the
stream. They may save themselves by swimming ashore, but this is perhaps
a mitigation of an older sentence of death by drowning. Young people
shower long grass-stalks, which stand for spears, at the shamefaced and
dripping couple.[387] The Blu-u Kayans of the same region similarly imagine
that an intrigue between an unmarried pair is punished by the spirits with
failure of the harvest, of the fishing, and of the hunt. Hence the delinquents
have to appease the wrath of the spirits by sacrificing a pig and some rice.
[388]

Incest and seduction Among the Macassars and Bugineese of Southern
supposed to be a
cause of bad weather
Celebes incest is a capital crime. “In the Bugineese
and failure of crops in language this misdeed is called sâpa-tâna, which,
Celebes. literally translated, signifies that the ground (tâna)
which has been polluted with the blood of such a person must above all be
shunned (sâpa). When we remember how afraid of evil spirits a native is in
passing even a spot that has been stained with innocent blood, we can easily
conceive what passes in his mind at the thought of the blood of one who has
been guilty of such a crime. When the rivers dry up and the supply of fish
runs short, when the harvest and the produce of the gardens miscarry, when
edible fruits fail, and especially when sickness is rife among the cattle and
horses, as well as when civil strife breaks out and the country suffers from
any other widespread calamity, the native generally thinks that earth and air
have been sullied with the blood of persons who have committed incest.
The blood of such people should naturally not be shed. Hence the
punishment usually inflicted on them is that of drowning. They are tied up
in a sack and thrown into the sea. Yet they get with them on their journey to
eternity the necessary provisions, consisting of a bag of rice, salt, dried fish,
coco-nuts and so on, not forgetting three quids of betel.”[389] Among the
Tomori of Central Celebes a person guilty of incest is throttled; no drop of
his blood may fall on the ground, for if it did, the rice would never grow
again. The union of uncle and niece is regarded by these people as incest,
but it can be expiated by an offering. A garment of the man and one of the

woman are laid on a copper vessel; the blood of a sacrificed animal, either a
goat or a fowl, is allowed to drip on the garments, and then the vessel with
its contents is suffered to float down the river.[390] Among the Tolalaki,
another tribe of Central Celebes, persons who have defiled themselves with
incest are shut up in a basket and drowned. No drop of their blood may be
spilt on the ground, for that would hinder the earth from ever bearing fruit
again.[391] When it rains in torrents, the Galelareese of Halmahera say that
brother and sister, or father and daughter, or in short some near relations are
having illicit relations with each other, and that every human being must be
informed of it, for then only will the rain cease to descend. The superstition
has repeatedly caused blood relations to be accused, rightfully or
wrongfully, of incest. The people also regard other alarming natural
phenomena, for instance a violent earthquake or the eruption of a volcano,
as consequences of crimes of the same sort. Persons charged with such
offences are brought to Ternate; it is said that formerly they were often
drowned on the way or, on being haled thither, were condemned to be
thrown into the volcano.[392]
Breaches of sexual In some parts of Africa, also, it is believed that
morality supposed to
prevent rain and so to
breaches of sexual morality disturb the course of
blight the fruits of the nature, particularly by blighting the fruits of the
earth in Africa. earth. Thus the negroes of Loango suppose that the
intercourse of a man with an immature girl is punished by God with drought
and consequent famine, until the culprits atone for their sin by dancing
naked before the king and an assembly of the people, who throw hot gravel
and bits of glass at the pair. For example, in the year 1898, it was
discovered that a long drought was caused by the misconduct of three girls,
who were with child before they had passed through what is called the
paint-house, that is, before they had been painted red and secluded for a
time in token that they had attained to the age of puberty. The people were
very angry and tried to punish or even kill the girls.[393] Amongst the Bavili
of Loango, it is believed that if a man breaks the marriage law by marrying
a woman of his mother’s clan, God will in like manner punish the crime by
withholding the rains in their due season.[394] Similar notions of the
blighting influence of sexual crime appear to be entertained by the Nandi of
British East Africa, for amongst them a girl who has been gotten with child
by a warrior, may never look inside of a granary for fear of spoiling the
corn.[395] Among the Basutos likewise “while the corn is exposed to view, all

defiled persons are carefully kept from it. If the aid of a man in this state is
necessary for carrying home the harvest, he remains at some distance while
the sacks are filled, and only approaches to place them upon the draught
oxen. He withdraws as soon as the load is deposited at the dwelling, and
under no pretext can he assist in pouring the corn into the baskets in which
it is preserved.”[396] The nature of the defilement which thus disqualifies a
man for handling the corn is not mentioned, but probably it would include
unchastity. We may conjecture that it was for a similar reason that the
Basoga of Central Africa used to punish severely the seduction of a virgin.
“If a man was convicted of such a crime, and the woman’s guilt was
discovered, he and she were sent at night time to Kaluba’s village, where
they were tied to a tree. This tall spreading incense-tree was thought to be
under the protection of a spirit called Kakua Kambuzi. Next morning the
erring couple were discovered by people in the surrounding plantations,
who released them. They were then allowed to settle near the tree of the
protecting spirit.” This practice of tying the culprits to a sacred tree may
have been thought to atone for their crime and so to ensure the fertility of
the earth which they had imperilled. The notion perhaps was to deliver the
criminals into the power of the offended tree-spirit; if they were found alive
in the morning, it was a sign that he had pardoned them. “Curiously
enough, the Basoga also held in great abhorrence anything like incest
amongst domestic animals—that is to say, they greatly disapproved of
intercourse between a bull calf and its mother-cow, or between a bull and a
cow that were known to be brother and sister. If this occurred, the bull and
cow were sent by night to a fetish tree and tied there. The next morning the
chief of the district appropriated the animals and turned them to his own
use.”[397] Following out the same train of thought, the Toradjas of Central
Incest of animals Celebes ingeniously employ the incest of animals
employed as a rain-
charm in Africa.
as a rain-charm. For they believe that the anger of
the gods at incest or bestiality manifests itself in
the form of violent storms, heavy rain, or long drought. Accordingly they
think that it is always in their power to enrage the gods by committing
incest and so to procure rain when it is needed. However, they abstain from
perpetrating the crime among themselves, first, because it would be
necessary to put the culprits to death, and second, because the storms thus
raised would be so furious that they would do more harm than good. But
they fancy that the incest, real or simulated, of animals is a lighter offence,

which by discomposing, without exasperating, the higher powers will
disturb the balance of nature just enough to improve the weather. A
ceremony of this sort was witnessed by a missionary. Rain was wanted, and
the headman of the village had to see that it fell. He took his measures
accordingly. Attended by a crowd he carried a cock and a little sow to the
river. Here the animals were killed, laid side by side in an intimate embrace,
and wrapped tightly up in a piece of cotton. Then the headman engaged in
prayer. “O gods above and gods below,” said he, “if you have pity on us,
and will that we eat food this year, give rain. If you will not give rain, well
we have here buried a cock and a sow in an intimate embrace.” By which
he meant to say, “Be angry at this abomination which we have committed,
and manifest your anger in storms.”[398]
These examples suffice to prove that among many savage races breaches of
the marriage laws are thought to blast the fruits of the earth through
excessive rain or excessive drought. Similar notions of the disastrous effects
Similar notions of the of sexual crimes may be detected among some of
blighting effect of
sexual crime may be
the civilised races of antiquity, who seem not to
detected among the have limited the supposed sterilising influence of
civilised races of such offences to the fruits of the earth, but to have
antiquity, for
example, among the
extended it also to women and cattle.[399] Thus
Jews. among the Hebrews we read how Job, passionately
protesting his innocence before God, declares that
he is no adulterer; “For that,” says he, “were an heinous crime; yea, it were
an iniquity to be punished by the judges: for it is a fire that consumeth unto
Destruction, and would root out all mine increase.”[400] In this passage the
Hebrew word translated “increase” commonly means “the produce of the
earth;”[401] and if we give the word its usual sense here, then Job affirms
adultery to be destructive of the fruits of the ground, which is just what
many savages still believe. This interpretation of his words is strongly
confirmed by two narratives in Genesis, where we read how Sarah,
Abraham’s wife, was taken into his harem by a king who did not know her
to be the wife of the patriarch, and how thereafter God visited the king and
his household with great plagues, especially by closing up the wombs of the
king’s wives and his maid-servants, so that they bore no children. It was not
till the king had discovered and confessed his sin, and Abraham had prayed
God to forgive him, that the king’s women again became fruitful.[402] These
narratives seem to imply that adultery, even when it is committed in

ignorance, is a cause of plague and especially of sterility among women.
Again, in Leviticus, after a long list of sexual crimes, we read:[403] “Defile
not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are
defiled which I cast out from before you: and the land is defiled: therefore I
do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land vomiteth out her
inhabitants.” This passage appears to imply that the land itself was
somehow physically tainted by sexual transgressions so that it could no
longer support the inhabitants.
Blighting effect It would seem that the ancient Greeks and Romans
attributed to incest by
the ancient Greeks
entertained similar notions as to the wasting effect
and Irish. of incest. According to Sophocles the land of
Thebes suffered from blight, from pestilence, and
from the sterility both of women and of cattle under the reign of Oedipus,
who had unwittingly slain his father and wedded his mother, and the
Delphic oracle declared that the only way to restore the prosperity of the
country was to banish the sinner from it, as if his mere presence withered
plants, animals, and women.[404] No doubt the poet and his hearers set down
these public calamities in great part to the guilt of parricide, which rested on
Oedipus; but they can hardly have failed to lay much also of the evil at the
door of his incest with his mother. Again, in ancient Italy, under the
Emperor Claudius, a Roman noble was accused of incest with his sister. He
committed suicide, his sister was banished, and the emperor ordered that
certain ancient ceremonies traditionally derived from the laws of King
Servius Tullius should be performed, and that expiation should be made by
the pontiffs at the sacred grove of Diana,[405] probably the famous Arician
grove, which has furnished the starting-point of our enquiry. As Diana
appears to have been a goddess of fertility in general and of the fruitfulness
of women in particular, the atonement made at her sanctuary for incest may
perhaps be accepted as evidence that the Romans, like other peoples,
attributed to sexual immorality a tendency to blast the fruits both of the
earth and of the womb. This inference is strengthened by a precept laid
down by grave Roman writers that bakers, cooks, and butlers ought to be
strictly chaste and continent, because it was most important that food and
cups should be handled either by persons under the age of puberty, or at all
events by persons who indulged very sparingly in sexual intercourse; for
which reason if a baker, a cook, or a butler broke this rule of continence it
was his bounden duty to wash in a river or other running water before he

applied himself again to his professional duties. But for all such duties the
services of a boy or of a virgin were preferred.[406] The Celts of ancient
Ireland similarly believed that incest blighted the fruits of the earth.
According to legend Munster was afflicted in the third century of our era
with a failure of the crops and other misfortunes. When the nobles enquired
into the matter, they were told that these calamities were the result of an
incest which the king had committed with his sister. In order to put an end
to the evil they demanded of the king his two sons, the fruit of his unholy
union, that they might consume them with fire and cast their ashes into the
running stream. However, one of the sons, Corc by name, is said to have
been purged of his inherited taint by being sent out of Ireland to an island,
where a Druid purified him every morning, by putting him on the back of a
white cow with red ears, and pouring water over him, till one day the cow
jumped into the sea and became a rock, no doubt taking the sin of Corc’s
father away with her. After that the boy was brought back to Erin.[407]
Belief in the blighting Thus the belief that incest or sexual crime in
effect of incest may
have helped to
general has power to blast the fruits of the earth is
institute the forbidden widespread and probably goes back to a very
degrees. remote antiquity; it may long have preceded the
rise of agriculture. We may conjecture that in its origin the belief was
magical rather than religious; in other words, that the blight was at first
supposed to be a direct consequence of the act itself rather than a
punishment inflicted on the criminal by gods or spirits. Conceived as an
unnatural union of the sexes, incest might be thought to subvert the regular
processes of reproduction, and so to prevent the earth from yielding its
fruits and to hinder animals and men from propagating their kinds. At a
later time the anger of spiritual beings would naturally be invoked in order
to give a religious sanction to the old taboo. If this was so, it is possible that
something of the horror which incest has excited among most, though by no
means all, races of men, sprang from this ancient superstition and has been
transmitted as an instinct in many nations long after the imaginary ground
of it had been forgotten. Certainly a course of conduct which was supposed
to endanger or destroy the general supply of food and therefore to strike a
blow at the very life of the whole people, could not but present itself to the
savage imagination as a crime of the blackest dye, fraught with the most
fatal consequences to the public weal. How far such a superstition may in
the beginning have operated to prevent the union of near kin, in other

words, to institute the system of prohibited degrees which still prevails
among the great majority of mankind, both savage and civilised, is a
question which deserves to be considered by the historians of marriage.[408]
Explanation of the If we ask why it is that similar beliefs should
seeming contradiction
in the foregoing
logically lead, among different peoples, to such
customs. opposite modes of conduct as strict chastity and
more or less open debauchery, the reason, as it
presents itself to the primitive mind, is perhaps not very far to seek. If rude
man identifies himself, in a manner, with nature; if he fails to distinguish
the impulses and processes in himself from the methods which nature
adopts to ensure the reproduction of plants and animals, he may leap to one
of two conclusions. Either he may infer that by yielding to his appetites he
will thereby assist in the multiplication of plants and animals; or he may
imagine that the vigour which he refuses to expend in reproducing his own
kind, will form as it were a store of energy whereby other creatures,
whether vegetable or animal, will somehow benefit in propagating their
species. Thus from the same crude philosophy, the same primitive notions
of nature and life, the savage may derive by different channels a rule either
of profligacy or of asceticism.
Indirect benefit of To readers bred in a religion which is saturated
some of these
superstitious
with the ascetic idealism of the East, the
customs. explanation which I have given of the rule of
continence observed under certain circumstances
The ascetic view of by rude or savage peoples may seem far-fetched
chastity not
understood by the
and improbable. They may think that moral purity,
savage. which is so intimately associated in their minds
with the observance of such a rule, furnishes a
sufficient explanation of it; they may hold with Milton[409] that chastity in
itself is a noble virtue, and that the restraint which it imposes on one of the
strongest impulses of our animal nature marks out those who can submit to
it as men raised above the common herd, and therefore worthy to receive
the seal of the divine approbation. However natural this mode of thought
may seem to us, it is utterly foreign and indeed incomprehensible to the
savage. If he resists on occasion the sexual instinct, it is from no high
idealism, no ethereal aspiration after moral purity, but for the sake of some
ulterior yet perfectly definite and concrete object, to gain which he is

prepared to sacrifice the immediate gratification of his senses. That this is
or may be so, the examples I have cited are amply sufficient to prove. They
shew that where the instinct of self-preservation, which manifests itself
chiefly in the search for food, conflicts or appears to conflict with the
instinct which conduces to the propagation of the species, the former
instinct, as the primary and more fundamental, is capable of over-mastering
the latter. In short, the savage is willing to restrain his sexual propensity for
the sake of food. Another object for the sake of which he consents to
exercise the same self-restraint is victory in war. Not only the warrior in the
field but his friends at home will often bridle their sensual appetites from a
belief that by so doing they will the more easily overcome their enemies.[410]
The fallacy of such a belief, like the belief that the chastity of the sower
conduces to the growth of the seed, is plain enough to us; yet perhaps the
self-restraint which these and the like beliefs, vain and false as they are,
have imposed on mankind, has not been without its utility in bracing and
strengthening the breed. For strength of character in the race as in the
individual consists mainly in the power of sacrificing the present to the
future, of disregarding the immediate temptations of ephemeral pleasure for
more distant and lasting sources of satisfaction. The more the power is
exercised the higher and stronger becomes the character; till the height of
heroism is reached in men who renounce the pleasures of life and even life
itself for the sake of keeping or winning for others, perhaps in distant ages,
the blessings of freedom and truth.

CHAPTER XII
THE SACRED MARRIAGE

§ 1. Diana as a Goddess of Fertility

Dramatic marriages of In the last chapter we saw that according to a
gods and goddesses as
a charm to promote
widespread belief, which is not without a
vegetation. foundation in fact, plants reproduce their kinds
through the sexual union of male and female
elements, and that on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic this
reproduction can be stimulated by the real or mock marriage of men and
women, who masquerade for the time being as spirits of vegetation. Such
magical dramas have played a great part in the popular festivals of Europe,
and based as they are on a very crude conception of natural law, it is clear
that they must have been handed down from a remote antiquity. We shall
hardly, therefore, err in assuming that they date from a time when the
forefathers of the civilised nations of Europe were still barbarians, herding
their cattle and cultivating patches of corn in the clearings of the vast
forests, which then covered the greater part of the continent, from the
Mediterranean to the Arctic Ocean. But if these old spells and enchantments
for the growth of leaves and blossoms, of grass and flowers and fruit, have
lingered down to our own time in the shape of pastoral plays and popular
merry-makings, is it not reasonable to suppose that they survived in less
attenuated forms some two thousand years ago among the civilised peoples
of antiquity? Or, to put it otherwise, is it not likely that in certain festivals
of the ancients we may be able to detect the equivalents of our May Day,
Whitsuntide, and Midsummer celebrations, with this difference, that in
those days the ceremonies had not yet dwindled into mere shows and
pageants, but were still religious or magical rites, in which the actors
consciously supported the high parts of gods and goddesses? Now in the
first chapter of this book we found reason to believe that the priest who
bore the title of King of the Wood at Nemi had for his mate the goddess of
the grove, Diana herself. May not he and she, as King and Queen of the
Wood, have been serious counterparts of the merry mummers who play the
King and Queen of May, the Whitsuntide Bridegroom and Bride in modern
Europe? and may not their union have been yearly celebrated in a theogamy
or divine marriage? Such dramatic weddings of gods and goddesses, as we

shall see presently, were carried out as solemn religious rites in many parts
of the ancient world; hence there is no intrinsic improbability in the
supposition that the sacred grove at Nemi may have been the scene of an
annual ceremony of this sort. Direct evidence that it was so there is none,
but analogy pleads in favour of the view, as I shall now endeavour to shew.
Diana a goddess of Diana was essentially a goddess of the woodlands,
the woodlands.
as Ceres was a goddess of the corn and Bacchus a
[411]
god of the vine. Her sanctuaries were commonly in groves, indeed every
grove was sacred to her,[412] and she is often associated with the forest god
Sanctity of holy Silvanus in dedications.[413] We must not forget that
groves in antiquity.
to the ancients the sanctity of a holy grove was
very real and might not be violated with impunity. For example, in Attica
there was a sanctuary of Erithasean Apollo, and it was enacted by law that
any person caught in the act of cutting trees in it, or carrying away timber,
firewood, or fallen leaves, should be punished with fifty stripes, if he was a
slave, or with a fine of fifty drachms, if he was a freeman. The culprit was
denounced by the priest to the king, that is, to the sacred official or minister
of state who bore the royal title.[414] Similarly it was the duty of the sacred
men at Andania, in Messenia, to scourge slaves and fine freemen who cut
wood in the grove of the Great Goddesses.[415] In Crete it was forbidden,
under pain of curses and fines, to fell timber, sow corn, and herd or fold
flocks within the precinct of Dictaean Zeus.[416] In Italy like customs
prevailed. Near Spoletium there was a sacred grove from which nothing
might be taken, and in which no wood might be cut except just so much as
was needed for the annual sacrifice. Any person who knowingly violated
the sanctity of the grove had to expiate his offence by sacrificing an ox to
Jupiter, and to pay besides a fine of three hundred pence.[417] In his treatise
on farming Cato directs that before thinning a grove the Roman
husbandman should offer a pig as an expiatory sacrifice to the god or
goddess of the place, and should entreat his or her favour for himself, his
children, and his household.[418] The Fratres Arvales or Brethren of the
Tilled Fields were a Roman college of twelve priests, who performed public
religious rites for the purpose of making the crops to grow, and they wore
wreaths of ears of corn as a badge of their office.[419] Their sacrifices were
offered in the grove of the goddess Dia, situated five miles down the Tiber
from Rome. So hallowed was this grove, which is known to have included
laurels and holly-oaks, that expiatory sacrifices of sows and lambs had to be

offered when a rotten bough fell to the ground, or when an old tree was laid
low by a storm or dragged down by a load of snow on its branches. And still
more elaborate expiation had to be made with the slaughter of sows, sheep,
and bulls when any of the sacred trees were struck by lightning and it was
necessary to dig them up by the roots, split them, burn them, and plant
others in their room.[420] At the annual festival of the Parilia, which was
intended to ensure the welfare of the flocks and herds, Roman shepherds
prayed to be forgiven if they had entered a hallowed grove, or sat down
under a sacred tree, or lopped a holy bough in order to feed a sick sheep on
the leaves.[421]
Sense of the divinity Nor was this sense of the indwelling divinity of the
of woods shared by
polite Roman writers.
woods confined to the simple rustics who, tending
their flocks in the chequered shade, felt the
presence of spirits in the solemn stillness of the forest, heard their voices in
the sough of the wind among the branches, and saw their handiwork in the
fresh green of spring and the fading gold of autumn. The feeling was shared
by the most cultivated minds in the greatest age of Roman civilisation.
Pliny says that “the woods were formerly the temples of the deities, and
even now simple country folk dedicate a tall tree to a god with the ritual of
the olden time; and we adore sacred groves and the very silence that reigns
in them not less devoutly than images that gleam with gold and ivory.”[422]
Similarly Seneca writes: “If you come upon a grove of old trees that have
shot up above the common height and shut out the sight of the sky by the
gloom of their matted boughs, you feel there is a spirit in the place, so lofty
is the wood, so lone the spot, so wondrous the thick unbroken shade.”[423]
The breaking of the Thus the ancients, like many other people in
Golden Bough a rite
of solemn
various parts of the world, were deeply impressed
significance, not a with the sanctity of holy groves, and regarded even
mere piece of the cutting of a bough in them as a sacrilege which
bravado.
called for expiation. If therefore a candidate for the
priesthood of Diana at Nemi had to break a branch of a certain tree in the
sacred grove before he could fight the King of the Wood, we may be sure
that the act was a rite of solemn significance, and that to treat it as a mere
piece of bravado, a challenge to the priest to come on and defend his
domain, would be to commit the commonest of all errors in dealing with the
past, that, namely, of interpreting the customs of other races and other

generations by reference to modern European standards. In order to
understand an alien religion the first essential is to divest ourselves, as well
as we can, of our own familiar prepossessions, and to place ourselves at the
point of view of those whose faith and practice we are studying. To do this
at all is difficult; to do it completely is perhaps impossible; yet the attempt
must be made if the enquiry is to progress instead of returning on itself in a
vicious circle.
Diana not a mere But whatever her origin may have been, Diana was
goddess of trees, but,
like Artemis, a
not always a mere goddess of trees. Like her Greek
personification of the sister Artemis, she appears to have developed into
teeming life of nature, a personification of the teeming life of nature, both
both animal and
vegetable.
animal and vegetable. As mistress of the
greenwood she would naturally be thought to own
the beasts, whether wild or tame, that ranged through it, lurking for their
prey in its gloomy depths, munching the fresh leaves and shoots among the
boughs, or cropping the herbage in the open glades and dells. Thus she
A deity of the woods might come to be the patron goddess both of
is naturally the patron
of the beasts in the
hunters and herdsmen,[424] just as Silvanus was the
woods, both game and god not only of woods, but of cattle.[425] Similarly
cattle. in Finland the wild beasts of the forest were
regarded as the herds of the woodland God Tapio and of his stately and
beautiful wife. No man might slay one of these animals without the
gracious permission of their divine owners. Hence the hunter prayed to the
sylvan deities, and vowed rich offerings to them if they would drive the
game across his path. And cattle also seem to have enjoyed the protection of
those spirits of the woods, both when they were in their stalls and while
they strayed in the forest.[426] So in the belief of Russian peasants the spirit
Leschiy rules both the wood and all the creatures in it. The bear is to him
what the dog is to man; and the migrations of the squirrels, the field-mice,
and other denizens of the woods are carried out in obedience to his behests.
Success in the chase depends on his favour, and to assure himself of the
spirit’s help the huntsman lays an offering, generally of bread and salt, on
the trunk of a tree in the forest. In White Russia every herdsman must
present a cow to Leschiy in summer, and in the Government of Archangel
some herdsmen have won his favour so far that he even feeds and tends
their herds for them.[427] Similarly the forest-god of the Lapps ruled over all
the beasts of the forest; they were viewed as his herds, and good or bad luck

in hunting depended on his will.[428] So, too, the Samagitians deemed the
birds and beasts of the woods sacred, doubtless because they were under the
protection of the sylvan god.[429] Before the Gayos of Sumatra hunt deer,
wild goats, or wild pigs with hounds in the woods, they deem it necessary
to obtain the leave of the unseen Lord of the forest. This is done according
to a prescribed form by a man who has special skill in woodcraft. He lays
down a quid of betel before a stake which is cut in a particular way to
represent the Lord of the Wood, and having done so he prays to the spirit to
signify his consent or refusal.[430]
The crowning of We have seen that at Diana’s festival it was
hunting dogs on
Diana’s day was
customary to crown hunting dogs, to leave wild
probably a beasts in peace, and to perform a purificatory
purificatory ceremony ceremony for the benefit of young people.[431]
to cleanse them from
the guilt of having
Some light is thrown on the meaning of these
killed game, the customs by a passage in Arrian’s treatise on
creatures of the hunting. He tells us that a good hound is a boon
goddess.
conferred by one of the gods upon the huntsman,
who ought to testify his gratitude by sacrificing to the Huntress Artemis.
Further, Arrian goes on to say: “It is right that after a successful chase a
man should sacrifice and dedicate the first-fruits of his bag to the goddess,
in order to purify both the hounds and the hunters, in accordance with old
custom and usage.” He tells us that the Celts were wont to form a treasury
for the goddess Artemis, into which they paid a fine of two obols for every
hare they killed, a drachm for every fox, and four drachms for every roe.
Once a year, on the birthday of Artemis, they opened the treasury, and with
the accumulated fines purchased a sacrificial victim, it might be a sheep, a
goat, or a calf. Having slain the animal and offered her share to the Huntress
Artemis, they feasted, both men and dogs; and they crowned the dogs on
that day “in order to signify,” says Arrian, “that the festival was for their
benefit.”[432] The Celts to whom Arrian, a native of Bithynia, here refers
were probably the Galatians of Asia Minor; but doubtless the custom he
describes was imported by these barbarians, along with their native
tongue[433] and the worship of the oak,[434] from their old home in Central or
Northern Europe. The Celtic divinity whom Arrian identifies with Artemis
may well have been really akin both to her and to the Italian Diana. We
know from other sources that the Celts revered a woodland goddess of this
type; thus Arduinna, goddess of the forest of the Ardennes, was represented,

like Artemis and Diana, with a bow and quiver.[435] In any case the custom
described by Arrian is good evidence of a belief that the wild beasts belong
to the goddess of the wilds, who must be compensated for their destruction;
and, taken with what he says of the need of purifying the hounds after a
successful chase, the Celtic practice of crowning them at the annual festival
of Artemis may have been meant to purge them of the stain they had
contracted by killing the creatures of the goddess. The same explanation
would naturally apply to the same custom observed by the Italians at the
festival of Diana.
Cattle crowned to But why, it may be asked, should crowns or
protect them from
witchcraft.
garlands cleanse dogs from the taint of bloodshed?
An answer to this question is indicated by the
reason which the South Slavonian peasant assigns for crowning the horns of
his cows with wreaths of flowers on St. George’s Day, the twenty-third of
April. He does it in order to guard the cattle against witchcraft; cows that
have no crowns are regarded as given over to the witches. In the evening
the chaplets are fastened to the door of the cattle-stall, and remain there
throughout the year. A herdsman who fails to crown his beasts is scolded
and sometimes beaten by his master.[436] The German and French custom of
crowning cattle on Midsummer Day[437] probably springs from the same
motive. For on Midsummer Eve, just as on Walpurgis Night, witches are
very busy holding their nocturnal assemblies and trying to steal the milk
and butter from the cows. To guard against them some people at this season
lay besoms crosswise before the doors of the stalls. Others make fast the
doors and stop up the chinks, lest the witches should creep through them on
their return from the revels. In Swabia all the church bells used to be kept
ringing from nine at night till break of day on Midsummer morning to drive
away the infernal rout from honest folk’s houses. South Slavonian peasants
are up betimes that morning, gather the dew from the grass, and wash the
cows with it; that saves their milk from the hellish charms of the witches.
[438]

Similarly the Now when we observe that garlands of flowers,
crowning of hunting
dogs may have been
like hawthorn and other green boughs,[439] avail to
meant to protect them ward off the unseen powers of mischief, we may
against the angry conjecture that the practice of crowning dogs at the
spirits of the beasts
they had killed.
festival of a huntress goddess was intended to

preserve the hounds from the angry and dangerous spirits of the wild beasts
which they had killed in the course of the year. Fantastical as this
explanation may sound to us, it is perfectly in accordance with the ideas of
the savage, who, as we shall see later on, resorts to a multitude of curious
expedients for disarming the wrath of the animals whose life he has been
obliged to take. Thus conceived, the custom in question might still be
termed a purification; but its original purpose, like that of many other
purificatory rites, would be not so much to cleanse moral guilt, as to raise a
physical barrier against the assaults of malignant and mischievous spirits.
[440]

Conceived as the But Diana was not merely a patroness of wild
moon, Diana was also
a goddess of crops
beasts, a mistress of woods and hills, of lonely
and of childbirth. glades and sounding rivers; conceived as the moon,
and especially, it would seem, as the yellow
harvest moon, she filled the farmer’s grange with goodly fruits, and heard
the prayers of women in travail.[441] In her sacred grove at Nemi, as we have
seen, she was especially worshipped as a goddess of childbirth, who
bestowed offspring on men and women.[442] Thus Diana, like the Greek
Artemis, with whom she was constantly identified, may be described as a
goddess of nature in general and of fertility in particular.[443] We need not
wonder, therefore, that in her sanctuary on the Aventine she was represented
by an image copied from the many-breasted idol of the Ephesian Artemis,
with all its crowded emblems of exuberant fecundity.[444] Hence too we can
understand why an ancient Roman law, attributed to King Tullius Hostilius,
prescribed that, when incest had been committed, an expiatory sacrifice
should be offered by the pontiffs in the grove of Diana.[445] For we know
that the crime of incest is commonly supposed to cause a dearth;[446] hence it
would be meet that atonement for the offence should be made to the
goddess of fertility.
As a goddess of Now on the principle that the goddess of fertility
fertility Diana had
herself to be fertile,
must herself be fertile, it behoved Diana to have a
and for that purpose male partner. Her mate, if the testimony of Servius
needed a male may be trusted, was that Virbius who had his
partner.
representative, or perhaps rather his embodiment,
in the King of the Wood at Nemi.[447] The aim of their union would be to
promote the fruitfulness of the earth, of animals, and of mankind; and it

might naturally be thought that this object would be more surely attained if
the sacred nuptials were celebrated every year, the parts of the divine bride
and bridegroom being played either by their images or by living persons.
No ancient writer mentions that this was done in the grove at Nemi; but our
knowledge of the Arician ritual is so scanty that the want of information on
this head can hardly count as a fatal objection to the theory. That theory, in
the absence of direct evidence, must necessarily be based on the analogy of
similar customs practised elsewhere. Some modern examples of such
customs, more or less degenerate, were described in the last chapter. Here
we shall consider their ancient counterparts.

§ 2. The Marriage of the Gods

Marriages of the gods At Babylon the imposing sanctuary of Bel rose like
in Babylonia and
Assyria.
a pyramid above the city in a series of eight towers
or stories, planted one on the top of the other. On
the highest tower, reached by an ascent which wound about all the rest,
there stood a spacious temple, and in the temple a great bed, magnificently
draped and cushioned, with a golden table beside it. In the temple no image
was to be seen, and no human being passed the night there, save a single
woman, whom, according to the Chaldean priests, the god chose from
among all the women of Babylon. They said that the deity himself came
into the temple at night and slept in the great bed; and the woman, as a
consort of the god, might have no intercourse with mortal man.[448] As Bel at
Babylon was identified with Marduk, the chief god of the city,[449] the
woman who thus shared his bed was doubtless one of the “wives of
Marduk” mentioned in the code of Hammurabi.[450] At Calah, which was for
some time the capital of Assyria before it was displaced by Nineveh,[451] the
marriage of the god Nabu appears to have been annually celebrated on the
third of the month Iyyar or Airu, which corresponded to May. For on that
day his bed was consecrated in the city, and the god entered his
bedchamber, to return to his place on the following day. The ceremonies
attending the consecration of the couch are minutely described in a
liturgical text. After the appropriate offerings had been presented, the
officiating priestess purified the feet of the divine image with a sprig of reed
and a vessel of oil, approached the bed thrice, kissed the feet of the image,
then retired and sat down. After that she burned cedar wood dipped in wine,
set before the image the heart of a sheep wrapped in a cloth, and offered
libations. Aromatic woods were consecrated and burnt, more libations and
offerings were made, tables were spread for various divinities, and the
ceremony ended with a prayer for the King. The god also went in
procession to a grove, riding in a chariot beside his charioteer.[452]
Marriage of the god At Thebes in Egypt a woman slept in the temple of
Ammon to the Queen
of Egypt.
Ammon as the consort of the god, and, like the
human wife of Bel at Babylon, she was said to

have no commerce with a man.[453] In Egyptian texts she is often mentioned
as “the divine consort,” and usually she was no less a personage than the
Queen of Egypt herself. For, according to the Egyptians, their monarchs
were actually begotten by the god Ammon, who assumed for the time being
the form of the reigning king, and in that disguise had intercourse with the
queen. The divine procreation is carved and painted in great detail on the
walls of two of the oldest temples in Egypt, those of Deir el Bahari and
Luxor; and the inscriptions attached to the paintings leave no doubt as to the
meaning of the scenes. The pictures at Deir el Bahari, which represent the
begetting and birth of Queen Hatshopsitou, are the more ancient, and have
been reproduced with but little change at Luxor, where they represent the
begetting and birth of King Amenophis III. The nativity is depicted in about
fifteen scenes, which may be grouped in three acts: first, the carnal union of
the god with the queen; second, the birth; and third, the recognition of the
infant by the gods. The marriage of Ammon with the queen is announced by
a prologue in heaven; Ammon summons his assessors, the gods of
Heliopolis, reveals to them the future birth of a new Pharaoh, a royal
princess, and requests them to make ready the fluid of life and of strength,
of which they are masters. Then the god is seen approaching the queen’s
bedchamber; in front of him marches Thoth, with a roll of papyrus in his
hand, who, to prevent mistakes, recites the official names of the queen, the
spouse of the reigning king (Thothmes I. at Deir el Bahari, Thothmes IV. at
Luxor), the fairest of women. Then Thoth withdraws behind Ammon, lifting
his arm behind the god in order to renew his vital fluid at this critical
moment. Next, according to the inscription, the mystery of incarnation takes
place. Ammon lays aside his godhead and becomes flesh in the likeness of
the king, the human spouse of the queen. The consummation of the divine
union follows immediately. On a bed of state the god and the queen appear
seated opposite each other, with their legs crossed. The queen receives from
her husband the symbols of life and strength, while two goddesses, Neit and
Selkit, the patronesses of matrimony, support the feet of the couple and
guard them from harm. The text which encloses the scene sets forth clearly
the reality of this mystic union of the human with the divine. “Thus saith
Ammon-Ra, king of the gods, lord of Karnak, he who rules over Thebes,
when he took the form of this male, the King of Upper and Nether Egypt,
Thothmes I. (or Thothmes IV.), giver of life. He found the queen then when
she lay in the glory of her palace. She awoke at the fragrance of the god,

and marvelled at it. Straightway his Majesty went towards her, took
possession of her, placed his heart in her, and shewed himself to her in his
divine form. And upon his coming she was uplifted at the sight of his
beauty, the love of the god ran through all her limbs, and the smell of the
god and his breath were full of the perfumes of Pounit. And thus saith the
royal spouse, the royal mother Ahmasi (or Moutemouaa), in presence of the
majesty of this glorious god, Ammon, lord of Karnak, lord of Thebes,
‘Twice great are thy souls! It is noble to behold thy countenance when thou
joinest thyself to my majesty in all grace! Thy dew impregnates all my
limbs.’ Then, when the majesty of the god had accomplished all his desire
with her, Ammon, the lord of the two lands, said to her: ‘She who is joined
to Ammon, the first of the nobles, verily, such shall be the name of the
daughter who shall open thy womb, since such is the course of the words
that came forth from thy mouth. She shall reign in righteousness in all the
earth, for my soul is hers, my heart is hers, my will is hers, my crown is
hers, truly, that she may rule over the two lands, that she may guide the
souls of all living.’”
Nativity of the divine After the begetting of the divine child—for we
Egyptian kings
represented on the
must remember that the kings and queens of Egypt
monuments. were regarded as divinities in their lifetime—
another series of scenes represents the fashioning
of its body and its birth. The god Khnoumou, who in the beginning of time
moulded gods and men on his potter’s wheel, is seen seated at his wheel
modelling the future king or queen and their doubles—those spiritual
duplicates or external souls which were believed to hover invisible about
both men and gods all through life. In front of Khnoumou kneels Hiqit, the
frog-headed goddess, “the great magician”; she is holding out to the newly-
created figures the symbol of life, the crux ansata ♀, in order that they may
breathe and live. Another scene represents the birth. At Deir el Bahari the
queen has already been delivered, and is presenting her daughter to several
goddesses, who have acted the part of midwives. At Luxor the double of the
royal infant is born first; the goddesses who serve as nurses have him in
their arms, and the midwives are preparing to receive the real child. Behind
the queen are the goddesses who watch over childbirth, led by Isis and
Nephthys; and all around the spirits of the East, the West, the North, and the
South are presenting the symbol of life or uttering acclamations. In a corner

the grotesque god Bes and the female hippopotamus Api keep off all evil
influence and every malignant spirit.
These representations We shall probably not err in assuming, with some
probably copied from
the life.
eminent authorities, that the ceremonies of the
nativity of the Pharaohs, thus emblazoned on the
walls of Egyptian temples, were copied from the life; in other words, that
the carved and painted scenes represent a real drama, which was acted by
masked men and women whenever a queen of Egypt was brought to bed.
“Here, as everywhere else in Egypt,” says Professor Maspero, “sculptor and
painter did nothing but faithfully imitate reality. Theory required that the
assimilation of the kings to the gods should be complete, so that every act
of the royal life was, as it were, a tracing of the corresponding act of the
divine life. From the moment that the king was Ammon, he wore the
costume and badges of Ammon—the tall hat with the long plumes, the cross
of life, the greyhound-headed sceptre—and thus arrayed he presented
himself in the queen’s bedchamber to consummate the marriage. The
assistants also assumed the costume and appearance of the divinities whom
they incarnated; the men put on masks of jackals, hawks, and crocodiles,
while the women donned masks of cows or frogs, according as they played
the parts of Anubis, Khnoumou, Sovkou, Hathor, or Hiqit; and I am
disposed to believe that the doubles of the new-born child were represented
by as many puppets as were required by the ceremonies. Some of the rites
were complicated, and must have tired excessively the mother and child
who underwent them; but they are nothing to those that have been observed
in similar circumstances in other lands. In general, we are bound to hold
that all the pictures traced on the walls of the temples, in which the person
of the king is concerned, correspond to a real action in which disguised
personages played the part of gods.”[454]
Human wives of In the decline of Egypt from the eleventh century
Ammon in the decline
of Egypt.
onward, the wives of Ammon at Thebes were
called on to play a conspicuous part in the
government of the country. The strong grip of the Pharaohs was relaxed and
under their feeble successors the empire crumbled away into a number of
petty independent states. In this dissolution of the central authority the
crafty high priests of Ammon at Thebes contrived to usurp regal powers and
to reign far and wide in the name of the deity, veiling their rescripts under

the guise of oracles of the god, who, with the help of a little jugglery,
complacently signified his assent to their wishes by nodding his head or
even by speech. But curiously enough under this pretended theocracy the
nominal ruler was not the priest himself, but his wife, the earthly consort of
Ammon. Thus Thebes became for a time a ghostly principality governed
ostensibly by a dynasty of female popes. Their office was hereditary,
passing by rights from mother to daughter. But probably the entail was
often broken by the policy or ambition of the men who stood behind the
scenes and worked the religious puppet-show by hidden wires to the awe
and astonishment of the gaping vulgar. Certainly we know that on one
occasion King Psammetichus First foisted his own daughter into the Holy
See by dedicating her to Ammon under a hypocritical profession of
gratitude for favours bestowed on him by the deity. And the female pope
had to submit to the dictation with the best grace she could assume,
protesting her affection for the adopted daughter who had ousted her own
daughter from the throne.[455]
Human concubines of At a later period, when Egypt lay under the heel of
Ammon in Roman
times.
Rome, the character of “the divine consort” of
Ammon at Thebes had greatly changed. For at the
beginning of our era the custom was to appoint a young and beautiful girl,
the scion of one of the noblest houses, to serve Ammon as his concubine.
The Greeks called these maidens Pallades, apparently after their own virgin
goddess Pallas; but the conduct of the girls was by no means maidenly, for
they led the loosest of lives till puberty. Then they were mourned over and
given in marriage.[456] Their graves were shown near Thebes.[457] The reason
why their services ended at puberty may have been that as concubines of
the god they might not bear children to mortal fathers; hence it was deemed
prudent to terminate their relations with the divinity before they were of an
age to become mothers. It was an Egyptian doctrine that a mortal woman
could conceive by a god, but that a goddess could not conceive by a mortal
man.[458] The certainty of maternity and the uncertainty of paternity suggest
an obvious and probably sufficient ground for this theological distinction.
Apollo and his Apollo was said to spend the winter months at
prophetess at Patara.
Patara in Lycia and the summer months in the
island of Delos, and accordingly he gave oracles for one half of the year in
the one place, and for the other half in the other.[459] So long as he tarried at

Patara, his prophetess was shut up with him in the temple every night.[460] At
The Essenes of Ephesus there was a college of sacred men called
Artemis at Ephesus.
Essenes or King Bees who held office for a year,
during which they had to observe strict chastity and other rules of
ceremonial purity.[461] How many of them there were at a time we do not
know, but there must have been several, for in Ephesian inscriptions they
are regularly referred to in the plural. They cannot have been bound to
lifelong celibacy, for in one of the inscriptions an Essen mentions his wife.
[462]
Possibly they were deemed the annual husbands of Artemis, the great
many-breasted goddess of fertility at Ephesus, whose association with the
bee is vouched for by the figures of bees which appear commonly both on
her statues and on the coins of Ephesus.[463] If this conjecture is right, the
King Bees and their bee-goddess Artemis at Ephesus would be closely
parallel to the King of the Wood and his woodland-goddess Diana at Nemi,
as these latter are interpreted by me. The rule of chastity imposed on the
King Bees during their year of office would be easily explicable on this
hypothesis. As the temporary husbands of the goddess they would be
expected for the time being to have no intercourse with mortal women, just
as the human wives of Bel and Ammon were supposed to have no
commerce with mortal men.
Marriage of Dionysus At Athens the god of the vine, Dionysus, was
to the Queen at
Athens.
annually married to the Queen, and it appears that
the consummation of the divine union, as well as
the espousals, was enacted at the ceremony; but whether the part of the god
was played by a man or an image we do not know. Attic law required that
the Queen should be a burgess and should never have known any man but
her husband. She had to offer certain secret sacrifices on behalf of the state,
and was permitted to see what no foreign woman might ever behold, and to
enter where no other Athenian might set foot. She was assisted in the
discharge of her solemn functions by fourteen sacred women, one for each
of the altars of Dionysus. The old Dionysiac festival was held on the twelfth
day of the month Anthesterion, corresponding roughly to our February, at
the ancient sanctuary of Dionysus in the Marshes, which was never opened
throughout the year save on that one day. At this festival the Queen exacted
an oath of purity and chastity from the fourteen sacred women at the altar.
Possibly her marriage was celebrated on the same day, though of that we
have no positive evidence, and we learn from Aristotle that the ceremony

took place, not at the sanctuary in the marshes, but in the old official
residence of the King, known as the Cattle-stall, which stood near the
Prytaneum or Town-hall on the north-eastern slope of the Acropolis.[464] But
whatever the date of the wedding, its object can hardly have been any other
than that of ensuring the fertility of the vines and other fruit-trees, of which
Dionysus was the god. Thus both in form and in meaning the ceremony
would answer to the nuptials of the King and Queen of May. Again, the
story, dear to poets and artists, of the forsaken and sleeping Ariadne, waked
and wedded by Dionysus, resembles so closely the little drama acted by
French peasants of the Alps on May Day,[465] that, considering the character
of Dionysus as a god of vegetation, we can hardly help regarding it as the
reflection of a spring ceremony like the French one. In point of fact the
Dionysus and marriage of Dionysus and Ariadne was believed by
Ariadne.
Preller to have been acted every spring in Crete.[466]
His evidence, indeed, is inconclusive, but the view itself is probable. If I am
right in comparing the two, the chief difference between the French and the
Greek ceremonies appears to have been that in the former the sleeper was a
forsaken bridegroom, in the latter a forsaken bride; and the group of stars in
the sky, in which fancy saw Ariadne’s wedding crown,[467] may have been
only a translation to heaven of the garland worn by the Greek girl who
played the Queen of May.
Marriage of Zeus with If at Athens, and probably elsewhere, the vine-god
Demeter at Eleusis.
was married to a queen in order that the vines
might be loaded with clusters of grapes, there is reason to think that a
marriage of a different kind, intended to make the fields wave with yellow
corn, was annually celebrated not many miles off, beyond the low hills that
bound the plain of Athens on the west. In the great mysteries solemnised at
Eleusis in the month of September the union of the sky-god Zeus with the
corn-goddess Demeter appears to have been represented by the union of the
hierophant with the priestess of Demeter, who acted the parts of god and
goddess. But their intercourse was only dramatic or symbolical, for the
hierophant had temporarily deprived himself of his virility by an application
of hemlock. The torches having been extinguished, the pair descended into
a murky place, while the throng of worshippers awaited in anxious suspense
the result of the mystic congress, on which they believed their own
salvation to depend. After a time the hierophant reappeared, and in a blaze
of light silently exhibited to the assembly a reaped ear of corn, the fruit of

the divine marriage. Then in a loud voice he proclaimed, “Queen Brimo has
brought forth a sacred boy Brimos,” by which he meant, “The Mighty One
has brought forth the Mighty.” The corn-mother in fact had given birth to
her child, the corn, and her travail-pangs were enacted in the sacred drama.
[468]
This revelation of the reaped corn appears to have been the crowning
act of the mysteries. Thus through the glamour shed round these rites by the
poetry and philosophy of later ages there still looms, like a distant
landscape through a sunlit haze, a simple rustic festival designed to cover
the wide Eleusinian plain with a plenteous harvest by wedding the goddess
of the corn to the sky-god, who fertilised the bare earth with genial showers.
Marriage of Zeus and But Zeus was not always the sky-god, nor did he
Hera at Plataea.
always marry the corn-goddess. If in antiquity a
traveller, quitting Eleusis and passing through miles of olive-groves and
corn-fields, had climbed the pine-clad mountains of Cithaeron and
descended through the forest on their northern slope to Plataea, he might
have chanced to find the people of that little Boeotian town celebrating a
different marriage of the great god to a different goddess. The ceremony is
described by a Greek antiquary whose note-book has fortunately preserved
for us not a few rural customs of ancient Greece, of which the knowledge
would otherwise have perished.
Every few years the people of Plataea held a festival which they called the
Little Daedala. On the day of the festival they went out into an ancient oak
forest, the trees of which were of gigantic girth. There they set some boiled
meat on the ground, and watched the birds that gathered round it. When a
raven was observed to carry off a piece of the meat and perch on an oak, the
people followed it and cut down the tree. With the wood of the tree they
made an image, dressed it as a bride, and placed it on a bullock-cart with a
bridesmaid beside it. It seems then to have been drawn to the banks of the
river Asopus and back to the town, attended by a piping and dancing crowd.
After the festival the image was put away and kept till the celebration of the
Great Daedala, which fell only once in sixty years, and was held by all the
people of Boeotia. On this occasion all the images, fourteen in number, that
had accumulated from the celebrations of the Little Daedala were dragged
on wains in procession to the river Asopus, and then to the top of Mount
Cithaeron. There an altar had been constructed of square blocks of wood
fitted together, with brushwood heaped over it. Animals were sacrificed by

being burned on the altar, and the altar itself, together with the images, was
consumed by the flames. The blaze, we are told, rose to a prodigious height
and was seen for many miles. To explain the origin of the festival a story
ran that once upon a time Hera had quarrelled with Zeus and left him in
high dudgeon. To lure her back Zeus gave out that he was about to marry
the nymph Plataea, daughter of the river Asopus. He had a fine oak cut
down, shaped and dressed as a bride, and conveyed on a bullock-cart.
Transported with rage and jealousy, Hera flew to the cart, and tearing off
the veil of the pretended bride, discovered the deceit that had been practised
on her. Her rage now turned to laughter, and she became reconciled to her
husband Zeus.[469]
Resemblance of the The resemblance of this festival to some of the
Plataean ceremony to
the spring and
European spring and midsummer festivals is
midsummer festivals tolerably close. We have seen that in Russia at
of modern Europe. Whitsuntide the villagers go out into the wood, fell
a birch-tree, dress it in woman’s clothes, and bring it back to the village
with dance and song. On the third day it is thrown into the water.[470] Again,
we have seen that in Bohemia on Midsummer Eve the village lads fell a tall
fir or pine-tree in the wood and set it up on a height, where it is adorned
with garlands, nosegays, and ribbons, and afterwards burnt.[471] The reason
for burning the tree will appear afterwards; the custom itself is not
uncommon in modern Europe. In some parts of the Pyrenees a tall and
slender tree is cut down on May Day and kept till Midsummer Eve. It is
then rolled to the top of a hill, set up, and burned.[472] In Angoulême on St.
Peter’s Day, the twenty-ninth of June, a tall leafy poplar is set up in the
market-place and burned.[473] Near Launceston in Cornwall there is a large
tumulus known as Whiteborough, with a fosse round it. On this tumulus
“there was formerly a great bonfire on Midsummer Eve; a large summer
pole was fixed in the centre, round which the fuel was heaped up. It had a
large bush on the top of it. Round this were parties of wrestlers contending
for small prizes.” The rustics believed that giants were buried in such
mounds, and nothing would tempt them to disturb their bones.[474] In Dublin
on May-morning boys used to go out and cut a May-bush, bring it back to
town, and then burn it.[475]
All such ceremonies Probably the Boeotian festival belonged to the
were originally
magical rites intended
same class of rites. It represented the marriage of

to bring about the the powers of vegetation—the union of the oak-
effects which they
dramatically god with the oak-goddess[476]—in spring or
represented. midsummer, just as the same event is represented
in modern Europe by a King and Queen or a Lord
and Lady of the May. In the Boeotian, as in the Russian, ceremony the tree
dressed as a woman stands for the English May-pole and May-queen in one.
All such ceremonies, it must be remembered, are not, or at least were not
originally, mere spectacular or dramatic exhibitions. They are magical rites
designed to produce the effect which they dramatically set forth. If the
revival of vegetation in spring is mimicked by the awakening of a sleeper,
the mimicry is intended actually to quicken the growth of leaves and
blossoms; if the marriage of the powers of vegetation is simulated by a
King and Queen of May, the idea is that the powers thus personated will
really be rendered more productive by the ceremony. In short, all these
spring and midsummer festivals fall under the head of homoeopathic or
imitative magic. The thing which people wish to bring about they represent
dramatically, and the very representation is believed to effect, or at least to
contribute to, the production of the desired result. In the case of the Daedala
the story of Hera’s quarrel with Zeus and her sullen retirement may perhaps
without straining be interpreted as a mythical expression for a bad season
and the failure of the crops. The same disastrous effects were attributed to
the anger and seclusion of Demeter after the loss of her daughter
Proserpine.[477] Now the institution of a festival is often explained by a
mythical story, which relates how upon a particular occasion those very
calamities occurred which it is the real object of the festival to avert; so that
if we know the myth told to account for the historical origin of the festival,
we can often infer from it the real intention with which the festival was
celebrated. If, therefore, the origin of the Daedala was explained by a story
of a failure of crops and consequent famine, we may infer that the real
object of the festival was to prevent the occurrence of such disasters; and, if
I am right in my interpretation of the festival, the object was supposed to be
effected by dramatically representing the marriage of the divinities most
concerned with the production of trees and plants. The marriage of Zeus
and Hera was acted at annual festivals in various parts of Greece,[478] and it
is at least a fair conjecture that the nature and intention of these ceremonies
were such as I have assigned to the Plataean festival of the Daedala; in
other words, that Zeus and Hera at these festivals were the Greek

equivalents of the Lord and Lady of the May. Homer’s glowing picture of
Zeus and Hera couched on fresh hyacinths and crocuses,[479] like Milton’s
description of the dalliance of Zephyr with Aurora, “as he met her once a-
Maying,” was perhaps painted from the life.
The god Frey and his The sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera had, as was
human wife in
Sweden.
natural, its counterpart among the northern
kinsfolk of the Greeks. In Sweden every year a
life-size image of Frey, the god of fertility, both animal and vegetable, was
drawn about the country in a waggon attended by a beautiful girl who was
called the god’s wife. She acted also as his priestess in his great temple at
Upsala. Wherever the waggon came with the image of the god and his
blooming young bride, the people crowded to meet them and offered
sacrifices for a fruitful year. Once on a time a Norwegian exile named
Gunnar Helming gave himself out to be Frey in person, and rode about on
the sacred waggon dressed up in the god’s clothes. Everywhere the simple
folk welcomed him as the deity, and observed with wonder and delight that
a god walked about among men and ate and drank just like other people.
And when the months went by, and the god’s fair young wife was seen to be
with child, their joy waxed greatly, for they thought, “Surely this is an omen
of a fruitful season.” It happened that the weather was then so mild, and the
promise of a plenteous harvest so fair, that no man ever remembered such a
year before. But one night the god departed in haste, with his wife and all
the gold and silver and fine raiment which he had got together; and though
the Swedes made after him, they could not catch him. He was over the hills
and far away in Norway.[480] Similar ceremonies appear to have been
Similar customs in observed by the peasantry of Gaul in antiquity; for
Gaul.
Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century of
our era, says that at Autun the people used to carry about an image of a
goddess in a waggon drawn by oxen. The intention of the ceremony was to
ensure the safety of the crops and vines, and the rustics danced and sang in
front of the image.[481] The old historian identifies the goddess with Cybele,
the Great Mother goddess of Phrygia, and the identification would seem to
be correct. For we learn from another source that men wrought up to a pitch
of frenzy by the shrill music of flutes and the clash of cymbals, sacrificed
their virility to the goddess, dashing the severed portions of themselves
against her image.[482] Now this religious castration was a marked feature of
the Phrygian worship of Cybele, but it is alien to Western modes of thought,

although it still finds favour with a section of the barbarous, fanatical, semi-
Oriental peasantry of Russia.[483] But whether of native or of Eastern origin
the rites of the goddess of Autun closely conformed to those of the great
Phrygian goddess and appear to have been, like them, a perverted form of
the Sacred Marriage, which was designed to fertilise the earth, and in which
eunuchs, strange as it may seem, personated the lovers of the goddess.[484]
The custom of Thus the custom of marrying gods either to images
marrying gods to
images or to living
or to human beings was widespread among the
persons is found also nations of antiquity. The ideas on which such a
among uncivilised custom is based are too crude to allow us to doubt
peoples.
that the civilised Babylonians, Egyptians, and
Greeks inherited it from their barbarous or savage forefathers. This
presumption is strengthened when we find rites of a similar kind in vogue
among the lower races. Thus, for example, we are told that once upon a
Custom of the time the Wotyaks of the Malmyz district in Russia
Wotyaks.
were distressed by a series of bad harvests. They
did not know what to do, but at last concluded that their powerful but
mischievous god Keremet must be angry at being unmarried. So a
deputation of elders visited the Wotyaks of Cura and came to an
understanding with them on the subject. Then they returned home, laid in a
large stock of brandy, and having made ready a gaily decked waggon and
horses, they drove in procession with bells ringing, as they do when they
are fetching home a bride, to the sacred grove at Cura. There they ate and
drank merrily all night, and next morning they cut a square piece of turf in
the grove and took it home with them. After this, though it fared well with
the people of Malmyz, it fared ill with the people of Cura; for in Malmyz
the bread was good, but in Cura it was bad. Hence the men of Cura who had
consented to the marriage were blamed and roughly handled by their
indignant fellow-villagers. “What they meant by this marriage ceremony,”
says the writer who reports it, “it is not easy to imagine. Perhaps, as
Bechterew thinks, they meant to marry Keremet to the kindly and fruitful
Mukylćin, the Earth-wife, in order that she might influence him for
good.”[485] This carrying of turf, like a bride, in a waggon from a sacred
grove resembles the Plataean custom of carting an oak log as a bride from
an ancient oak forest; and we have seen ground for thinking that the
Plataean ceremony, like its Wotyak counterpart, was intended as a charm to

secure fertility. When wells are dug in Bengal, a wooden image of a god is
made and married to the goddess of water.[486]
Custom of the Often the bride destined for the god is not a log or
Peruvian Indians.
a clod, but a living woman of flesh and blood. The
Indians of a village in Peru have been known to marry a beautiful girl,
about fourteen years of age, to a stone shaped like a human being, which
they regarded as a god (huaca). All the villagers took part in the marriage
ceremony, which lasted three days, and was attended with much revelry.
The girl thereafter remained a virgin and sacrificed to the idol for the
people. They shewed her the utmost reverence and deemed her divine.[487]
Marriage of a woman The Blackfoot Indians of North America used to
to the Sun among the
Blackfoot Indians.
worship the Sun as their chief god, and they held a
festival every year in his honour. Four days before
the new moon of August the tribe halted on its march, and all hunting was
suspended. Bodies of mounted men were on duty day and night to carry out
the orders of the high priest of the Sun. He enjoined the people to fast and
to take vapour baths during the four days before the new moon. Moreover,
with the help of his council, he chose the Vestal who was to represent the
Moon and to be married to the Sun at the festival. She might be either a
virgin or a woman who had had but one husband. Any girl or woman found
to have discharged the sacred duties without fulfilling the prescribed
conditions was put to death. On the third day of preparation, after the last
purification had been observed, they built a round temple of the Sun. Posts
were driven into the ground in a circle; these were connected with cross-
pieces, and the whole was covered with leaves. In the middle stood the
sacred pole, supporting the roof. A bundle of many small branches of sacred
wood, wrapped in a splendid buffalo robe, crowned the summit of the
temple. The entrance was on the east, and within the sanctuary stood an
altar on which rested the head of a buffalo. Beside the altar was the place
reserved for the Vestal. Here, on a bed prepared for her, she slept “the sleep
of war,” as it was called. Her other duties consisted in maintaining a sacred
fire of fragrant herbs, in presenting a lighted pipe to her husband the Sun,
and in telling the high priest the dream she dreamed during “the sleep of
war.” On learning it the priest had it proclaimed to the whole nation to the
beat of drum.[488] Every year about the middle of March, when the season
Marriage of girls to for fishing with the drag-net began, the Algonquins
fishing nets among
and Hurons married their nets to two young girls,

the Hurons and aged six or seven. At the wedding feast the net was
Algonquins.
placed between the two maidens, and was exhorted
to take courage and catch many fish. The reason for choosing the brides so
young was to make sure that they were virgins. The origin of the custom is
said to have been this. One year, when the fishing season came round, the
Algonquins cast their nets as usual, but took nothing. Surprised at their
want of success, they did not know what to make of it, till the soul or genius
(oki) of the net appeared to them in the likeness of a tall well-built man,
who said to them in a great passion, “I have lost my wife and I cannot find
one who has known no other man but me; that is why you do not succeed,
and why you never will succeed till you give me satisfaction on this head.”
So the Algonquins held a council and resolved to appease the spirit of the
net by marrying him to two such very young girls that he could have no
ground of complaint on that score for the future. They did so, and the
fishing turned out all that could be wished. The thing got wind among their
neighbours the Hurons, and they adopted the custom. A share of the catch
was always given to the families of the two girls who acted as brides of the
net for the year.[489]
Sacred Marriage of The Oraons of Bengal worship the Earth as a
the Sun-god and
Earth-goddess among
goddess, and annually celebrate her marriage with
the Oraons. the Sun-god Dharmē at the time when the sāl tree
is in blossom. The ceremony is as follows. All
bathe, then the men repair to the sacred grove (sarnā), while the women
assemble at the house of the village priest. After sacrificing some fowls to
the Sun-god and the demon of the grove, the men eat and drink. “The priest
is then carried back to the village on the shoulders of a strong man. Near the
village the women meet the men and wash their feet. With beating of drums
and singing, dancing, and jumping, all proceed to the priest’s house, which
has been decorated with leaves and flowers. Then the usual form of
marriage is performed between the priest and his wife, symbolizing the
supposed union between Sun and Earth. After the ceremony all eat and
drink and make merry; they dance and sing obscene songs, and finally
indulge in the vilest orgies. The object is to move the mother earth to
become fruitful.”[490] Thus the Sacred Marriage of the Sun and Earth,
personated by the priest and his wife, is celebrated as a charm to ensure the
fertility of the ground; and for the same purpose, on the principle of
homoeopathic magic, the people indulge in a licentious orgy. Among the

Sulka of New Britain, at the village of Kolvagat, a certain man has charge
of two stone figures which are called respectively “Our grandfather” (ngur
es) and “Our grandmother” (ngur pei). They are said to be kept in a house
built specially for the purpose. Fruits of the field are offered to them and
left beside them to rot. When their guardian puts the two figures with their
faces turned towards each other, the plantations are believed to flourish; but
when he sets them back to back, there is dearth and the people suffer from
eruptions on the skin.[491] This turning of the two images face to face may be
regarded as a simple form of Sacred Marriage between the two divine
powers represented by them, who are clearly supposed to control the
fertility of the plantations.
Marriage of women to At the village of Bas Doda, in the Gurgaon district
gods in India and
Africa.
of North-Western India, a fair is held on the
twenty-sixth of the month Chait and the two
following days. We are told that formerly girls of the Dhinwar class used to
be married to the god at these festivals, and that they always died soon
afterwards. Of late years the practice is said to have been discontinued.[492]
In Behar during the month of Sawan (August) crowds of women, calling
themselves Nagin or “wives of the snake,” go about for two and a half days
begging; during this time they may neither sleep under a roof nor eat salt.
Half the proceeds of their begging is given to Brahmans, and the other half
spent in salt and sweet-meats, which are eaten by all the villagers.[493]
Amongst the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast in West Africa
human wives of gods are very common. In Dahomey they swarm, and it has
even been estimated that every fourth woman is devoted to the service of
some deity. The chief business of these female votaries is prostitution. In
every town there is at least one seminary where the handsomest girls,
between ten and twelve years of age, are trained. They stay for three years,
learning the chants and dances peculiar to the worship of the gods, and
prostituting themselves to the priests and the inmates of the male
seminaries. At the end of their noviciate they become public harlots. But no
disgrace attaches to their profession, for it is believed that they are married
to the god, and that their excesses are caused and directed by him. Strictly
speaking, they should confine their favours to the male worshippers at the
temple, but in practice they bestow them indiscriminately. Children born of
such unions belong to the deity. As the wives of a god, these sacred women
may not marry. But they are not bound to the service of the divinity for life.

Some only bear his name and sacrifice to him on their birthdays.[494]
Amongst these polygamous West African gods the sacred python seems to
be particularly associated with the fertility of the earth; for he is invoked in
excessively wet, dry, and barren seasons, and the time of year when young
girls are sought out to be his brides is when the millet is beginning to
sprout.[495]
Women married to It deserves to be remarked that the supernatural
water-gods.
being to whom women are married is often a god
or spirit of water. Thus Mukasa, the god of the Victoria Nyanza lake, who
was propitiated by the Baganda every time they undertook a long voyage,
had virgins provided for him to serve as his wives. Like the Vestals they
were bound to chastity, but unlike the Vestals they seem to have been often
unfaithful. The custom lasted until Mwanga was converted to Christianity.
[496]
The Akikuyu of British East Africa worship the snake of a certain river,
and at intervals of several years they marry the snake-god to women, but
especially to young girls. For this purpose huts are built by order of the
medicine-men, who there consummate the sacred marriage with the
credulous female devotees. If the girls do not repair to the huts of their own
accord in sufficient numbers, they are seized and dragged thither to the
embraces of the deity. The offspring of these mystic unions appears to be
fathered on God (Ngai); certainly there are children among the Akikuyu
who pass for children of God.[497] In Kengtung, one of the principal Shan
states of Upper Burma, the spirit of the Nawng Tung lake is regarded as
very powerful, and is propitiated with offerings in the eighth month (about
July) of each year. A remarkable feature of the worship of this spirit consists
in the dedication to him of four virgins in marriage. Custom requires that
this should be done once in every three years. It was actually done by the
late king or chief (Sawbwa) in 1893, but down to 1901 the rite had not been
performed by his successor. The following are the chief features of the
ceremony. The virgins who are to wed the spirit of the lake must be of pure
Hkön race. Orders are sent out for all the Hkön of the valley to attend. From
the unmarried women of suitable age, ten are selected. These are as
beautiful as may be, and must be without spot or blemish. Four maidens out
of the ten are chosen by lot, and carefully dressed in new garments. A
festival is held, usually at the house of the Chief Minister, where the girls sit
on a raised platform. Four old women, thought to be possessed by spirits,
enter and remain as long as the feast lasts. During this time anything they

may want, such as food, betel, or cheroots, is handed to them by the four
girls. Apparently the old women pass for representatives of the spirit, and
hence they are waited on by the maidens destined to be his wives. Dotage,
blindness, or any great infirmity of age seems to be accounted possession
by a spirit for the purposes of this function. When the feast is over, the
maidens are formally presented to the spirit, along with the various
sacrifices and offerings. They are next taken to the chief’s residence, where
strings are tied round their wrists by the ministers and elders to guard them
against ill-luck. Usually they sleep a night or two at the palace, after which
they may return to their homes. There seems to be no objection to their
marrying afterwards. If nothing happens to any of the four, it is believed
that the spirit of the lake loves them but little; but if one of them dies soon
after the ceremony, it shews that she has been accepted by him. The spirit is
propitiated with the sacrifice of pigs, fowls, and sometimes a buffalo.[498]
Egyptian custom of In this last custom the death of the woman is
drowning a girl as a
sacrifice to the Nile.
regarded as a sign that the god has taken her to
himself. Sometimes, apparently, it has not been left
to the discretion of the divine bridegroom to take or leave his human bride;
she was made over to him once for all in death. When the Arabs conquered
Egypt they learned that at the annual rise of the Nile the Egyptians were
wont to deck a young virgin in gay apparel and throw her into the river as a
sacrifice, in order to obtain a plentiful inundation. The Arab general
abolished the barbarous custom.[499] It is said that under the Tang dynasty
the Chinese used to marry a young girl to the Yellow River once a year by
drowning her in the water. For this purpose the witches chose the fairest
damsel they could find and themselves superintended the fatal marriage. At
last the local mandarin, a man of sense and humanity, forbade the custom.
But the witches disregarded his edicts and made their preparations for the
usual murder. So when the day was come, the magistrate appeared on the
scene with his soldiers and had all the witches bound and thrown into the
river to drown, telling them that no doubt the god would be able to choose
his bride for himself from among them.[500] The princes of Koepang, a state
in the East Indian island of Timor, deemed themselves descended from
Girls sacrificed as crocodiles; and on the coronation of a new prince a
brides of crocodiles.
solemn sacrifice was made to the crocodiles in
presence of the people. The offerings consisted of a pig with red bristles and
a young girl prettily dressed, perfumed, and decked with flowers. She was

taken down to the bank of the river and set on a sacred stone in a cave. Then
one of the prince’s guards summoned the crocodiles. Soon one of the beasts
appeared and dragged the girl down into the water. The people thought that
he married her, and that if he did not find her a maid he would bring her
back.[501] On festal occasions in the same state a new-born girl was
sometimes dedicated to a crocodile, and then, with certain ceremonies of
consecration, brought up to be married to a priest.[502] It is said that once,
when the inhabitants of Cayeli in Buru—another East Indian island—were
threatened with destruction by a swarm of crocodiles, they ascribed the
misfortune to a passion which the prince of the crocodiles had conceived
for a certain girl. Accordingly, they compelled the damsel’s father to dress
her in bridal array and deliver her over to the clutches of her crocodile
lover.[503]
Virgin sacrificed as a A usage of the same sort is reported to have
bride to a jinnee of
the sea in the Maldive
prevailed in the Maldive Islands before the
Islands. conversion of the inhabitants to Islam. The famous
Arab traveller Ibn Batutah has described the
custom and the manner in which it came to an end. He was assured by
several trustworthy natives, whose names he gives, that when the people of
the islands were idolaters there appeared to them every month an evil spirit
among the jinn, who came from across the sea in the likeness of a ship full
of burning lamps. The wont of the inhabitants, as soon as they perceived
him, was to take a young virgin, and, having adorned her, to lead her to a
heathen temple that stood on the shore, with a window looking out to sea.
There they left the damsel for the night, and when they came back in the
morning they found her a maid no more, and dead. Every month they drew
lots, and he upon whom the lot fell gave up his daughter to the jinnee of the
sea. In time there came to them a Berber named Abu ’lberecat, who knew
the Coran by heart. He lodged in the house of an old woman of the isle of
Mahal. One day, visiting his hostess, he found that she had gathered her
family about her, and that the women were weeping as if there were a
funeral. On enquiring into the cause of their distress, he learned that the lot
had fallen on the old woman, and that she had an only daughter, who must
be slain by the evil jinnee. Abu ’lberecat said to the old dame, “I will go this
night instead of thy daughter.” Now he was quite beardless. So when the
night was come they took him, and after he had performed his ablutions,
they put him in the temple of idols. He set himself to recite the Coran; then

the demon appeared at the window, but the man went on with his recitation.
No sooner was the jinnee within hearing of the holy words than he dived
into the sea. When morning broke, the old woman and her family and the
people of the island came, according to their custom, to carry away the girl
and burn her body. They found the stranger repeating the Coran, and took
him to their king, whose name was Chenourazah, and made him relate his
adventure. The king was astonished at it. The Berber proposed to the king
that he should embrace Islam. Chenourazah said to him, “Tarry with us till
next month; if thou shalt do what thou hast done, and shalt escape from the
evil jinnee, I will be converted.” The stranger abode with the idolaters, and
God disposed the king’s heart to receive the true faith. So before the month
was out he became a Mussalman, he and his wives and his children and the
people of his court. And when the next month began, the Berber was
conducted to the temple of idols; but the demon did not appear, and the
Berber set himself to recite the Coran till break of day. Then the Sultan and
his subjects broke the idols and demolished the temple. The people of the
island embraced Islam and sent messengers to the other isles, and their
inhabitants were converted likewise. But by reason of the demon many of
the Maldive Islands were depopulated before their conversion to Islam.
When Ibn Batutah himself landed in the country he knew nothing of these
things. One night, as he was going about his business, he heard of a sudden
people saying in a loud voice, “There is no God but God,” and “God is
great.” He saw children carrying copies of the Coran on their heads, and
women beating on basins and vessels of copper. He was astonished at what
they did, and he said, “What has happened?” They answered, “Dost thou
not behold the sea?” He looked towards the sea, and beheld in the darkness,
as it were, a great ship full of burning lamps and cressets. They said to him,
“That is the demon. It is his wont to shew himself once a month; but after
we have done that which thou hast seen, he returns to his place and does us
no manner of harm.”[504]
The story based on It occurred to me that this myth of the demon lover
the phosphorescence
of the sea.
may have been based on some physical
phenomenon, electrical, lunar, or otherwise, which
is periodically seen at night in the Maldive Islands. Accordingly I consulted
Professor J. Stanley Gardiner, our foremost authority on the archipelago.
His answer, which confirms my conjecture, runs thus: “A peculiar
phosphorescence, like the glow of a lamp hidden by a roughened glass

shade, is occasionally visible on lagoon shoals in the Maldives. I imagine it
to have been due to some single animal with a greater phosphorescence
than any at present known to us. A periodical appearance at some phase of
the moon due to reproduction is not improbable and has parallels. The myth
still exists in the Maldives, but in a rather different form.” He adds that “a
number of these animals might of course appear on some shoal near Male,”
the principal island of the group. To the eyes of the ignorant and
superstitious such a mysterious glow, suddenly lighting up the sea in the
dusk of the evening, might well appear a phantom ship, hung with burning
lamps, bearing down on the devoted islands, and in the stillness of night the
roar of the surf on the barrier reef might sound in their ears like the voice of
the demon calling for his prey.[505]

§ 3. Sacrifices to Water-spirits

Stories of the Perseus Ibn Batutah’s narrative of the demon lover and his
and Andromeda type.
mortal brides closely resembles a well-known type
of folk-tale, of which versions have been found from Japan and Annam in
the East to Senegambia, Scandinavia, and Scotland in the West. The story
varies in details from people to people, but as commonly told it runs thus. A
certain country is infested by a many-headed serpent, dragon, or other
monster, which would destroy the whole people if a human victim,
generally a virgin, were not delivered up to him periodically. Many victims
have perished, and at last it has fallen to the lot of the king’s own daughter
to be sacrificed. She is exposed to the monster, but the hero of the tale,
generally a young man of humble birth, interposes in her behalf, slays the
monster, and receives the hand of the princess as his reward. In many of the
tales the monster, who is sometimes described as a serpent, inhabits the
water of a sea, a lake, or a fountain. In other versions he is a serpent or
dragon who takes possession of the springs of water, and only allows the
water to flow or the people to make use of it on condition of receiving a
human victim.[506]
Water-spirits It would probably be a mistake to dismiss all these
conceived as serpents
or dragons.
tales as pure inventions of the story-teller. Rather
we may suppose that they reflect a real custom of
sacrificing girls or women to be the wives of water-spirits, who are very
often conceived as great serpents or dragons. Elsewhere I have cited many
instances of this belief in serpent-shaped spirits of water;[507] here it may be
worth while to add a few more. Thus the Warramunga of Central Australia
perform elaborate ceremonies to appease or coerce a gigantic, but purely
mythical water-snake who is said to have destroyed a number of people.[508]
Some of the natives of western Australia fear to approach large pools,
supposing them to be inhabited by a great serpent, who would kill them if
they dared to drink or draw water there by night.[509] The Indians of New
Granada believed that when the mother of all mankind, named Bachue, was
grown old, she and her husband plunged into the Lake of Iguague, where
they were changed into two enormous serpents, which still live in the lake

and sometimes shew themselves.[510] The Oyampi Indians of French Guiana
imagine that each waterfall has a guardian in the shape of a monstrous
snake, who lies hidden under the eddy of the cascade, but has sometimes
been seen to lift up its huge head. To see it is fatal. Canoe and Indians are
then dragged down to the bottom, where the monster swallows all the men,
and sometimes the canoe also. Hence the Oyampis never name a waterfall
till they have passed it, for fear that the snake at the bottom of the water
might hear its name and attack the rash intruders.[511] The Huichol Indians of
Mexico adore water. Springs are sacred, and the gods in them are mothers
or serpents, that rise with the clouds and descend as fructifying rain.[512] The
Tarahumares, another Indian tribe of Mexico, think that every river, pool,
and spring has its serpent, who causes the water to come up out of the earth.
All these water-serpents are easily offended; hence the Tarahumares place
their houses some little way from the water, and will not sleep near it when
they are on a journey. Whenever they construct weirs to catch fish, they
take care to offer fish to the water-serpent of the river; and when they are
away from home and are making pinole, that is, toasted maize-meal, they
drop the first of the pinole into the water as an offering to the serpents, who
would otherwise try to seize them and chase them back to their own land.
[513]
In Basutoland the rivers Ketane and Maletsunyane tumble, with a roar
of waters and a cloud of iridescent spray, into vast chasms hundreds of feet
deep. The Basutos fear to approach the foot of these huge falls, for they
think that a spirit in the shape of a gigantic snake haunts the seething
cauldron which receives the falling waters.[514]
Sacrifices of human The perils of the sea, of floods, of rapid rivers, of
beings to water-
spirits.
deep pools and lakes, naturally account for the
belief that water-spirits are fickle and dangerous
beings, who need to be appeased by sacrifices. Sometimes these sacrifices
consist of animals, such as horses and bulls,[515] but often the victims are
human beings. Thus at the mouth of the Bonny River there is a dangerous
bar on which vessels trading to the river have been lost. This is bad for
business, and accordingly the negroes used to sacrifice a young man
annually to the spirit of the bar. The handsomest youth was chosen for the
purpose, and for many months before the ceremony he lodged with the
king. The people regarded him as sacred or ju-ju, and whatever he touched,
even when he passed casually through the streets, shared his sanctity and
belonged to him. Hence whenever he appeared in public the inhabitants fled

before him, lest he should touch their garments or anything they might be
carrying. He was kept in ignorance of the fate in store for him, and no one
might inform him of it under pain of death. On an appointed day he was
taken out to the bar in a canoe and induced to jump into the water. Then the
rowers plied their paddles and left him to drown. A similar ceremony used
to be performed at the New Calabar River, but the victim was a culprit. He
was thrown into the water to be devoured by the sharks, which are there the
principal fetish or ju-ju.[516] The chiefs of Duke Town, on the same coast of
Guinea, were wont to make an annual offering to the river. A young woman
of a light colour, or an albino, was chosen as the victim. On a set day they
decked her with finery, took her down to Parrot Island, and with much
ceremony plunged her in the stream. The fishermen of Efiat, at the mouth of
the river, are said still to observe the rite in order to ensure a good catch of
fish.[517] The King of Dahomey used to send from time to time a man,
dressed out with the insignia of office, to Whydah to be drowned at the
mouth of the river. The intention of the sacrifice was to attract merchant
ships.[518] When a fisherman has been carried off by a crocodile, some of the
natives on the banks of Lake Tanganyika take this for a sign that the spirit
deems himself slighted, since he is obliged to come and find victims for
himself instead of having them presented to him. Hence the sorcerers
generally decide that a second victim is wanted; so, having chosen one, they
bind him hand and foot and fling him into the lake to feed the crocodiles.[519]
The crater of the volcano Tolucan in Mexico encloses two lakes of clear
cold water, surrounded by gloomy forests of pine. Here, in the eighteenth
month of the Toltec year, answering to February, children beautifully
dressed and decked with flowers and gay feathers used to be drowned as an
offering to Tlaloc, the god of the waters, who had a fine temple on the spot.
[520]
The Chams of Annam have traditions of a time when living men were
thrown into the sea every year in order to propitiate the deities who looked
after the fishing, and when children of good family were drowned in the
water-channels in order that the rice-fields might be duly irrigated.[521]
Water-spirits This last instance brings out a more kindly aspect
conceived as
beneficent beings who
of the water-spirits. If these beings are dreaded by
dispense fertility. the fisherman and the mariner who tempt the angry
sea, and by the huntsman who has to swim or ford
the rushing rivers, they are viewed in a different light by the shepherd and
the husbandman in hot and arid lands, where the pasture for the cattle and

the produce of the fields alike depend on the supply of water, and where
prolonged drought means starvation and death for man and beast. To men in
such circumstances the spirits of the waters are beneficent beings, the
dispensers of life and fertility, whether their blessings descend as rain from
heaven or well up as springs of bubbling water in the parched desert. In the
Semitic East, for example, where the rainfall is precarious or confined to
certain seasons, the face of the earth is bare and withered for most of the
year, except where it is kept fresh by irrigation or by the percolation of
underground water. Here, accordingly, the local gods or Baalim had their
seats originally in spots of natural fertility, by fountains and the banks of
rivers, in groves and tangled thickets and green glades of mountain hollows
and deep watercourses. As lords of the springs and subterranean waters they
were supposed to be the sources of all the gifts of the land, the corn, the
wine and the oil, the wool and the flax, the vines and the fig-trees.[522]
Water-spirits Where water-spirits are thus conceived as the
conceived as
bestowing offspring
authors of fertility in general, it is natural that they
on women. should be held to extend the sphere of their
operations to men and animals; in other words, that
the power of bestowing offspring on barren women and cattle should be
ascribed to them. This ascription comes out clearly in a custom observed by
Syrian women at the present day. Some of the channels of the Orontes are
used for irrigation, but at a certain season of the year the streams are turned
off and the dry bed of the channels is cleared of mud and any other matter
that might clog the flow of the water. The first night that the water is turned
on again, it is said to have the power of procreation. Accordingly barren
women take their places in the channel, waiting for the embrace of the
water-spirit in the rush of the stream.[523] Again, a pool of water in a cave at
Juneh enjoys the same reputation. The people think a childless couple who
bathe in the water will have offspring.[524] In India many wells are supposed
to cure sterility, which is universally attributed to the agency of evil spirits.
The water of seven wells is collected on the night of the Diwali or feast of
lamps, and barren women bathe in it in order to remove their reproach.
There is a well in Orissa where the priests throw betel-nuts into the mud.
Childless women scramble for the nuts, and she who finds them will be a
happy mother before long. For the same reason, after childbirth an Indian
mother is taken to worship the village well. She walks round it in the course
of the sun and smears the platform with red lead, which may be a substitute

for blood. A Khandh priest will take a childless woman to the meeting of
two streams, where he makes an offering to the god of births and sprinkles
the woman with water in order to rid her of the influence of the spirit who
hinders conception.[525] In the Punjaub a barren woman who desires to
become a mother will sometimes be let down into a well on a Sunday or
Tuesday night during the Diwali festival. After stripping herself of her
clothes and bathing in the water, she is drawn up again and performs the
chaukpurna ceremony with incantations taught by a wizard. When this
ceremony has been performed, the well is supposed to run dry; its
quickening and fertilising virtue has been abstracted by the woman.[526] The
Indian sect of the Vallabhacharyas or Maharajas believe that bathing in a
sacred well is a remedy for barrenness in women.[527] In antiquity the waters
of Sinuessa in Campania were thought to bless childless wives with
offspring.[528] To this day Syrian women resort to hot springs in order to
obtain children from the saint or jinnee of the waters.[529] In Scotland the
same fertilising virtue used to be, and probably still is, ascribed to certain
springs. Wives who wished to become mothers formerly resorted to the well
of St. Fillan at Comrie, and to the wells of St. Mary at Whitekirk and in the
Isle of May.[530] In the Aran Islands, off the coast of Galway, women
desirous of children pray at St. Eany’s Well, by the Angels’ Walk, and the
men pray at the rag well by the church of the Four Comely Ones at Onaght.
[531]
Child’s Well in Oxford was supposed to have the virtue of making
barren women to bring forth.[532] Near Bingfield in Northumberland there is
a copious sulphur spring known as the Borewell. On the Sunday following
the fourth day of July, that is about Midsummer Day, according to the old
style, great crowds of people used to assemble at the well from all the
surrounding hamlets and villages. The scene was like a fair, stalls for the
sale of refreshments being brought and set up for the occasion. The
neighbouring slopes were terraced, and seats formed for the convenience of
pilgrims and visitors. Barren women prayed at the well that they might
become mothers. If their faith was strong enough, their prayers were heard
within the year.[533]
Love of river-spirits In Greek mythology similar ideas of the
for women in Greek
mythology.
procreative power of water meet us in the stories of
the loves of rivers for women and in the legends
which traced the descent of heroes and heroines from river-gods.[534] In
Sophocles’s play of The Trachinian Women Dejanira tells how she was

wooed by the river Achelous, who came to her father and claimed her hand,
appearing in the likeness now of a bull, now of a serpent, and now of a
being with the body of a man and the front of an ox, while streams of water
flowed from his shaggy beard. She relates, too, how glad she was when
Hercules presented himself and vanquished the river-god in single combat
and took her to wife.[535] The legend perhaps preserves a reminiscence of
that custom of providing a water-god with a human wife which has been
practised elsewhere. The motive of such a custom may have varied with the
particular conception which happened to prevail of the character of the
water-god. Where he was supposed to be a cruel and destructive being, who
drowned men and laid waste the country, a wife would be offered simply to
keep him in good humour, and so prevent him from doing mischief. But
where he was viewed as the procreative power on whom the fertility of the
earth and the fecundity of men and animals depended, his marriage would
be deemed necessary for the purpose of enabling him to discharge his
beneficent functions. This belief in the amorous character of rivers comes
out plainly in a custom which was observed at Troy down to classical times.
Maidens about to marry were wont to bathe in the Scamander, saying as
they did so, “Scamander, take my virginity.” A similar custom appears to
have been observed at the river Maeander, and perhaps in other parts of the
Greek world. Occasionally, it would seem, young men took advantage of
the practice to ravish the girls, and the offspring of such a union was
fathered on the river-god.[536] The bath which a Greek bride and bridegroom
regularly took before marriage appears to have been intended to bless their
union with offspring through the fertilising influence of the water-nymphs.
[537]

Thus it would appear that in many parts of the world a custom has prevailed
of sacrificing human beings to water-spirits, and that in not a few cases the
ceremony has taken the form of making over a woman to the spirit to be his
wife, in order either to pacify his fury or to give play to his generative
powers. Where the water-spirit was regarded as female, young men might
be presented to her for a similar purpose, and this may be the reason why
the victims sacrificed to water-spirits are sometimes males. Among civilised
peoples these customs survive for the most part only in popular tales, of
which the legend of Perseus and Andromeda, with its mediaeval counterpart
of St. George and the Dragon, is the most familiar example. But
occasionally they appear to have left traces of themselves in ceremonies and

Midsummer custom pageants. Thus at Furth in Bavaria a drama called
of slaying the dragon
at Furth in Bavaria.
the Slaying of the Dragon used to be acted every
year about Midsummer, on the Sunday after
Corpus Christi Day. Crowds of spectators flocked from the neighbourhood
to witness it. The scene of the performance was the public square. On a
platform stood or sat a princess wearing a golden crown on her head, and as
many silver ornaments on her body as could be borrowed for the purpose.
She was attended by a maid of honour. Opposite her was stationed the
dragon, a dreadful monster of painted canvas stretched on a wooden
skeleton and moved by two men inside. From time to time the creature
would rush with gaping jaws into the dense crowd of spectators, who
retreated hastily, tumbling over each other in their anxiety to escape. Then a
knight in armour, attended by his men-at-arms, rode forth and asked the
princess what she did “on this hard stone,” and why she looked so sad. She
told him that the dragon was coming to eat her up. On that the knight bade
her be of good cheer, for that with his sword he would rid the country of the
monster. With that he charged the dragon, thrusting his spear into its maw
and taking care to stab a bladder of bullock’s blood which was there
concealed. The gush of blood which followed was an indispensable part of
the show, and if the knight missed his stroke he was unmercifully jeered
and taunted by the crowd. Having despatched the monster with sword and
pistol, the knight then hastened to the princess and told her that he had slain
the dragon who had so long oppressed the town. In return she tied a wreath
round his arm, and announced that her noble father and mother would soon
come to give them half the kingdom. The men-at-arms then escorted the
knight and the princess to the tavern, there to end the day with dance and
revelry. Bohemians and Bavarians came from many miles to witness this
play of the Slaying of the Dragon, and when the monster’s blood streamed
forth they eagerly mopped it up, along with the blood-soaked earth, in white
cloths, which they afterwards laid on the flax-fields, in order that the flax
might thrive and grow tall. For the “dragon’s blood” was thought to be a
sure protection against witchcraft.[538] This use of the blood suffices to prove
that the Slaying of the Dragon at Furth was not a mere popular spectacle,
but a magical rite designed to fertilise the fields. As such it probably
descended from a very remote antiquity, and may well have been invested
with a character of solemnity, if not of tragedy, long before it degenerated
into a farce.

St. Romain delivers More famous was the dragon from which,
Rouen from a dragon.
according to legend, St. Romain delivered Rouen,
and far more impressive was the ceremony with which, down to the French
Revolution, the city commemorated its deliverance. The stately and
beautiful edifices of the Middle Ages, which still adorn Rouen, formed a
fitting background for a pageant which carried the mind back to the days
when Henry II. of England and Richard Cœur-de-Lion, Dukes of
Normandy, still had their palace in this ancient capital of their ancestral
domains. Legend ran that about the year 520 A.D. a forest or marsh near the
city was infested by a monstrous beast in the shape of a serpent or dragon,
which every day wrought great harm to Rouen and its neighbourhood,
devouring man and beast, causing boats and mariners on the river Seine to
perish, and inflicting other woes innumerable on the commonwealth. At last
the archbishop, St. Romain, resolved to beard the monster in his den. He
could get none to accompany him but a prisoner condemned to death for
murder. On their approach the dragon made as though he would swallow
them up; but the archbishop, relying on the divine help, made the sign of
the cross, and at once the monster became so gentle that he suffered the
saint to bind him with his stole and the murderer to lead him like a lamb to
the slaughter. Thus they went in procession to a public place in Rouen,
where the dragon was burnt in the presence of the people and its ashes cast
into the river. The murderer was pardoned for his services; and the fame of
the deed having gone abroad, St. Romain, or his successor St. Ouen, whose
memory is enshrined in a church of dreamlike beauty at Rouen, obtained
from King Dagobert in perpetuity a privilege for the archbishop, dean, and
canons of the cathedral, to wit, that every year on Ascension Day, the
In memory of this anniversary of the miracle, they should pardon and
deliverance the
archbishop and
release from prison a malefactor, whomsoever they
chapter of Rouen chose, and whatever the crime of which he had
were annually been guilty. This privilege, unique in France, was
allowed to pardon a
malefactor on
claimed by the chapter of the cathedral as early as
Ascension Day. the beginning of the thirteenth century; for in 1210,
the governor of the castle of Rouen having boggled
at giving up a prisoner, the chapter appealed to King Philip Augustus, who
caused an enquiry to be made into the claim. At this enquiry nine witnesses
swore that never in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard Cœur-de-Lion,
Dukes of Normandy, had there been any difficulty raised on the point in

question. Henceforward the chapter seems to have enjoyed the right without
opposition down to 1790, when it exercised its privilege of mercy for the
last time. Next year the face of things had changed; there was neither
archbishop nor chapter at Rouen. A register of the names of the prisoners
who were pardoned, together with an account of their crimes, was kept and
still exists. Only a few of the names in the thirteenth century are known,
and there are many gaps in the first half of the fourteenth century; but from
that time onward the register is nearly complete. Most of the crimes appear
to have been murder or homicide.
Ceremony of the The proceedings, on the great day of pardon,
annual pardon and
release of a prisoner
varied somewhat in different ages. The following
at Rouen. account is based in great part on a description
written in the reign of Henry III. and published at
Rouen in 1587. Fifteen days before Ascension Day the canons of the
cathedral summoned the king’s officers to stop all proceedings against
criminals detained in prison. Afterwards, on the Monday of Rogations, two
canons examined the prisoners and took their confessions, going from
prison to prison till Ascension Day. On that day, about seven o’clock in the
morning, all the canons assembled in the chapter-house and invoked the
grace of the Holy Spirit by the hymn Veni creator Spiritus, and other
prayers. Also they made oath to reveal none of the depositions of the
criminals, but to hold them sacred under the seal of confession. The
depositions having been taken and the commissioners heard, the chapter,
after due deliberation, named him or her among the prisoners who was to
receive the benefit of the privilege. A card bearing the prisoner’s name and
sealed with the seal of the chapter was then sent to the members of
parliament, who were sitting in full assembly, clad in their red robes, in the
great hall of the palace to receive the nomination of the prisoner and to give
it legal effect. The criminal was then released and pardoned. Immediately
the minster bells began to ring, the doors of the cathedral were flung open,
the organ pealed, hymns were sung, candles lit, and every solemnity
observed in token of joy and gladness. Further, in presence of the conclave
all the depositions of the other prisoners were burnt on the altar of the
chapter-house. Then the archbishop and the whole of the clergy of the
cathedral went in procession to the great square known as the Old Tower
near the river, carrying the shrines and reliquaries of the minster, and
accompanied by the joyous music of hautboys and clarions. Apparently the

Old Tower occupies the site of the ancient castle of the Dukes of Normandy,
and the custom of going thither in procession came down from a time when
the prisoners were detained in the castle-dungeons. In the square there
stood, and still stands, a platform of stone raised high above the ground and
approached by flights of steps. Thither they brought the shrine (fierte) of St.
Romain, and thither too was led the pardoned prisoner. He ascended the
platform, and after confessing his sins and receiving absolution he thrice
lifted the shrine of St. Romain, while the innumerable multitude assembled
in the square cried aloud, each time the shrine was lifted, “Noel! Noel!
Noel!” which was understood to mean “God be with us!” That done, the
procession re-formed and returned to the cathedral. At the head walked a
beadle clad in violet, who bore on a pole the wicker effigy of the winged
dragon of Notre Dame, holding a large fish in its mouth. The whispers and
cries excited by the appearance of the monster were drowned in the loud
fanfares of cornets, clarions, and trumpets. Behind the musicians, who wore
the liveries of the Master of the Brotherhood of Notre Dame with his arms
emblazoned on an ensign of taffeta, came the carved silver-gilt shrine of
Notre Dame. After it followed the clergy of the cathedral to the number of
two hundred, clad in robes of violet or crimson silk, bearing banners,
crosses, and shrines, and chanting the hymn De resurrectione Domini. Then
came the archbishop, giving his blessing to the great multitude who
thronged the streets. The prisoner himself walked behind, bareheaded,
crowned with flowers, carrying one end of the litter which supported the
shrine of St. Romain; the fetters he had worn hung from the litter; and with
him paced, with lighted torches in their hands, the men or women who, for
the last seven years, had in like manner received their pardon. Another
beadle, in a violet livery, marched behind bearing aloft on a pole the wicker
effigy of the dragon (Gargouille) destroyed by St. Romain; in its mouth the
dragon sometimes held a live animal, such as a young fox, a rabbit, or a
sucking pig, and it was attended by the Brotherhood of the Gargouillards.
The clergy of the thirty-two parishes of Rouen also took part in the
procession, which moved from the Old Tower to the cathedral amid the
acclamations of the crowd, while from every church tower in the city the
bells rang out a joyous peal, the great Georges d’Amboise thundering above
them all. After mass had been performed in the cathedral, the prisoner was
taken to the house of the Master of the Brotherhood of St. Romain, where
he was magnificently feasted, lodged, and served, however humble his

rank. Next morning he again presented himself to the chapter, where,
kneeling in the presence of a great assembly, he was severely reproved for
his sins and admonished to give thanks to God, to St. Romain, and to the
canons for the pardon he had received in virtue of the privilege.
History and meaning What was the origin and meaning of this
of the privilege of the
Fierte or shrine of St.
remarkable privilege of the Fierte, as the shrine of
Romain at Rouen. St. Romain was called? Its history has been
carefully investigated by A. Floquet, Chief
Registrar of the Royal Court of Rouen, with the aid of all the documentary
evidence, including the archives both at Rouen and Paris. He appears to
have shewn conclusively that the association of St. Romain with the custom
is comparatively late. We possess a life of the saint in Latin verse, dating
from the eighth century, in which the miracles said to have been wrought by
him are set forth in a strain of pompous eulogy. Yet neither in it nor in any
of the other early lives of St. Romain and St. Ouen, nor in any of the older
chronicles and martyrologies, is a single word said about the destruction of
the dragon and the deliverance of the prisoner. It is not till 1394 that we
meet for the first time with a mention of the miracle. Moreover, the
deliverance of the prisoner can hardly have been instituted in honour of St.
Romain, else it would have taken place on the twenty-third of October, the
day on which the Church of Rouen celebrates the translation of the saint’s
bones to the cathedral. St. Romain died in 638, and his bones were
transferred to the cathedral of Rouen at the end of the eleventh or the
beginning of the twelfth century. Further, Floquet has adduced strong
grounds for believing that the privilege claimed by the chapter of Rouen of
annually pardoning a condemned criminal on Ascension Day was unknown
in the early years of the twelfth century, and that it originated in the reign of
Henry I. or Stephen, if not in that of Henry II. He supposes the ceremony to
have been in its origin a scenic representation of the triumph of Christ over
sin and death, the deliverance of the condemned prisoner symbolising the
deliverance of man from the yoke of corruption, and bringing home to the
people in a visible form the great mystery which the festival of the
Ascension was instituted to commemorate. Such dramatic expositions of
Christian doctrine, he points out, were common in the Middle Ages.
Suggested origin of Plausible as is this solution of the problem, it can
the custom.
scarcely be regarded as satisfactory. Had this been

the real origin of the privilege, we should expect to find the Ascension of
Christ either plainly enacted, or at least distinctly alluded to in the
ceremony; but this, so far as we can learn, was not so. Again, would it not
savour of blasphemy to represent the sinless and glorified Redeemer by a
ruffian stained with the blackest crimes? Moreover, the part played by the
dragon in the legend and in the spectacle seems too important to allow us to
explain it away, with Floquet, as a mere symbol of the suppression of
paganism by St. Romain. The tale of the conquest of the dragon is older
than Christianity, and cannot be explained by it. At Rouen the connexion of
St. Romain with the story seems certainly to be late, but that does not prove
the story itself to be late also. Judging from the analogy of similar tales
elsewhere, we may conjecture that in the Rouen version the criminal
represents a victim annually sacrificed to a water-spirit or other fabulous
being, while the Christian saint has displaced a pagan hero, who was said to
have delivered the victim from death and put an end to the sacrifice by
slaying the monster. Thus it seems possible that the custom of annually
pardoning a condemned malefactor may have superseded an older practice
of treating him as a public scapegoat, who died to save the rest of the
people. In the sequel we shall see that such customs have been observed in
many lands. It is not incredible that at Rouen a usage of this sort should
have survived in a modified shape from pagan times down to the twelfth
century, and that the Church should at last have intervened to save the
wretch and turn a relic of heathendom to the glory of God and St. Romain.
But this explanation of the famous privilege of the Fierte is put forward
with a full sense of the difficulties attending it, and with no wish to
dogmatise on so obscure a subject.[539]

CHAPTER XIII
THE KINGS OF ROME AND ALBA

§ 1. Numa and Egeria

Egeria at Nemi a From the foregoing survey of custom and legend
nymph of water and
of the oak, perhaps a
we may infer that the sacred marriage of the
form of Diana. powers both of vegetation and of water has been
celebrated by many peoples for the sake of
promoting the fertility of the earth, on which the life of animals and men
ultimately depends, and that in such rites the part of the divine bridegroom
or bride is often sustained by a man or woman. The evidence may,
therefore, lend some countenance to the conjecture that in the sacred grove
at Nemi, where the powers of vegetation and of water manifested
themselves in the fair forms of shady woods, tumbling cascades, and glassy
lake, a marriage like that of our King and Queen of May was annually
celebrated between the mortal King of the Wood and the immortal Queen of
the Wood, Diana. In this connexion an important figure in the grove was the
water-nymph Egeria, who was worshipped by pregnant women because
she, like Diana, could grant them an easy delivery.[540] From this it seems
fairly safe to conclude that, like many other springs, the water of Egeria was
credited with a power of facilitating conception as well as delivery. The
votive offerings found on the spot, which clearly refer to the begetting of
children,[541] may possibly have been dedicated to Egeria rather than to
Diana, or perhaps we should rather say that the water-nymph Egeria is only
another form of the great nature-goddess Diana herself, the mistress of
sounding rivers as well as of umbrageous woods,[542] who had her home by
the lake and her mirror in its calm waters, and whose Greek counterpart
Artemis loved to haunt meres and springs.[543] The identification of Egeria
with Diana is confirmed by a statement of Plutarch that Egeria was one of
the oak-nymphs[544] whom the Romans believed to preside over every green
oak-grove;[545] for while Diana was a goddess of the woodlands in general
she appears to have been intimately associated with oaks in particular,
especially at her sacred grove of Nemi.[546] Perhaps, then, Egeria was the
fairy of a spring that flowed from the roots of a sacred oak. Such a spring is
said to have gushed from the foot of the great oak at Dodona, and from its
murmurous flow the priestess drew oracles.[547] Among the Greeks a draught

of water from certain sacred springs or wells was supposed to confer
prophetic powers.[548] This would explain the more than mortal wisdom with
which, according to tradition, Egeria inspired her royal husband or lover
Numa.[549] When we remember how very often in early society the king is
held responsible for the fall of rain and the fruitfulness of the earth, it seems
hardly rash to conjecture that in the legend of the nuptials of Numa and
The legend of the Egeria we have a reminiscence of a sacred
nuptials of Numa and
Egeria may be a
marriage which the old Roman kings regularly
reminiscence of a contracted with a goddess of vegetation and water
sacred marriage for the purpose of enabling him to discharge his
which the kings of
Rome contracted with
divine or magical functions. In such a rite the part
a goddess of water of the goddess might be played either by an image
and of vegetation. or a woman, and if by a woman, probably by the
Queen. If there is any truth in this conjecture, we may suppose that the King
and Queen of Rome masqueraded as god and goddess at their marriage,
exactly as the King and Queen of Egypt appear to have done.[550] The legend
of Numa and Egeria points to a sacred grove rather than to a house as the
scene of the nuptial union, which, like the marriage of the King and Queen
of May, or of the vine-god and the Queen of Athens, may have been
annually celebrated as a charm to ensure the fertility not only of the earth
but of man and beast. Now, according to some accounts, the scene of the
marriage was no other than the sacred grove of Nemi, and on quite
independent grounds we have been led to suppose that in that same grove
the King of the Wood was wedded to Diana. The convergence of the two
distinct lines of enquiry suggests that the legendary union of the Roman
king with Egeria may have been a reflection or duplicate of the union of the
King of the Wood with Egeria or her double Diana. This does not imply that
the Roman kings ever served as Kings of the Wood in the Arician grove, but
only that they may originally have been invested with a sacred character of
the same general kind, and may have held office on similar terms. To be
more explicit, it is possible that they reigned, not by right of birth, but in
virtue of their supposed divinity as representatives or embodiments of a
god, and that as such they mated with a goddess, and had to prove their
fitness from time to time to discharge their divine functions by engaging in
a severe bodily struggle, which may often have proved fatal to them,
leaving the crown to their victorious adversary. Our knowledge of the
Roman kingship is far too scanty to allow us to affirm any one of these

propositions with confidence; but at least there are some scattered hints or
indications of a similarity in all these respects between the priests of Nemi
and the kings of Rome, or perhaps rather between their remote predecessors
in the dark ages which preceded the dawn of legend.[551]

§ 2. The King as Jupiter

The Roman king In the first place, then, it would seem that the
seems to have
personated Jupiter and
Roman king personated no less a deity than Jupiter
worn his costume. himself. For down to imperial times victorious
generals celebrating a triumph, and magistrates
presiding at the games in the Circus, wore the costume of Jupiter, which
was borrowed for the occasion from his great temple on the Capitol; and it
has been held with a high degree of probability both by ancients and
moderns that in so doing they copied the traditionary attire and insignia of
the Roman kings.[552] They rode a chariot drawn by four laurel-crowned
horses through the city, where every one else went on foot;[553] they wore
purple robes embroidered or spangled with gold; in the right hand they bore
a branch of laurel and in the left hand an ivory sceptre topped with an eagle;
a wreath of laurel crowned their brows; their face was reddened with
vermilion; and over their head a slave held a heavy crown of massy gold
fashioned in the likeness of oak leaves.[554] In this attire the assimilation of
the man to the god comes out above all in the eagle-topped sceptre, the
oaken crown, and the reddened face. For the eagle was the bird of Jove, the
oak was his sacred tree, and the face of his image standing in his four-horse
chariot on the Capitol was in like manner regularly dyed red on festivals;
indeed, so important was it deemed to keep the divine features properly
rouged that one of the first duties of the censors was to contract for having
this done.[555] The Greeks sometimes painted red the face or the whole body
of the wine-god Dionysus.[556] These customs may have been a substitute for
an older practice of feeding a god by smearing the face, and especially the
lips, of his idol with the blood of a sacrificial victim. Many examples of
such a practice might be adduced from the religion of barbarous peoples.[557]
As the triumphal procession always ended in the temple of Jupiter on the
Capitol, it was peculiarly appropriate that the head of the victor should be
graced by a crown of oak leaves, for not only was every oak consecrated to

Jupiter,[558] but the Capitoline temple of the god was said to have been built
by Romulus beside a sacred oak, venerated by shepherds, to which the king
attached the spoils won by him from the enemy’s general in battle.[559] We
The oak crown as an are expressly told that the oak crown was sacred to
emblem of Jupiter and
of the Roman
Capitoline Jupiter;[560] a passage of Ovid proves
emperors. that it was regarded as the god’s special emblem.
Writing in exile on the shores of the Black Sea, the
poet sends the book which he has just composed to Rome to be published
there; he personifies the volume and imagines it passing along the Sacred
Way and up to the door of the emperor’s stately palace on the Palatine hill.
Above the portal hung shining arms and a crown of oak leaves. At the sight
the poet starts: “Is this, quoth I, the house of Jove? For sure to my prophetic
soul the oaken crown was reason good to think it so.”[561] The senate had
granted Augustus the right to have the wreath of oak always suspended over
his door;[562] and elsewhere Ovid counts this among the more than mortal
honours bestowed on the emperor.[563] On the Capitol at Cirta there stood a
silver image of Jupiter wearing a silver crown of oak leaves and acorns.[564]
Similarly at Dodona, the most famous sanctuary of the oak in Greece, the
image of Zeus appears to have worn a chaplet of oak leaves; for the god is
constantly thus portrayed on coins of Epirus.[565] And just as Roman kings
appear to have personated the oak-god Jupiter, so Greek kings appear to
have personated the oak-god Zeus. The legendary Salmoneus of Elis is
certainly reported to have done so;[566] Periphas, an ancient king of Athens,
is said to have been styled Zeus by his people, and to have been changed
into an eagle by his jealous name-sake.[567] In Homer kings are often spoken
of as nurtured by Zeus and divine.[568] Indeed we are told that in ancient
days every Greek king was called Zeus.[569]
To the Romans the Thus we may fairly assume that on certain solemn
breach between the
human and the divine
occasions Roman generals and magistrates
was not so wide as it personated the supreme god, and that in so doing
seems to us. they revived the practice of the early kings. To us
moderns, for whom the breach which divides the human and the divine has
deepened into an impassable gulf, such mimicry may appear impious, but it
was otherwise with the ancients. To their thinking gods and men were akin,
for many families traced their descent from a divinity, and the deification of
a man probably seemed as little extraordinary to them as the canonisation of
a saint seems to a modern Catholic. The Romans in particular were quite

familiar with the spectacle of men masquerading as spirits; for at the
funerals of great houses all the illustrious dead of the family were
personated by men specially chosen for their resemblance to the departed.
Roman custom of These representatives wore masks fashioned and
representing dead
ancestors by masked
painted in the likeness of the originals: they were
men. dressed in rich robes of office, resplendent with
purple and gold, such as the dead nobles had worn
in their lifetime: like them, they rode in chariots through the city preceded
by the rods and axes, and attended by all the pomp and heraldry of high
station; and when at last the funeral procession, after threading its way
through the crowded streets, defiled into the Forum, the maskers solemnly
took their seats on ivory chairs placed for them on the platform of the
Rostra, in the sight of the people, recalling no doubt to the old, by their
silent presence, the memories of an illustrious past, and firing the young
with the ambition of a glorious future.[570]
The kings of Alba According to a tradition which we have no reason
seem also to have
claimed to represent
to reject, Rome was founded by settlers from Alba
Jupiter. Longa, a city situated on the slope of the Alban
hills, overlooking the lake and the Campagna.[571]
Hence if the Roman kings claimed to be representatives or embodiments of
Jupiter, the god of the sky, of the thunder, and of the oak, it is natural to
suppose that the kings of Alba, from whom the founder of Rome traced his
descent, may have set up the same claim before them. Now the Alban
dynasty bore the name of Silvii or Wood, and it can hardly be without
significance that in the vision of the historic glories of Rome revealed to
Aeneas in the underworld, Virgil, an antiquary as well as a poet, should
The Silvii and the represent all the line of Silvii as crowned with oak.
Julii. [572]
A chaplet of oak leaves would thus seem to
have been part of the insignia of the old kings of Alba Longa as of their
successors the kings of Rome; in both cases it marked the monarch as the
human representative of the oak-god. With regard to Silvius, the first king
of the Alban dynasty, we are told that he got his name because he had been
born or brought up in the forest, and that when he came to man’s estate he
contested the kingdom with his kinsman Julus, whose name, as some of the
Julus, the little ancients themselves perceived, means the Little
Jupiter.
Jupiter. The people decided in favour of Silvius,
but his rival Julus was consoled for the loss of the crown by being invested

with religious authority and the office of chief pontiff, or perhaps rather of
Flamen Dialis, the highest dignity after the kingship. From this Julus or
Little Jupiter, the noble house of the Julii, and hence the first emperors of
Rome, believed themselves to be sprung.[573] The legend of the dispute
between Silvius and Julus may preserve a reminiscence of such a partition
of spiritual and temporal powers in Alba Longa as afterwards took place in
Rome, when the old regal office was divided between the Consuls and the
King of the Sacred Rites.[574] Many more instances of such a schism will
meet us later on. That the Julian house worshipped Vejovis, the Little
Jupiter, according to the ancient rites of Alba Longa, is proved by the
inscription on an altar which they dedicated to him at their ancestral home
of Bovillae, a colony of Alba Longa, situated at the foot of the Alban hills.
[575]
The Caesars, the most illustrious family of the Julian house, took their
name from their long hair (caesaries),[576] which was probably in those early
days, as it was among the Franks long afterwards, a symbol of royalty.[577]
The Alban kings seem But in ceding the pontificate to their rivals, it
to have been expected
to make thunder and
would seem that the reigning dynasty of the Silvii
rain for the good of or Woods by no means renounced their own claim
their subjects. to personate the god of the oak and the thunder; for
the Roman annals record that one of them, Romulus, Remulus, or Amulius
Silvius by name, set up for being a god in his own person, the equal or
superior of Jupiter. To support his pretensions and overawe his subjects, he
constructed machines whereby he mimicked the clap of thunder and the
flash of lightning. Diodorus relates that in the season of fruitage, when
thunder is loud and frequent, the king commanded his soldiers to drown the
roar of heaven’s artillery by clashing their swords against their shields. But
he paid the penalty of his impiety, for he perished, he and his house, struck
by a thunderbolt in the midst of a dreadful storm. Swollen by the rain, the
Alban lake rose in flood and drowned his palace. But still, says an ancient
historian, when the water is low and the surface unruffled by a breeze, you
may see the ruins of the palace at the bottom of the clear lake.[578] Taken
along with the similar story of Salmoneus, king of Elis,[579] this legend
points to a real custom observed by the early kings of Greece and Italy, who
like their fellows in Africa down to modern times may have been expected
to produce rain and thunder for the good of the crops.[580] The priestly king
Numa passed for an adept in the art of drawing down lightning from the
sky.[581] Mock thunder, we know, has been made by various peoples as a

rain-charm in modern times;[582] why should it not have been made by kings
in antiquity?
The legends of the In this connexion it deserves to be noted that,
deaths of Roman
kings point to a close
according to the legend, Salmoneus, like his Alban
connexion between counterpart, was killed by a thunderbolt; and that
the king and the one of the Roman kings, Tullus Hostilius, is
thunder-god.
reported to have met with the same end in an
attempt to draw down Jupiter in the form of lightning from the sky.[583]
Aeneas himself, the legendary ancestor both of the Alban and the Roman
kings, vanished from the world in a violent thunderstorm, and was
afterwards worshipped as Jupiter Indiges. A mound of earth, encircled with
fine trees, on the bank of the little river Numicius was pointed out as his
Death and deification grave.[584] Romulus, too, the first king of Rome,
of Romulus.
disappeared in like manner. It was the seventh of
July, and the king was reviewing his army at the Goat’s Marsh, outside the
walls of the city. Suddenly the sky lowered and a tempest burst,
accompanied by peals of thunder. Soon the storm had swept by, leaving the
brightness and serenity of the summer day behind. But Romulus was never
seen again. Those who had stood by him said they saw him caught up to
heaven in a whirlwind; and not long afterwards a certain Proculus Julius, a
patrician of Alban birth and descent, declared on oath that Romulus had
appeared to him clad in bright armour, and announced that the Romans
were to worship him as a god under the name of Quirinus, and to build him
a temple on the spot. The temple was built and the place was henceforth
known as the Quirinal hill.[585] In this legend it is significant that the
annunciation of the king’s divinity should be put in the mouth of a member
of the Julian house, a native of Alba; for we have seen reason to believe that
at Alba the Julii had competed with the Silvii, from whom Romulus was
descended, for the kingship, and with it for the honour of personating
Jupiter. If, as seems to be philologically possible, the word Quirinus is
derived from the same root as quercus, “an oak,” the name of the deified
Romulus would mean no more than “the oak-god,” that is, Jupiter.[586] Thus
the tradition would square perfectly with the other indications of custom
and legend which have led us to conclude that the kings both of Rome and
of Alba claimed to embody in their own persons the god of the sky, of
thunder, and of the oak. Certainly the stories which associated the deaths of
so many of them with thunderstorms point to a close connexion with the

god of thunder and lightning. A king who had been wont to fulminate in his
lifetime might naturally be supposed at death to be carried up in a
thunderstorm to heaven, there to discharge above the clouds the same duties
which he had performed on earth. Such a tale would be all the more likely
to attach itself to the twin Romulus, if the early Romans shared the
widespread superstition that twins have power over the weather in general
and over rain and wind in particular.[587] That tempests are caused by the
spirits of the dead is a belief of the Araucanians of Chili. Not a storm bursts
upon the Andes or the ocean which these Indians do not ascribe to a battle
between the souls of their fellow-countrymen and the dead Spaniards. In the
roaring of the wind they hear the trampling of the ghostly horses, in the peal
of the thunder the roll of the drums, and in the flashes of lightning the fire
of the artillery.[588]
Every Latin town Thus, if the kings of Alba and Rome imitated
probably had its local
Jupiter.
Jupiter as god of the oak by wearing a crown of
oak leaves, they seem also to have copied him in
his character of a weather-god by pretending to make thunder and lightning.
And if they did so, it is probable that, like Jupiter in heaven and many kings
on earth, they also acted as public rain-makers, wringing showers from the
dark sky by their enchantments whenever the parched earth cried out for the
refreshing moisture. At Rome the sluices of heaven were opened by means
of a sacred stone, and the ceremony appears to have formed part of the
ritual of Jupiter Elicius, the god who elicits from the clouds the flashing
lightning and the dripping rain.[589] And who so well fitted to perform the
ceremony as the king, the living representative of the sky-god?
Many local Jupiters in The conclusion which we have reached as to the
Latium.
kings of Rome and Alba probably holds good of all
the kings of ancient Latium: each of them, we may suppose, represented or
embodied the local Jupiter. For we can hardly doubt that of old every Latin
town or settlement had its own Jupiter, as every town and almost every
church in modern Italy has its own Madonna; and like the Baal of the
Semites the local Jupiter was commonly worshipped on high places.
Wooded heights, round which the rain-clouds gather, were indeed the
natural sanctuaries for a god of the sky, the rain, and the oak. At Rome he
occupied one summit of the Capitoline hill, while the other summit was
assigned to his wife Juno, whose temple, with the long flight of stairs

Capitoline Jupiter and leading up to it, has for ages been appropriately
Juno.
replaced by the church of St. Mary “in the altar of
[590]
the sky” (in Araceli). That both heights were originally wooded seems
certain, for down to imperial times the saddle which joins them was known
as the place “between the two groves.”[591] Virgil tells us that the hilltop
where gilded temples glittered in his day had been covered of old by shaggy
thickets, the haunt of woodland elves and savage men, “born of the tree-
trunks and the heart of oak.”[592] These thickets were probably composed of
The hills of Rome oaks, for the oak crown was sacred to Capitoline
once wooded with
oaks.
Juno as well as to Jupiter;[593] it was to a sacred oak
on the Capitol that Romulus fastened the spoils,[594]
and there is evidence that in early times oak-woods clothed other of the hills
on which Rome was afterwards built. Thus the Caelian hill went originally
by the name of the Mountain of the Oak Grove on account of the thickets of
oak by which it was overgrown,[595] and Jupiter was here worshipped in his
character of the oak-god;[596] one of the old gates of Rome, apparently
between the Caelian and the Esquiline hills, was called the Gate of the Oak
Grove for a similar reason;[597] and within the walls hard by was a Chapel of
the Oak Grove dedicated to the worship of the oak-nymphs.[598] These
nymphs appear on coins of the Accoleian family as three women supporting
on their shoulders a pole from which rise leafy branches.[599] The Esquiline
hill seems also to have derived its name from its oaks. After mentioning the
Chapel of the Oak and other hallowed groves which still dotted the hill in
his time, the antiquary Varro tells us that their bounds were now much
curtailed, adding with a sigh that it was no wonder the sacred old trees
should give way to the modern worship of Mammon.[600] Apparently the
Roman nobles of those days sold the ancient woods, as their descendants
sell their beautiful gardens, for building-land. To this list of oak-clad hills
on the left bank of the Tiber must be added the Quirinal, if Quirinus, who
had a very ancient shrine on the hill, was the oak-god.[601] Under the
Aventine was a grove of evergreen oaks,[602] which appears to have been no
other than the grove of Egeria outside the Porta Capena.[603] The old grove
of Vesta, which once skirted the foot of the Palatine hill on the side of the
Forum,[604] must surely have been a grove of oaks; for not only does an oak
appear growing beside the temple of Vesta on a fine relief preserved in the
The sacred Vestal fire gallery of the Uffizi at Florence, but charred
fed with oak-wood.
embers of the sacred Vestal fire have in recent

years been discovered at the temple of Vesta in the Forum, and a
microscopic analysis of them has proved that they consist of the pith or
heart of trunks or great branches of oak (quercus).[605] The full significance
of this discovery will appear later on. When the plebeians seceded to the
Janiculum in the third century before Christ, the dictator Q. Hortensius
summoned a meeting of the people and passed a law in an oak grove, which
perhaps grew on the hill.[606] In this neighbourhood there was a street called
the Street of the Oak Grove; it is mentioned in an inscription found in its
original position near the modern Garibaldi bridge.[607] On the Vatican hill
there stood an evergreen oak which was believed to be older than Rome; an
inscription in Etruscan letters on a bronze tablet proclaimed the sanctity of
the tree.[608] Finally, that oak woods existed at or near Rome in the earliest
times has lately been demonstrated by the discovery in the Forum itself of a
prehistoric cemetery, which contains amongst other sepultures the bones of
several young children deposited in rudely hollowed trunks of oak.[609] With
all this evidence before us we need not wonder that Virgil should speak of
the primitive inhabitants of Rome as “born of the tree-trunks and the heart
of oak,” and that the Roman kings should have worn crowns of oak leaves
in imitation of the oak-god Jupiter, who dwelt in his sacred grove on the
Capitol.
The Alban kings may If the kings of Rome aped Capitoline Jove, their
have imitated Latian
Jupiter, who dwelt on
predecessors the kings of Alba probably laid
the top of the Alban themselves out to mimic the great Latian Jupiter,
Mount. who had his seat above the city on the summit of
the Alban Mountain. Latinus, the legendary ancestor of the dynasty, was
said to have been changed into Latian Jupiter after vanishing from the
world in the mysterious fashion characteristic of the old Latin kings.[610] The
sanctuary of the god on the top of the mountain was the religious centre of
the Latin League, as Alba was its political capital till Rome wrested the
supremacy from its ancient rival. Apparently no temple, in our sense of the
word, was ever erected to Jupiter on this his holy mountain; as god of the
sky and thunder he appropriately received the homage of his worshippers in
the open air. The massive wall, of which some remains still enclose the old
garden of the Passionist monastery, seems to have been part of the sacred
precinct which Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome, marked out for the
solemn annual assembly of the Latin League.[611] The god’s oldest sanctuary
on this airy mountain-top was a grove;[612] and bearing in mind not merely

the special consecration of the oak to Jupiter, but also the traditional oak
crown of the Alban kings and the analogy of the Capitoline Jupiter at Rome,
we may suppose that the trees in the grove were oaks.[613] We know that in
antiquity Mount Algidus, an outlying group of the Alban hills, was covered
with dark forests of oak;[614] and among the tribes who belonged to the Latin
League in the earliest days, and were entitled to share the flesh of the white
bull sacrificed on the Alban Mount, there was one whose members styled
themselves the Men of the Oak,[615] doubtless on account of the woods
among which they dwelt.
Theophrastus’s But we should err if we pictured to ourselves the
description of the
woods of Latium.
country as covered in historical times with an
unbroken forest of oaks. Theophrastus has left us a
description of the woods of Latium as they were in the fourth century
before Christ. He says: “The land of the Latins is all moist. The plains
produce laurels, myrtles, and wonderful beeches; for they fell trees of such
a size that a single stem suffices for the keel of a Tyrrhenian ship. Pines and
firs grow in the mountains. What they call the land of Circe is a lofty
headland thickly wooded with oak, myrtle, and luxuriant laurels. The
natives say that Circe dwelt there, and they shew the grave of Elpenor, from
which grow myrtles such as wreaths are made of, whereas the other myrtle-
The prospect from the trees are tall.”[616] Thus the prospect from the top of
Alban Mount in
antiquity.
the Alban Mount in the early days of Rome must
have been very different in some respects from
what it is to-day. The purple Apennines, indeed, in their eternal calm on the
one hand, and the shining Mediterranean in its eternal unrest on the other,
no doubt looked then much as they look now, whether bathed in sunshine,
or chequered by the fleeting shadows of clouds; but instead of the desolate
brown expanse of the fever-stricken Campagna, spanned by its long lines of
ruined aqueducts, like the broken arches of the bridge in the vision of
Mirza, the eye must have ranged over woodlands that stretched away, mile
after mile, on all sides, till their varied hues of green or autumnal scarlet
and gold melted insensibly into the blue of the distant mountains and sea.
Thus the Alban Mount was to the Latins what Olympus was to the Greeks,
the lofty abode of the sky-god, who hurled his thunderbolts from above the
clouds. The white steers which were here sacrificed to him in his sacred
grove, as in the Capitol at Rome,[617] remind us of the white bulls which the

Resemblance between Druids of Gaul sacrificed under the holy oak when
the Latin worship of
Jupiter and the
they cut the mistletoe;[618] and the parallel would be
Druidical worship of all the closer if, as we have seen reason to think,
the oak. the Latins worshipped Jupiter originally in groves
of oak. Other resemblances between ancient Gaul and Latium will meet us
later on. When we remember that the ancient Italian and Celtic peoples
spoke languages which are nearly related to each other,[619] we shall not be
surprised at discovering traces of community in their religion, especially in
what concerns the worship of the god of the oak and the thunder. For that
worship, as we shall see presently, belongs to the oldest stratum of Aryan
civilisation in Europe.
Sacred marriage of But Jupiter did not reign alone on the top of his
Jupiter and Juno.
holy mountain. He had his consort with him, the
goddess Juno, who was worshipped here under the same title, Moneta, as on
the Capitol at Rome.[620] As the oak crown was sacred to Jupiter and Juno on
the Capitol,[621] so we may suppose it was on the Alban Mount, from which
the Capitoline worship was derived. Thus the oak-god would have his oak-
goddess in the sacred oak grove. So at Dodona the oak-god Zeus was
coupled with Dione, whose very name is only a dialectically different form
of Juno;[622] and so on the top of Mount Cithaeron he was periodically
wedded to an oaken image of Hera.[623] It is probable, though it cannot be
positively proved, that the sacred marriage of Jupiter and Juno was annually
celebrated by all the peoples of the Latin stock in the month which they
named after the goddess, the midsummer month of June.[624] Now on the
first of June the Roman pontiffs performed certain rites in the grove of
Helernus beside the Tiber, and on the same day, and perhaps in the same
place, a nymph of the grove, by name Carna, received offerings of lard and
bean-porridge. She was said to be a huntress, chaste and coy, who gave the
Janus and Carna. slip to her lovers in the depths of the wood, but
was caught by Janus. Some took her to be Diana herself.[625] If she were
indeed a form of that goddess, her union with Janus, that is, Dianus, would
be appropriate; and as she had a chapel on the Caelian hill, which was once
covered with oak-woods,[626] she may have been, like Egeria, an oak-nymph.
Further, Janus, or Dianus, and Diana, as we shall see later on, were
originally mere doubles of Jupiter and Juno, with whom they coincide in
name and to some extent in function. Hence it appears to be not impossible
that the rite celebrated by the pontiffs on the first of June in the sacred

grove of Helernus was the marriage of Jupiter and Juno under the forms of
Janus and Diana. It would be some confirmation of this view if we could be
sure that, as Ovid seems to imply, the Romans were in the habit of placing
Ancient use of white branches of white thorn or buckthorn in their
thorn or buckthorn to
ward off witchcraft.
windows on the first of June to keep out the
witches;[627] for in some parts of Europe precisely
the same custom is observed, for the same reason, a month earlier, on the
marriage day of the King and Queen of May.[628] The Greeks certainly
believed that branches of white thorn or buckthorn fastened to a door or
outside the house had power to disarm the malignant arts of sorcerers[629]
and to exclude spirits. Hence they hung up branches of it before the door
when sacrifices were being offered to the dead, lest any of the prowling
ghosts should be tempted to revisit their old homes or to invade those of
other people.[630] When the atheist Bion lay adying, he not only caused
sacrifices to be offered on his behalf to the gods whose existence he had
denied, but got an old hag to mumble incantations over him and to bind
magical thongs about his arms, and he had boughs of buckthorn and laurel
attached to the lintel to keep out death.[631] However, the evidence as to the
rites observed by the Romans on the first of June is too slight and dubious
to allow us to press the parallel with May Day.
At the sacred If at any time of the year the Romans celebrated
marriage of Jupiter
and Juno in later
the sacred marriage of Jupiter and Juno, as the
times the parts of the Greeks commonly celebrated the corresponding
deities may have been marriage of Zeus and Hera,[632] we may suppose
acted by the Flamen
Dialis and the
that under the Republic the ceremony was either
Flaminica. performed over images of the divine pair or acted
by the Flamen Dialis and his wife the Flaminica.
For the Flamen Dialis was the priest of Jove; indeed, ancient and modern
writers have regarded him, with much probability, as a living image of
Jupiter, a human embodiment of the sky-god.[633] In earlier times the Roman
king, as representative of Jupiter, would naturally play the part of the
heavenly bridegroom at the sacred marriage, while his queen would figure
The Flamen and as the heavenly bride, just as in Egypt the king and
Flaminica may have
been the deputies of
queen masqueraded in the character of deities, and
the king and queen. as at Athens the queen annually wedded the vine-
god Dionysus. That the Roman king and queen
should act the parts of Jupiter and Juno would seem all the more natural

because these deities themselves bore the title of King and Queen.[634] Even
if the office of Flamen Dialis existed under the kings, as it appears to have
done, the double representation of Jupiter by the king and the flamen need
not have seemed extraordinary to the Romans of the time. The same sort of
duplication, as we saw, appears to have taken place at Alba, when the Julii
were allowed to represent the supreme god in the character of Little
Jupiters, while the royal dynasty of the Silvii continued to wield the divine
thunder and lightning.[635] And long ages afterwards, history repeating itself,
another member of the Julian house, the first emperor of Rome, was deified
in his lifetime under the title of Jupiter, while a flamen was appointed to do
for him what the Flamen Dialis did for the heavenly Jove.[636] It is said that
Numa, the typical priestly king, at first himself discharged the functions of
Flamen Dialis, but afterwards appointed a separate priest of Jupiter with
that title, in order that the kings, untrammeled by the burdensome religious
observances attached to the priesthood, might be free to lead their armies to
battle.[637] The tradition may be substantially correct; for analogy shews that
the functions of a priestly king are too harassing and too incongruous to be
permanently united in the same hands, and that sooner or later the holder of
the office seeks to rid himself of part of his burden by deputing to others,
according to his temper and tastes, either his civil or his religious duties.
Hence we may take it as probable that the fighting kings of Rome, tired of
parading as Jupiter and of observing all the elaborate ritual, all the tedious
restrictions which the character of godhead entailed on them, were glad to
relegate these pious mummeries to a substitute, in whose hands they left the
crosier at home while they went forth to wield the sharp Roman sword
abroad. This would explain why the traditions of the later kings, from
Tullus Hostilius onwards, exhibit so few traces of sacred or priestly
functions adhering to their office. Among the ceremonies which they
henceforward performed by deputy may have been the rite of the sacred
marriage.
At the sacred Whether that was so or not, the legend of Numa
marriage the King and
Queen of Rome
and Egeria appears to embody a reminiscence of a
probably personated time when the priestly king himself played the part
the god and goddess of the divine bridegroom; and as we have seen
of the oak.
reason to suppose that the Roman kings personated
the oak-god, while Egeria is expressly said to have been an oak-nymph, the
story of their union in the sacred grove raises a presumption that at Rome in

the regal period a ceremony was periodically performed exactly analogous
to that which was annually celebrated at Athens down to the time of
Aristotle.[638] The marriage of the King of Rome to the oak-goddess, like the
wedding of the vine-god to the Queen of Athens, must have been intended
to quicken the growth of vegetation by homoeopathic magic. Of the two
forms of the rite we can hardly doubt that the Roman was the older, and that
long before the northern invaders met with the vine on the shores of the
Mediterranean their forefathers had married the tree-god to the tree-goddess
in the vast oak forests of Central and Northern Europe. In the England of
our day the forests have mostly disappeared, yet still on many a village
green and in many a country lane a faded image of the sacred marriage
lingers in the rustic pageantry of May Day.

CHAPTER XIV
THE KING’S FIRE

Sacred Marriage of Thus far we have dealt mainly with those instances
the Fire-god with a
woman.
of the Sacred Marriage in which a human being is
wedded to the divine powers of vegetation or
water. Now we pass to the consideration of a different class of cases, in
which the divine bridegroom is the fire and his bride a human virgin. And
these cases are particularly important for our present enquiry into the early
Latin kingship, since it appears that the old Latin kings were commonly
supposed to be the offspring of the fire-god by mortal mothers. The
evidence which points to this conclusion is as follows.
Legend of the birth of First, let us take the legend of the birth of King
King Servius Tullius
from the fire.
Servius Tullius. It is said that one day the virgin
Ocrisia, a slave-woman of Queen Tanaquil, the
wife of King Tarquin the elder, was offering as usual cakes and libations of
wine on the royal hearth, when a flame in the shape of the male member
shot out from the fire. Taking this for a sign that her handmaiden was to be
the mother of a more than mortal son, the wise Queen Tanaquil bade the girl
array herself as a bride and lie down beside the hearth. Her orders were
obeyed; Ocrisia conceived by the god or spirit of the fire, and in due time
brought forth Servius Tullius, who was thus born a slave, being the reputed
son of a slave mother and a divine father, the fire-god. His birth from the
fire was attested in his childhood by a lambent flame which played about
his head as he slept at noon in the king’s palace.[639] This story, as others
have pointed out before,[640] seems clearly to imply that the mother of
Servius was a Vestal Virgin charged with the care and worship of the sacred
fire in the king’s house. Now, in Promathion’s History of Italy, cited by
Plutarch, a similar tale was told of the birth of Romulus himself. It is said
Legend of the birth of that in the house of the King of Alba a flame like to
Romulus from the
the male organ of generation hung over the hearth

fire. for many days. Learning from an oracle that a
virgin should conceive by this phantom and bear a son of great valour and
renown, the king bade one of his daughters submit to its embraces, but she
disdained to do so, and sent her handmaid instead. Angry at her
disobedience, her father ordered both the maidens to be put to death. But
Vesta appeared to him in a dream, forbade the execution, and commanded
that both the girls should be imprisoned until they had woven a certain web,
after which they were to be given in marriage. But the web was never
finished, for as fast as they wove it by day, other maidens, in obedience to
the king’s orders, unwove it at night. Meantime the handmaiden conceived
by the flame of fire, and gave birth to Romulus and Remus.[641] In this
legend, as in the story of the birth of Servius Tullius, it is plain that the
mother of the future King of Rome was both a slave and a priestess of
Vesta. Orthodox Roman tradition always admitted that she was a Vestal, but
naturally enough represented her as the king’s daughter rather than his
slave. The god Mars, it was said, got her with child as she drew water in his
sacred grove.[642] However, when we compare this legend with the similar
story of the birth of Servius, we may suspect that Promathion has preserved,
though perhaps in a perverted form, an old feature of the Latin kingship,
namely, that one of the king’s parents might be, and sometimes was, a slave.
Whether that was so or not, such tales at least bear witness to an old belief
that the early Roman kings were born of virgins and of the fire. Similarly
Legend of the birth of Caeculus, the founder of Praeneste, passed for a
Caeculus from the
fire.
son of Vulcan. It was said that his mother
conceived him through a spark, which leapt from
the fire and struck her as she sat by the hearth. She exposed the child near a
temple of Jupiter, and he was found there beside a fire by some maidens
who were going to draw water. In after-life he proved his divine birth by
working an appropriate miracle. When an infidel crowd refused to believe
that he was the son of a god, he prayed to his father, and immediately the
unbelievers were surrounded with a flame of fire.[643] More than this, the
whole of the Alban dynasty appear to have traced their descent from a
Vestal, for the wife of King Latinus, their legendary ancestor, was named
Amata[644] or Beloved, and this was the regular title bestowed on a Vestal
after her election,[645] a title which cannot be fully understood except in the
light of the foregoing traditions, which seem to shew that the Vestals were
regularly supposed to be beloved by the fire-god. Moreover, fire is said to

have played round the head of Amata’s daughter Lavinia,[646] just as it
played round the head of the fire-born Servius Tullius. As the same prodigy
was reported of Julus or Ascanius, the son of Aeneas,[647] we may suspect
that a similar legend was told of his miraculous conception at the hearth.
The Vestal Virgins Now we may take it as certain that the Romans and
seem to have been
regarded as the wives
Latins would never have traced the descent of their
of the fire-god. kings from Vestal Virgins unless they had thought
that such a descent, far from being a stain, was,
under certain circumstances, highly honourable. What the circumstances
were that permitted a Vestal to become a mother, not only with impunity but
with honour and glory, appear plainly from the stories of the birth of
Caeculus, Romulus, and Servius Tullius. If she might not know a mortal
man, she was quite free, and indeed was encouraged, to conceive and bear a
son to the fire-god. In fact the legends suggest that the Vestals were
regularly regarded as the fire-god’s wives. This would explain why they
were bound to chastity during their term of service: the bride must be true
to her divine bridegroom. And the theory of chastity could be easily
reconciled with the practice of maternity by allowing a man to masquerade
as the fire-god at a sacred marriage, just as in Egypt the king disguised
himself as the god Ammon when he wedded the queen,[648] or as among the
Ewe tribes the priest poses as the python-god when he goes in to the human
brides of the serpent.[649] Thus the doctrine of the divine birth of kings
presents no serious difficulty to people who believe that a god may be made
flesh in a man, and that a virgin may conceive and bear him a son. Of
course the theory of the divine motherhood of the Vestals applies only to the
early regal and therefore prehistoric period. Under the Republic the demand
for kings had ceased, and with it, therefore, the supply. Yet a trace of the old
view of the Vestals as virgin mothers lingered down to the latest times in the
character of Vesta herself, their patroness and type; for Vesta always bore
the official title of Mother, never that of Virgin.[650] We may surmise that a
similar belief and practice once obtained in Attica. For Erichthonius, king of
Athens, is said to have been a son of the fire-god Hephaestus by the virgin
goddess Athena: the story told of his miraculous birth from the ground,
which had been impregnated by the seed of the fire-god, is clearly a later
version devised to save the virginity of his mother.[651] The perpetual lamp
of Athena, which burned in the Erechtheum or house of Erechtheus (who
was identical with Erichthonius) on the acropolis of Athens,[652] may have

answered to the perpetual fire of Vesta at Rome; and it is possible that the
maidens called Arrephoroi or Errephoroi, who dwelt close to the
Erechtheum,[653] may at one time have personated Athena and passed, like
the Vestals, for wives of the fire-god.
Rationalistic theory of It has, indeed, been held that the Vestals were of
the duties of the
Vestals rejected.
old the king’s daughters, who were kept at home
and forbidden to marry for no other reason than
that they might devote themselves to the domestic duties of drawing water,
mopping the house, tending the fire, and baking cakes.[654] But this
rationalistic theory could hardly explain the superstitious horror which the
infidelity of a Vestal always excited in the Roman mind. Customs which
begin in reason seldom end in superstition. It is likely, therefore, that the
rule of chastity imposed on the Vestals was based from the first on a
superstition rather than on a mere consideration of practical convenience.
The belief that the Vestals were the spouses of the fire-god would explain
the rule.[655] We have seen that the practice of marrying women to gods has
been by no means uncommon. If the spirit of the water has his human wife,
why not the spirit of the fire? Indeed, primitive man has a special reason for
thinking that the fire-god should always be married. What that reason is, I
will now try to explain.
The Vestal fire of later But first it is necessary to apprehend clearly that
times was a
continuation of the
the Vestal fire of republican and imperial Rome
fire on the king’s was strictly the successor or continuation of the
hearth. fire which in the regal period had burned on the
king’s hearth. That it was so appears plainly from the stories of the birth of
Romulus and Servius Tullius, which shew that Vesta was believed to be
worshipped at the royal fireside by maidens who were either the king’s
daughters or his slaves. This conclusion is amply confirmed by a study of
the temple of Vesta and the adjoining edifices in the Roman Forum. For the
so-called temple of the goddess never was, strictly speaking, a temple at all.
This fact we have on the authority of Varro himself, the greatest of Roman
antiquaries.[656] The little round building in which the sacred fire always
burned was merely a copy of the round hut in which the king, like his
The round temple of subjects, had dwelt in days of old. Tradition
Vesta a copy of the
ancient Italian hut.
preserved a memory of the time when its walls
were made of wattled osiers and the roof was of

thatch;[657] indeed, with that peculiar clinging to the forms of the past which
is characteristic of royalty and religion, the inmost shrine continued down
even to late times to be fashioned of the same simple materials.[658] The hut
of Romulus, or what passed for it, constructed of wood, reeds, and straw,
was always preserved and carefully repaired in the original style. It stood on
the side of the Palatine hill facing the Circus Maximus.[659] A similar hut,
roofed with thatch, was in like manner maintained on the Capitoline hill,
and traditionally associated with Romulus.[660] The so-called temple of Vesta
in historical times stood not on any of the hills, but in the Forum, at the
northern foot of the Palatine. Its situation in the flat ground is quite
consistent with the view that the building represents the king’s house of
early, though not of the very earliest, times; for, according to tradition, it
was built by Numa in this position between the Palatine and the Capitol, at
the time when he united the two separate towns on these hills and turned the
low swampy ground between them into their common place of assembly.
Here, too, beside the temple of Vesta, the king built himself a house, which
was ever afterwards known as the Regia or palace; formerly he had dwelt
on the Quirinal.[661] In after-times this old palace of the kings was perhaps
the official residence of their successor, the King of the Sacred Rites.[662]
Adjoining it was the house of the Vestals,[663] at first, no doubt, a simple and
unpretentious edifice, but afterwards a stately pile gathered round a
spacious open court which must have resembled the cloister of a mediaeval
monastery. We may assume that the kernel of this group of buildings was
the round temple of Vesta, and that the hearth in it, on which burned the
sacred fire, was originally the hearth of the king’s house. That the so-called
temple was built on the model of the round huts of the old Latins is proved
by the discoveries made at an ancient necropolis near Albano. The ashes of
the dead were here deposited in urns, which are shaped like little round huts
Hut-urns found at with conical roofs, obviously in order that the souls
Albano and Rome.
of the dead might live in houses such as they had
inhabited during life. The roofs of these miniature dwellings are raised on
cross-beams, sometimes with one or more holes to let out the smoke. The
door is fastened by a crossbar, which is passed through a ring on the outside
and tied to the two side-posts. In some of these hut-urns the side-posts are
duplicated, or even triplicated, for the sake of ornament; and it is probable
that the ring of columns which encircled the little temple of Vesta in
historical times was merely an extension of the door-posts of the prehistoric

hut. The necropolis in which these urns were found must be very ancient,
since it was buried under the streams of lava vomited by the Alban
Mountain in eruption. But the mountain has not been an active volcano
within historical times, unless, indeed, the showers of stones and the rain of
blood often recorded as ominous prodigies by Roman writers may be
explained as jets of pumice and red volcanic dust discharged by one of the
craters.[664] The prehistoric burial-ground lately discovered in the Roman
Forum has yielded several hut-urns of precisely the same shape as those of
the Alban cemetery. Hence we may infer with tolerable certainty that the
earliest Latin settlers both on the Alban hills and at Rome dwelt in round
huts built of wattle and dab, with peaked roofs of thatch.[665]
“Numa’s crockery,” If further evidence were needed to convince us that
the primitive
earthenware vessels
the round temple of Vesta merely reproduced a
used by the Vestals. Roman house of the olden time, it might be
supplied by the primitive vessels of coarse
earthenware in which the Vestals always presented their offerings, and
which, in memory of the artlessness of an earlier age, went by the name of
“Numa’s crockery.”[666] A Greek historian, writing when Rome was at the
height of her power and glory under Augustus, praises the Romans for the
austere simplicity with which, in an age of vulgar wealth and ostentation,
they continued to honour the gods of their fathers. “I have seen,” said he,
“meals set before the gods on old-fashioned wooden tables, in mats and
earthenware dishes, the food consisting of barley loaves and cakes and spelt
and firstfruits and such-like things, all plain and inexpensive and free from
any touch of vulgarity. And I have seen libations offered, not in vessels of
silver and gold, but in little earthen cups and jugs; and I heartily admired a
people which thus walked in the ways of their fathers, not deviating from
the ancient rites into extravagance and display.”[667] Specimens of this
antique pottery have come to light of late years at the house of the Vestals,
the temple of Vesta, and other religious centres in the Forum;[668] others had
been found previously on the Esquiline hill and in the necropolis of Alba
Longa.[669] We may conjecture that if the Romans continued to serve the
gods their meals in simple earthenware dishes long after they themselves
quaffed their wine from goblets of crystal and gold or from murrhine cups
with their cloudy iridescent hues of purple and white,[670] they did so, not
from any principle of severe good taste, but rather from that superstitious
fear of innovation which has embalmed in religious ritual, as in amber, so

many curious relics of the past. The old forms and materials of the vessels
were consecrated by immemorial usage and might not be changed with
impunity. Indeed, in the ritual of the Arval Brothers the holy pots
themselves appear to have been an object of worship.[671] Specimens of
these pots have been found on the site of the sacred grove where the
Brothers performed their quaint service, and they shed an interesting light
on the conservatism of the Roman religion. Some of them are moulded in
Rude pottery used by the most primitive fashion by the hand without any
the Arval Brothers.
mechanical appliance. But most of them belong to
a stage of art, later indeed than this rude beginning, yet earlier than the
invention of the potter’s wheel. In order to give the vessels their proper
shape and prevent the sides from collapsing, wooden hoops were inserted in
them, and the marks made by these hoops in the soft clay may still be seen
on the inside of most of the pots found in the grove. We may suppose that
when the potter’s wheel came into universal use, the old art of making
pottery by the hand was lost; but as religion would have nothing to do with
pots made in the new-fangled way, the pious workman had to imitate the
ancient ware as well as he could, eking out his imperfect skill with the aid
of wooden hoops.[672] Perhaps the fictores Vestalium and the fictores
Pontificum, of whom we read in inscriptions,[673] were those potters who,
combining a retrograde art with sound religious principles, provided the
Vestals and Pontiffs with the coarse crockery so dear to gods and to
antiquaries. If that was so, they may have had in the exercise of their craft
Savage superstitions to observe some such curious rules as are still
as to the making of
pottery.
observed in similar circumstances by the savage
Yuracares, a tribe of Indians living dispersed in the
depths of beautiful tropical forests, at the eastern foot of the Bolivian
Andes. We are told by an explorer that “the manufacture of pottery is not an
everyday affair with this superstitious people, and accordingly they
surround it with singular precautions. The women, who alone are entrusted
with the duty, go away very solemnly to look for the clay, but they do so
only when there is no crop to be gathered. In the fear of thunder they betake
themselves to the most sequestered spots of the forest in order not to be
seen. There they build a hut. While they are at work they observe certain
ceremonies and never open their mouth, speaking to each other by signs,
being persuaded that one word spoken would infallibly cause all their pots
to break in the firing; and they do not go near their husbands, for if they did,

all the sick people would die.”[674] Among the Ba-Ronga of South Africa
pottery is made by women only, and they prefer to employ a child under
puberty to light the fire in which the pots are to be baked, because the child
has pure hands and the pots are therefore less likely to crack in the furnace
than if the woman lit the fire herself.[675] If the reader objects that Roman
potters cannot have been trammelled by superstitions like those which
hamper the savage potters of America and Africa, I would remind him of
the rules laid down by grave Roman writers for the moral guidance of
cooks, bakers, and butlers. After mentioning a number of these writers by
name, Columella informs us that “all of them are of opinion that he who
engages in any one of these occupations is bound to be chaste and
Chastity required in continent, since everything depends on taking care
persons who handle
dishes and food.
that neither the dishes nor the food should be
handled by any one above the age of puberty, or at
least by any one who is not exceedingly abstemious in sexual matters.
Therefore a man or woman who is sexually unclean ought to wash in a river
or running water before he touches the contents of the storeroom. That is
why there should be a boy or a maid to fetch from the storeroom the things
that are needed.”[676] When Roman cooks, bakers, and butlers were expected
to be so strict in the service of their human masters, it might naturally be
thought that the potters should be not less so whose business it was to
fashion the rude yet precious vessels meet for the worship of the gods.
Sanctity of the If the storeroom (penus) of a Roman house was
storeroom (penus) and
of the Penates in a
deemed so holy that its contents could only be
Roman house. handled by persons ceremonially clean, the reason
was that the Penates or gods of the storeroom
[677]
dwelt in it. The domestic hearth, where the household meals were
cooked in the simple days of old, was the natural altar of the Penates;[678]
their images, together with those of the Lares, stood by it and shone in the
cheerful glow of the fire, when the family gathered round it in the evening.
[679]
Thus in every house Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, was intimately
bound up with the Penates or gods of the storeroom; indeed, she was
reckoned one of them.[680] Now the temple of Vesta, being nothing more
than a type of the oldest form of Roman house, naturally had, like an
ordinary house, its sacred storeroom, and its Penates or gods of the
storeroom.[681] Hence if in every common house strict chastity was,
theoretically at least, expected of all who entered the storeroom, we can

well understand why such an obligation should have been laid on the
Vestals, who had in their charge the holiest of all storerooms, the chamber
in which were popularly supposed to be preserved the talismans on which
the safety of the state depended.[682]
Thus the temple of Thus on the whole we may regard it as highly
Vesta, with its
perpetual fire and its
probable that the round temple of Vesta in the
sacred storeroom, was Forum, with its sacred storeroom and perpetual
merely a copy of the fire, was merely a survival, under changed
Roman king’s house.
conditions, of the old house of the Roman kings,
which again may have been a copy of the still older house of the kings of
Alba. Both were modelled on the round huts of wattled osiers in which the
early Latins dwelt among the woods and hills of Latium in the days when
the Alban Mountain was still an active volcano. Hence it is legitimate to
compare the old legends of the royal hearth with the later practice in regard
to the hearth of Vesta, and from the comparison to explain, if we can, the
meaning both of the legends and of the practice.

CHAPTER XV
THE FIRE-DRILL

Mode of rekindling In historical times, whenever the Vestal fire at
the Vestal fire at
Rome by means of the
Rome happened to be extinguished, the virgins
fire-drill. were beaten by the pontiff; after which it was their
custom, apparently with the aid of the pontiff, to
rekindle the fire by drilling a hole in a board of lucky wood till a flame was
elicited by friction. The new fire thus obtained was carried into the temple
of Vesta by one of the virgins in a bronze sieve.[683] As this mode of
producing fire is one of the most primitive known to man, and has been
Use of the fire-drill by commonly employed by many savage tribes down
savages.
to modern times,[684] we need have no difficulty in
believing that its use in the worship of Vesta was a survival from prehistoric
ages, and that whenever the fire on the hearth of the Latin kings went out it
was regularly relit in the same fashion. In its simplest form the fire-drill, as
the apparatus has been appropriately named by Professor E. B. Tylor,
consists of two sticks, the one furnished with a point and the other with a
hole. The point of the one stick is inserted into the hole of the other, which
is laid flat on the ground, while the operator holds the pointed stick upright
in position and twirls it rapidly between his hands till the rubbing of the two
sticks against each other produces sparks and at last a flame.
Many savages regard Many savages see in this operation a resemblance
the two sticks of the
fire-drill as male and
to the union of the sexes, and have accordingly
female, and the named the pointed stick the man and the holed
rubbing of the two stick the woman. Thus we are told that among the
together as a sexual
union. Thompson Indians of British Columbia “fire was
obtained by means of the fire-drill, which consisted
of two dried sticks, each over a foot in length, and rounded off to less than
an inch in diameter. One stick was sharpened at one end; while the other
was marked with a couple of notches close to each other—one on the side,

and the other on top. The sharpened end of the first stick was placed in the
top notch of the other stick, and turned rapidly between the straightened
palms of both hands. The heat thus produced by the friction of the sticks
caused sparks to fall down the side notch upon tinder placed underneath,
which, when it commenced to smoke, was taken in the hands, and blown
upon until fanned into a flame. The tinder was dry grass, the shredded dry
bark of the sagebrush, or cedar-bark. The sharpened stick was called the
‘man,’ and was made of black-pine root, tops of young yellow pine, heart of
yellow-pine cones, service-berry wood, etc. The notched stick was called
the ‘woman,’ and was generally made of poplar-root. However, many kinds
of wood were used for this purpose. When hot ashes or a spark fell upon the
tinder, they said, ‘The woman has given birth.’”[685] The Hopi Indians kindle
fire ceremonially by the friction of two sticks, which are regarded
respectively as male and female. The female stick has a notch in it and is
laid flat on the floor; the point of the male stick is inserted in the notch of
the female stick and is made to revolve rapidly by twirling the stick
between the hands. Pollen is added as a male symbol, and the spark is
caught in a tinder of shredded cedar bark.[686] The Urabunna tribe of Central
Australia, who also make fire by means of the fire-drill, call the upright
piece “the child-stick,” while they give to the horizontal or notched piece
the name of “the mother-stick” or “the mother of the fire.”[687] So in the
Murray Islands, Torres Straits, the upright stick is called the child (werem),
and the horizontal stick the mother (apu). In Mabuiag, Torres Straits, on the
other hand, the vertical stick is known as the male organ (ini), and the
horizontal stick as the hole (sakai).[688]
The fire-drill among “The ancient Bedouins kindled fire by means of
the Arabs.
the fire-drill, which was composed of a horizontal
stick, the zenda, and an upright stick, the zend. The science of language
furnishes us with many parallels for this mode of regarding the two parts as
male and female; the two parts of the lock are distinguished in like manner;
the spark is then the child, tifl; compare also our German Schraubenmutter,
Muttergewinde. The sticks for making fire by friction are not taken from the
same tree; on the contrary, they choose one as hard and tough as possible,
and the other soft, which allows the hard one to fit into it more easily and
catches fire the quicker on account of its loose texture. The soft wood was
naturally the horizontal stick, the zenda, which the Arabs made out of

Calotropis procera (’oshar), while for the upright stick they used a hard
branch of markh.”[689]
The fire-drill in The Ngumbu of South Cameroons, in West Africa,
Africa.
formerly made fire by rubbing two sticks against
each other. Of the sticks the one, called the male nschio, was put into a hole
of the other, which was called the female nschio.[690] In East Africa the
Masai men make fire by drilling a hole in a flat piece of wood with a hard
pointed stick. They say that the hard pointed stick is a man and that the flat
piece of wood is his wife. The former is cut from Ficus sycomorus and
Ekebergia sp., the latter from any fibrous tree, such as Kigelia africana,
Cordia ovalis, or Acacia albida. The women get their fire from the one
which has thus been kindled by the men.[691] The Nandi similarly produce
fire by rapidly drilling a hard pointed stick into a small hole in a flat piece
of soft wood. The hard stick is called the male (kirkit) and the piece of soft
wood the female (kôket). Among the Nandi, as apparently among the Masai,
fire-making is an exclusive privilege of the men of the tribe.[692] The
Baganda of Central Africa also made fire by means of the fire-drill; they
called the upright stick the male, and the horizontal stick the female.[693]
Among the Bantu tribes of south-eastern Africa, “when the native Africans
use special fire, either in connection with sacrifice or the festival of first-
fruits, it is produced by a doctor, and in the following manner:—Two sticks,
made of the Uzwati tree, and called the ‘husband and wife,’ are given to him
by the chief. These sticks are prepared by the magicians, and are the
exclusive property of the chief, the ‘wife’ being the shorter of the two. The
doctor cuts a piece off each stick, and proceeds to kindle fire in the usual
manner, by revolving the one rapidly between the palms of his hands, while
its end rests in a small hollow dug in the side of the other. After he has
obtained fire, he gives it to his attendant, who gets the pots in order, and
everything ready for cooking the newly-reaped fruits. The sticks are handed
back to the chief by the doctor—no other hand must touch them—and put
away till they are required next season. They are regarded as in a measure
sacred, and no one, except the chief’s personal servant, may go to the side
of the hut where they are kept. After being repeatedly used for fire-making,
the doctor disposes of what remains, and new ones are made and
consecrated by the magician. A special pot is used for the preparation of the
feast, and no other than it may be set on a fire produced from the ‘husband
and wife.’ When the feast is over, the fire is carefully extinguished, and the

pot placed along with the sticks, where it remains untouched for another
year.”[694] But even for the purposes of daily life these tribes still kindle fire
in this manner, if they happen to be without matches. “A native takes two
special sticks, made of a light wood. One of these he points: this is called
the male stick. He then makes a conical hole in the centre of the other stick,
which is called the female. Placing the female stick on the ground, he holds
it firmly by his feet—a native finds no difficulty in this, as he can easily
pick things off the ground with his toes if his hands are full. He then places
the pointed stick into the conical hole, and slowly twirls the male stick
between his hands. He does this while using a good deal of pressure, and
the wood becomes powdered, lying round the revolving point in a little
heap of dust. When he thinks he has made sufficient of the wood dust, he
twirls the stick very fast, and in a moment the powder bursts into flame,
which he uses to set fire to some dried grass.”[695]
Fire-customs of the The Damaras or Herero of Damaraland, in south-
Herero.
western Africa, maintain sacred fires in their
villages, and their customs and beliefs in this respect present a close
resemblance to the Roman worship of Vesta. Fortunately the Herero fire-
worship has been described by a number of independent witnesses, and as
their accounts agree substantially with each other, we may assume that they
are correct. The people are a tall, finely-built race of nomadic herdsmen
belonging to the Bantu stock, who seem to have migrated into their present
country from the north and east about a hundred and fifty or two hundred
years ago. The desert character of the country and its seclusion from the
outer world long combined to preserve the primitive manners of the
inhabitants.[696] In their native state the Herero are a purely pastoral people,
The Herero a pastoral possessing immense herds of cattle and flocks of
people.
sheep and goats, which are the pride and joy of
their hearts, almost their idols. They subsist chiefly on the milk of their
herds, which they commonly drink sour. Of the flesh they make but little
use, for they seldom kill any of their cattle, and never a cow, a calf, or a
lamb. Even oxen and weathers are only slaughtered on solemn and festal
occasions, such as visits, burials, and the like. Such slaughter is a great
event in a village, and young and old flock from far and near to partake of
Huts and villages of the meat.[697] Their huts are of a round beehive
the Herero.
shape, about ten feet in diameter. The framework
consists of stout branches, of which the lower ends are rammed into the

ground, while the upper ends are bent together and tied with bark. A village
is composed of a number of these round huts arranged in a circle about the
calves’ pen as a centre and surrounded by an artificial hedge of thorn-
bushes.[698] At night the cattle are driven in through the hedge and take up
their quarters in the open space round the calves’ pen.[699]
Sacred fire of the The hut of the great or principal wife of the chief,
Herero village
maintained in or
built and furnished in a more elaborate style than
before the hut of the the rest, regularly stands to the east of the calves’
chief’s principal pen, in the direction of sunrise, so that from its
wife.
position we can always learn approximately the
season of the year when the village was founded. The chief or headman of
the village has no special hut of his own; he passes the day in the hut of the
great wife, and the night commonly in one of the huts of his other wives in
the northern semicircle. Between the house of the great wife and the calves’
pen, but somewhat nearer to the pen, is a large heap of ashes on which, in
good weather, a small, faintly glimmering fire may be seen to burn at any
time of the day. The heap of ashes is the sacred hearth (okuruo); the fire is
the holy fire (omurangere or omurangerero) of the village. The open space
between the sacred hearth and the house of the great wife is known as the
holy ground or the holy house (otyizero).[700] Betwixt the hearth and the
calves’ fold stands a great withered branch of the omumborombonga
(Combretum primigenum), the sacred tree of the Herero, from which they
believe that both they and their cattle are descended. When a branch of this
tree cannot be obtained its place is taken by a bough of the omwapu tree
(Grevia spec.)[701] At night and in rainy weather the fire is transferred to the
hut of the great wife, where it is carefully kept alight.[702] According to
another account, the fire is regularly preserved in the house, and a brand is
only brought out into the open air when the cattle are being milked at
morning and evening in order that in presence of the fire the cow may be
healthy and give much milk.[703] The custom in this respect perhaps varies in
different villages, and may be determined in some measure by the climate.
The sacred fire is regarded as the centre of the village; from it at evening
the people fetch a light to kindle the fire on their own hearths, for every
householder has his own private hearth in front of his hut. At the holy
hearth are kept the most sacred possessions of the tribe, to wit, the bundle
of sticks which represent their ancestors; here sacrifices are offered and
enchantments performed; here the flesh of the victims is cooked; here is the

proper place of the chief; here the elders assemble in council, and judgment
is given; here strangers are received and ambassadors entertained. At the
banquets held on solemn occasions all may partake of the flesh, whether
they be friends or foes; the stranger’s curse would rest on the churl who
should refuse him his just share; and this curse the Herero dreads above
everything because he believes its effect to be infallible. So great is the
veneration felt by the natives for the sacred hearth, with its hallowed bough,
that they dare not approach it without testifying the deepest respect. They
take off their sandals, throw themselves on the ground, and pray their great
ancestor (Tate Mukuru) to be gracious to them. The horns of the oxen
slaughtered at festivals lie beside the hearth; the chief sits on the largest pair
when he is engaged in performing his magical rites. Near the fire, too, is a
stone on which none but the chief has the right to sit.[704]
The sacred fire among The duty of maintaining the sacred fire and
the Herero is watched
and fed by the chief’s
preserving it from extinction is entrusted to the
eldest unmarried eldest unmarried daughter of the chief by his great
daughter, who wife; if he has no daughter, the task devolves on
performs other
priestly duties.
the unmarried girl who is next of kin to him. She
bears the title of ondangere, derived from the name
of the sacred fire (omurangere).[705] Besides keeping up the fire she has
other priestly functions to discharge. Before the men start on a dangerous
expedition, she rubs the holy ashes on their foreheads.[706] When a woman
brings her new-born infant to the sacred hearth to receive its name, the
maiden priestess or Vestal, as we may call her, sprinkles water on both
mother and child.[707] Every morning, when the cattle walk out of the fold,
she besprinkles the fattest of them with a brush dipped in water.[708] When
an ox dies by accident at the village, she lays a piece of wood on its back,
praying at the same time for long life, plenty of cattle, and so forth.
Moreover, she ties a double knot in her apron for the dead beast, for a curse
would follow if she neglected to do so.[709] Lastly, when the site of the
village is changed, the priestess walks at the head of the people and of the
herds, carrying a firebrand from the old sacred hearth and taking the utmost
care to keep it alight.[710]
The chief or headman of the village is also the priest; he alone may perform
The Herero chief acts religious ceremonies except such as fall within the
as a priest.
province of the Vestal priestess, his daughter. In his

capacity of priest he keeps the sacred bundle of sticks which represent the
ancestors, and at sacrifices he offers meat to them that they may consecrate
it. When the old village is abandoned, it is his duty to carry, like Aeneas
quitting the ruins of Troy,[711] these rude penates to the new home. However,
it is deemed enough if he merely places the holy bundle on his back, and
then hands it to a servant, who carries it for him. As a priest he introduces
the newborn children to the spirits of the ancestors at the sacred hearth, and
gives the infants their names; and as a priest he has a cow to himself, whose
milk no one else may drink. This milk is kept in vessels which differ from
the ordinary milk vessels, not only in shape and size, but also in being
marked with the badge of his paternal clan. When a man goes forth from the
village with his family and servants to herd the cattle on a distant pasture, or
to found another village, he takes with him a burning brand from the sacred
hearth wherewith to kindle the holy fire in his new home. By doing so he
Fire taken from the acknowledges himself the vassal of the chief from
chief’s hearth by the
founder of a new
whose hearth he took the fire. In this way a single
village. village may give out swarm after swarm, till it has
become the metropolis or capital of a whole group
of villages, the inhabitants of which recognise the supremacy of the parent
community, and regard themselves as all sitting round its sacred fire. It is
thus that a village may grow into a tribe and its headman into a powerful
chief, who, by means of marriage alliances and the adhesion of weaker
rivals, may extend his sway over alien communities, and so gradually
acquire the rank and authority of a king.[712] The political evolution of the
Herero has indeed stopped short of this final stage; but among the more
advanced branches of the Bantu race, such as the Zulus and the Matabeles,
it is possible that the kingship has developed along these lines.
The combined office The possession of the sacred fire and of the
of chief and priest
among the Herero
ancestral sticks, carrying with it both political
descends in the male authority and priestly dignity, descends in the male
line. line, and hence generally passes from father to son.
In any case, whether the deceased had a son or not, the double office of
chief and priest must always remain in his paternal clan (oruzo). If it should
happen that the clan becomes extinct by his death, the sacred fire is put out,
A chief’s sacred the hearth destroyed, no brand is taken from it, and
hearth abandoned for
the sticks representing the ancestors are laid with
the dead man in the grave. But should there be an

some time after his heir, as usually happens, he takes a fire-brand from
death.
the sacred hearth and departs with all the people to
seek a new home, abandoning the old village for years. In time, however,
they return to the spot, rebuild the huts on the same sites, and inhabit them
again. But in the interval none of the kinsmen of the deceased may
approach the deserted village under pain of incurring the wrath of the ghost.
When the return at last takes place, and the people have announced their
arrival to the dead chief at his grave, which is generally in the cattle-pen,
they make a new fire by the friction of the two sacred fire-sticks on the old
hearth; for it is not lawful to bring with them a brand from their last
settlement.[713]
The sacred Herero If the sacred fire should go out through the neglect
fire rekindled by the
fire-drill.
of the priestess, a sudden shower of rain, or any
other accident, the Herero deem it a very evil
omen. The whole tribe is immediately summoned and large offerings of
cattle are made as an expiation. Then the fire is relit by means of the friction
of two sacred fire-sticks, which have been handed down from father to son.
Every chief possesses such fire-sticks, and keeps them tied up with the
bundle of holy sticks that represent the ancestors. One of the fire-sticks is
pointed, the other has a hole in the middle, and sometimes also a notch cut
round it. In the notch some fungus or rotten wood is placed as tinder. The
holed stick is held fast on the ground by the knees of the operator, who
inserts the point of the other stick in the hole and twirls it rapidly between
the palms of his hands in the usual way. As soon as a spark is emitted it
catches the tinder, which can then easily be blown up into a flame. Thus it is
from the tinder, we are told, and not from the sticks, that the flame is
elicited. In this fashion, if everything is very dry, as it generally is in
Hereroland, the native gets fire in about a minute. The names applied to the
two sticks indicate that the pointed stick (ondume) is regarded as male and
the holed stick (otyiya) as female, and that the process of making fire by the
friction of the two is compared to the intercourse of the sexes. As to the
wood of which the fire-sticks are made accounts differ. According to Dr. H.
Schinz the holed or female stick is of a soft wood, the pointed or male stick
The male fire-stick of a hard wood, generally of the sacred
made of the sacred
omumborombonga
omumborombonga tree (Combretum primigenum).
tree. According to Mr. C. G. Büttner, neither of the
sticks need be of a special tree, and any wood that

happens to be at hand may be employed for the purpose; only the wood of
the thorny acacias, which abound in the country, appears to be unsuitable.
[714]
Probably the rule mentioned by Dr. Schinz is the original one, and if in
some places the wood of the sacred tree has ceased to be used to light the
holy fire, the reason may be simply that the tree does not grow there, and
that accordingly the people are obliged to use such wood as they can find.
We have seen that a branch of the sacred omumborombonga tree is
regularly planted beside the village hearth, but that in default of it the
people have to put up with a bough of another kind of tree, the omuwapu
(Grevia spec).[715] Such substitutions were especially apt to be forced on the
Herero in the southern part of the country, where the omumborombonga tree
is very rare and forests do not exist, the larger trees growing singly or in
clumps. In the north, on the other hand, vegetation is much richer, and
regular woods are to be found. Here, in particular, the omumborombonga
tree is one of the ornaments of the landscape. It grows only beside water-
courses, and generally stands solitary, surpassing a tall oak in height, and
rivalling it in girth; indeed, so thick is the trunk that were it hollowed out a
family could lodge in it. Unlike most trees in the country it is thornless.
Whole forests of it grow to the eastward of Hereroland, in the direction of
Lake Ngami. So close is the grain and so heavy the wood that some of the
early explorers gave it the name of the “iron tree.”[716] Hence it is well
adapted to form the upright stick of the fire-drill, for which a hard wood is
required.
Herero tradition of the The Herero have a tradition that in the beginning
origin of men and
cattle from the sacred
they and their cattle and all four-footed beasts
omumborombonga came forth from the omumborombonga tree in a
tree. single day, whereas birds, fish, and creeping things
sprang from the rain. However, slightly different versions of the Herero
genesis appear to be current. As to the origin of men and cattle from the
tree, public opinion is unanimous; but some dissenters hold that sheep and
perhaps goats, but certainly sheep, issued from a flat rock in the north of the
country. For some time past, unfortunately, the tree has ceased to be
prolific; it is of no use waiting beside it in the hope of capturing such oxen
and sheep as it might bear. Yet still the Herero testify great respect for the
tree which they regard as their ancestor (omukuru). To injure it is deemed a
sacrilege which the ancestor will punish sooner or later. In passing it they
bow reverently and stick a bunch of green twigs or grass into the trunk or

throw it down at the foot. They address the tree, saying, “U-zera tate
mukururume, Thou art holy, grandfather!” and they even enter into
conversation with it, giving the answers themselves in a changed voice.
They hardly dare to sit down in its shadow. All this reverence they display
for every tree of the species.[717]
Migration from one On the whole, then, we may infer that so long as
country to another
sometimes involves a
the Herero dwelt in a land where their ancestral
change of sacred tree. tree abounded, they made the male fire-stick from
its wood; but that as they gradually migrated from
a region of tropical rains and luxuriant forests to the arid mountains, open
grass lands, and dry torrid climate of their present country,[718] they had in
some places to forgo its use and to take another tree in its stead. Similarly
the Aryan invaders of Greece and Italy were obliged, under a southern sky,
to seek substitutes for the sacred oak of their old northern home; and more
and more, as time went on and the deciduous woods retreated up the
mountain slopes, they found what they sought in the laurel, the olive, and
the vine. Zeus himself had to put up with the white poplar at his great
sanctuary of Olympia in the hot lowlands of Elis;[719] and on summer days,
when the light leaves of the poplar hardly stirred in the languid air and the
buzz of the flies was more than usually exasperating, he perhaps looked
wistfully away to the Arcadian mountains, looming blue in the distance
through a haze of heat, and sighed for the shadow and the coolness of their
oak woods.
The worship of the Thus it appears that the sanctity ascribed by the
chief’s fire a form of
ancestor-worship.
Herero to the chief’s fire springs from a custom of
kindling it with the wood of their ancestral tree; in
fact, the cult of the fire resolves itself into a form of ancestor-worship. For
the religion of the Herero, like that of all Bantu peoples, is first and
foremost a propitiation of the spirits of their forefathers conceived as
powerful beings able and willing to harm them. From youth to death the
Herero live in constant dread of their ancestors (ovakuru, plural of
omukuru), who, sometimes seen and sometimes unseen, return to earth and
play their descendants many a spiteful trick. They glide into the village,
steal the milk, drive the cattle from the fold, and waylay women. More than
that, they can inflict disease and death, decide the issue of war, and send or
withhold rain at pleasure. They are the cause of every vexation and

misfortune, and the whole aim of the living is by frequent sacrifices to
mollify and appease the dead.[720]
The sacred hearth a Now the sacred hearth seems to be in a special
special seat of the
ancestral spirits.
sense the seat of the worship paid to the ancestral
spirits. Here the head of the family sits and
communes with his forefather, giving himself the answers he thinks fit.[721]
Hither the newborn child is brought with its mother to be introduced to the
spirits and to receive its name, and the chief, addressing his ancestors,
announces, “To you a child is born in your village; may this village never
come to an end!”[722] Hither the bride is conducted at her marriage, and a
sheep having been sacrificed, its flesh is placed on the holy bushes at the
hearth.[723] Hither the sick are carried to be commended to the care of their
ghostly kinsmen, and as the sufferer is borne round and round the fire his
friends chant:—

“See, Father, we have come here,
With this sick man to you,
That he may soon recover.”[724]

Sacred sticks But the most tangible link between the worship of
representing the
deceased ancestors of
the fire and the worship of the dead is furnished by
the Herero. the sacred sticks representing the ancestors, which
are kept in a bundle together with the two sticks
used for kindling the fire by friction. Each of these rude idols or Lares, as
we may call them, “symbolises a definite ancestor of the paternal clan, and,
taken together, they may be regarded as the most sacred possession of a
family. They stand in the closest relation to the holy hearth, or rather to the
priestly dignity, and must therefore always remain in the same paternal
clan.”[725] These sticks “are cut from trees or bushes which are dedicated to
the ancestors, and they represent the ancestors at the sacrificial meals, for
the cooked flesh of the victims is always set before them first. Many people
always keep these sticks, tied up in a bundle with straps and hung with
amulets, in the branches of the sacrificial bushes which stand on the sacred
hearth (okuruo). The sacrificial bush serves to support the severed pieces of
the victim, and thus in a measure represents an altar or table of
sacrifice.”[726] When after an absence of years the people return to a village

where a chief died and was buried, a new fire is kindled by friction on the
old hearth, the flesh of the first animal slaughtered here is cooked in a
particular vessel, and the chief hands a portion of it to every person present.
“An image, consisting of two pieces of wood, supposed to represent the
household deity, or rather the deified parent, is then produced, and
moistened in the platter of each individual. The chief then takes the image,
and, after affixing a piece of meat to the upper end of it, he plants it in the
ground, on the identical spot where his parent was accustomed to sacrifice.
The first pail of milk produced from the cattle is also taken to the grave; a
small quantity is poured on the ground, and a blessing asked on the
remainder.” Each clan, the writer adds, has a particular tree or shrub
consecrated to it, and of this tree or shrub the two sticks representing the
deceased are made.[727]
The sacred sticks In these accounts the sacred sticks which stand for
representing the
ancestors are probably
the ancestors, and to which the meat of sacrifices is
the fire-sticks which first offered, are distinguished, expressly or
were used to kindle implicitly, from the sacred sticks which are used to
fresh fire in the
village after a death.
make the holy fire.[728] Other writers, however,
identify the two sets of sticks. Thus we are told
that the Herero “make images of their ancestors as follows. They take the
two sticks with which they make fire and tie them together with a fresh
wisp of corn. Then they worship this object as their ancestor. They may
approach it only on their knees. For hours together they sit before it and talk
with it. If you ask them where they imagine their ancestors to be, since they
cannot surely be these sticks, they answer that they do not know. The sticks
are kept in the house of the great wife.”[729] Again, another writer defines the
ondume or male fire-stick as a “stick representing an omukuru, i.e. ancestor,
deity, with which and the otyiza the holy fire is made.”[730] Again, the Rev.
G. Viehe, in describing the ceremonies observed at the return to a deserted
village where an ancestor (omukuru) is buried, tells us that they bring no
fire with them, “but holy fire must now be obtained from the omukuru. This
is done with the ondume and the otyiza. The meaning of these two words
plainly shows that the first represents the omukuru, and the other his
wife.”[731] The same excellent authority defines the ozondume as “sticks
which represent the ovakuru, i.e. ancestors, deities”;[732] and ozondume is
simply the plural of ondume, the male fire-stick.[733] Hence it appears highly
probable that the sticks representing the ancestors are, in fact, nothing but

the male fire-sticks, each of which was cut to make a new fire on the return
to the old village after a chiefs death. The stick would be an appropriate
emblem of the deceased, who had been in his lifetime the owner of the
sacred fire, and who now after his death bestowed it on his descendants by
means of the friction of his wooden image. And the symbolism will appear
all the more natural when we remember that the male fire-stick is generally
made from the ancestral tree, that the process of fire-making is regarded by
the Herero as the begetting of a child, and that their name for the stick,
according to the most probable etymology, signifies “the begetter.” Such
sticks would be far too sacred to be thrown away when they had served
their immediate purpose of kindling a new fire, and thus in time a whole
bundle of them would accumulate, each of them recalling, and in a sense
representing, one of the great forefathers of the tribe. When the old sticks
had ceased to be used as fire-lighters, and were preserved merely as
memorials of the dead, it is not surprising that their original function should
be overlooked by some European observers, who have thus been led to
distinguish them from the sticks by which the fire is actually produced at
Sacred fire-boards the present day.[734] Amongst the Koryaks of north-
among the Koryaks
and Chuckchees of
eastern Asia, when the sacred fire-boards, roughly
north-eastern Asia. carved in human form, are so full of holes that they
can no longer be used for the purpose of kindling
fire, they are still kept as holy relics in a shrine near the door of the house;
and a stranger who observed the respect with which they are treated, but
who did not know their history, might well mistake them for figures of
worshipful ancestors and never guess the practical purpose which they once
served as fire-lighters. A Koryak family regards its sacred fire-board not
only as the deity of the household fire, the guardian of the family hearth,
but also as the guardian of the reindeer, and they call it the “master of the
herd.” It is supposed to protect the reindeer from wolves and from sickness
and to prevent the animals from straying away and being lost. When a
reindeer is slaughtered, the sacred fire-board is taken out and smeared with
the blood. The maritime Koryaks, who do not live by reindeer, regard the
sacred fire-board as the master of the underground house and the helper in
the hunt of sea-mammals. They call it “father” and feed it from time to time
with fat, which they smear on its mouth.[735] Among the neighbouring
Chuckchees in the north-eastern extremity of Asia similar ideas and
customs obtain in respect of the fire-boards. These are roughly carved in

human form and personified, almost deified, as the supernatural guardians
of the reindeer. The holes made by drilling in the board are deemed the eyes
of the figure and the squeaking noise produced by the friction of the fire-
drill in the hole is thought to be its voice. At every sacrifice the mouth of
the figure is greased with tallow or with the marrow of bones. When a new
fire-board is made, it is consecrated by being smeared with the blood of a
slaughtered reindeer, and the owner says, “Enough! Take up your abode
here!” Then the other fire-boards are brought to the same place and set side
by side on the ground. The owner says, “Ho! these are your companions.
See that I always find easily every kind of game!” Next he slaughters
another reindeer and says, “Hi! Since you are one of my young men, go and
drive the herd hither!” Then after a pause he asks the fire-board, “Have you
brought it?” to which in the name of the fire-board he answers, “I have.”
Thereupon, speaking in his own person, he says, “Then catch some
reindeer! It seems that you will keep a good watch over the herd. There,
from the actual chief of the fire-boards, you may learn wisdom.” These
sacred fire-boards are often handed down from generation to generation as
family heir-looms. During the calving-season they are taken from their bag
and placed behind the frame in the outer tent in order that they may protect
the dams.[736]
The evolution of a These Koryak and Chuckchee customs illustrate
fire-god or fire-
goddess.
the evolution of a fire-god into the patron deity of a
family and his representation in human form by the
board which is used in fire-making. As the fire-board is that part of the
kindling apparatus which is commonly regarded as female in
contradistinction to the drill, which is regarded as male, we can easily
understand why the deity of the fire should sometimes, as at Rome, be
conceived as a goddess rather than as a god; whereas if the drill itself were
viewed as the essential part of the apparatus we should expect to find a fire-
god and not a fire-goddess.

CHAPTER XVI
FATHER JOVE AND MOTHER VESTA

Similarity between The reader may remember that the preceding
the fire-customs of
the Herero and the
account of the fire-customs of the Herero was
ancient Latins. introduced for the sake of comparison with the
Latin worship of Vesta. The points of similarity
between the two will now be indicated. In the first place we have seen
reason to hold that the ever-burning Vestal fire at Rome was merely a
survival of the fire on the king’s hearth. So among the Herero the sacred fire
of the village is the chief’s fire, which is kept burning or smouldering in his
house by day and by night. In Rome, as in Hereroland, the extinction of the
fire was regarded as an evil omen, which had to be expiated by sacrifices,
[737]
and new fire was procured in primitive fashion by twirling the point of
one stick in the hole of another. The Roman fire was fed with the wood of
the sacred oak tree, just as the African fire is kindled with the wood of the
sacred omumborombonga tree. Beside both were kept the images of the
ancestors, the Lares at Rome, the ozondume in Hereroland. The king’s
house which sheltered the fire and the images was originally in Italy what
the chief’s hut still is in Hereroland, a circular hut of osiers, not as ancient
dreamers thought, because the earth is round,[738] nor yet because a circle is
the symbol of rest, but simply because it is both easier and cheaper to build
a round hut than a square.[739]
The Roman Vestals, Further, in Rome the sacred fire was tended, as it
or some of them,
appear to have been
still is in Hereroland, by unmarried women, and as
originally the king’s the Herero priestesses are the chiefs daughters, so,
daughters. we may conjecture, it was with some at least of the
Vestals among the ancient Latins. The Roman Vestals appear to have been
under the patria potestas of the king, and, in republican times, of the
Pontifex Maximus, who succeeded to some of the king’s functions.[740] But
if they were under the patria potestas of the king, they must have been

either his wives or daughters; as virgins they cannot have been his wives; it
remains, therefore, that they were his daughters. Various circumstances
confirm this view. Their house at Rome, as we saw, always adjoined the
Regia, the old palace of the kings; they were treated with marks of respect
usually accorded to royalty;[741] and the most famous of all the Vestals, the
mother of Romulus, was said to be a daughter of the King of Alba.[742] The
custom of putting an unfaithful Vestal to death by immuring her in a
subterranean chamber[743] may have been adopted in order to avoid the
necessity of taking the life of a princess by violence;[744] for, as we shall
learn later on, there is a very widespread reluctance to spill royal blood.
Rites performed by Amongst the Herero the chief’s daughter who
the Vestals for the
fertility of the earth
tends the holy fire has also to perform certain
and the fecundity of priestly rites, which have for their object the
cattle. prosperity and multiplication of the cattle.[745] So,
too, it was with the Roman Vestals. On the fifteenth of April every year
pregnant cows were sacrificed to the Earth goddess; the unborn calves were
torn from their mothers’ wombs, the chief Vestal burned them and kept their
ashes for use at the shepherds’ festival of the Parilia. This sacrifice of
pregnant cows was a fertility charm designed, by a curious application of
homoeopathic magic, to quicken both the seed in the ground and the wombs
of the cows and the ewes.[746] At the Parilia, held on the twenty-first of
April, the Vestals mixed the ashes of the unborn calves with the blood of a
horse which had been sacrificed in October, and this mixture they
distributed to shepherds, who fumigated their flocks with it as a means of
ensuring their fecundity and a plentiful supply of milk.[747]
The Vestals were Strange as at first it may seem to find holy virgins
probably regarded as
embodiments of
assisting in operations intended to promote the
Vesta, who was a fertility of the earth and of cattle, this reproductive
mother-goddess, the function accords perfectly with the view that they
bestower of offspring
on cattle and women.
were of old the wives of the fire-god and the
mothers of kings. On that view, also, we can
understand why down to imperial times the Vestals adored the male emblem
of generation,[748] and why Vesta herself, the goddess of whom they were the
priestesses and probably the embodiments, was worshipped by the Romans
not as a virgin but as a mother.[749] She was sometimes identified with
Venus.[750] Like Diana, with whom she was identified at Nemi, she appears

to have been a goddess of fecundity, who bestowed offspring both on cattle
and on women. That she was supposed to multiply cattle is indicated by the
ceremonies which the Vestals performed in April; that she made women to
be mothers is hinted at not obscurely by the legends of the birth of the old
Latin kings.[751] The ancient Aryan practice of leading a bride thrice round
the hearth of her new home[752] may have been intended not merely to
introduce her to the ancestral spirits who had their seats there, but also to
promote conception, perhaps by allowing one of these very spirits to enter
into her and be born again. When the ancient Hindoo bridegroom led his
Custom of leading a bride round the fire, he addressed the fire-god Agni
bride round the fire
perhaps a fertility
with the words, “Mayst thou give back, Agni, to
charm. the husband the wife together with offspring.”[753]
When a Slavonian bride enters her husband’s
house after marriage she is led thrice round the hearth; then she must stir
the fire with the poker, saying, “As many sparks spring up, so many cattle,
so many male children shall enliven the new home.”[754] At Mostar, in
Herzegovina, the bride seats herself on a bag of fruit beside the hearth in
her new home and pokes the fire thrice. While she does so, they bring her a
small boy and set him on her lap. She turns the child thrice round in order
that she may give birth to male children.[755] Still more clearly does belief in
the impregnation of a woman by fire come out in another South Slavonian
custom. When a wife wishes to have a child, she will hold a vessel full of
water beside the fire on the hearth, while her husband knocks two burning
brands together so that the sparks fly out. When some of them have fallen
into the vessel, the woman drinks the water which has thus been fertilised
by the fire.[756] The same belief seems still to linger in England; for there is a
Lincolnshire saying that if a woman’s apron is burned above the knee by a
spark or red-hot cinder flying out of a fire, she will become a mother.[757]
Thus the superstition which gave rise to the stories of the birth of the old
Roman kings holds its ground to this day in Europe, even in our own
country. So indestructible are the crude fancies of our savage forefathers.
Thus we may safely infer that the old practice of leading a bride formally to
or round the hearth was designed to make her fruitful through the
generative virtue ascribed to the fire. The custom is not confined to peoples
of the Aryan stock, for it is observed also by the Esthonians and the
Wotyaks of Russia[758] and, as we have seen, by the Herero of South Africa.
[759]
It expresses in daily life the same idea which is embodied in the myths

of the birth of Servius Tullius and the other Latin kings, whose virgin
mothers conceived through contact with a spark or tongue of fire.[760]
New-born children Accordingly, where beliefs and customs of this sort
brought to the hearth
as a mode of
have prevailed, it is easy to understand why new-
introducing them to born children should be brought to the hearth, and
the ancestral spirits. why their birth should there be solemnly
announced to the ancestors. This is done by the Herero,[761] and in like
manner on the fifth or seventh day after a birth the ancient Greeks used to
run naked round the hearth with the new-born babe in their arms.[762] This
Greek ceremony may perhaps be regarded as merely a purification, in other
words as a means of keeping at bay the demons who lie in wait for infants.
Certainly in other parts of the world a custom has prevailed of passing a
newly born child backwards and forwards through the smoke of the fire for
the express purpose of warding off evil spirits or other baleful influences.
[763]
Yet on the analogy of the preceding customs we may conjecture that a
practice of solemnly bringing infants to the domestic hearth has also been
resorted to as a mode of introducing them to the spirits of their fathers.[764]
In Russia the old belief that the souls of the ancestors were somehow in the
fire on the hearth has left traces of itself down to the present time. Thus in
the Nijegorod Government it is still forbidden to break up the smouldering
faggots in a stove, because to do so might cause the ancestors to fall
through into hell. And when a Russian family moves from one house to
another, the fire is raked out of the old stove into a jar and solemnly
conveyed to the new one, where it is received with the words, “Welcome,
grandfather, to the new home!”[765]
Reasons why a But why, it may be asked, should a procreative
procreative virtue was
ascribed to fire.
virtue be attributed to the fire, which at first sight
appears to be a purely destructive agent? and why
in particular should the ancestral spirits be conceived as present in it? Two
different reasons perhaps led savage philosophers to these conclusions. In
the first place the common mode of making fire by means of the fire-drill
has suggested, as we have seen, to many savages the notion that fire is the
child of the fire-sticks, in other words that the rubbing of the fire-sticks
together is a sexual union which begets offspring in the shape of a flame.
This of itself suffices to impress on the mind of a savage the idea that a
capacity of reproduction is innate in the fire, and consequently that a

woman may conceive by contact with it. Strictly speaking, he ought perhaps
to refer this power of reproduction not to the fire but to the fire-sticks; but
savage thought is in general too vague to distinguish clearly between cause
and effect. If he thinks the matter out, as he may do if he is more than
usually reflective, the savage will probably conclude that fire exists unseen
The process of in all wood, and is only elicited from it by friction,
making fire by [766]
friction seems to the
so that the spark or flame is the child, not so
savage an act of much of the fire-sticks, as of the parent fires in
generation. them. But this refinement of thought may well be
above the reach even of a savage philosopher. The second reason which
seems to have led early man to associate the fire with the souls of his
ancestors was a superstitious veneration for the ancestral tree which
furnished either the fuel for the sacred fire or the material out of which he
carved one or both of the fire-sticks. Among the Herero, as we saw, the
Again, the fire was male fire-stick commonly is, or used to be, made
associated with the
ancestors through the
out of the holy omumborombonga tree, from which
sacred ancestral tree they believe that they and their cattle sprang in
which furnished either days of old. Hence nothing could be more natural
the fuel or the fire-
sticks.
than that they should regard the fire produced by
the friction of a piece of the ancestral tree, as akin
to themselves, the offspring of the same mighty forefather, to wit, the sacred
tree. Similarly, the Vestal fire at Rome was fed with the wood of the oak,
the sacred tree of Jupiter, and the first Romans are described as “born of the
tree trunks and the heart of oak.”[767] No wonder, then, that the Latin kings,
who claimed to represent Jupiter, and in that capacity masqueraded in his
costume and made mock thunder, should have prided themselves on being
sprung from a fire which was fed with the wood of the god’s holy tree; such
an origin was only another form of descent from the oak and from the god
of the oak, Jupiter himself.
Esthonian marriage The theory that impregnation by fire is really
custom.
impregnation by the wood of the tree with which
the fire is kindled, derives some confirmation from a custom which is
observed at marriage by some of the Esthonians in the neighbourhood of
Oberpahlen. The bride is escorted to a tree, which is thereupon cut down
and burned. When the fire blazes up, she is led thrice round it and placed
between three armed men, who clash their swords over her head, while the
women sing a song. Then some coins are thrown into the fire, and when it

has died out they are recovered and knocked into the stump of the tree,
which was cut down to serve as fuel.[768] This is clearly a mode of
rewarding, first the fire, and next the tree, for some benefit they have
conferred on the bride. But in early society husband and wife desire nothing
so much as offspring; this therefore may very well be the benefit for which
the Esthonian bride repays the tree.
The conception of the Thus far we have regarded mainly the paternal
Fire-mother
intimately bound up
aspect of the fire, which the Latins mythically
with that of the embodied in Jupiter, that is literally Father Jove,
female fire-stick in the god of the oak. The maternal aspect of the fire
the fire-drill.
was for them represented by Mother Vesta, as they
called her; and as the Roman king stood for Father Jove, so his wife or
daughter—the practice on this point appears to have varied—stood for
Mother Vesta. Sometimes, as we have seen, the Vestal virgins, the
priestesses or rather incarnations of Vesta, appear to have been the
daughters, not the wives, of the king. But, on the other hand, there are
grounds for thinking that the wife of King Latinus, the legendary ancestor
of the Latins, was traditionally regarded as a Vestal,[769] and the analogy of
the Flamen Dialis with his wife the Flaminica, as I shall shew presently,
points also to a married pair of priestly functionaries concerned with the
kindling and maintenance of the sacred fire. However that may have been,
we may take it as probable that the notion of the fire-mother was intimately
associated with, if it did not spring directly from, the female fire-stick of the
fire-drill, just as the conception of the fire-father was similarly bound up
with the male fire-stick.
The Fire-father and Further, it seems that these mythical beings, the
the Fire-mother
represented by a
fire-father and the fire-mother, were represented in
priest and priestess real life by a priest and a priestess, who together
who together made made the sacred fire, the priest appropriately
the sacred fire by
means of the fire-
twirling the pointed male stick, while the priestess
drill. held fast on the ground the holed female stick,
ready to blow up into a flame the spark which fell
on the tinder. In the composite religion of Rome, formed like the Roman
state by the fusion of several tribes, each with its own gods and priests, such
pairs of fire-priests may at first have been duplicated. In one or more of the
tribes which afterwards made up the Roman commonwealth the function of

kindling the holy fire of oak was perhaps assigned to the Flamen Dialis and
his wife the Flaminica, the living representatives of Jupiter and Juno; and if,
as some scholars think, the name flamen comes from flare, “to blow up,”[770]
the derivation would fit well with this theory. But in historical Rome the
duty of making the sacred fire lay with the Vestal virgins and the chief
pontiff.[771] The mode in which they shared the work between them is not
described by ancient writers, but we may suppose that one of the virgins
held the board of lucky wood on the ground while the pontiff inserted the
point of a peg into the hole of the board and made the peg revolve rapidly
between the palms of his hands. When the likeness of this mode of
producing fire to the intercourse of the sexes had once struck people, they
would deem it unnatural, and even indecent, for a woman to usurp the
man’s function of twirling the pointed male stick. But the Vestals certainly
helped to make fire by friction; it would seem, therefore, that the part they
took in the process can only have been the one I have conjecturally assigned
to them. At all events, the conjecture is supported by the following
analogies.
Among the Djakuns The Djakuns, a wild tribe of the Malay Peninsula,
fire is made by the
leader and his
are in the habit of making fire by friction. A
unmarried daughter. traveller has described the custom as follows:
“When a troop was on a journey and intended
either to pitch a temporary camp, or to make a longer settlement, the first
camp fire was kindled for good luck by an unmarried girl with the help of
the fire-drill. Generally this girl was the daughter of the man who served the
troop as leader. It was deemed of special importance that on the first night
of a settlement the fire of every band should be lit by the unmarried
daughter of a leader. But she might only discharge this duty if she had not
her monthly sickness on her at the time. This custom is all the more
remarkable inasmuch as the Djakuns in their migrations always carried a
smouldering rope of bark with them.” “When the fire was to be kindled, the
girl took the piece of soft wood and held it on the ground, while her father,
or any other married man, twirled the vertical borer upon it. She waited for
the spark to spring from the wood, and fanned it into a flame either by
blowing on it or by waving the piece of wood quickly about in her hand.
For this purpose she caught the spark in a bundle of teased bark and
exposed it to a draught of air.” “Fire so produced was employed to kindle
the other fires for that night. They ascribed to it good luck in cooking and a

greater power of keeping off tigers and so forth, than if the first fire had
been kindled by a spark from the smouldering bark rope.”[772] This account
suggests a reason why a holy fire should be tended by a number of virgins:
one or more of them might at any time be incapacitated by a natural
infirmity for the discharge of the sacred duty.
Among the Slavs of Again, the Slavs of the Balkan Peninsula ascribe a
the Balkans fire is
made by a young girl
healing or protective power to “living fire,” and
and boy. when an epidemic is raging in a village they will
sometimes extinguish all the fires on the hearths
and procure a “living fire” by the friction of wood. At the present day this is
done by various mechanical devices, but the oldest method, now almost
obsolete, is said to be as follows:—A girl and a boy between the ages of
eleven and fourteen, having been chosen to make the fire, are led into a
dark room, where they must strip themselves of all their clothes without
speaking a word. Then two perfectly dry cylindrical pieces of lime-wood
are given them, which they must rub rapidly against each other, turn about,
till they take fire. Tinder is then lit at the flame and used for the purpose of
healing. This mode of kindling the “living fire” is still practised in the Schar
Mountains of Old Servia. The writer who describes it witnessed some years
ago the use of the sacred fire at the village of Setonje, at the foot of the
Homolye Mountains, in the heart of the great Servian forest. But on that
occasion the fire was made in the manner described, not by a boy and girl,
but by an old woman and an old man. Every fire in the village had
previously been extinguished, and was afterwards relit with the new fire.[773]
Among the Kachins Among the Kachins of Burma, when people take
fire is made by a man
and woman jointly.
solemn possession of a new house, a new fire is
made in front of it by a man and woman jointly. A
dry piece of bamboo is pegged down on the ground; the two fire-makers sit
down facing each other at either end of it, and together rub another piece of
bamboo on the horizontal piece, one of them holding the wrists of the other
and both pressing down firmly till fire is elicited.[774]
Thus the conception In the first at least of these customs, it is plain, the
of the fire-sticks as
male and female is
conception of the fire-sticks as male and female
carried out by has been logically carried out by requiring the male
requiring the male fire-stick to be worked by a man and the female
stick to be worked by
fire-stick to be held by a woman. But opinions

a man and the female seem to differ on the question whether the fire-
stick to be worked by
a woman. makers should be wedded or single. The Djakuns
But opinions differ as prefer that the man should be married and the
to whether the fire- woman unmarried; on the other hand, the Slavs of
makers should be the Schar Mountains clearly think it better that
married or single.
both should be single, since they entrust the duty of
making the fire to a boy and girl. In so far as the man’s part in the work is
concerned, some of our Scottish Highlanders agree with the Djakuns at the
other end of the world; for the natives of Lewis “did also make use of a fire
called Tin-egin, i.e. a forced fire, or fire of necessity, which they used as an
antidote against the plague or murrain in cattle; and it was performed thus:
all the fires in the parish were extinguished, and then eighty-one married
men, being thought the necessary number for effecting this design, took two
great planks of wood, and nine of them were employed by turns, who by
their repeated efforts rubbed one of the planks against the other until the
heat thereof produced fire; and from this forced fire each family is supplied
with new fire, which is no sooner kindled than a pot full of water is quickly
set on it, and afterwards sprinkled upon the people infected with the plague,
or upon the cattle that have the murrain. And this they all say they find
successful by experiment: it was practised in the main land, opposite to the
south of Skie, within these thirty years.”[775] On the other hand, the Germans
of Halberstadt sided with the South Slavs on this point, for they caused the
forced fire, or need fire, as it is commonly called, to be made by two chaste
boys, who pulled at a rope which ran round a wooden cylinder.[776] The
theory and practice of the Basutos in South Africa were similar. After a
birth had taken place they used to kindle the fire of the hut afresh, and “for
this purpose it was necessary that a young man of chaste habits should rub
two pieces of wood quickly one against another, until a flame sprung up,
pure as himself. It was firmly believed that a premature death awaited him
who should dare to take upon himself this office, after having lost his
innocence. As soon, therefore, as a birth was proclaimed in the village, the
fathers took their sons to undergo the ordeal. Those who felt themselves
guilty confessed their crime, and submitted to be scourged rather than
expose themselves to the consequences of a fatal temerity.”[777]
Reasons for entrusting It is not hard to divine why the task of twirling the
the making of fire to
male fire-stick in the hole of the female fire-stick
should by some people be assigned to married

unmarried boys and men. The analogy of the process to the intercourse
girls.
of the sexes furnishes an obvious reason. It is less
easy to understand why other people should prefer to entrust the duty to
unmarried boys. But probably the preference is based on a belief that
chastity leaves the boys with a stock of reproductive energy which they may
expend on the operation of fire-making, whereas married men dissipate the
same energy in other channels. A somewhat similar train of thought may
explain a rule of virginity enjoined on women who assist in the production
of fire by holding the female fire-stick on the ground. As a virgin’s womb is
free to conceive, so, it might be thought, will be the womb of the female
fire-stick which she holds; whereas had the female fire-maker been already
with child, she could not be reimpregnated, and consequently the female
fire-stick could not give birth to a spark. Thus, in the sympathetic
connexion between the fire-sticks and the fire-makers we seem to reach the
ultimate origin of the order of the Vestal Virgins: they had to be chaste,
because otherwise they could not light the fire. Once when the sacred fire
had gone out, the Vestal in charge of it was suspected of having brought
about the calamity by her unchastity, but she triumphantly repelled the
suspicion by eliciting a flame from the cold ashes.[778] Ideas of the same
primitive kind still linger among the French peasantry, who think that if a
girl can blow up a smouldering candle into a flame she is a virgin, but that
if she fails to do so, she is not.[779] In ancient Greece none but persons of
pure life were allowed to blow up the holy fire with their mouths; a vile
man who had polluted his lips was deemed unworthy to discharge the duty.
[780]

The holy fire and The French superstition, which I have just
virgins of St. Brigit in
Ireland.
mentioned, may well date from Druidical times,
for there are some grounds for thinking that among
the old Celts, as among their near kinsmen the Latins, holy fires were
tended by virgins. In our own country perpetual fires were maintained in the
temple of a goddess whom the Romans identified with Minerva,[781] but
whose native Celtic name seems to have been Brigit. Like Minerva, Brigit
was a goddess of poetry and wisdom, and she had two sisters also called
Brigit, who presided over leechcraft and smithcraft respectively. This
appears to be only another way of saying that Brigit was the patroness of
bards, physicians, and smiths.[782] Now, at Kildare in Ireland the nuns of St.
Brigit tended a perpetual holy fire down to the suppression of the

monasteries under Henry VIII.; and we can hardly doubt that in doing so
they merely kept up, under a Christian name, an ancient pagan worship of
Brigit in her character of a fire-goddess or patroness of smiths. The nuns
were nineteen in number. Each of them had the care of the fire for a single
night in turn; and on the twentieth evening the last nun, having heaped
wood on the fire, used to say, “Brigit, take charge of your own fire; for this
night belongs to you.” She then went away, and next morning they always
found the fire still burning and the usual quantity of fuel consumed. Like
the Vestal fire at Rome in the old days, the fire of St. Brigit burned within a
circular enclosure made of stakes and brushwood, and no male might set
foot inside the fence. The nuns were allowed to fan the fire or blow it up
with bellows, but they might not blow on it with their breath.[783] Similarly it
Not to breathe on a is said that the Balkan Slavs will not blow with
holy fire.
their mouths on the holy fire of the domestic
[784]
hearth; a Brahman is forbidden to blow a fire with his mouth;[785] and
among the Parsees the priests have to wear a veil over their mouth lest they
should defile the sacred fire by their breath.[786] The custom of maintaining a
Other perpetual fires perpetual fire was not peculiar to Kildare, but
in Ireland.
seems to have been common in Ireland, for the
native records shew that such fires were kept up in several monasteries, in
each of which a small church or oratory was set apart for the purpose. This
was done, for example, at the monasteries of Seirkieran, Kilmainham, and
Inishmurray.[787] We may conjecture that these holy fires were merely
St. Brigit’s fire survivals of the perpetual fires which in pagan
perhaps fed with oak-
wood.
times had burned in honour of Brigit. The view
that Brigit was a fire-goddess is confirmed by the
observation that in the Christian calendar her festival falls the day before
Candlemas, and the customs observed at that season by Celtic peasantry
seem to prove that she was a goddess of the crops as well as of fire.[788] If
that was so, it is another reason for comparing her to Vesta, whose
priestesses performed ceremonies to fertilise both the earth and the cattle.
[789]
Further, there are some grounds for connecting Brigit, like Vesta, with
the oak; for at Kildare her Christian namesake, St. Brigit, otherwise known
as St. Bride or St. Bridget, built her church under an oak-tree, which existed
till the tenth century, and gave its name to the spot, for Kildare is Cilldara,
“the church of the oak-tree.”[790] The “church of the oak” may well have

displaced a temple or sanctuary of the oak, where in Druidical days the holy
fire was fed, like the Vestal fire at Rome, with the wood of the sacred tree.
Early Irish We may suspect that a conversion of this sort was
monasteries built in
oak groves.
often effected in Ireland by the early Christian
missionaries. The monasteries of Derry and
Durrow, founded by St. Columba, were both named after the oak groves
amidst which they were built; and at Derry the saint spared the beautiful
trees and strictly enjoined his successors to do the same. In his old age,
when he lived an exile on the shores of the bleak storm-swept isle of Iona,
his heart yearned to the home of his youth among the oak groves of Ireland,
and he gave expression to the yearning in passionate verse:—

“That spot is the dearest on Erin’s ground,
For the treasures that peace and purity lend,
For the hosts of bright angels that circle it round,
Protecting its borders from end to end.

“The dearest of any on Erin’s ground,
For its peace and its beauty I gave it my love;
Each leaf of the oaks around Derry is found
To be crowded with angels from heaven above.

“My Derry! my Derry! my little oak grove,
My dwelling, my home, and my own little cell,
May God the Eternal in Heaven above
Send death to thy foes, and defend thee well.”[791]

A feeling of the same sort came over a very different exile in a very
different scene, when growing old amid the turmoil, the gaieties, the
distractions of Paris, he remembered the German oak woods of his youth.

“Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland.
Der Eichenbaum
Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft.
Es war ein Traum.”

Virgin priestesses of Far from the oaks of Erin and the saint’s last home
fire among the Incas
of Peru.
among the stormy Hebrides, a sacred fire has been
tended by holy virgins, with statelier rites and in
more solemn fanes, under the equinoctial line. The Incas of Peru, who
deemed themselves the children of the Sun, procured a new fire from their
great father at the solstice in June, our Midsummer Day. They kindled it by
holding towards the sun a hollow mirror, which reflected his beams on a
tinder of cotton wool. But if the sky happened to be overcast at the time,
they made the new fire by rubbing two sticks against each other; and they
looked upon it as a bad omen when they were obliged to do this, for they
said the Sun must be angry with them, since he refused to kindle the flame
with his own hand. The sacred fire, however obtained, was deposited at
Cuzco, the capital of Peru, in the temple of the Sun, and also in a great
convent of holy virgins, who guarded it carefully throughout the year, and it
was an evil augury if they suffered it to go out. These virgins were regarded
Wives of the Sun in as the wives of the Sun, and they were bound to
Peru.
perpetual chastity. If any of them proved unfaithful
to her husband the Sun, she was buried alive, like a Roman Vestal, and her
paramour was strangled. The reason for putting her to death in this manner
was probably, as at Rome, a reluctance to shed royal blood; for all these
virgins were of the royal family, being daughters of the Incas or of his
kinsmen. Besides tending the holy fire, they had to weave and make all the
clothes worn by the Inca and his legitimate wife, to bake the bread that was
offered to the Sun at his great festivals, and to brew the wine which the Inca
and his family drank on these occasions. All the furniture of the convent,
down to the pots, pans, and jars, were of gold and silver, just as in the
temple of the Sun, because the virgins were deemed to be his wives. And
they had a golden garden, where the very clods were of fine gold; where
golden maize reared its stalks, leaves and cobs, all of the precious metal;
and where golden shepherds, with slings and crooks of gold, tended golden
sheep and lambs.[792] The analogy of these virgin guardians of the sacred
flame furnishes an argument in favour of the view set forth in the preceding
pages; for if the Peruvian Vestals were the brides of the Sun, may not the
Roman Vestals have been the brides of the Fire?
Virgin priestesses of On the summit of the great pyramidal temple at
fire in Mexico and
Yucatan.
Mexico two fires burned continually on stone
hearths in front of two chapels, and dreadful

misfortunes were supposed to follow if the fires were allowed to go out.
They were kept up by priests and maidens, some of whom had taken a vow
of perpetual virginity. But most of these girls seem to have served only for a
year or more until their marriage. They offered incense to the idols, wove
cloths for the service of the temple, swept the sacred area, and baked the
cakes which were presented to the gods but eaten by their priests. They
were clad all in white, without any ornament. A broom and a censer were
their emblems. Death was the penalty inflicted on the faithless virgin who
polluted by her incontinence the temple of the god.[793] In Yucatan there was
an order of Vestals instituted by a princess, who acted as lady-superior and
was deified after her death under the title of the Virgin of the Fire. The
members enrolled themselves voluntarily either for life or for a term of
years, after which they might marry. Their duty was to tend the sacred fire,
the emblem of the sun. If they broke their vow of chastity or allowed the
fire to go out, they were shot to death with arrows.[794]
Virgin priestesses of Amongst the Baganda of Central Africa there used
fire among the
Baganda.
to be an order of Vestal Virgins (bakaja) who were
attached to the temples of the gods. Their duties
were to keep the fire of the god burning all night, to see that there was a
good supply of firewood, and to watch that the suppliants did not bring to
the deity anything that was tabooed to him. These maidens are also said to
have had charge of some of the vessels. All of them were young girls; no
man might touch them; and when they reached the age of puberty, the god
ordered them to be given in marriage. The place of a girl who thus vacated
office had to be supplied by another girl taken from the same clan.[795]
Resemblance between We have seen that some people commit the task of
the Flamen Dialis of
the Romans and the
making fire by friction to married men; and
Agnihotri or fire- following the opinion of other scholars I have
priest of the conjectured that in some of the Latin tribes the
Brahmans.
duty of kindling and feeding the sacred fire may
have been assigned to the Flamen Dialis, who had always to be married; if
his wife died, he vacated his office.[796] The sanctity of his fire is proved by
the rule that no brand might be taken from his house except for the purpose
of a sacrifice.[797] Further, the importance ascribed to the discharge of his
duties is attested by another old rule which forbade him to be absent from
his house in Rome for a single night.[798] The prohibition would be

intelligible if one of his duties had formerly been to superintend the
maintenance of a perpetual fire. However that may have been, the life of the
priest was regulated by a whole code of curious restrictions or taboos,
which rendered the office so burdensome and vexatious that, in spite of the
high honours attached to the post, for a period of more than seventy years
together no man was found willing to undertake it.[799] Some of these
restrictions will be examined later on.[800] Their similarity to the rules of life
still observed in India by the Brahmans who are fire-priests (Agnihotris)
seems to confirm the view that the Flamen also was originally a fire-priest.
The parallel between the two priesthoods would be all the more remarkable
if, as some scholars hold, the very names Brahman and Flamen are
philologically identical.[801] As to these Brahmanical fire-priests or
Agnihotris we are told that the number of them nowadays is very limited,
because the ceremonies involve heavy expenditure, and the rules which
regulate them are very elaborate and difficult. The offering of food to the
fire at meals is, indeed, one of the five daily duties of every Brahman; but
the regular fire-service is the special duty of the Agnihotri. In order that he
may be ceremonially pure he is bound by certain obligations not to travel or
remain away from home for any long time; to sell nothing which is
produced by himself or his family; to pay little attention to worldly affairs;
to speak the truth; to bathe and worship the deities in the afternoon as well
as in the morning; and to sacrifice to his deceased ancestors on the fifteenth
of every month. He is not allowed to take food at night. He may not eat
alkaline salt, meat, honey, and inferior grain, such as some varieties of
pulse, millet, and the egg plant. He never wears shoes nor sleeps on a bed,
but always on the ground. He is expected to keep awake most of the night
and to study the Shâstras. He may have no connexion with, nor unholy
thoughts regarding, any woman but his wife; and he must abstain from
every other act that involves personal impurity.[802] With these rules we may
compare some of the obligations laid on the Flamen Dialis. In the old days,
as we saw, he was bound never to be absent from his house for a single
night. He might not touch or even name raw meat, beans, ivy, and a she-
goat; he might not eat leavened bread, nor touch a dead body; and the feet
of his bed had always to be smeared with mud.[803] This last rule seems to be
a mitigation of an older custom of sleeping on the ground, a custom which
is still observed by the fire-priest in India, as it was in antiquity by the
priests of Zeus at Dodona.[804] Similarly the priest of the old Prussian god

Potrimpo was bound to sleep on the bare earth for three nights before he
sacrificed to the deity.[805]
Mode in which the Every Agnihotri has a separate room in his house
Agnihotri procures
fresh fire by the
where the sacred fire is kept burning in a small pit
friction of fire-sticks. of a cubit square. Should the fire chance to go out,
the priest must get fresh fire from another priest or
procure it by the friction of fire-sticks (arani). These comprise, first, a block
of sami wood (Prosopis spicigera) in which a small hole is made
emblematical of the female principle (sakti yoni), and, second, an upright
shaft which is made to revolve in the hole of the block by means of a rope.
The point in the drill where the rope is applied to cause it to revolve is
called deva yoni. Two priests take part in the operation. Before they begin
they sing a hymn in honour of the fire-god Agni. When the fire has been
kindled they place it in a copper vessel and sprinkle it with powdered cow-
dung. When it is well alight, they cover it with another copper vessel,
sprinkle it with drops of water, and sing another hymn in honour of Agni.
Finally, the new fire is consigned to the fire-pit.[806] According to another
description of the modern Indian fire-drill, the lower block is usually made
of the hard wood of the khadira or khair tree (Acacia catechu), and it
contains two shallow holes. In one of these holes the revolving drill works
and produces sparks by friction; the other hole contains tinder which is
ignited by means of the sparks. This latter hole is known as the yoni, the
female organ of generation. The upper or revolving portion of the drill is
called the pramantha. It consists of a round shaft of hard wood, with a spike
of softer wood inserted in its lower end. One priest causes the shaft to
revolve by pulling a cord, while another priest presses the spike down into
the hole in the block by leaning hard upon a flat board placed on the top of
the shaft. The spike is generally made of the peepul or sacred fig-tree. When
it has become charred by friction, it is replaced by another.[807] According to
one account, the fire is made in this fashion, not by two priests, but by the
Brahman and his wife; she pulls the cord, while he holds the borer in the
hole and recites the spells necessary for the production of the fire.[808]
The Indian fire-sticks This practice of the modern Agnihotri or fire-priest
made from the sacred
fig and sami wood.
of India is in general accord with the precepts laid
down in the ancient sacred books of his religion.
For these direct that the upper or male stick of the fire-drill should be made

of the sacred fig-tree (asvattha), and the lower or female stick of sami wood
(Prosopis spicigera); and they draw out the analogy between the process of
fire-making and the intercourse of the sexes in minute detail.[809] It deserves
The male fire-stick to be noted that the male fire-stick was cut by
made by preference
from a sacred fig-tree
preference from a sacred fig-tree which grew as a
growing as a parasite parasite on a sami or female tree. The reason for
on the female sami this preference is obvious to the primitive mind. A
tree.
parasite clasping a tree with its tendrils is
conceived as a man embracing a woman, hence a pair of fire-sticks made
from a pair of trees thus interlaced will naturally possess the power of
procreating fire by friction in an unusually high degree.[810] So completely,
in the Hindoo mind, does the process of making fire by friction blend with
the union of the human sexes that it is actually employed as part of a charm
to procure male offspring.[811] Such a confusion of thought helps us to
understand the part played by the domestic fire in the ritual of marriage and
birth as well as in the legends of the miraculous origin of the Latin kings.
[812]
In ancient India the male and the female fire-stick were identified with
King Pururavas and the nymph Urvasi, whose loves and sorrows formed the
theme of a beautiful tale.[813]
The Greeks also Like the ancient Indians, the Greeks seem to have
preferred to make one
of the fire-sticks from
preferred that one of the two fire-sticks should be
a parasitic plant. made from a parasitic or creeping plant. They
recommended that the borer of the fire-drill should
be made of laurel and the board of ivy or another creeper, apparently a kind
of wild vine which grew like ivy upon trees; but in practice both the borer
and the board were sometimes made of other woods, among which
buckthorn, the evergreen oak, and the lime are particularly mentioned.[814]
When we consider the analogy of the Indian preference for a borer made
from a parasite, and remember how deeply rooted in the primitive mind is
the comparison of the friction of the fire-sticks to the union of the sexes, we
The reason for such a shall hardly doubt that the Greeks originally chose
preference is the
analogy of the union
the ivy or wild vine for a fire-stick from motives of
of the sexes. the sort which led the Hindoos to select the wood
of a parasitic fig-tree for the same purpose. But
while the Hindoos regarded the parasite as male and the tree to which it
clung as female, the Greeks of Theophrastus’s time seem to have inverted
this conception, since they recommended that the board, which plays the

part of the female in the fire-drill, should be made of ivy or another creeper,
whereas the borer, which necessarily represents the male, was to be
fashioned out of laurel. This would imply that the ivy was a female and the
laurel a male. Yet in Greek, on the contrary, the word for ivy is masculine,
and the plant was identified mythologically with the male god Dionysus;[815]
whereas the word for laurel is feminine and the tree was identified with a
nymph. Hence we may conjecture that at first the Greeks, like the Hindoos,
regarded the clinging creeper as the male and the tree which it embraced as
the female, and that of old, therefore, they made the borer of the fire-drill
out of ivy and the board out of laurel. If this was so, the reasons which led
them to reverse the usage can only be guessed at. Perhaps practical
convenience had a share in bringing about the change. For the laurel is, as
the late Professor H. Marshall Ward kindly informed me, a harder wood
than the ivy, and to judge by general, though not universal, practice most
people find it easier to make fire by the friction of a hard borer on a soft
board than by rubbing a hard board with a soft point. This, therefore, would
be a reason for making the borer of laurel and the board of ivy. If such a
change took place in the history of the Greek fire-drill, it would be an
interesting example of superstition modified, if not vanquished, by utility in
the struggle for existence.

CHAPTER XVII
THE ORIGIN OF PERPETUAL FIRES

The custom of Whatever superstitions may have gathered about it
maintaining a
perpetual fire
in the course of ages, the custom of maintaining a
probably originated in perpetual fire probably sprang from a simple
the difficulty of consideration of practical convenience. The
making fire by
friction. primitive mode of making fire by the friction of
wood is laborious at all times, and it is especially
so in wet weather. Hence the savage finds it convenient to keep a fire
constantly burning or smouldering in order to spare himself the troubling of
kindling it. This convenience becomes a necessity with people who do not
know how to make fire. That there have been such tribes down to our own
time is affirmed by witnesses whose evidence we have no reason to doubt.
Thus Mr. E. H. Man, who resided eleven years in the Andaman Islands and
was intimately acquainted with the natives, tells us that, being ignorant of
Some races said to be the art of making fire, they take the utmost pains to
ignorant of the means
of making fire.
prevent its extinction. When they leave a camp
intending to return in a few days, they not only
take with them one or more smouldering logs, wrapped in leaves if the
weather be wet, but they also place a large burning log or faggot of suitable
wood in some sheltered spot, where it smoulders for several days and can
be easily rekindled when it is needed. While it is the business of the women
to gather the wood, the duty of keeping up the fires both at home and in
travelling by land or sea is not confined to them, but is undertaken by
persons of either sex who have most leisure or are least burdened.[816] The
Russian traveller, Baron Miklucho-Maclay, who lived among the natives of
the Maclay coast of northern New Guinea at a time when they had hardly
come into contact with Europeans, writes: “It is remarkable that here almost
all the inhabitants of the coast possess no means whatever of making fire,
hence they always and everywhere carry burning or glowing brands about

with them. If they go in the morning to the plantation they carry a half-burnt
brand from their hearth in order to kindle a fire at the corner of the
plantation. If they go on a longer journey into the mountains, they again
take fire with them for the purpose of smoking, since their cigars, wrapped
in green leaves, continually go out. On sea voyages they usually keep
glowing coals in a half-broken pot partly filled with earth. The people who
remain behind in the village never forget to keep up the fire.” They
repeatedly told him that they had often to go to other villages to fetch fire
when the fires in all the huts of their own village had chanced to go out. Yet
the same traveller tells us that the mountain tribes of this part of New
Guinea, such as the Englam-Mana and Tiengum-Mana, know how to make
fire by friction. They partially cleave a log of dry wood with a stone axe and
then draw a stout cord, formed of a split creeper, rapidly to and fro in the
cleft, till sparks fly out and set fire to a tinder of dry coco-nut fibres.[817] It is
odd that the people of the coast should not have learned this mode of
producing fire from their neighbours in the mountains. The Russian
explorer’s observations, however, have been confirmed by German writers.
One of them, a Mr. Hoffmann, says of these people: “In every house care is
taken that fire burns day and night on the hearth. For this purpose they
choose a kind of wood which burns slowly, but glimmers for a long time
and retains its glow. When a man sets out on a journey or goes to the field
he has always a glimmering brand with him. If he wishes to make fire, he
waves the smouldering wood to and fro till it bursts into a glow.” On
frequented paths, crossways, and so forth, you may often see trunks of trees
lying which have been felled for the purpose of being ignited and furnishing
fire to passers-by. Such trees continue to smoulder for weeks.[818] Similarly
the dwarf tribes of Central Africa “do not know how to kindle a fire quickly,
and in order to get one readily at any moment they keep the burning trunks
of fallen trees in suitable spots, and watch over their preservation like the
Vestals of old.”[819] It seems to be at least doubtful whether these dwarfs of
the vast and gloomy equatorial forests are acquainted with the art of making
fire at all. A German traveller observes that the care which they take to
preserve fire is extremely remarkable. “It appears,” he says, “that the
pygmies, as other travellers have reported, do not know how to kindle fire
by rubbing sticks against each other. Like the Wambuba of the forest, in
leaving a camp, they take with them a thick glowing brand, and carry it,
often for hours, in order to light a fire at their next halting place.”[820]

Fire kindled by Whether or not tribes ignorant of the means of
natural causes was
probably used by men
making fire have survived to modern times, it
long before they seems likely that mankind possessed and used fire
learned to make it for long before they learned how to kindle it. In the
themselves.
violent thunderstorms which accompany the end of
the dry season in Central and Eastern Africa, it is not uncommon for the
lightning to strike and ignite a tree, from which the fire soon spreads to the
withered herbage, till a great conflagration is started. From a source of this
sort a savage tribe may have first obtained fire, and the same thing may
have happened independently in many parts of the world.[821] Other people,
perhaps, procured fire from volcanoes, the lava of which will, under
favourable circumstances, remain hot enough to kindle shavings of wood
years after an eruption has taken place.[822] Others again may have lit their
first fire at the jets of inflammable gas which spring from the ground in
various parts of the world, notably at Baku on the Caspian, where the
flames burn day and night, summer and winter, to a height of fifteen or
twenty feet.[823] It is harder to conjecture how man first learned the great
secret of making fire by friction. The discovery was perhaps made by jungle
or forest races, who saw dry bamboos or branches thus ignited by rubbing
against each other in a high wind. Fires are sometimes started in this way in
the forests of New Zealand.[824] It has also been suggested that savages may
have accidentally elicited a flame for the first time in the process of
chipping flints over dry moss, or boring holes with hard sticks in soft wood.
[825]

Many savages carry But even when the art of fire-making has been
fire constantly with
them as a matter of
acquired, the process itself is so laborious that
convenience. many savages keep fire always burning rather than
be at the trouble of extracting it by friction. This,
for example, was true of the roving Australian aborigines before they
obtained matches from the whites. On their wanderings they carried about
with them pieces of smouldering bark or cones of the Banksia tree
wherewith to kindle their camp fires.[826] The duty of thus transporting fire
from one place to another seems commonly to have fallen to the women.
“A stick, a piece of decayed wood, or more often the beautiful seed-stem of
the Banksia, is lighted at the fire the woman is leaving; and from her bag,
which, in damp weather, she would keep filled with dry cones, or from
materials collected in the forest, she would easily, during her journey,

preserve the fire got at the last encampment.”[827] Another writer tells us that
the Australian native always had his fire-stick with him, and if his wife let it
go out, so much the worse for her. The dark brown velvety-looking core of
the Banksia is very retentive of fire and burns slowly, so that one of these
little fire-sticks would last a considerable time, and a bag of them would
suffice for a whole day.[828] The Tasmanians knew how to make fire by
twirling the point of a stick in a piece of soft bark; “but as it was difficult at
times to obtain fire by this means, especially in wet weather, they generally,
in their peregrinations, carried with them a fire-stick lighted at their last
encampment.”[829] With them, as with the Australians, it was the special task
of the women to keep the fire-brand alight and to carry it from place to
place.[830] When the natives of Materbert, off New Britain, are on a voyage
they carry fire with them. For this purpose they press some of the soft
fibrous husk of the ripe coco-nut into a coco-nut shell, and then place a red-
hot ember in the middle of it. This will smoulder for three or four days, and
from it they obtain a light for their fires wherever they may land.[831] The
Polynesians made fire by the friction of wood, rubbing a score in a board
with a sharp-pointed stick till the dust so produced kindled into sparks,
which were caught in a tinder of dry leaves or grass. While they rubbed,
they chanted a prayer or hymn till the fire appeared. But in wet weather the
task of fire-making was laborious, so at such times the natives usually
carried fire about with them in order to avoid the trouble of kindling it.[832]
The Fuegians make fire by striking two lumps of iron pyrites together and
letting the sparks fall on birds’ down or on dry moss, which serves as tinder.
But rather than be at the pains of doing this they carry fire with them
everywhere, both by sea and land, taking great care to prevent its extinction.
[833]
The Caingua Indians of Paraguay make fire in the usual way by the fire-
drill, but to save themselves trouble they keep fire constantly burning in
their huts by means of great blocks of wood.[834] The Indians of Guiana also
produce fire by twirling the point of one stick in the hole of another, but
they seldom need to resort to this laborious process, for they keep fire
burning in every house, and on long journeys they usually carry a large
piece of smouldering timber in their canoes. Even in walking across the
savannah an Indian will sometimes take a fire-brand with him.[835] The
Jaggas, a Bantu tribe in the Kilimanjaro district of East Africa, keep up fire
day and night in their huts on account of their cattle. If it goes out, the
women fetch glowing brands from a neighbour’s house; these they carry

wrapped up in banana leaves. Thus they convey fire for great distances,
sometimes the whole day long. Hence they seldom need to kindle fire,
though the men can make it readily by means of the fire-drill.[836] The tribes
of British Central Africa also know how to produce fire in this fashion, but
they do not often put their knowledge in practice. For there is sure to be a
burning brand on one or other of the hearths of the village from which a fire
can be lit; and when men go on a journey they take smouldering sticks with
them and nurse the glowing wood rather than be at the trouble of making
fire by friction.[837] In the huts of the Ibos on the lower Niger burning
embers are always kept and never allowed to go out.[838] And this is the
regular practice among all the tribes of West Africa who have not yet
obtained matches. If the fire in a house should go out, a woman will run to a
neighbour’s hut and fetch a burning stick from the hearth. Hence in most of
their villages fire has probably not needed to be made for years and years.
Among domesticated tribes, like the Effiks or Agalwa, when the men are
going out to the plantation they will enclose a burning stick in a hollow
piece of a certain kind of wood, which has a lining of its pith left in it, and
they will carry this “fire-box” with them.[839]
The theft of fire by Before the introduction of matches Greek peasants
Prometheus.
used to convey fire from place to place in a stalk of
giant fennel. The stalks of the plant are about five feet long by three inches
thick, and are encased in a hard bark. The core of the stalk consists of a
white pith which, when it is dry, burns slowly like a wick without injury to
the bark.[840] Thus when Prometheus, according to the legend, stole the first
fire from heaven and brought it down to earth hidden in a stalk of giant
fennel,[841] he carried his fire just as every Greek peasant and mariner did on
a journey.
When people settled When a tribe ceased to be nomadic and had settled
in villages, it would
be convenient to keep
in more or less permanent villages, it would be a
up a perpetual fire in convenient custom to keep a fire perpetually
the house of the head burning in every house. Such a custom, as we have
man.
seen, has been observed by various peoples, and it
appears to have prevailed universally among all branches of the Aryans.[842]
Arnobius implies that it was formerly practised by the Romans, though in
his own time the usage had fallen into abeyance.[843] But it would be
obviously desirable that there should be some one place in the village where

every housewife could be sure of obtaining fire without having to kindle it
by friction, if her own should chance to go out. The most natural spot to
look for it would be the hearth of the head man of the village, who would
come in time to be regarded as responsible for its maintenance. This is what
seems to have happened not only among the Herero of South Africa and the
Latin peoples of Italy, but also among the ancestors of the Greeks; for in
ancient Greece the perpetual fire kept up in the Prytaneum, or town-hall,
was at first apparently the fire on the king’s hearth.[844] From this simple
origin may have sprung the custom which in various parts of the world
associates the maintenance of a perpetual fire with chiefly or royal dignity.
Hence the Thus it was a distinguishing mark of the
maintenance of a
perpetual fire came to
chieftainship of one of the Samoan nobility, that
be associated with his fire never went out. His attendants had a
chiefly or royal particular name, from their special business of
dignity.
keeping his fire ablaze all night long while he
[845]
slept. Among the Gallas the maintenance of a perpetual fire, even when
it serves no practical purpose, is a favourite mode of asserting high rank,
and the chiefs often indulge in it.[846] The Chitomé, a grand pontiff in the
kingdom of Congo, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, kept up in his
hut, day and night, a sacred fire, of which he dispensed brands to such as
came to ask for them and could pay for them. He is said to have done a
good business in fire, for the infatuated people believed that it preserved
them from many accidents.[847] In Uganda a perpetual sacred fire, supposed
to have come down to earth with the first man Kintu, is maintained by a
chief, who is put to death if he suffers it to be extinguished. From this
sacred fire the king’s fire (gombolola) is lighted and kept constantly burning
at the gate of the royal enclosure during the whole of his reign. By day it
burns in a small hut, but at night it is brought out and set in a little hole in
the ground, where it blazes brightly till daybreak, whatever the weather may
be. When the king journeys the fire goes with him, and when he dies it is
extinguished. The death of a king is indeed announced to the people by the
words, “The fire has gone out.” A man who bears a special title is charged
with the duty of maintaining the fire, and of looking after all the fuel and
torches used in the royal enclosure. When the king dies the guardian of his
fire is strangled near the hearth.[848] Similarly in Dageou, a country to the
west of Darfur, it is said that a custom prevailed of kindling a fire on the
inauguration of a king and keeping it alight till his death.[849] Among the

Mucelis of Angola, when the king of Amboin or Sanga dies, all fires in the
kingdom are extinguished. Afterwards the new king makes new fire by
rubbing two sticks against each other.[850] Such a custom is probably nothing
more than an extension of the practice of putting out a chief’s own fire at
his death. Similarly, when a new Muata Jamwo, a great potentate in the
interior of Angola, comes to the throne, one of his first duties is to make a
new fire by the friction of wood, for the old fire may not be used.[851] Before
the palace gate of the king of Siam there burns, or used to burn, a perpetual
fire, which was said to have been lit from heaven with a fiery ball.[852]
Perpetual fire Among the Natchez Indians of the lower
maintained by the
chief called the Great
Mississippi a perpetual fire, supposed to have been
Sun among the brought down from the sun, was maintained in a
Natchez Indians. square temple which stood beside the hut of the
supreme chief of the nation. He bore the title of the Great Sun, and believed
himself to be a descendant or brother of the luminary his namesake. Every
morning when the sun rose he blew three whiffs of his pipe towards it, and
raising his hands above his head, and turning from east to west, he marked
out the course which the bright orb was to pursue in the sky. The sacred fire
in the temple was fed with logs of walnut or oak, and the greatest care was
taken to prevent its extinction; for such an event would have been thought
to put the whole nation in jeopardy. Eight men were appointed to guard the
fire, two of whom were bound to be always on watch; and the Great Sun
himself looked to the maintenance of the fire with anxious attention. If any
of the guardians of the fire failed to do his duty, the rule was that he should
be put to death. When the great chief died his bones were deposited in the
temple, along with the bones of many attendants who were strangled in
order that their souls might wait upon him in the spirit land. On such an
occasion the chief’s fire was extinguished, and this was the signal for
putting out all the other fires in the country. Every village had also its own
temple in which a perpetual fire was maintained under the guardianship of a
subordinate chief. These lesser chiefs also bore the title of Suns, but
acknowledged the supremacy of the head chief, the Great Sun. All of these
Suns were supposed to be descended from a man and woman who had
come down from the luminary from which they took their names. There
were female Suns as well as male Suns, but they might not marry among
themselves; they had always to mate with a woman or a man of lower rank.
Their nobility was transmitted in the maternal line; that is, the children of a