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Title: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third
Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

Author: James George Frazer

Release date: July 9, 2013 [eBook #43433]
Most recently updated: August 9, 2013

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43433

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN
BOUGH: A STUDY IN MAGIC AND RELIGION (THIRD EDITION,
VOL. 11 OF 12) ***

The Golden Bough

A Study in Magic and Religion
By

James George Frazer, D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

Professor of Social Anthropology in the University of Liverpool

Vol. XI. of XII.

Part VII: Balder the Beautiful.

The Fire-Festivals of Europe and the Doctrine of the External Soul.

Vol. 2 of 2.

New York and London

MacMillan and Co.

1913

Contents

Chapter VI. Fire-Festivals in Other Lands.
§ 1. The Fire-walk.
§ 2. The Meaning of the Fire-walk.
Chapter VII. The Burning of Human Beings in the Fires.
§ 1. The Burning of Effigies in the Fires.
§ 2. The Burning of Men and Animals in the Fires.
Chapter VIII. The Magic Flowers of Midsummer Eve.
Chapter IX. Balder and the Mistletoe.
Chapter X. The Eternal Soul in Folk-Tales.
Chapter XI. The External Soul in Folk-Custom.
§ 1. The External Soul in Inanimate Things.
§ 2. The External Soul in Plants.
§ 3. The External Soul in Animals.
§ 4. A Suggested Theory of Totemism.
§ 5. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection.
Chapter XII. The Golden Bough.
Chapter XIII. Farewell to Nemi.
Notes.
I. Snake Stones.
II. The Transformation of Witches Into Cats.
III. African Balders.
IV. The Mistletoe and the Golden Bough.
Index.
Footnotes

[Transcriber's Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]

[pg 001]

Chapter VI. Fire-Festivals in Other Lands.

§ 1. The Fire-walk.

At first sight the interpretation of the European fire customs as charms for
making sunshine is confirmed by a parallel custom observed by the
t Hindoos of Southern India at the Pongol or Feast of Ingathering. The
l festival is celebrated in the early part of January, when, according to Hindoo
n astrologers, the sun enters the tropic of Capricorn, and the chief event of the
festival coincides with the passage of the sun. For some days previously the
boys gather heaps of sticks, straw, dead leaves, and everything that will
burn. On the morning of the first day of the festival the heaps are fired.
Every street and lane has its bonfire. The young folk leap over the flames or
pile on fresh fuel. This fire is an offering to Sûrya, the sun-god, or to Agni,
the deity of fire; it “wakes him from his sleep, calling on him again to
gladden the earth with his light and heat.”1 If this is indeed the explanation
which the people themselves give of the festival, it seems decisive in favour
of the solar explanation of the fires; for to say that the fires waken the sun-
god from his sleep is only a metaphorical or mythical way of saying that
they actually help to rekindle the sun's light and heat. But the hesitation
which the writer indicates between the two distinct deities of sun and fire
seems to prove that he is merely giving his own interpretation of the rite,
not reporting the views of the celebrants. If [pg 002] that is so, the
expression of his opinion has no claim to authority.

A festival of Northern India which presents points of resemblance to the
popular European celebrations which we have been considering is the Holi.
t This is a village festival held in early spring at the full moon of the month
i Phalgun. Large bonfires are lit and young people dance round them. The
n people believe that the fires prevent blight, and that the ashes cure disease.
At Barsana the local village priest is expected to pass through the Holi
e bonfire, which, in the opinion of the faithful, cannot burn him. Indeed he
holds his land rent-free simply on the score of his being fire-proof. On one
occasion when the priest disappointed the expectant crowd by merely
jumping over the outermost verge of the smouldering ashes and then bolting

s into his cell, they threatened to deprive him of his benefice if he did not
discharge his spiritual functions better when the next Holi season came
round. Another feature of the festival which has, or once had, its counterpart
in the corresponding European ceremonies is the unchecked profligacy
2
e which prevails among the Hindoos at this time. In Kumaon, a district of
f North-West India, at the foot of the Himalayas, each clan celebrates the
Holi festival by cutting down a tree, which is thereupon stripped of its
f leaves, decked with shreds of cloth, and burnt at some convenient place in
the quarter of the town inhabited by the clan. Some of the songs sung on
this occasion are of a ribald character. The people leap over the ashes of the
fire, believing that they thus rid themselves of itch and other diseases of the
skin. While the trees are burning, each clan tries to carry off strips of cloth
from the tree of another clan, and success in the attempt is thought to ensure
good luck. In Gwalior large heaps of cow-dung are burnt instead of trees.
Among the Marwaris the festival is celebrated by the women with obscene
songs [pg 003] and gestures. A monstrous and disgusting image of a certain
Nathuram, who is said to have been a notorious profligate, is set up in a
bazaar and then smashed with blows of shoes and bludgeons while the
bonfire of cow-dung is blazing. No household can be without an image of
Nathuram, and on the night when the bride first visits her husband, the
image of this disreputable personage is placed beside her couch. Barren
women and mothers whose children have died look to Nathuram for
deliverance from their troubles.3 Various stories are told to account for the
origin of the Holi festival. According to one legend it was instituted in order
to get rid of a troublesome demon (rákshasí). The people were directed to
kindle a bonfire and circumambulate it, singing and uttering fearlessly
whatever might come into their minds. Appalled by these vociferations, by
the oblations to fire, and by the laughter of the children, the demon was to
be destroyed.4

In the Chinese province of Fo-Kien we also meet with a vernal festival of
fire which may be compared to the fire-festivals of Europe. The ceremony,
according to an eminent authority, is a solar festival in honour of the
f renewal of vegetation and of the vernal warmth. It falls in April, on the
n thirteenth day of the third month in the Chinese calendar, and is doubtless
connected with the ancient custom of renewing the fire, which, as we saw,
used to be observed in China at this season.5 The chief performers in the

e ceremony are labourers, who refrain from women for seven days, and fast
for three days before the festival. During these days they are taught in the
temple how to discharge the difficult and dangerous duty which is to be laid
upon them. On the eve of the festival an enormous brazier of charcoal,
sometimes twenty feet wide, is prepared in front of the temple of the Great
God, the protector of life. At sunrise next morning the brazier is lighted and
kept [pg 004] burning by fresh supplies of fuel. A Taoist priest throws a
f mixture of salt and rice on the fire to conjure the flames and ensure an
e abundant year. Further, two exorcists, barefooted and followed by two
peasants, traverse the fire again and again till it is somewhat beaten down.
e Meantime the procession is forming in the temple. The image of the god of
f the temple is placed in a sedan-chair, resplendent with red paint and gilding,
and is carried forth by a score or more of barefooted peasants. On the shafts
of the sedan-chair, behind the image, stands a magician with a dagger stuck
through the upper parts of his arms and grasping in each hand a great
sword, with which he essays to deal himself violent blows on the back;
however, the strokes as they descend are mostly parried by peasants, who
walk behind him and interpose bamboo rods between his back and the
swords. Wild music now strikes up, and under the excitement caused by its
stirring strains the procession passes thrice across the furnace. At their third
passage the performers are followed by other peasants carrying the utensils
of the temple; and the rustic mob, electrified by the frenzied spectacle, falls
in behind. Strange as it may seem, burns are comparatively rare. Inured
from infancy to walking barefoot, the peasants can step with impunity over
the glowing charcoal, provided they plant their feet squarely and do not
stumble; for usage has so hardened their soles that the skin is converted into
a sort of leathery or horny substance which is almost callous to heat. But
sometimes, when they slip and a hot coal touches the sides of their feet or
ankles, they may be seen to pull a wry face and jump out of the furnace
amid the laughter of the spectators. When this part of the ceremony is over,
the procession defiles round the village, and the priests distribute to every
family a leaf of yellow paper inscribed with a magic character, which is
thereupon glued over the door of the house. The peasants carry off the
charred embers from the furnace, pound them to ashes, and mix the ashes
with the fodder of their cattle, believing that it fattens them. However, the
Chinese Government disapproves of these performances, and next morning
a number of the performers may generally be seen in the hands of the

police, laid face downwards on the ground and receiving a sound
castigation on a [pg 005] part of their person which is probably more
sensitive than the soles of their feet.6

In this last festival the essential feature of the ceremony appears to be the
passage of the image of the deity across the fire; it may be compared to the
f passage of the straw effigy of Kupalo across the midsummer bonfire in
e Russia.7 As we shall see presently, such customs may perhaps be interpreted
e as magical rites designed to produce light and warmth by subjecting the
deity himself to the heat and glow of the furnace; and where, as at Barsana,
priests or sorcerers have been accustomed in the discharge of their functions
to walk through or over fire, they have sometimes done so as the living
f representatives or embodiments of deities, spirits, or other supernatural
beings. Some confirmation of this view is furnished by the beliefs and
practices of the Dosadhs, a low Indian caste in Behar and Chota Nagpur. On
the fifth, tenth, and full-moon days of three months in the year, the priest
n walks over a narrow trench filled with smouldering wood ashes, and is
supposed thus to be inspired by the tribal god Rahu, who becomes incarnate
in him for a time. Full of the spirit and also, it is surmised, of drink, the man
of god then mounts a bamboo platform, where he sings hymns and
distributes to the crowd leaves of tulsi, which cure incurable diseases, and
flowers which cause barren women to become happy mothers. The service
winds up with a feast lasting far into the night, at which the line that divides
religious fervour from drunken revelry cannot always be drawn with
absolute precision.8 Similarly the Bhuiyas, a Dravidian tribe of Mirzapur,
worship [pg 006] their tribal hero Bir by walking over a short trench filled
with fire, and they say that the man who is possessed by the hero does not
feel any pain in the soles of his feet.9 Ceremonies of this sort used to be
observed in most districts of the Madras Presidency, sometimes in discharge
of vows made in time of sickness or distress, sometimes periodically in
honour of a deity. Where the ceremony was observed periodically, it
generally occurred in March or June, which are the months of the vernal
equinox and the summer solstice respectively. A narrow trench, sometimes
twenty yards long and half a foot deep, was filled with small sticks and
twigs, mostly of tamarind, which were kindled and kept burning till they
sank into a mass of glowing embers. Along this the devotees, often fifty or
sixty in succession, walked, ran, or leaped barefoot. In 1854 the Madras

Government instituted an enquiry into the custom, but found that it was not
attended by danger or instances of injury sufficient to call for governmental
interference.10

The French traveller Sonnerat has described how, in the eighteenth century,
the Hindoos celebrated a fire-festival of this sort in honour of the god
Darma Rajah and his wife [pg 007] Drobedé (Draupadi). The festival lasted
eighteen days, during which all who had vowed to take part in it were
n bound to fast, to practise continence, to sleep on the ground without a mat,
f and to walk on a furnace. On the eighteenth day the images of Darma Rajah
and his spouse were carried in procession to the furnace, and the performers
d followed dancing, their heads crowned with flowers and their bodies
smeared with saffron. The furnace consisted of a trench about forty feet
long, filled with hot embers. When the images had been carried thrice round
g it, the worshippers walked over the embers, faster or slower, according to
the degree of their religious fervour, some carrying their children in their
arms, others brandishing spears, swords, and standards. This part of the
ceremony being over, the bystanders hastened to rub their foreheads with
ashes from the furnace, and to beg from the performers the flowers which
they had worn in their hair; and such as obtained them preserved the
flowers carefully. The rite was performed in honour of the goddess Drobedé
(Draupadi), the heroine of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. For she
married five brothers all at once; every year she left one of her husbands to
betake herself to another, but before doing so she had to purify herself by
fire. There was no fixed date for the celebration of the rite, but it could only
be held in one of the first three months of the year.11 In some villages the
ceremony is performed annually; in others, which cannot afford the expense
every year, it is observed either at longer intervals, perhaps once in three,
seven, ten, or twelve years, or only in special emergencies, such as the
outbreak of smallpox, cholera, or plague. Anybody but a pariah or other
person of very low degree may take part in the ceremony in fulfilment of a
vow. For example, if a man suffers from some chronic malady, he may vow
to Draupadi that, should he be healed of his disease, he will walk over the
fire at her festival. As a preparation for the solemnity he sleeps in the
temple and observes a fast. The celebration of the rite in any village is
believed to protect the cattle and the crops and to guard the inhabitants from
dangers of all kinds. When it is over, many people carry [pg 008] home the

holy ashes of the fire as a talisman which will drive away devils and
demons.12

The Badagas, an agricultural tribe of the Neilgherry Hills in Southern India,
annually celebrate a festival of fire in various parts of their country. For
example, at Nidugala the festival is held with much ceremony in the month
f of January. Omens are taken by boiling two pots of milk side by side on two
hearths. If the milk overflows uniformly on all sides, the crops will be
n abundant for all the villages; but if it flows over on one side only, the
harvest will be good for villages on that side only. The sacred fire is made
by friction, a vertical stick of Rhodomyrtus tomentosus being twirled by
e means of a cord in a socket let into a thick bough of Debregeasia velutina.
y With this holy flame a heap of wood of two sorts, the Eugenia Jambolana
and Phyllanthus Emblica, is kindled, and the hot embers are spread over a
fire-pit about five yards long and three yards broad. When all is ready, the
priest ties bells on his legs and approaches the fire-pit, carrying milk freshly
drawn from a cow which has calved for the first time, and also bearing
flowers of Rhododendron arboreum, Leucas aspera, or jasmine. After doing
obeisance, he throws the flowers on the embers and then pours some of the
e milk over them. If the omens are propitious, that is, if the flowers remain
for a few seconds unscorched and the milk does not hiss when it falls on the
embers, the priest walks boldly over the embers and is followed by a crowd
of celebrants, who before they submit to the ordeal count the hairs on their
feet. If any of the hairs are found to be singed after the passage through the
fire-pit, it is an ill omen. Sometimes the Badagas drive their cattle, which
a have recovered from sickness, over the hot embers in performance of a
f vow.13 At Melur, another place of the Badagas in the [pg 009] Neilgherry
d Hills, three, five, or seven men are chosen to walk through the fire at the
festival; and before they perform the ceremony they pour into an adjacent
stream milk from cows which have calved for the first time during the year.
A general feast follows the performance of the rite, and next day the land is
ploughed and sown for the first time that season. At Jakkaneri, another
place of the Badagas in the Neilgherry Hills, the passage through the fire at
the festival “seems to have originally had some connection with agricultural
prospects, as a young bull is made to go partly across the fire-pit before the
other devotees, and the owners of young cows which have had their first
calves during the year take precedence of others in the ceremony, and bring

offerings of milk, which are sprinkled over the burning embers.”14
According to another account the ceremony among the Badagas was
performed every second year at a harvest festival, and the performers were
a set of degenerate Brahmans called Haruvarus, who “used to walk on
burning coals with bare feet, pretending that the god they worshipped could
allay the heat and make fire like cold water to them. As they only remained
a few seconds, however, on the coals, it was impossible that they could
receive much injury.”15

In Japan the fire-walk is performed as a religious rite twice a year at a
temple in the Kanda quarter of Tokio. One of the performances takes place
in September. It was witnessed in the year 1903 by the wife of an American
n naval officer, who has described it. In a court of the temple a bed of
charcoal about six yards long, two yards wide, and two feet deep was laid
down and covered with a deep layer of straw. Being ignited, the straw
blazed up, and when the flames had died down the bed of hot charcoal was
fanned by attendants into a red glow. Priests dressed in robes of white
cotton then walked round the fire, striking sparks from flint and steel and
carrying trays full of salt. When mats had been laid down at the two ends of
the fire and salt poured on them, the priests rubbed their bare feet twice in
the salt and then walked calmly down the middle of the fire. [pg 010] They
were followed by a number of people, including some boys and a woman
with a baby in her arms. “The Shintoists claim that, having been perfectly
purified by their prayers and ceremonies, no evil has any power over them.
Fire they regard as the very spirit of evil; so twice a year, I believe, they go
through this fire-walking as a kind of ‘outward and visible sign of inward
spiritual grace.’ ”16

In the island of Mbengga, one of the Fijian archipelago, once every year a
dracaena, which grows in profusion on the grassy hillsides, becomes fit to
yield the sugar of which its fibrous root is full. To render the roots edible it
n is necessary to bake them among hot stones for four days. A great pit is dug
and filled with great stones and blazing logs, and when the flames have died
down and the stones are at white heat, the oven is ready to receive the roots.
At this moment the members of a certain clan called Na Ivilankata,
favoured of the gods, leap into the oven and walk unharmed upon the hot
stones, which would scorch the feet of any other persons. On one occasion

when the ceremony was witnessed by Europeans fifteen men of the clan,
dressed in garlands and fringes, walked unscathed through the furnace,
where tongues of fire played among the hot stones. The pit was about
nineteen feet wide and the men marched round it, planting their feet
squarely and firmly on each stone. When they emerged from the pit, [pg
011] the feet of several were examined and shewed no trace of scorching;
even the anklets of dried tree-fern leaves which they wore on their legs
were unburnt. The immunity thus enjoyed by members of the clan in the
fiery furnace is explained by a legend that in former days a chief of the
clan, named Tui Nkualita, received for himself and his descendants this
remarkable privilege from a certain god, whom the chief had accidentally
dragged out of a deep pool of water by the hair of his head.17 A similar
ceremony of walking through fire, or rather over a furnace of hot charcoal
or hot stones, has also been observed in Tahiti,18 the Marquesas Islands,19
and by Hindoo coolies in the West Indian island of Trinidad;20 but the eye-
witnesses who have described the rite, as it is observed in these islands,
have said little or nothing as to its meaning and purpose, their whole
attention having been apparently concentrated on the heat of the furnace
and the state of the performers' legs before and after passing through it.

“Another grand custom of the Hottentots, which they likewise term
andersmaken, is the driving their sheep at certain times through the fire.
Early in the day appointed by a kraal for the observance of this custom, the
f women [pg 012] milk all their cows, and set the whole produce before their
husbands. 'Tis a strict rule at those times that the women neither taste, nor
suffer their children to touch, a drop of it. The whole quantity is sacred to
the men, who drink it all up before they address themselves to the business
d of the fire. Having consumed the milk, some go and bring the sheep
together to the place where the fire is to be lighted, while others repair to
the place to light it. The fire is made of chips and dry twigs and thinly
spread into a long square. Upon the coming up of the sheep, the fire,
scattered into this figure, is covered with green twigs to raise a great smoak;
and a number of men range themselves closely on both sides of it, making a
lane for the sheep to pass through, and extending themselves to a good
distance beyond the fire on the side where the sheep are to enter. Things
being in this posture, the sheep are driven into the lane close up to the fire,
which now smoaks in the thickest clouds. The foremost boggle, and being

forced forward by the press behind, seek their escape by attempting
breaches in the ranks. The men stand close and firm, and whoop and goad
them forward; when a few hands, planted at the front of the fire, catch three
or four of the foremost sheep by the head, and drag them through, and bring
them round into the sight of the rest; which sometimes upon this, the
whooping and goading continuing, follow with a tantivy, jumping and
pouring themselves through the fire and smoak with a mighty clattering and
fury. At other times they are not so tractable, but put the Hottentots to the
trouble of dragging numbers of them through; and sometimes, in a great
press and fright, sturdily attacking the ranks, they make a breach and
escape. This is a very mortifying event at all times, the Hottentots, upon
whatever account, looking upon it as a heavy disgrace and a very ill omen
into the bargain. But when their labours here are attended with such
success, that the sheep pass readily through or over the fire, 'tis hardly in the
power of language to describe them in all the sallies of their joy.” The
writer who thus describes the custom had great difficulty in extracting an
explanation of it from the Hottentots. At last one of them informed him that
their country was much infested by wild dogs, which made terrible [pg 013]
havoc among the cattle, worrying the animals to death even when they did
not devour them. “Now we have it,” he said, “from our ancestors, that if
sheep are driven through the fire, as we say, that is, through a thick smoak,
the wild dogs will not be fond of attacking them while the scent of the
smoak remains upon their fleeces. We therefore from time to time, for the
security of our flocks, perform this andersmaken.”21

When disease breaks out in a herd of the Nandi, a pastoral tribe of British
East Africa, a large bonfire is made with the wood of a certain tree (Olea
chrysophilla), and brushwood of two sorts of shrubs is thrown on the top.
Then the sick herd is driven to the fire, and while the animals are standing
e near it, a sheep big with young is brought to them and anointed with milk
e by an elder, after which it is strangled by two men belonging to clans that
d may intermarry. The intestines are then inspected, and if the omens prove
favourable, the meat is roasted and eaten; moreover rings are made out of
the skin and worn by the cattle-owners. After the meat has been eaten, the
herd is driven round the fire, and milk is poured on each beast.22 When their
cattle are sick, the Zulus of Natal will collect their herds in a kraal, where a
medicine-man kindles a fire, burns medicine in it, and so fumigates the

cattle with the medicated smoke. Afterwards he sprinkles the herd with a
decoction, and, taking some melted fat of the dead oxen in his mouth,
squirts it on a fire-brand and holds the brand to each animal in succession.23
Such a custom is probably equivalent to the Hottentot and European
practice of driving cattle through a fire.

Among the Indians of Yucatan the year which was marked in their calendar
by the sign of Cauac was reputed to be very unlucky; they thought that in
f the course of it the death-rate would be high, the maize crops would be
withered up by the extreme heat of the sun, and what remained of the
r harvest would be devoured by swarms of ants and birds. To avert these
s calamities they used to erect a great pyre of [pg 014] wood, to which most
persons contributed a faggot. Having danced about it during the day, they
set fire to it at night-fall, and when the flames had died down, they spread
out the red embers and walked or ran barefoot over them, some of them
escaping unsmirched by the flames, but others burning themselves more or
less severely. In this way they hoped to conjure away the evils that
threatened them, and to undo the sinister omens of the year.24

Similar rites were performed at more than one place in classical antiquity.
At Castabala, in Cappadocia, the priestesses of an Asiatic goddess, whom
the Greeks called Artemis Perasia, used to walk barefoot through a furnace
n of hot charcoal and take no harm.25 Again, at the foot of Mount Soracte, in
Italy, there was a sanctuary of a goddess Feronia, where once a year the
men of certain families walked barefoot, but unscathed, over the glowing
embers and ashes of a great fire of pinewood in presence of a vast
multitude, who had assembled from all the country round about to pay their
devotions to the deity or to ply their business at the fair. The families from
t whom the performers of the rite were drawn went by the name of Hirpi
Sorani, or “Soranian Wolves”; and in consideration of the services which
they rendered the state by walking through the fire, they were exempted, by
a special decree of the senate, from military service and all public burdens.
In the discharge of their sacred function, if we can trust the testimony of
Strabo, they were believed to be inspired by the goddess Feronia. The
ceremony certainly took place in her sanctuary, which was held in the
highest reverence alike by Latins and Sabines; but according to Virgil and
Pliny the rite was performed in honour of the god of the mountain, whom

they call by the Greek name of Apollo, but whose real name appears to have
been Soranus.26 If Soranus was a sun-god, as his [pg 015] name has by
some been thought to indicate,27 we might perhaps conclude that the
passage of his priests through the fire was a magical ceremony designed to
procure a due supply of light and warmth for the earth by mimicking the
sun's passage across the firmament. For so priceless a service, rendered at
some personal risk, it would be natural that the magicians should be
handsomely rewarded by a grateful country, and that they should be
released from the common obligations of earth in order the better to devote
themselves to their celestial mission. The neighbouring towns paid the first-
fruits of their harvest as tribute to the shrine, and loaded it besides with
offerings of gold and silver, of which, however, it was swept clean by
Hannibal when he hung with his dusky army, like a storm-cloud about to
break, within sight of the sentinels on the walls of Rome.28

§ 2. The Meaning of the Fire-walk.

The foregoing customs, observed in many different parts of the world,
present at least a superficial resemblance to the modern European practices
of leaping over fires and driving cattle through them; and we naturally ask
whether it is not possible to discover a general explanation which will
w include them all. We have seen that two general theories have been
e proposed to account for the European practices; according to one theory the
customs in question are sun-charms, [pg 016] according to the other they
are purifications. Let us see how the two rival theories fit the other facts
which we have just passed in review. To take the solar theory first, it is
supported, first, by a statement that the fires at the Pongol festival in
Southern India are intended to wake the sun-god or the fire-god from his
sleep;29 and, second, by the etymology which connects Soranus, the god of
Soracte, with the sun.30 But for reasons which have already been given,
neither of these arguments carries much weight; and apart from them there
appears to be nothing in the foregoing customs to suggest that they are sun-
charms. Nay, some of the customs appear hardly reconcilable with such a
view. For it is to be observed that the fire-walk is frequently practised in
India and other tropical countries, where as a rule people would more
naturally wish to abate than to increase the fierce heat of the sun. In Yucatan
certainly the intention of kindling the bonfires cannot possibly have been to
fan the solar flames, since one of the principal evils which the bonfires were
designed to remedy was precisely the excessive heat of the sun, which had
withered up the maize crops.31 Thus the solar theory is not strongly
supported by any of the facts which we are considering, and it is actually
inconsistent with some of them.

Not so with the purificatory theory. It is obviously applicable to some of the
facts, and apparently consistent with them all. Thus we have seen that sick
e men make a vow to walk over the fire, and that sick cattle are driven over it.
d In such cases clearly the intention is to cleanse the suffering man or beast
s from the infection of disease, and thereby to restore him or it to health; and

e the fire is supposed to effect this salutary end, either by burning up the
r powers of evil or by interposing an insurmountable barrier between them
w and the sufferer. For it is to be remembered that evils which civilized men
e regard as impersonal are often conceived by uncivilized man in the personal
shape of witches and wizards, of ghosts and hobgoblins; so that measures
m which we should consider as simple disinfectants the savage looks upon as
obstacles opportunely presented to [pg 017] the attacks of demons or other
uncanny beings. Now of all such obstacles fire seems generally to be
e thought the most effective; hence in passing through or leaping over it our
primitive philosopher often imagines that he is not so much annihilating his
spiritual foe as merely giving him the slip; the ghostly pursuer shrinks back
appalled at the flames through which his intended victim, driven to
desperation by his fears, has safely passed before him. This interpretation of
r the ceremony is confirmed, first, by the observation that in India the ashes
32
e of the bonfire are used as a talisman against devils and demons; and,
f second, by the employment of the ceremony for the avowed purpose of
escaping from the pursuit of a troublesome ghost. For example, in China
f “they believe that a beheaded man wanders about a headless spectre in the
World of Shades. Such spectres are frequently to be seen in walled towns,
e especially in the neighbourhood of places of execution. Here they often
e visit the people with disease and disaster, causing a considerable
f depreciation in the value of the houses around such scenes. Whenever an
d execution takes place, the people fire crackers to frighten the headless ghost
away from the spot; and the mandarin who has superintended the bloody
work, on entering the gate of his mansion, has himself carried in his sedan
chair over a fire lighted on the pavement, lest the headless apparition should
33
e enter there along with him; for disembodied spirits are afraid of fire.” For
m a like reason Chinese mourners after a funeral, and persons who have paid a
visit of condolence to a house of death, often purify themselves by stepping
over a fire of straw;34 the purification, we cannot doubt, consists simply in
shaking off the ghost who is supposed to dog their steps. Similarly at a
coroner's inquest in China the mandarin and his subordinates hold pocket
handkerchiefs or towels to their mouths and noses while they are inspecting
the corpse, no doubt to hinder the ghost from insinuating himself into their
bodies by these apertures; and when they have discharged their dangerous
[pg 018] duty, they purify themselves by passing through a small fire of
straw kindled on the pavement before they enter their sedan-chairs to return

home, while at the same time the crowd of idlers, who have gathered about
the door, assist in keeping the ghost at bay by a liberal discharge of
crackers. The same double process of purification, or rather of repelling the
ghost, by means of fire and crackers is repeated at the gate of the mandarin's
residence when the procession defiles into it.35 Among some of the Tartars it
used to be customary for all persons returning from a burial to leap over a
fire made for the purpose, “in order that the dead man might not follow
them; for apparently in their opinion he would be afraid of the fire.”36 “The
Yakuts bury their dead as a rule on the day of the death, and in order not to
take the demon of death home with them, they kindle fires on the way back
from the burial and jump over them in the belief that the demon of death,
who dreads fire, will not follow them, and that in this way they will be freed
from the persecutions of the hated demon of death.”37 In Sikkhim, when
members of the Khambu caste have buried a corpse, all persons present at
the burial “adjourn to a stream for a bath of purification, and, on re-entering
the house, have to tread on a bit of burning cloth, to prevent the evil spirits
who attend at funerals from following them in.”38 Among the Fans of West
Africa, “when the mourning is over, the wives of the deceased must pass
over a small lighted brazier in the middle of the village, then they sit down
while some leaves are still burning under their feet; their heads are shaved,
and from that moment they are purified from the mourning—perhaps we
should translate: ‘delivered from the ghost of their husband’—and may be
divided among the heirs.”39 At Agweh, on the Slave Coast of West Africa, a
widow used to remain shut up for six [pg 019] months in the room where
her husband was buried; at the end of the time a fire was lighted on the
floor, and red peppers strewn in it, until in the pungent fumes the widow
was nearly stifled.40 No doubt the intention was to rid her of her husband's
ghost in order that she might mingle again in the world with safety to
herself and others.

On the analogy of these customs, in which the purpose of the passage
through the fire appears to be unmistakable, we may suppose that the
t motive of the rite is similar at the popular festivals of Europe and the like
observances in other lands. In every case the ritual appears to be explained
in a simple and natural way by the supposition that the performers believe
e themselves to be freed from certain evils, actual or threatened, through the
e beneficent agency of fire, which either burns up and destroys the noxious

e things or at all events repels and keeps them at bay. Indeed this belief, or at
least this hope, is definitely expressed by some of the people who leap
f across the bonfires: they imagine that all ills are burnt up and consumed in
the flames, or that they leave their sins, or at all events their fleas, behind
them on the far side of the fire.41 But we may conjecture that originally all
r the evils from which the people thus thought to deliver themselves were
e conceived by them to be caused by personal beings, such as ghosts and
demons or witches and warlocks, and that the fires were kindled for the sole
purpose of burning or banning these noxious creatures. Of these evil powers
witches and warlocks appear to have been the most dreaded by our
e European peasantry; and it is therefore significant that the fires kindled on
these occasions are often expressly alleged to burn the witches,42 that
effigies of witches are not uncommonly consumed in them,43 and that two
f of the great periodic fire-festivals of the year, namely May Day and
Midsummer Eve, coincide with the seasons when witches are believed to be
most active and mischievous, and when accordingly many other precautions
are taken against them.44 Thus if witchcraft, [pg 020] as a great part of
mankind has believed, is the fertile source of almost all the calamities that
afflict our species, and if the surest means of frustrating witchcraft is fire,
then it follows as clearly as day follows night that to jump over a fire must
be a sovereign panacea for practically all the ills that flesh is heir to. We can
now, perhaps, fully understand why festivals of fire played so prominent a
part in the religion or superstition of our heathen forefathers; the observance
of such festivals flowed directly from their overmastering fear of witchcraft
and from their theory as to the best way of combating that dreadful evil.

[pg 021]

Chapter VII. The Burning of Human Beings
in the Fires.

§ 1. The Burning of Effigies in the Fires.

We have still to ask, What is the meaning of burning effigies in the fire at
these festivals? After the preceding investigation the answer to the question
seems obvious. As the fires are often alleged to be kindled for the purpose
of burning the witches, and as the effigy burnt in them is sometimes called
n “the Witch,” we might naturally be disposed to conclude that all the effigies
consumed in the flames on these occasions represent witches or warlocks,
and that the custom of burning them is merely a substitute for burning the
wicked men and women themselves, since on the principle of homoeopathic
or imitative magic you practically destroy the witch herself in destroying
her effigy. On the whole this explanation of the burning of straw figures in
human shape at the festivals appears to be the most probable.

Yet it may be that this explanation does not apply to all the cases, and that
certain of them may admit and even require another interpretation, in favour
of which I formerly argued as follows:—45
f
“It remains to ask, What is the meaning of burning an effigy in these
n bonfires? The effigies so burned, as I have already remarked, can hardly be
separated from the effigies of Death which are burned or otherwise
destroyed in spring; and grounds have been already given for regarding the
so-called effigies of Death as really representatives of the tree-spirit [pg
s 022] or spirit of vegetation.46 Are the other effigies, which are burned in the
spring and midsummer bonfires, susceptible of the same explanation? It
would seem so. For just as the fragments of the so-called Death are stuck in
the fields to make the crops grow, so the charred embers of the figure
burned in the spring bonfires are sometimes laid on the fields in the belief
that they will keep vermin from the crop.47 Again, the rule that the last
married bride must leap over the fire in which the straw-man is burned on
Shrove Tuesday, is probably intended to make her fruitful.48 But, as we have
seen, the power of blessing women with offspring is a special attribute of
tree-spirits;49 it is therefore a fair presumption that the burning effigy over

which the bride must leap is a representative of the fertilizing tree-spirit or
spirit of vegetation. This character of the effigy, as representative of the
spirit of vegetation, is almost unmistakable when the figure is composed of
an unthreshed sheaf of corn or is covered from head to foot with flowers.50
Again, it is to be noted that, instead of a puppet, trees, either living or
felled, are sometimes burned both in the spring and midsummer bonfires.51
Now, considering the frequency with which the tree-spirit is represented in
human shape, it is hardly rash to suppose that when sometimes a tree and
sometimes an effigy is burned in these fires, the effigy and the tree are
regarded as equivalent to each other, each being a representative of the tree-
spirit. This, again, is confirmed by observing, first, that sometimes the
effigy which is to be burned is carried about simultaneously with a May-
tree, the former being carried by the boys, the latter by the girls;52 and,
second, that the effigy is sometimes tied to a living tree and burned with it.53
In these cases, we can scarcely doubt, the tree-spirit is represented, as we
have found it represented before, in duplicate, both by the tree and by the
effigy. That the true character of the effigy as a representative of the
beneficent spirit of vegetation should sometimes be forgotten, is natural.
The custom of burning [pg 023] a beneficent god is too foreign to later
modes of thought to escape misinterpretation. Naturally enough the people
who continued to burn his image came in time to identify it as the effigy of
persons, whom, on various grounds, they regarded with aversion, such as
Judas Iscariot, Luther, and a witch.

“The general reasons for killing a god or his representative have been
examined in the preceding chapter.54 But when the god happens to be a
deity of vegetation, there are special reasons why he should die by fire. For
light and heat are necessary to vegetable growth; and, on the principle of
sympathetic magic, by subjecting the personal representative of vegetation
f to their influence, you secure a supply of these necessaries for trees and
t crops. In other words, by burning the spirit of vegetation in a fire which
represents the sun, you make sure that, for a time at least, vegetation shall
have plenty of sun. It may be objected that, if the intention is simply to
r secure enough sunshine for vegetation, this end would be better attained, on
the principles of sympathetic magic, by merely passing the representative of
vegetation through the fire instead of burning him. In point of fact this is
sometimes done. In Russia, as we have seen, the straw figure of Kupalo is

not burned in the midsummer fire, but merely carried backwards and
forwards across it.55 But, for the reasons already given, it is necessary that
the god should die; so next day Kupalo is stripped of her ornaments and
thrown into a stream. In this Russian custom, therefore, the passage of the
image through the fire is a sun-charm pure and simple; the killing of the
god is a separate act, and the mode of killing him—by drowning—is
probably a rain-charm. But usually people have not thought it necessary to
draw this fine distinction; for the various reasons already assigned, it is
advantageous, they think, to expose the god of vegetation to a considerable
degree of heat, and it is also advantageous to kill him, and they combine
these advantages in a rough-and-ready way by burning him.”

On the foregoing argument, which I do not now find very cogent, I would
remark that we must distinguish the cases in [pg 024] which an effigy or an
image is burnt in the fire from the cases in which it is simply carried
f through or over it. We have seen that in the Chinese festival of fire the
image of the god is carried thrice by bearers over the glowing furnace. Here
f the motive for subjecting a god to the heat of the furnace must surely be the
r same as the motive for subjecting his worshippers to the same ordeal; and if
g the motive in the case of the worshippers is purificatory, it is probably the
same in the case of the deity. In other words we may suppose that the image
of a god is periodically carried over a furnace in order to purify him from
the taint of corruption, the spells of magicians, or any other evil influences
that might impair or impede his divine energies. The same theory would
e explain the custom of obliging the priest ceremonially to pass through the
a fire; the custom need not be a mitigation of an older practice of burning him
f in the flames, it may only be a purification designed to enable him the better
to discharge his sacred duties as representative of the deity in the coming
year. Similarly, when the rite is obligatory, not on the people as a whole, but
only on certain persons chosen for the purpose,56 we may suppose that these
persons act as representatives of the entire community, which thus passes
through the fire by deputy and consequently participates in all the benefits
which are believed to accrue from the purificatory character of the rite.57 In
both cases, therefore, if my interpretation of them is correct, the passage
over or through a fire is not a substitute for human sacrifice; it is nothing
but a stringent form of purification.

§ 2. The Burning of Men and Animals in the Fires.

Yet in the popular customs connected with the fire-festivals of Europe there
are certain features which appear to [pg 025] point to a former practice of
t human sacrifice. We have seen reasons for believing that in Europe living
f persons have often acted as representatives of the tree-spirit and corn-spirit
and have suffered death as such.58 There is no reason, therefore, why they
should not have been burned, if any special advantages were likely to be
attained by putting them to death in that way. The consideration of human
f suffering is not one which enters into the calculations of primitive man.
Now, in the fire-festivals which we are discussing, the pretence of burning
people is sometimes carried so far that it seems reasonable to regard it as a
n mitigated survival of an older custom of actually burning them. Thus in
Aachen, as we saw, the man clad in peas-straw acts so cleverly that the
a children really believe he is being burned.59 At Jumièges in Normandy the
man clad all in green, who bore the title of the Green Wolf, was pursued by
f his comrades, and when they caught him they feigned to fling him upon the
mid-summer bonfire.60 Similarly at the Beltane fires in Scotland the
pretended victim was seized, and a show made of throwing him into the
flames, and for some time afterwards people affected to speak of him as
dead.61 Again, in the Hallowe'en bonfires of north-eastern Scotland we may
perhaps detect a similar pretence in the custom observed by a lad of lying
down as close to the fire as possible and allowing the other lads to leap over
him.62 The titular king at Aix, who reigned for a year and danced the first
dance round the midsummer bonfire,63 may perhaps in days of old have
discharged the less agreeable duty of serving as fuel for that fire which in
later times he only kindled. In the following customs Mannhardt is probably
right in recognizing traces of an old custom of burning a leaf-clad
representative of the spirit of vegetation. At Wolfeck, in Austria, on
Midsummer Day, a boy completely clad in green fir branches goes from
house to house, accompanied by a noisy crew, collecting wood for the
bonfire. As he gets the wood he sings—

[pg 026]

“Forest trees I want,
No sour milk for me,
But beer and wine,
64
So can the wood-man be jolly and gay.”

In some parts of Bavaria, also, the boys who go from house to house
collecting fuel for the midsummer bonfire envelop one of their number
from head to foot in green branches of firs, and lead him by a rope through
the whole village.65 At Moosheim, in Wurtemberg, the festival of St. John's
Fire usually lasted for fourteen days, ending on the second Sunday after
Midsummer Day. On this last day the bonfire was left in charge of the
children, while the older people retired to a wood. Here they encased a
young fellow in leaves and twigs, who, thus disguised, went to the fire,
scattered it, and trod it out. All the people present fled at the sight of him.66

In this connexion it is worth while to note that in pagan Europe the water as
well as the fire seems to have claimed its human victim on Midsummer
n Day. Some German rivers, such as the Saale and the Spree, are believed still
e to require their victim on that day; hence people are careful not to bathe at
this perilous season. Where the beautiful Neckar flows, between vine-clad
e and wooded hills, under the majestic ruins of Heidelberg castle, the spirit of
the river seeks to drown three persons, one on Midsummer Eve, one on
e Midsummer Day, and one on the day after. On these nights, if you hear a
shriek as of a drowning man or woman from the water, beware of running
to the rescue; for it is only the water-fairy shrieking to lure you to your
n doom. Many a fisherman of the Elbe knows better than to launch his boat
and trust himself to the treacherous river on Midsummer Day. And Samland
fishermen will not go to sea at this season, because they are aware that the
f sea is then hollow and demands a victim. In the neighbourhood of the Lake
a of Constance [pg 027] the Swabian peasants say that on St. John's Day the
a Angel or St. John must have a swimmer and a climber; hence no one will
climb a tree or bathe even in a brook on that day.67 According to others, St.
r John will have three dead men on his day; one of them must die by water,
one by a fall, and one by lightning; therefore old-fashioned people warn

their children not to climb or bathe, and are very careful themselves not to
run into any kind of danger on Midsummer Day.68 So in some parts of
Switzerland people are warned against bathing on St. John's Night, because
the saint's day demands its victims. Thus in the Emmenthal they say, “This
day will have three persons; one must perish in the air, one in the fire, and
the third in the water.” At Schaffhausen the saying runs, “St. John the
Baptist must have a runner, must have a swimmer, must have a climber.”
That is the reason why you should not climb cherry-trees on the saint's day,
lest you should fall down and break your valuable neck.69 In Cologne the
saint is more exacting; on his day he requires no less than fourteen dead
men; seven of them must be swimmers and seven climbers.70 Accordingly
when we find that, in one of the districts where a belief of this sort prevails,
it used to be customary to throw a person into the water on Midsummer
Day, we can hardly help concluding that this was only a modification of an
older custom of actually drowning a human being in the river at that time.
In Voigtland it was formerly the practice to set up a fine May tree, adorned
with all kinds of things, on St. John's Day. The people danced round it, and
when the lads had fetched down the things with which it was tricked out,
the tree was thrown into the water. But before this was [pg 028] done, they
sought out somebody whom they treated in the same manner, and the victim
of this horseplay was called “the John.” The brawls and disorders, which
such a custom naturally provoked, led to the suppression of the whole
ceremony.71

At Rotenburg on the Neckar they throw a loaf of bread into the water on St.
John's Day; were this offering not made, the river would grow angry and
take away a man.72 Clearly, therefore, the loaf is regarded as a substitute
which the spirit of the river consents to accept instead of a human victim.
Elsewhere the water-sprite is content with flowers. Thus in Bohemia people
sometimes cast garlands into water on Midsummer Eve; and if the water-
e sprite pulls one of them down, it is a sign that the person who threw the
n garland in will die.73 In the villages of Hesse the girl who first comes to the
s well early on the morning of Midsummer Day, places on the mouth of the
well a gay garland composed of many sorts of flowers which she has culled
from the fields and meadows. Sometimes a number of such garlands are
twined together to form a crown, with which the well is decked. At Fulda,
in addition to the flowery decoration of the wells, the neighbours choose a

n Lord of the Wells and announce his election by sending him a great nosegay
of flowers; his house, too, is decorated with green boughs, and children
walk in procession to it. He goes from house to house collecting materials
for a feast, of which the neighbours partake on the following Sunday.74
What the other duties of the Lord of the Wells may be, we are not told. We
may conjecture that in old days he had to see to it that the spirits of the
water received their dues from men and maidens on that important day.

[pg 029]

The belief that the spirits of the water exact a human life on Midsummer
Day may partly explain why that day is regarded by some people as
unlucky. At Neuburg, in Baden, people who meet on Midsummer Day bid
y each other beware.75 Sicilian mothers on that ominous day warn their little
sons not to go out of the house, or, if they do go out, not to stray far, not to
walk on solitary unfrequented paths, to avoid horses and carriages and
persons with firearms, and not to dare to swim; in short they bid them be on
their guard at every turn. The Sicilian writer who tells us this adds: “This I
know and sadly remember ever since the year 1848, when, not yet seven
years old, I beheld in the dusk of the evening on St. John's Day some
women of my acquaintance bringing back in their arms my little brother,
who had gone to play in a garden near our house, and there had found his
death, my poor Francesco! In their simplicity the women who strove to
console my inconsolable mother, driven distracted by the dreadful blow,
kept repeating that St. John must have his due, that on that day he must be
appeased. ‘Who knows,’ said they, ‘how many other mothers are weeping
now for other little sons forlorn!’ ”76

Yet curiously enough, though the water-spirits call for human victims on
Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day, water in general is supposed at that
e season to acquire certain wonderful medicinal virtues, so that he who bathes
in it then or drinks of it is not only healed of all his infirmities but will be
well and hearty throughout the year. Hence in many parts of Europe, from
n Sweden in the north to Sicily in the south, and from Ireland and Spain in the
west to Esthonia in the east it used to be customary for men, women, and
r children to bathe in crowds in rivers, the sea, or springs on Midsummer Eve
or Midsummer Day, hoping thus to fortify themselves for the next twelve

months. The usual time for taking the bath was the night which intervenes
77
s between Midsummer Eve and Midsummer Day; [pg 030] but in Belgium
the hour was noon on Midsummer Day. It was a curious sight, we are told,
to see the banks of a river lined with naked children waiting for the first
stroke of noon to plunge into the healing water. The dip was supposed to
have a remarkable effect in strengthening the legs. People who were
t ashamed to bathe in public used to have cans of water brought to their
houses from the river at midday, and then performed their ablutions in the
privacy of their chambers. Nor did they throw away the precious fluid; on
the contrary they bottled it up and kept it as a sort of elixir for use
throughout the year. It was thought never to grow foul and to be as blessed
as holy water fetched from a church, which we may well believe. Hence it
served to guard the house against a thunder-storm; when the clouds were
heavy and threatening, all you had to do was to take the palm branches (that
is, the twigs of box-wood) which were blessed on Palm Sunday, dip them in
the midsummer water, and burn them. That averted the tempest.78 In the
Swiss canton of Lucerne a bath on Midsummer Eve is thought to be
especially wholesome, though in other parts of Switzerland, as we saw,
bathing at that season is accounted dangerous.79

Nor are such customs and beliefs confined to the Christian peoples of
Europe; they are shared also by the Mohammedan peoples of Morocco.
There, too, on Midsummer Day all water is thought to be endowed with
such marvellous virtue that it not only heals but prevents sickness for the
s rest of the year; hence men, women, and children bathe in the sea, in rivers,
r or in their houses at [pg 031] that time for the sake of their health. In Fez
and other places on this day people pour or squirt water over each other in
the streets or from the house-tops, so that the streets become almost as
n muddy as after a fall of rain. More than that, in the Andjra they bathe their
animals also; horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, sheep, and goats, all must
participate in the miraculous benefits of midsummer water.80 The rite forms
part of that old heathen celebration of Midsummer which appears to have
been common to the peoples on both sides of the Mediterranean;81 and as
the aim of bathing in the midsummer water is undoubtedly purification, it is
reasonable to assign the same motive for the custom of leaping over the
midsummer bonfire. On the other hand some people in Morocco, like some
people in Europe, think that water on Midsummer Day is unclean or

dangerous. A Berber told Dr. Westermarck that water is haunted on
Midsummer Day, and that people therefore avoid bathing in it and keep
animals from drinking of it. And among the Beni Ahsen persons who swim
in the river on that day are careful, before plunging into the water, to throw
burning straw into it as an offering, in order that the spirits may not harm
them.82 The parallelism between the rites of water and fire at this season is
certainly in favour of interpreting both in the same way;83 and the traces of
human sacrifice which we have detected in the rite of water may therefore
be allowed to strengthen the inference of a similar sacrifice in the rite of
fire.

But it seems possible to go farther than this. Of human sacrifices offered on
these occasions the most unequivocal traces, as we have seen, are those
which, about a hundred years ago, still lingered at the Beltane fires in the
Highlands of Scotland, that is, among a Celtic people who, situated in a
e remote corner of Europe and almost completely [pg 032] isolated from
e foreign influence, had till then conserved their old heathenism better
perhaps than any other people in the West of Europe. It is significant,
therefore, that human sacrifices by fire are known, on unquestionable
d evidence, to have been systematically practised by the Celts. The earliest
description of these sacrifices has been bequeathed to us by Julius Caesar.
As conqueror of the hitherto independent Celts of Gaul, Caesar had ample
t opportunity of observing the national Celtic religion and manners, while
these were still fresh and crisp from the native mint and had not yet been
fused in the melting-pot of Roman civilization. With his own notes Caesar
appears to have incorporated the observations of a Greek explorer, by name
t Posidonius, who travelled in Gaul about fifty years before Caesar carried
the Roman arms to the English Channel. The Greek geographer Strabo and
the historian Diodorus seem also to have derived their descriptions of the
Celtic sacrifices from the work of Posidonius, but independently of each
other, and of Caesar, for each of the three derivative accounts contain some
details which are not to be found in either of the others. By combining
them, therefore, we can restore the original account of Posidonius with
some probability, and thus obtain a picture of the sacrifices offered by the
Celts of Gaul at the close of the second century before our era.84 The
following seem to have been the main outlines of the custom. Condemned
criminals were reserved by the Celts in order to be sacrificed to the gods at

a great festival which took place once in every five years. The more there
were of such victims, the greater was believed to be the fertility of the
land.85 If there were not enough criminals to furnish victims, captives taken
in war were immolated to supply the deficiency. When the time came the
victims were sacrificed by the Druids or priests. Some they shot down with
arrows, some they impaled, and some they burned alive in the following
manner. Colossal images of [pg 033] wicker-work or of wood and grass
were constructed; these were filled with live men, cattle, and animals of
other kinds; fire was then applied to the images, and they were burned with
their living contents.

Such were the great festivals held once every five years. But besides these
quinquennial festivals, celebrated on so grand a scale, and with, apparently,
e so large an expenditure of human life, it seems reasonable to suppose that
f festivals of the same sort, only on a lesser scale, were held annually, and
d that from these annual festivals are lineally descended some at least of the
fire-festivals which, with their traces of human sacrifices, are still
celebrated year by year in many parts of Europe. The gigantic images
d constructed of osiers or covered with grass in which the Druids enclosed
e their victims remind us of the leafy framework in which the human
representative of the tree-spirit is still so often encased.86 Hence, seeing that
the fertility of the land was apparently supposed to depend upon the due
performance of these sacrifices, Mannhardt interpreted the Celtic victims,
cased in osiers and grass, as representatives of the tree-spirit or spirit of
vegetation.

f These wicker giants of the Druids seem to have had till lately their
representatives at the spring and midsummer festivals of modern Europe. At
s Douay, down to the early part of the nineteenth century, a procession took
place annually on the Sunday nearest to the seventh of July. The great
t feature of the procession was a colossal figure, some twenty or thirty feet
high, made of osiers, and called “the giant,” which was moved through the
n streets by means of rollers and ropes worked by men who were enclosed
within the effigy. The wooden head of the giant is said to have been carved
and painted by Rubens. The figure was armed as a knight with lance and
t sword, helmet and shield. Behind him marched his wife and his three
y children, all constructed of osiers on the same principle, but on a smaller
e

scale.87 At [pg 034] Dunkirk the procession of the giants took place on
Midsummer Day, the twenty-fourth of June. The festival, which was known
k as the Follies of Dunkirk, attracted such multitudes of spectators, that the
inns and private houses could not lodge them all, and many had to sleep in
cellars or in the streets. In 1755 an eye-witness estimated that the number of
onlookers was not less than forty thousand, without counting the inhabitants
of the town. The streets through which the procession took its way were
lined with double ranks of soldiers, and the houses crammed with spectators
from top to bottom. High mass was celebrated in the principal church and
then the procession got under weigh. First came the guilds or brotherhoods,
the members walking two and two with great waxen tapers, lighted, in their
hands. They were followed by the friars and the secular priests, and then
came the Abbot, magnificently attired, with the Host borne before him by a
venerable old man. When these were past, the real “Follies of Dunkirk”
began. They consisted of pageants of various sorts wheeled through the
streets in cars. These appear to have varied somewhat from year to year; but
if we may judge from the processions of 1755 and 1757, both of which have
been described by eye-witnesses, a standing show was a car decked with
foliage and branches to imitate a wood, and carrying a number of men
dressed in leaves or in green scaly skins, who squirted water on the people
from pewter syringes. An English spectator has compared these maskers to
the Green Men of our own country on May Day. Last of all came the giant
and giantess. The giant was a huge figure of wicker-work, occasionally as
much as forty-five feet high, dressed in a long blue robe with gold stripes,
which reached to his feet, concealing the dozen or more men who made it
dance and bob its head to the spectators. This colossal effigy went by the
name of Papa [pg 035] Reuss, and carried in its pocket a bouncing infant of
Brobdingnagian proportions, who kept bawling “Papa! papa!” in a voice of
thunder, only pausing from time to time to devour the victuals which were
handed out to him from the windows. The rear was brought up by the
daughter of the giant, constructed, like her sire, of wicker-work, and little, if
at all, inferior to him in size. She wore a rose-coloured robe, with a gold
watch as large as a warming pan at her side: her breast glittered with jewels:
her complexion was high, and her eyes and head turned with as easy a grace
as the men inside could contrive to impart to their motions. The procession
came to an end with the revolution of 1789, and has never been revived.
The giant himself indeed, who had won the affections of the townspeople,

survived his ancient glory for a little while and made shift to appear in
public a few times more at the Carnival and other festal occasions; but his
days were numbered, and within fifty years even his memory had
seemingly perished.88

Most towns and even villages of Brabant and Flanders have, or used to
have, similar wicker giants which were annually led about to the delight of
the populace, who loved these grotesque figures, spoke of them with
patriotic enthusiasm, and never wearied of gazing at them. The name by
n which the giants went was Reuzes, and a special song called the Reuze song
was sung in the Flemish dialect while they were making their triumphal
progress through the streets. The most celebrated of these monstrous
effigies were those of Antwerp and Wetteren. At Ypres a whole family of
giants contributed to the public hilarity at the Carnival. At Cassel and
Hazebrouch, in the French department of Nord, the giants made their annual
appearance on Shrove Tuesday.89 At Antwerp the giant was so big [pg 036]
that no gate in the city was large enough to let him go through; hence he
could not visit his brother giants in neighbouring towns, as the other
Belgian giants used to do on solemn occasions. He was designed in 1534 by
Peter van Aelst, painter to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and is still
preserved with other colossal figures in a large hall at Antwerp.90 At Ath, in
the Belgian province of Hainaut, the popular procession of the giants took
place annually in August down to the year 1869 at least. For three days the
colossal effigies of Goliath and his wife, of Samson and an Archer (Tirant),
together with a two-headed eagle, were led about the streets on the
shoulders of twenty bearers concealed under the flowing drapery of the
giants, to the great delight of the townspeople and a crowd of strangers who
assembled to witness the pageant. The custom can be traced back by
documentary evidence to the middle of the fifteenth century; but it appears
that the practice of giving Goliath a wife dates only from the year 1715.
Their nuptials were solemnized every year on the eve of the festival in the
church of St. Julien, whither the two huge figures were escorted by the
magistrates in procession.91

In England artificial giants seem to have been a standing feature of the
midsummer festival. A writer of the sixteenth century speaks of
“Midsommer pageants in London, where to make the people wonder, are set
n

forth great and uglie gyants marching as if they were alive, and armed at all
points, but within they are stuffed full of browne paper and tow, which the
shrewd boyes, underpeering, [pg 037] do guilefully discover, and turne to a
greate derision.”92 At Chester the annual pageant on Midsummer Eve
included the effigies of four giants, with animals, hobby-horses, and other
figures. An officious mayor of the town suppressed the giants in 1599, but
they were restored by another mayor in 1601. Under the Commonwealth
the pageant was discontinued, and the giants and beasts were destroyed; but
after the restoration of Charles II. the old ceremony was revived on the old
date, new effigies being constructed to replace those which had fallen
victims to Roundhead bigotry. The accounts preserve a record not only of
the hoops, buckram, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, paint, glue, and paste
which went to make up these gorgeous figures; they also mention the
arsenic which was mixed with the paste in order to preserve the poor giants
from being eaten alive by the rats.93 At Coventry the accounts of the
Cappers' and Drapers' Companies in the sixteenth century shed light on the
giants which there also were carried about the town at Midsummer; from
some of the entries it appears that the giant's wife figured beside the giant.94
At Burford, in Oxfordshire, Midsummer Eve used to be celebrated with
great jollity by the carrying of a giant and a dragon up and down the town.
The last survivor of these perambulating English giants dragged out a
miserable existence at Salisbury, where an antiquary found him mouldering
to decay in the neglected hall of the Tailors' Company about the year 1844.
His bodily framework was of lath and hoop like the one which used to be
worn by Jack-in-the-Green on May Day. The drapery, which concealed the
bearer, was of coloured chintz, bordered with red and purple, and trimmed
with yellow fringe. His head was modelled in paste-board and adorned with
a gold-laced cocked hat: his flowing locks were of tow; and in his big right
hand he brandished a branch of [pg 038] artificial laurel. In the days of his
glory he promenaded about the streets, dancing clumsily and attended by
two men grotesquely attired, who kept a watchful eye on his movements
and checked by the wooden sword and club which they carried any
incipient tendency to lose his balance and topple over in an undignified
manner, which would have exposed to the derision of the populace the
mystery of his inner man. The learned called him St. Christopher, the vulgar
simply the giant.95

In these cases the giants only figure in the processions. But sometimes they
were burned in the summer bonfires. Thus the people of the Rue aux Ours
in Paris used annually to make a great wicker-work figure, dressed as a
soldier, which they promenaded up and down the streets for several days,
and solemnly burned on the third of July, the crowd of spectators singing
r Salve Regina. A personage who bore the title of king presided over the
ceremony with a lighted torch in his hand. The burning fragments of the
image were scattered among the people, who eagerly scrambled for them.
The custom was abolished in 1743.96 In Brie, Isle de France, a wicker-work
giant, eighteen feet high, was annually burned on Midsummer Eve.97

Again, the Druidical custom of burning live animals, enclosed in wicker-
work, has its counterpart at the spring and midsummer festivals. At Luchon
in the Pyrenees on Midsummer Eve “a hollow column, composed of strong
n wicker-work, is raised to the height of about sixty feet in the centre of the
principal suburb, and interlaced with green foliage up to the very top; while
the most beautiful flowers and shrubs procurable are artistically arranged in
groups below, so as to form a sort of background to the scene. The column
is then filled with combustible materials, ready for ignition. At an appointed
hour—about 8 p.m.—a grand procession, composed of the clergy, followed
by young men and maidens in holiday attire, pour forth from the town
n chanting hymns, [pg 039] and take up their position around the column.
Meanwhile, bonfires are lit, with beautiful effect, in the surrounding hills.
As many living serpents as could be collected are now thrown into the
t column, which is set on fire at the base by means of torches, armed with
which about fifty boys and men dance around with frantic gestures. The
serpents, to avoid the flames, wriggle their way to the top, whence they are
seen lashing out laterally until finally obliged to drop, their struggles for life
n giving rise to enthusiastic delight among the surrounding spectators. This is
a favourite annual ceremony for the inhabitants of Luchon and its
neighbourhood, and local tradition assigns it to a heathen origin.”98 In the
midsummer fires formerly kindled on the Place de Grève at Paris it was the
n custom to burn a basket, barrel, or sack full of live cats, which was hung
from a tall mast in the midst of the bonfire; sometimes a fox was burned.
The people collected the embers and ashes of the fire and took them home,
believing that they brought good luck. The French kings often witnessed
these spectacles and even lit the bonfire with their own hands. In 1648

Louis the Fourteenth, crowned with a wreath of roses and carrying a bunch
of roses in his hand, kindled the fire, danced at it and partook of the banquet
afterwards in the town hall. But this was the last occasion when a monarch
presided at the midsummer bonfire in Paris.99 At Metz midsummer fires
were lighted with great pomp on the esplanade, and a dozen cats, enclosed
in wicker-cages, were burned alive in them, to the amusement of the
people.100 Similarly at Gap, in the department [pg 040] of the High Alps,
cats used to be roasted over the midsummer bonfire.101 In Russia a white
cock was sometimes burned in the midsummer bonfire;102 in Meissen or
Thuringia a horse's head used to be thrown into it.103 Sometimes animals are
burned in the spring bonfires. In the Vosges cats were burned on Shrove
Tuesday; in Alsace they were thrown into the Easter bonfire.104 In the
department of the Ardennes cats were flung into the bonfires kindled on the
first Sunday in Lent; sometimes, by a refinement of cruelty, they were hung
over the fire from the end of a pole and roasted alive. “The cat, which
represented the devil, could never suffer enough.” While the creatures were
perishing in the flames, the shepherds guarded their flocks and forced them
to leap over the fire, esteeming this an infallible means of preserving them
from disease and witchcraft.105 We have seen that squirrels were sometimes
burned in the Easter fire.106

Thus it appears that the sacrificial rites of the Celts of ancient Gaul can be
traced in the popular festivals of modern Europe. Naturally it is in France,
e or rather in the wider area comprised within the limits of ancient Gaul, that
these rites have left the clearest traces in the customs of burning giants of
e wicker-work and animals enclosed in wicker-work or baskets. These
customs, it will have been remarked, are generally observed at or about
e midsummer. From this we may infer that the original rites of which these
are the degenerate successors were solemnized at midsummer. This
inference harmonizes with the conclusion suggested by a general survey of
e European folk-custom, that the midsummer festival must on the whole have
been the most widely diffused and the most solemn of all the yearly
f festivals celebrated by the primitive Aryans in Europe. At the same time we
must bear in mind that among the British Celts the chief fire-festivals of the
year appear certainly to have been those [pg 041] of Beltane (May Day) and
Hallowe'en (the last day of October); and this suggests a doubt whether the
Celts of Gaul also may not have celebrated their principal rites of fire,

including their burnt sacrifices of men and animals, at the beginning of May
or the beginning of November rather than at Midsummer.

We have still to ask, What is the meaning of such sacrifices? Why were men
and animals burnt to death at these festivals? If we are right in interpreting
the modern European fire-festivals as attempts to break the power of
witchcraft by burning or banning the witches and warlocks, it seems to
follow that we must explain the human sacrifices of the Celts in the same
manner; that is, we must suppose that the men whom the Druids burnt in
t wicker-work images were condemned to death on the ground that they were
witches or wizards, and that the mode of execution by fire was chosen
because, as we have seen, burning alive is deemed the surest mode of
getting rid of these noxious and dangerous beings. The same explanation
would apply to the cattle and wild animals of many kinds which the Celts
burned along with the men.107 They, too, we may conjecture, were supposed
to be either under the spell of witchcraft or actually to be the witches and
wizards, who had transformed themselves into animals for the purpose of
prosecuting their infernal plots against the welfare of their fellow creatures.
This conjecture is confirmed by the observation that the victims most
commonly burned in modern bonfires have been cats, and that cats are
precisely the animals into which, with the possible exception of hares,
witches were most usually supposed to transform themselves. Again, we
have seen that serpents and foxes used sometimes to be burnt in the
midsummer fires;108 and Welsh and German witches are reported to have
assumed the form both of foxes and serpents.109 In short, [pg 042] when we
remember the great variety of animals whose forms witches can assume at
pleasure,110 it seems easy on this hypothesis to account for the variety of
living creatures that have been burnt at festivals both in ancient Gaul and
modern Europe; all these victims, we may surmise, were doomed to the
flames, not because they were animals, but because they were believed to
be witches who had taken the shape of animals for their nefarious purposes.
One advantage of explaining the ancient Celtic sacrifices in this way is that
it introduces, as it were, a harmony and consistency into the treatment
which Europe has meted out to witches from the earliest times down to
about two centuries ago, when the growing influence of rationalism
discredited the belief in witchcraft and put a stop to the custom of burning
witches. On this view the Christian Church in its dealings with the black art

merely carried out the traditional policy of Druidism, and it might be a nice
question to decide which of the two, in pursuance of that policy,
exterminated the larger number of innocent men and women.111 Be that as it
may, we can now perhaps understand why the Druids believed that the more
persons they sentenced to death, the greater would be the fertility of the
land.112 To a modern reader the connexion at first sight may not be obvious
between the activity of the hangman and the productivity of the earth. But a
little reflection may satisfy him that when the criminals who perish at the
stake or on the [pg 043] gallows are witches, whose delight it is to blight
the crops of the farmer or to lay them low under storms of hail, the
execution of these wretches is really calculated to ensure an abundant
harvest by removing one of the principal causes which paralyze the efforts
and blast the hopes of the husbandman.

The Druidical sacrifices which we are considering were explained in a
different way by W. Mannhardt. He supposed that the men whom the
Druids burned in wickerwork images represented the spirits of vegetation,
and accordingly that the custom of burning them was a magical ceremony
e intended to secure the necessary sunshine for the crops. Similarly, he seems
d to have inclined to the view that the animals which used to be burnt in the
bonfires represented the corn-spirit,113 which, as we saw in an earlier part of
e this work, is often supposed to assume the shape of an animal.114 This
theory is no doubt tenable, and the great authority of W. Mannhardt entitles
n it to careful consideration. I adopted it in former editions of this book; but
on reconsideration it seems to me on the whole to be less probable than the
theory that the men and animals burnt in the fires perished in the character
of witches. This latter view is strongly supported by the testimony of the
f people who celebrate the fire-festivals, since a popular name for the custom
of kindling the fires is “burning the witches,” effigies of witches are
t sometimes consumed in the flames, and the fires, their embers, or their
ashes are supposed to furnish protection against witchcraft. On the other
f hand there is little to shew that the effigies or the animals burnt in the fires
are regarded by the people as representatives of the vegetation-spirit, and
that the bonfires are sun-charms. With regard to serpents in particular,
a which used to be burnt in the midsummer fire at Luchon, I am not aware of
f any certain evidence that in Europe snakes have been regarded as
embodiments of the tree-spirit or corn-spirit,115 though in other parts of the

116
e world [pg 044] the conception appears to be not unknown. Whereas the
popular faith in the transformation of witches into animals is so general and
deeply rooted, and the fear of these uncanny beings is so strong, that it
seems safer to suppose that the cats and other animals which were burnt in
the fire suffered death as embodiments of witches than that they perished as
representatives of vegetation-spirits.

[pg 045]

Chapter VIII. The Magic Flowers of
Midsummer Eve.

A feature of the great midsummer festival remains to be considered, which
may perhaps help to clear up the doubt as to the meaning of the fire-
a ceremonies and their relation to Druidism. For in France and England, the
countries where the sway of the Druids is known to have been most firmly
n established, Midsummer Eve is still the time for culling certain magic
plants, whose evanescent virtue can be secured at this mystic season alone.
Indeed all over Europe antique fancies of the same sort have lingered about
Midsummer Eve, imparting to it a fragrance of the past, like withered rose
leaves that, found by chance in the pages of an old volume, still smell of
departed summers. Thus in Saintonge and Aunis, two of the ancient
provinces of Western France, we read that “of all the festivals for which the
merry bells ring out there is not one which has given rise to a greater
n number of superstitious practices than the festival of St. John the Baptist.
The Eve of St. John was the day of all days for gathering the wonderful
herbs by means of which you could combat fever, cure a host of diseases,
and guard yourself against sorcerers and their spells. But in order to attain
these results two conditions had to be observed; first, you must be fasting
n when you gathered the herbs, and second, you must cull them before the
sun rose. If these conditions were not fulfilled, the plants had no special
virtue.”117 [pg 046] In the neighbouring province of Perigord the person
who gathered the magic herbs before sunrise at this season had to walk
r backwards, to mutter some mystic words, and to perform certain
ceremonies. The plants thus collected were carefully kept as an infallible
cure for fever; placed above beds and the doors of houses and of cattle-
sheds they protected man and beast from disease, witchcraft, and
n accident.118 In Normandy a belief in the marvellous properties of herbs and
plants, of flowers and seeds and leaves gathered, with certain traditional
rites, on the Eve or the Day of St. John has remained part of the peasant's

creed to this day. Thus he fancies that seeds of vegetables and plants, which
have been collected on St. John's Eve, will keep better than others, and that
flowers plucked that day will never fade.119 Indeed so widespread in France
used to be the faith in the magic virtue of herbs culled on that day that there
is a French proverb “to employ all the herbs of St. John in an affair,”
meaning “to leave no stone unturned.”120 In the early years of the nineteenth
century a traveller reported that at Marseilles, “on the Eve of St. John, the
Place de Noailles and the course are cleaned. From three o'clock in the
morning the country-people flock thither, and by six o'clock the whole place
is covered with a considerable quantity of flowers and herbs, aromatic or
otherwise. The folk attribute superstitious virtues to these plants; they are
persuaded that if they have been gathered the same day before sunrise they
are fitted to heal many ailments. People buy them emulously to give away
in presents and to fill the house with.”121 On the Eve of St. John
(Midsummer Eve), before sunset, the peasants of Perche still gather the
herb called St. John's herb. It is a creeping plant, very aromatic, with small
flowers of a violet blue. Other scented flowers [pg 047] are added, and out
of the posies they make floral crosses and crowns, which they hang up over
the doors of houses and stables. Such floral decorations are sold like the
box-wood on Palm Sunday, and the withered wreaths are kept from year to
year. If an animal dies, it may be a cow, they carefully clean the byre or the
stable, make a pile of these faded garlands, and set them on fire, having
previously closed up all the openings and interstices, so that the whole place
is thoroughly fumigated. This is thought to eradicate the germs of disease
from the byre or stable.122 At Nellingen, near Saaralben, in Lorraine the
hedge doctors collect their store of simples between eleven o'clock and
noon on Midsummer Day; and on that day nut-water is brewed from nuts
that have been picked on the stroke of noon. Such water is a panacea for all
ailments.123 In the Vosges Mountains they say that wizards have but one day
in the year, and but one hour in that day, to find and cull the baleful herbs
which they use in their black art. That day is the Eve of St. John, and that
hour is the time when the church bells are ringing the noonday Angelus.
Hence in many villages they say that the bells ought not to ring at noon on
that day.124

In the Tyrol also they think that the witching hour is when the Ave Maria
bell is ringing on Midsummer Eve, for then the witches go forth to gather

the noxious plants whereby they raise thunderstorms. Therefore in many
districts the bells ring for a shorter time than usual that evening;125 at
Folgareit the sexton used to steal quietly into the church, and when the
clock struck three he contented himself with giving a few pulls to the
n smallest of the bells.126 [pg 048] At Rengen, in the Eifel Mountains, the
sexton rings the church bell for an hour on the afternoon of Midsummer
r Day. As soon as the bell begins to ring, the children run out into the
meadows, gather flowers, and weave them into garlands which they throw
n on the roofs of the houses and buildings. There the garlands remain till the
l wind blows them away. It is believed that they protect the houses against
fire and thunderstorms.127 At Niederehe, in the Eifel Mountains, on
Midsummer Day little children used to make wreaths and posies out of “St.
John's flowers and Maiden-flax” and throw them on the roofs. Some time
afterwards, when the wild gooseberries were ripe, all the children would
gather round an old woman on a Sunday afternoon, and taking the now
withered wreaths and posies with them march out of the village, praying
while they walked. Wreaths and posies were then thrown in a heap and
kindled, whereupon the children snatched them up, still burning, and ran
and fumigated the wild gooseberry bushes with the smoke. Then they
returned with the old woman to the village, knelt down before her, and
received her blessing. From that time the children were free to pick and eat
the wild gooseberries.128 In the Mark of Brandenburg the peasants gather all
sorts of simples on Midsummer Day, because they are of opinion that the
drugs produce their medicinal effect only if they have been culled at that
time. Many of these plants, especially roots, must be dug up at midnight
and in silence.129 In Mecklenburg not merely is a special healing virtue
ascribed to simples collected on Midsummer Day; the very smoke of such
plants, if they are burned in the fire, is believed to protect a house against
thunder and lightning, and to still the raging of the storm.130 The Wends of
the Spreewald twine wreaths of herbs and flowers at midsummer, and hang
them up in their rooms; and when any one gets a fright he will lay some of
the leaves and blossoms on hot coals and fumigate himself with the
smoke.131 In Eastern Prussia, some [pg 049] two hundred years ago, it used
to be customary on Midsummer Day to make up a bunch of herbs of
various sorts and fasten it to a pole, which was then put up over the gate or
door through which the corn would be brought in at harvest. Such a pole
was called Kaupole, and it remained in its place till the crops had been

reaped and garnered. Then the bunch of herbs was taken down; part of it
was put with the corn in the barn to keep rats and mice from the grain, and
part was kept as a remedy for diseases of all sorts.132

The Germans of West Bohemia collect simples on St. John's Night, because
they believe the healing virtue of the plants to be especially powerful at that
time.133 The theory and practice of the Huzuls in the Carpathian Mountains
are similar; they imagine that the plants gathered on that night are not only
n medicinal but possess the power of restraining the witches; some say that
the herbs should be plucked in twelve gardens or meadows.134 Among the
simples which the Czechs and Moravians of Silesia cull at this season are
dandelions, ribwort, and the bloom of the lime-tree.135 The Esthonians of the
r island of Oesel gather St. John's herbs (Jani rohhud) on St. John's Day, tie
them up in bunches, and hang them up about the houses to prevent evil
n spirits from entering. A subsidiary use of the plants is to cure diseases;
gathered at that time they have a greater medical value than if they were
collected at any other season. Everybody does not choose exactly the same
sorts of plants; some gather more and some less, but in the collection St.
John's wort (Jani rohhi, Hypericum perforatum) should never be wanting.136
A writer of the early part of the seventeenth century informs us that the
Livonians, among whom he lived, were impressed with a belief in the great
and marvellous properties possessed [pg 050] by simples which had been
culled on Midsummer Day. Such simples, they thought, were sure remedies
for fever and for sickness and pestilence in man and beast; but if gathered
one day too late they lost all their virtue.137 Among the Letts of the Baltic
provinces of Russia girls and women go about on Midsummer Day crowned
with wreaths of aromatic plants, which are afterwards hung up for good
luck in the houses. The plants are also dried and given to cows to eat,
because they are supposed to help the animals to calve.138

In Bulgaria St. John's Day is the special season for culling simples. On this
day, too, Bulgarian girls gather nosegays of a certain white flower, throw
them into a vessel of water, and place the vessel under a rose-tree in bloom.
Here it remains all night. Next morning they set it in the courtyard and
n dance singing round it. An old woman then takes the flowers out of the
s vessel, and the girls wash themselves with the water, praying that God
would grant them health throughout the year. After that the old woman
y

139
e restores her nosegay to each girl and promises her a rich husband. Among
the South Slavs generally on St. John's Eve it is the custom for girls to
n gather white flowers in the meadows and to place them in a sieve or behind
the rafters. A flower is assigned to each member of the household: next
d morning the flowers are inspected; and he or she whose flower is fresh will
be well the whole year, but he or she whose flower is faded will be sickly or
die. Garlands are then woven out of the flowers and laid on roofs, folds, and
beehives.140 In some parts of Macedonia on St. John's Eve the peasants are
wont to festoon their cottages and gird their own waists with wreaths of
what they call St. John's flower; it is the blossom of a creeping plant which
resembles honeysuckle.141 Similar notions as to the magical virtue which
plants acquire at midsummer have been transported by Europeans to the
New World. At La Paz in Bolivia people [pg 051] believe that flowers of
mint (Yerba buena) gathered before sunrise on St. John's Day foretell an
endless felicity to such as are so lucky as to find them.142

Nor is the superstition confined to Europe and to people of European
descent. In Morocco also the Mohammedans are of opinion that certain
plants, such as penny-royal, marjoram, and the oleander, acquire a special
magic virtue (baraka) when they are gathered shortly before midsummer.
t Hence the people collect these plants at this season and preserve them for
magical or medical purposes. For example, branches of oleander are
g brought into the houses before midsummer and kept under the roof as a
charm against the evil eye; but while the branches are being brought in they
may not touch the ground, else they would lose their marvellous properties.
f Cases of sickness caused by the evil eye are cured by fumigating the
patients with the smoke of these boughs. The greatest efficacy is ascribed to
“the sultan of the oleander,” which is a stalk with four pairs of leaves
clustered round it. Such a stalk is always endowed with magical virtue, but
that virtue is greatest when the stalk has been cut just before midsummer.
Arab women in the Hiaina district of Morocco gather Daphne gnidium on
Midsummer Day, dry it in the sun, and make it into a powder which, mixed
with water, they daub on the heads of their little children to protect them
from sunstroke and vermin and to make their hair grow well. Indeed such
marvellous powers do these Arabs attribute to plants at this mystic season
that a barren woman will walk naked about a vegetable garden on

Midsummer Night in the hope of conceiving a child through the fertilizing
influence of the vegetables.143

Sometimes in order to produce the desired effect it is deemed necessary that
seven or nine different sorts of plants should be gathered at this mystic
season. Norman peasants, who wish to fortify themselves for the toil of
harvest, will [pg 052] sometimes go out at dawn on St. John's Day and pull
f seven kinds of plants, which they afterwards eat in their soup as a means of
imparting strength and suppleness to their limbs in the harvest field.144 In
Mecklenburg maidens are wont to gather seven sorts of flowers at noon on
t Midsummer Eve. These they weave into garlands, and sleep with them
under their pillows. Then they are sure to dream of the men who will marry
e them.145 But the flowers on which youthful lovers dream at Midsummer Eve
are oftener nine in number. Thus in Voigtland nine different kinds of
f flowers are twined into a garland at the hour of noon, but they may not
enter the dwelling by the door in the usual way; they must be passed
t through the window, or, if they come in at the door, they must be thrown,
not carried, into the house. Sleeping on them that night you will dream of
your future wife or future husband.146 The Bohemian maid, who gathers
n nine kinds of flowers on which to dream of love at Midsummer Eve, takes
t care to wrap her hand in a white cloth, and afterwards to wash it in dew;
and when she brings her garland home she must speak no word to any soul
she meets by the way, for then all the magic virtue of the flowers would be
gone.147 Other Bohemian girls look into the book of fate at this season after
a different fashion. They twine their hair with wreaths made of nine sorts of
t leaves, and go, when the stars of the summer night are twinkling in the sky,
to a brook that flows beside a tree. There, gazing on the stream, the girl
beholds, beside the broken reflections of the tree and the stars, the watery
image of her future lord.148 So in Masuren maidens gather nosegays of wild
flowers in silence on Midsummer Eve. At the midnight hour each girl takes
the nosegay and a glass of water, and when she has spoken certain words
she sees her lover mirrored in the water.149

Sometimes Bohemian damsels make a different use of their midsummer
garlands twined of nine sorts of flowers. [pg 053] They lie down with the
garland laid as a pillow under their right ear, and a hollow voice, swooning
s from underground, proclaims their destiny.150 Yet another mode of
e

consulting the oracle by means of these same garlands is to throw them
t backwards and in silence upon a tree at the hour of noon, just when the
flowers have been gathered. For every time that the wreath is thrown
d without sticking to the branches of the tree the girl will have a year to wait
151
n before she weds. This mode of divination is practised in Voigtland, East
152 153 154 155
Prussia, Silesia, Belgium, and Wales, and the same thing is done in
Masuren, although we are not told that there the wreaths must be composed
of nine sorts of flowers.156 However, in Masuren chaplets of nine kinds of
herbs are gathered on St. John's Eve and put to a more prosaic use than that
of presaging the course of true love. They are carefully preserved, and the
people brew a sort of tea from them, which they administer as a remedy for
many ailments; or they keep the chaplets under their pillows till they are
dry, and thereupon dose their sick cattle with them.157 In Esthonia the
virtues popularly ascribed to wreaths of this sort are many and various.
These wreaths, composed of nine kinds of herbs culled on the Eve or the
Day of St. John, are sometimes inserted in the roof or hung up on the walls
of the house, and each of them receives the name of one of the inmates. If
the plants which have been thus dedicated to a girl happen to take root and
grow in the chinks and crannies, she will soon wed; if they have been
dedicated to an older person and wither away, that person will die. The
people also give them as medicine to cattle at the time when the animals are
driven forth to pasture; or they fumigate the beasts with the smoke of the
herbs, which are burnt along with shavings from the wooden threshold.
Bunches of the plants are also hung about the house to keep off evil [pg
054] spirits, and maidens lay them under their pillows to dream on.158 In
Sweden the “Midsummer Brooms,” made up of nine sorts of flowers
gathered on Midsummer Eve, are put to nearly the same uses. Fathers of
families hang up such “brooms” to the rafters, one for each inmate of the
house; and he or she whose broom (quast) is the first to wither will be the
first to die. Girls also dream of their future husbands with these bunches of
flowers under their pillows. A decoction made from the flowers is,
moreover, a panacea for all disorders, and if a bunch of them be hung up in
the cattle shed, the Troll cannot enter to bewitch the beasts.159 The Germans
of Moravia think that nine kinds of herbs gathered on St. John's Night
(Midsummer Eve) are a remedy for fever;160 and some of the Wends
attribute a curative virtue in general to such plants.161

Of the flowers which it has been customary to gather for purposes of magic
or divination at midsummer none perhaps is so widely popular as St. John's
s wort (Hypericum perforatum). The reason for associating this particular
plant with the great summer festival is perhaps not far to seek, for the
flower blooms about Midsummer Day, and with its bright yellow petals and
masses of golden stamens it might well pass for a tiny copy on earth of the
great sun which reaches its culminating point in heaven at this season.
Gathered on Midsummer Eve, or on Midsummer Day before sunrise, the
blossoms are hung on doorways and windows to preserve the house against
thunder, witches, and evil spirits; and various healing properties are
attributed to the different species of the plant. In the Tyrol they say that if
you put St. John's wort in your shoe before sunrise on Midsummer Day you
may walk as far as you please without growing weary. In Scotland people
carried it about their persons as an amulet against witchcraft. On the lower
Rhine children twine chaplets of St. John's wort on the morning of
Midsummer Day, and throw them on the roofs of the houses. Here, too, the
n people who danced round the midsummer bonfires used [pg 055] to wear
s wreaths of these yellow flowers in their hair, and to deck the images of the
saints at wayside shrines with the blossoms. Sometimes they flung the
flowers into the bonfires. In Sicily they dip St. John's wort in oil, and so
apply it as a balm for every wound. During the Middle Ages the power
which the plant notoriously possesses of banning devils won for it the name
of fuga daemonum; and before witches and wizards were stretched on the
rack or otherwise tortured, the flower used to be administered to them as a
means of wringing the truth from their lips.162 In North Wales people used
to fix sprigs of St. John's wort over their doors, and sometimes over their
windows, “in order to purify their houses, and by that means drive away all
fiends and evil spirits.”163 In Saintonge and Aunis the flowers served to
detect the presence of sorcerers, for if one of these pestilent fellows entered
a house, the bunches of St. John's wort, which had been gathered on
Midsummer Eve and hung on the walls, immediately dropped their yellow
heads as if they had suddenly faded.164 However, the Germans [pg 056] of
Western Bohemia think that witches, far from dreading St. John's wort,
actually seek the plant on St. John's Eve.165 Further, the edges of the calyx
and petals of St. John's wort, as well as their external surface, are marked
with dark purple spots and lines, which, if squeezed, yield a red essential oil
soluble in spirits.166 German peasants believe that this red oil is the blood of

St. John,167 and this may be why the plant is supposed to heal all sorts of
wounds.168 In Mecklenburg they say that if you pull up St. John's wort at
noon on Midsummer Day you will find at the root a bead of red juice called
St. John's blood; smear this blood on your shirt just over your heart, and no
mad dog will bite you.169 In the Mark of Brandenburg the same blood,
procured in the same manner and rubbed on the barrel of a gun, will make
every shot from that gun to hit the mark.170 According to others, St. John's
blood is found at noon on St. John's Day, and only then, adhering in the
form of beads to the root of a weed called knawel, which grows in sandy
soil. But some people say that these beads of red juice are not really the
blood of the martyred saint, but only insects resembling the cochineal or
kermes-berry.171 “About Hanover I have often observed devout Roman
Catholics going on the morning of St. John's day to neighbouring sandhills,
gathering on the roots of herbs a certain insect (Coccus Polonica) looking
like drops of blood, and thought by them to be created on purpose to keep
alive the remembrance of the foul murder of St. John the Baptist, and only
to be met with on the morning of the day set apart for him by the Church. I
believe the life of this insect is very ephemeral, [pg 057] but by no means
restricted to the twenty-fourth of June.”172

Yet another plant whose root has been thought to yield the blood of St. John
is the mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella), which grows very
commonly in dry exposed places, such as gravelly banks, sunny lawns, and
the tops of park walls. “It blossoms from May to the end of July, presenting
its elegant sulphur-coloured flowers to the noontide sun, while the
surrounding herbage, and even its own foliage, is withered and burnt up”;173
and these round yellow flowers may be likened not inaptly to the disc of the
great luminary whose light they love. At Hildesheim, in Germany, people
used to dig up hawkweed, especially on the Gallows' Hill, when the clocks
were striking noon on Midsummer Day; and the blood of St. John, which
they found at the roots, was carefully preserved in quills for good luck. A
little of it smeared secretly on the clothes was sure to make the wearer
fortunate in the market that day.174 According to some the plant ought to be
dug up with a gold coin.175 Near Gablonz, in Bohemia, it used to be
customary to make a bed of St. John's flowers, as they were called, on St.
John's Eve, and in the night the saint himself came and laid his head on the
bed; next morning you could see the print of his head on the flowers, which

derived a healing virtue from his blessed touch, and were mixed with the
fodder of sick cattle to make them whole.176 But whether these St. John's
flowers were the mouse-ear hawkweed or not is doubtful.177

More commonly in Germany the name of St. John's flowers
(Johannisblumen) appears to be given to the mountain arnica. In Voigtland
the mountain arnica if plucked on St. John's Eve and stuck in the fields, laid
under [pg 058] the roof, or hung on the wall, is believed to protect house
and fields from lightning and hail.178 So in some parts of Bavaria they think
that no thunderstorm can harm a house which has a blossom of mountain
arnica in the window or the roof, and in the Tyrol the same flower fastened
to the door will render the dwelling fire-proof. But it is needless to remark
that the flower, which takes its popular name from St. John, will be no
protection against either fire or thunder unless it has been culled on the
saint's own day.179

Another plant which possesses wondrous virtues, if only it be gathered on
the Eve or the Day of St. John, is mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris). Hence in
France it goes by the name of the herb of St. John.180 Near Péronne, in the
French department of Somme, people used to go out fasting before sunrise
on St. John's Day to cull the plant; put among the wheat in the barn it
protected the corn against [pg 059] mice. In Artois people carried bunches
of mugwort, or wore it round their body;181 in Poitou they still wear girdles
of mugwort or hemp when they warm their backs at the midsummer fire as
a preservative against backache at harvest;182 and the custom of wearing
girdles of mugwort on the Eve or Day of St. John has caused the plant to be
popularly known in Germany and Bohemia as St. John's girdle. In Bohemia
such girdles are believed to protect the wearer for the whole year against
ghosts, magic, misfortune, and sickness. People also weave garlands of the
a plant and look through them at the midsummer bonfire or put them on their
heads; and by doing so they ensure that their heads will not ache nor their
eyes smart all that year. Another Bohemian practice is to make a decoction
of mugwort which has been gathered on St. John's Day; then, when your
cow is bewitched and will yield no milk, you have only to wash the animal
thrice with the decoction and the spell will be broken.183 In Germany, people
used to crown their heads or gird their bodies with mugwort, which they
afterwards threw into the midsummer bonfire, pronouncing certain rhymes

and believing that they thus rid themselves of all their ill-luck.184 Sometimes
wreaths or girdles of mugwort were kept in houses, cattle-sheds, and sheep-
folds throughout the year.185 In Normandy such wreaths are a protection
against thunder and thieves;186 and stalks of mugwort hinder witches from
laying their spells on the butter.187 In the Isle of Man on Midsummer Eve
people gathered barran fealoin or mugwort “as a preventive against the
influence of witchcraft”;188 in [pg 060] Belgium bunches of mugwort
gathered on St. John's Day or Eve and hung on the doors of stables and
houses are believed to bring good luck and to furnish a protection against
sorcery.189 It is curious to find that in China a similar use is, or was
formerly, made of mugwort at the same season of the year. In an old
Chinese calendar we read that “on the fifth day of the fifth month the four
classes of the people gambol in the herbage, and have competitive games
with plants of all kinds. They pluck mugwort and make dolls of it, which
they suspend over their gates and doors, in order to expel poisonous airs or
influences.”190 On this custom Professor J. J. M. de Groot observes: “Notice
that the plant owed its efficacy to the time when it was plucked: a day
denoting the midsummer festival, when light and fire of the universe are in
their apogee.”191 On account of this valuable property mugwort is used by
Chinese surgeons in cautery.192 The Ainos of Japan employ bunches of
mugwort in exorcisms, “because it is thought that demons of disease dislike
the smell and flavour of this herb.”193 It is an old German belief that he who
carries mugwort in his shoes will not grow weary.194 In Mecklenburg, they
say that if you will dig up a plant of mugwort at noon on Midsummer Day,
you will find under the root a burning coal, which vanishes away as soon as
the church bells have ceased to ring. If you find the coal and carry it off in
silence, it will prove a remedy for all sorts of maladies.195 According to
another German superstition, such a coal will turn to gold.196 English writers
record the popular belief that a rare coal is to be found under the root of
mugwort at a single hour of a single day in the year, namely, at noon or
midnight on Midsummer Eve, and that this coal will [pg 061] protect him
who carries it on his person from plague, carbuncle, lightning, fever, and
ague.197 In Eastern Prussia, on St. John's Eve, people can foretell a marriage
by means of mugwort; they bend two stalks of the growing plant outward,
and then observe whether the stalks, after straightening themselves again,
incline towards each other or not.198

A similar mode of divination has been practised both in England and in
Germany with the orpine (Sedum telephium), a plant which grows on a
gravelly or chalky soil about hedges, the borders of fields, and on bushy
hills. It flowers in August, and the blossoms consist of dense clustered tufts
of crimson or purple petals; sometimes, but rarely, the flowers are white.199
n In England the plant is popularly known as Midsummer Men, because
people used to plant slips of them in pairs on Midsummer Eve, one slip
standing for a young man and the other for a young woman. If the plants, as
they grew up, bent towards each other, the couple would marry; if either of
them withered, he or she whom it represented would die.200 In Masuren,
Westphalia, and Switzerland the method of forecasting the future by means
of the orpine is precisely the same.201

[pg 062]

Another plant which popular superstition has often associated with the
summer solstice is vervain.202 In some parts of Spain people gather vervain
after sunset on Midsummer Eve, and wash their faces next morning in the
water in which the plants have been allowed to steep overnight.203 In
Belgium vervain is gathered on St. John's Day and worn as a safeguard
against rupture.204 In Normandy the peasants cull vervain on the Day or the
Eve of St. John, believing that, besides its medical properties, it possesses at
this season the power of protecting the house from thunder and lightning,
from sorcerers, demons, and thieves.205 Bohemian poachers wash their guns
with a decoction of vervain and southernwood, which they have gathered
naked before sunrise on Midsummer Day; guns which have been thus
f treated never miss the mark.206 In our own country vervain used to be
sought for its magical virtues on Midsummer Eve.207 In the Tyrol they think
that he who finds a four-leaved clover while the vesper-bell is ringing on
n Midsummer Eve can work [pg 063] magic from that time forth.208 People in
Berry say that the four-leaved clover is endowed with all its marvellous
virtues only when it has been plucked by a virgin on the night of
Midsummer Eve.209 In Saintonge and Aunis the four-leaved clover, if it be
found on the Eve of St. John, brings good luck at play;210 in Belgium it
brings a girl a husband.211

At Kirchvers, in Hesse, people run out to the fields at noon on Midsummer
Day to gather camomile; for the flowers, plucked at the moment when the
sun is at the highest point of his course, are supposed to possess the
medicinal qualities of the plant in the highest degree. In heathen times the
camomile flower, with its healing qualities, its yellow calix and white
stamens, is said to have been sacred to the kindly and shining Balder and to
have borne his name, being called Balders-brâ, that is, Balder's
eyelashes.212 In Westphalia, also, the belief prevails that camomile is most
potent as a drug when it has been gathered on Midsummer Day;213 in
Masuren the plant must always be one of the nine different kinds of plants
that are culled on Midsummer Eve to form wreaths, and tea brewed from
the flower is a remedy for many sorts of maladies.214

Thuringian peasants hold that if the root of the yellow mullein (Verbascum)
has been dug up in silence with a ducat at midnight on Midsummer Eve,
and is worn in a piece of linen next to the skin, it will preserve the wearer
from epilepsy.215 In Prussia girls go out into the fields on Midsummer Day,
gather mullein, and hang it up over their beds. The girl [pg 064] whose
flower is the first to wither will be the first to die.216 Perhaps the bright
yellow flowers of mullein, clustering round the stem like lighted candles,
may partly account for the association of the plant with the summer solstice.
In Germany great mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is called the King's Candle;
in England it is popularly known as High Taper. The yellow, hoary mullein
(Verbascum pulverulentum) “forms a golden pyramid a yard high, of many
hundreds of flowers, and is one of the most magnificent of British
herbaceous plants.”217 We may trace a relation between mullein and the sun
in the Prussian custom of bending the flower, after sunset, towards the point
where the sun will rise, and praying at the same time that a sick person or a
sick beast may be restored to health.218

In Bohemia poachers fancy that they can render themselves invulnerable by
swallowing the seed from a fir-cone which they have found growing
f upwards before sunrise on the morning of St. John's Day.219 Again, wild
thyme gathered on Midsummer Day is used in Bohemia to fumigate the
trees on Christmas Eve in order that they may grow well;220 in Voigtland a
tea brewed from wild thyme which has been pulled at noon on Midsummer
Day is given to women in childbed.221 The Germans of Western Bohemia

e brew a tea or wine from elder-flowers, but they say that the brew has no
medicinal virtue unless the flowers have been gathered on Midsummer Eve.
They do say, too, that whenever you see an elder-tree, you should take off
your hat.222 In the Tyrol dwarf-elder serves to detect witchcraft in cattle,
provided of course that the shrub has been pulled up or the branches broken
on Midsummer Day.223 [pg 065] Russian peasants regard the plant known as
purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) with respect and even fear. Wizards
make much use of it. They dig the root up on St. John's morning, at break of
day, without the use of iron tools; and they believe that by means of the
root, as well as of the blossom, they can subdue evil spirits and make them
serviceable, and also drive away witches and the demons that guard
treasures.224

More famous, however, than these are the marvellous properties which
popular superstition in many parts of Europe has attributed to the fern at
this season. At midnight on Midsummer Eve the plant is supposed to bloom
and soon afterwards to seed; and whoever catches the bloom or the seed is
thereby endowed with supernatural knowledge and miraculous powers;
n above all, he knows where treasures lie hidden in the ground, and he can
t render himself invisible at will by putting the seed in his shoe. But great
precautions must be observed in procuring the wondrous bloom or seed,
which else quickly vanishes like dew on sand or mist in the air. The seeker
must neither touch it with his hand nor let it touch the ground; he spreads a
white cloth under the plant, and the blossom or the seed falls into it. Beliefs
of this sort concerning fern-seed have prevailed, with trifling variations of
detail, in England, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Russia.225 In [pg
066] Bohemia the magic bloom is said to be golden, and to glow or sparkle
like fire.226 In Russia, they say that at dead of night on Midsummer Eve the
plant puts forth buds like glowing coals, which on the stroke of twelve burst
open with a clap like thunder and light up everything near and far.227 In the
Azores they say that the fern only blooms at midnight on St. John's Eve,
and that no one ever sees the flower because the fairies instantly carry it off.
But if any one, watching till it opens, throws a cloth over it, and then, when
the magic hour has passed, burns the blossoms carefully, the ashes will
serve as a mirror in which you can read the fate of absent friends; if your
friends are well and happy, the ashes will resume the shape of a lovely
flower; but if they are unhappy or dead, the ashes will remain cold and

lifeless.228 In Thuringia people think that he who has on his person or in his
house the male fern (Aspidium filix mas) cannot be bewitched. They call it
St. John's root (Johanniswurzel), and say that it blooms thrice in the year,
on Christmas Eve, Easter Eve, and the day of St. John the Baptist; it should
be dug up when the sun enters the sign [pg 067] of the lion. Armed with this
powerful implement you can detect a sorcerer at any gathering, it may be a
wedding feast or what not. All you have to do is to put the root under the
tablecloth unseen by the rest of the company, and, if there should be a
sorcerer among them, he will turn as pale as death and get up and go away.
Fear and horror come over him when the fern-root is under the tablecloth.
And when oxen, horses, or other domestic cattle are bewitched by wicked
people, you need only take the root at full moon, soak it in water, and
sprinkle the cattle with the water, or rub them down with a cloth that has
been steeped in it, and witchcraft will have no more power over the
animals.229

Once more, people have fancied that if they cut a branch of hazel on
Midsummer Eve it would serve them as a divining rod to discover treasures
and water. This belief has existed in Moravia, Mecklenburg, and apparently
l in Scotland.230 In the Mark of Brandenburg, they say that if you would
t procure the mystic wand you must go to the hazel by night on Midsummer
Eve, walking backwards, and when you have come to the bush you must
e silently put your hands between your legs and cut a fork-shaped stick; that
stick will be the divining-rod, and, as such, will detect treasures buried in
the ground. If you have any doubt as to the quality of the wand, you have
only to hold it in water; for in that case your true divining-rod will squeak
like a pig, but your spurious one will not.231 In Bavaria they say that the
divining-rod should be cut from a hazel bush between eleven and twelve on
St. John's Night, and that by means of it you can discover not only veins of
metal and [pg 068] underground springs, but also thieves and murderers and
unknown ways. In cutting it you should say, “God greet thee, thou noble
twig! With God the Father I seek thee, with God the Son I find thee, with
the might of God the Holy Ghost I break thee. I adjure thee, rod and sprig,
by the power of the Highest that thou shew me what I order, and that as sure
and clear as Mary the Mother of God was a pure virgin when she bare our
Lord Jesus, in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Ghost, Amen!”232 In Berlin and the neighbourhood they say that every

seventh year there grows a wonderful branch on a hazel bush, and that
branch is the divining-rod. Only an innocent child, born on a Sunday and
nursed in the true faith, can find it on St. John's Night; to him then all the
treasures of the earth lie open.233 In the Tyrol the divining-rod ought to be
cut at new moon, but may be cut either on St. John's Day or on Twelfth
Night. Having got it you baptize it in the name of one of the Three Holy
Kings according to the purpose for which you intend to use it: if the rod is
to discover gold, you name it Caspar; if it is to reveal silver, you call it
Balthasar; and if it is to point out hidden springs of water, you dub it
Melchior.234 In Lechrain the divining-rod is a yearling shoot of hazel with
two branches; a good time for cutting it is new moon, and if the sun is
rising, so much the better. As for the day of the year, you may take your
choice between St. John's Day, Twelfth Night, and Shrove Tuesday. If cut
with the proper form of words, the rod will as usual discover underground
springs and hidden treasures.235

[pg 069]

Midsummer Eve is also the favourite time for procuring the divining-rod in
Sweden. Some say that it should then be cut from a mistletoe bough.236
However, other people in Sweden are of opinion that the divining-rod (Slag
ruta) which is obtained on Midsummer Eve ought to be compounded out of
n four different kinds of wood, to wit, mistletoe, mountain-ash, the aspen, and
another; and they say that the mountain-ash which is employed for this
purpose should, like the mistletoe, be a parasite growing from the hollow
root of a fallen tree, whither the seed was carried by a bird or wafted by the
wind. Armed with this fourfold implement of power the treasure-seeker
proceeds at sundown to the spot where he expects to find hidden wealth;
there he lays the rod on the ground in perfect silence, and when it lies
directly over treasure, it will begin to hop about as if it were alive.237

A mystical plant which to some extent serves the same purpose as the
divining-rod is the springwort, which is sometimes supposed to be caper-
spurge (Euphorbia lathyris). In the Harz Mountains they say that many
years ago there was a wondrous flower called springwort or Johnswort,
which was as rare as it was marvellous. It bloomed only on St. John's Night
(some say under a fern) between the hours of eleven and twelve; but when
m

the last stroke of twelve was struck, the flower vanished away. Only in
mountainous regions, where many noble metals reposed in the bosom of the
earth, was the flower seen now and then in lonely meadows among the hills.
The spirits of the hills wished by means of it to shew to men where their
treasures were to be found. The flower itself was yellow and shone like a
lamp in the darkness of night. It never stood still, but kept [pg 070] hopping
constantly to and fro. It was also afraid of men and fled before them, and no
man ever yet plucked it unless he had been set apart by Providence for the
task. To him who was lucky enough to cull it the flower revealed all the
treasures of the earth, and it made him rich, oh so rich and so happy!238

However, the usual account given of the springwort is somewhat different.
They say that the way to procure it is this. You mark a hollow in a tree
where a green or black woodpecker has built its nest and hatched its young;
f you plug up the hole with a wooden wedge; then you hide behind the tree
and wait. The woodpecker meantime has flown away but very soon returns
with the springwort in its bill. It flutters up to the tree-trunk holding the
springwort to the wedge, which at once, as if struck by a hammer, jumps
e out with a bang. Now is your chance. You rush from your concealment, you
raise a loud cry, and in its fright the bird opens its bill and drops the
f springwort. Quick as thought you reach out a red or white cloth, with which
you have taken care to provide yourself, and catch the magic flower as it
falls. The treasure is now yours. Before its marvellous power all doors and
locks fly open; it can make the bearer of it invisible; and neither steel nor
lead can wound the man who carries it in the right-hand pocket of his coat.
That is why people in Swabia say of a thief who cannot be caught, “He
must surely have a springwort.”239 [pg 071] The superstition which
associates the springwort with the woodpecker is very ancient, for it is
recorded by Pliny. It was a vulgar belief, he tells us, that if a shepherd
plugged up a woodpecker's nest in the hollow of a tree with a wedge, the
bird would bring a herb which caused the wedge to slip out of the hole;
Trebius indeed affirmed that the wedge leaped out with a bang, however
hard and fast you might have driven it into the tree.240 Another flower which
possesses the same remarkable power of bursting open all doors and locks
is chicory, provided always that you cut the flower with a piece of gold at
noon or midnight on St. James's Day, the twenty-fifth of July. But in cutting
it you must be perfectly silent; if you utter a sound, it is all up with you.

There was a man who was just about to cut the flower of the chicory, when
he looked up and saw a millstone hovering over his head. He fled for his
life and fortunately escaped; but had he so much as opened his lips, the
millstone would have dropped on him and crushed him as flat as a pancake.
However, it is only a rare white variety of the chicory flower which can act
as a picklock; the common bright blue flower is perfectly useless for the
purpose.241

Many more examples might perhaps be cited of the marvellous virtues
which certain plants have been supposed to acquire at the summer solstice,
but the foregoing instances may suffice to prove that the superstition is
widely spread, deeply rooted, and therefore probably very ancient in
Europe. Why should plants be thought to be endowed with these wonderful
properties on the longest day more than on any other day of the year? It
t seems difficult or impossible to explain such a belief except on the
supposition that in some mystic way the plants catch from the sun, then at
e the full height of his power and glory, some fleeting effluence of radiant
light and heat, which invests them for a time with powers above the
d ordinary for the healing of diseases and the unmasking and baffling of all
e the evil things that threaten the life of man. That the supposition is not
n purely hypothetical will appear from a folk-tale, to be noticed later on, in
e which the magic [pg 072] bloom of the fern is directly derived from the sun
f at noon on Midsummer Day. And if the magic flowers of Midsummer Eve
r thus stand in direct relation to the sun, which many of them resemble in
shape and colour, blooming in the meadows like little yellow suns fallen
from the blue sky, does it not become probable that the bonfires kindled at
the same time are the artificial, as the flowers are the natural, imitations of
e the great celestial fire then blazing in all its strength? At least analogy
seems to favour the inference and so far to support Mannhardt's theory, that
the bonfires kindled at the popular festivals of Europe, especially at the
n summer solstice, are intended to reinforce the waning or waxing fires of the
sun. Thus if in our enquiry into these fire-festivals the scales of judgment
are loaded with the adverse theories of Mannhardt and Westermarck, we
may say that the weight, light as it is, of the magic flowers of Midsummer
Eve seems to incline the trembling balance back to the side of Mannhardt.

Nor is it, perhaps, an argument against Mannhardt's view that the
midsummer flowers and plants are so often employed as talismans to break
the spells of witchcraft.242 For granted that employment, which is
undeniable, we have still to explain it, and that we can hardly do except by
reference to the midsummer sun. And what is here said of the midsummer
s flowers applies equally to the midsummer bonfires. They too are used to
n destroy the charms of witches and warlocks; but if they can do so, may it
not be in part because fires at midsummer are thought to burn with fiercer
n fury than at other times by sympathy with the fiercer fervour of the sun?
This consideration would bring us back to an intermediate position between
l the opposing theories, namely, to the view that while the purely destructive
f aspect of fire is generally the most prominent and apparently the most
important at these festivals, we must not overlook the additional force
which by virtue of homoeopathic or imitative magic the bonfires may be
supposed both to derive from and to impart to the sun, especially at the
moment of the summer solstice when his strength is greatest and begins to
decline, and when accordingly he can at once give and receive help to the
greatest advantage.

[pg 073]

To conclude this part of our subject it may not be amiss to illustrate by a
few more miscellaneous examples the belief that Midsummer Eve is one of
the great days of the year in which witches and warlocks pursue their
nefarious calling; indeed in this respect Midsummer Eve perhaps stands
second only to the famous Walpurgis Night (the Eve of May Day). For
e instance, in the neighbourhood of Lierre, in Belgium, the people think that
on the night of Midsummer Eve all witches and warlocks must repair to a
f certain field which is indicated to them beforehand. There they hold their
t infernal Sabbath and are passed in review by a hellish magician, who
bestows on them fresh powers. That is why old women are most careful,
f before going to bed on that night, to stop up doors and windows and every
other opening in order to bar out the witches and warlocks, who but for this
sage precaution might steal into the house and make the first trial of their
t new powers on the unfortunate inmates.243 At Rottenburg, in Swabia, people
thought that the devil and the witches could do much harm on Midsummer
Eve; so they made fast their shutters and bunged up even the chinks and
e

crannies, for wherever air can penetrate, there the devil and witches can
t worm their way in. All night long, too, from nine in the evening till break of
day, the church bells rang to disturb the dreadful beings at their evil work,
n since there is perhaps no better means of putting the whole devilish crew to
flight than the sound of church bells.244 Down to the second half of the
nineteenth century the belief in witches was still widespread in Voigtland, a
bleak mountainous region of Central Germany. It was especially on the Eve
n of May Day (Walpurgis), St. Thomas's Day, St. John's Day, and Christmas
n Eve, as well as on Mondays, that they were dreaded. Then they would come
into a neighbour's house to beg, borrow, or steal something, no matter what;
d but woe to the poor wretch who suffered them to carry away so much as a
chip or splinter of wood; for they would certainly use it to his undoing. On
these witching nights the witches rode to their Sabbath on baking-forks and
the [pg 074] dashers of churns; but if when they were hurtling through the
a darkness any one standing below addressed one of the witches by name, she
would die within the year. To counteract and undo the spells which witches
cast on man and beast, people resorted to all kinds of measures. Thus on the
e before-mentioned days folk made three crosses on the doors of the byres or
guarded them by hanging up St. John's wort, marjoram, or other equally
powerful talismans. Very often, too, the village youth would carry the war
into the enemy's quarters by marching out in a body, cracking whips, firing
guns, waving burning besoms, shouting and making an uproar, all for the
purpose of frightening and driving away the witches.245 In Prussia witches
and warlocks used regularly to assemble twice a year on Walpurgis Night
and the Eve of St. John. The places where they held their infernal Sabbath
were various; for example, one was Pogdanzig, in the district of Schlochau.
They generally rode on a baking-fork, but often on a black three-legged
horse, and they took their departure up the chimney with the words, “Up
and away and nowhere to stop!” When they were all gathered on the
Blocksberg or Mount of the Witches, they held high revelry, feasting first
and then dancing on a tight rope lefthanded-wise to the inspiring strains
which an old warlock drew from a drum and a pig's head.246 The South
Slavs believe that on the night of Midsummer Eve a witch will slink up to
the fence of the farmyard and say, “The cheese to me, the lard to me, the
butter to me, the milk to me, but the cowhide to thee!” After that the cow
will perish miserably and you will be obliged to bury the flesh and sell the
hide. To prevent this disaster the thing to do is to go out into the meadows

very early on Midsummer morning while the dew is on the grass, collect a
quantity of dew in a waterproof mantle, carry it home, and having tethered
your cow wash her down with the dew. After that you have only to place a
milkpail under her udders and to milk away as hard as you can; the amount
of milk that you will extract from that cow's dugs is quite surprising. Again,
the [pg 075] Slovenians about Görz and the Croats of Istria believe that on
the same night the witches wage pitched battles with baptized folk,
attacking them fiercely with broken stakes of palings and stumps of trees. It
is therefore a wise precaution to grub up all the stumps in autumn and carry
them home, so that the witches may be weaponless on St. John's Night. If
the stumps are too heavy to be grubbed up, it is well to ram them down
tighter into the earth, for then the witches will not be able to pull them up.247

[pg 076]

Chapter IX. Balder and the Mistletoe.

The reader may remember that the preceding account of the popular fire-
festivals of Europe was suggested by the myth of the Norse god Balder,
f who is said to have been slain by a branch of mistletoe and burnt in a great
fire. We have now to enquire how far the customs which have been passed
in review help to shed light on the myth. In this enquiry it may be
h convenient to begin with the mistletoe, the instrument of Balder's death.

From time immemorial the mistletoe has been the object of superstitious
veneration in Europe. It was worshipped by the Druids, as we learn from a
famous passage of Pliny. After enumerating the different kinds of mistletoe,
e he proceeds: “In treating of this subject, the admiration in which the
r mistletoe is held throughout Gaul ought not to pass unnoticed. The Druids,
for so they call their wizards, esteem nothing more sacred than the mistletoe
and the tree on which it grows, provided only that the tree is an oak. But
apart from this they choose oak-woods for their sacred groves and perform
no sacred rites without oak-leaves; so that the very name of Druids may be
regarded as a Greek appellation derived from their worship of the oak.248
For [pg 077] they believe that whatever grows on these trees is sent from
heaven, and is a sign that the tree has been chosen by the god himself. The
mistletoe is very rarely to be met with; but when it is found, they gather it
with solemn ceremony. This they do above all on the sixth day of the moon,
from whence they date the beginnings of their months, of their years, and of
their thirty years' cycle, because by the sixth day the moon has plenty of
vigour and has not run half its course. After due preparations have been
made for a sacrifice and a feast under the tree, they hail it as the universal
healer and bring to the spot two white bulls, whose horns have never been
bound before. A priest clad in a white robe climbs the tree and with a

golden sickle cuts the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloth. Then they
sacrifice the victims, praying that God may make his own gift to prosper
with those upon whom he has bestowed it. They believe that a potion
prepared from mistletoe will make barren animals to bring forth, and that
the plant is a remedy against all poison. So much of men's religion is
commonly concerned with trifles.”249

[pg 078]

In another passage Pliny tells us that in medicine the mistletoe which grows
on an oak was esteemed the most efficacious, and that its efficacy was by
some superstitious people supposed to be increased if the plant was
gathered on the first day of the moon without the use of iron, and if when
gathered it was not allowed to touch the earth; oak-mistletoe thus obtained
was deemed a cure for epilepsy; carried about by women it assisted them to
conceive; and it healed ulcers most effectually, if only the sufferer chewed a
piece of the plant and laid another piece on the sore.250 Yet, again, he says
t that mistletoe was supposed, like vinegar and an egg, to be an excellent
means of extinguishing a fire.251

If in these latter passages Pliny refers, as he apparently does, to the beliefs
current among his contemporaries in Italy, it will follow that the Druids and
the Italians were to some extent agreed as to the valuable properties
possessed by mistletoe which grows on an oak; both of them deemed it an
effectual remedy for a number of ailments, and both of them ascribed to it a
e quickening virtue, the Druids believing that a potion prepared from
mistletoe would fertilize barren cattle, and the Italians holding that a piece
of mistletoe carried about by a woman would help her to conceive a child.
e Further, both peoples thought that if the plant were to exert its medicinal
properties it must be gathered in a certain way and at a certain time. It
might not be cut with iron, hence the Druids cut it with gold; and it might
not touch the earth, hence the Druids caught it in a white cloth. In choosing
the time for gathering the plant, both peoples were determined by
observation of the moon; only they differed as to the particular day of the
moon, the Italians preferring the first, and the Druids the sixth.

[pg 079]

With these beliefs of the ancient Gauls and Italians as to the wonderful
medicinal properties of mistletoe we may compare the similar beliefs of the
modern Ainos of Japan. We read that they, “like many nations of the
Northern origin, hold the mistletoe in peculiar veneration. They look upon it
as a medicine, good in almost every disease, and it is sometimes taken in
food and at others separately as a decoction. The leaves are used in
e preference to the berries, the latter being of too sticky a nature for general
f purposes.... But many, too, suppose this plant to have the power of making
the gardens bear plentifully. When used for this purpose, the leaves are cut
up into fine pieces, and, after having been prayed over, are sown with the
millet and other seeds, a little also being eaten with the food. Barren women
have also been known to eat the mistletoe, in order to be made to bear
children. That mistletoe which grows upon the willow is supposed to have
the greatest efficacy. This is because the willow is looked upon by them as
being an especially sacred tree.”252

Thus the Ainos agree with the Druids in regarding mistletoe as a cure for
almost every disease, and they agree with the ancient Italians that applied to
women it helps them to bear children. A similar belief as to the fertilizing
influence of mistletoe, or of similar plants, upon women is entertained by
the natives of Mabuiag, an island in Torres Straits. These savages imagine
that twins can be produced “by the pregnant woman touching or breaking a
e branch of a loranthaceous plant (Viscum sp., probably V. orientale) parasitic
on a tree, mader. The wood of this tree is much esteemed for making
digging sticks and as firewood, no twin-producing properties are inherent in
it, nor is it regarded as being infected with the properties of its twin-
e producing parasite.”253 Again, the Druidical notion that the mistletoe was an
f “all-healer” or panacea may be compared with a notion entertained by the
Walos of Senegambia. These people “have much veneration for a sort of
e mistletoe, which they call tob; they carry leaves of it on their persons [pg
080] when they go to war as a preservative against wounds, just as if the
leaves were real talismans (gris-gris).” The French writer who records this
practice adds: “Is it not very curious that the mistletoe should be in this part
n of Africa what it was in the superstitions of the Gauls? This prejudice,
e common to the two countries, may have the same origin; blacks and whites
will doubtless have seen, each of them for themselves, something
n supernatural in a plant which grows and flourishes without having roots in

the earth. May they not have believed, in fact, that it was a plant fallen from
the sky, a gift of the divinity?”254

This suggestion as to the origin of the superstition is strongly confirmed by
the Druidical belief, reported by Pliny, that whatever grew on an oak was
a sent from heaven and was a sign that the tree had been chosen by the god
himself.255 Such a belief explains why the Druids cut the mistletoe, not with
a common knife, but with a golden sickle,256 and why, when cut, it was not
e suffered to touch the earth; [pg 081] probably they thought that the celestial
d plant would have been profaned and its marvellous virtue lost by contact
g with the ground. With the ritual observed by the Druids in cutting the
mistletoe we may compare the ritual which in Cambodia is prescribed in a
r similar case. They say that when you see an orchid growing as a parasite on
a tamarind tree, you should dress in white, take a new earthenware pot, then
climb the tree at noon, break off the plant, put it in the pot, and let the pot
fall to the ground. After that you make in the pot a decoction which confers
the gift of invulnerability.257 Thus just as in Africa the leaves of one
parasitic plant are supposed to render the wearer invulnerable, so in
Cambodia a decoction made from another parasitic plant is considered to
render the same service to such as make use of it, whether by drinking or
washing. We may conjecture that in both places the notion of
invulnerability is suggested by the position of the plant, which, occupying a
place of comparative security above the ground, appears to promise to its
fortunate possessor a similar security from some of the ills that beset the life
of man on earth. We have already met with many examples of the store
which the primitive mind sets on such vantage grounds.258

Whatever may be the origin of these beliefs and practices concerning the
mistletoe, certain it is that some of them have their analogies in the folk-
lore of modern European peasants. For example, it is laid down as a rule in
various parts of Europe that mistletoe may not be cut in the ordinary way
d but must be shot or knocked down with stones from the tree on which it is
growing. Thus, in [pg 082] the Swiss canton of Aargau “all parasitic plants
are esteemed in a certain sense holy by the country folk, but most
particularly so the mistletoe growing on an oak. They ascribe great powers
r to it, but shrink from cutting it off in the usual manner. Instead of that they
procure it in the following manner. When the sun is in Sagittarius and the
n

moon is on the wane, on the first, third, or fourth day before the new moon,
one ought to shoot down with an arrow the mistletoe of an oak and to catch
it with the left hand as it falls. Such mistletoe is a remedy for every ailment
of children.”259 Here among the Swiss peasants, as among the Druids of old,
special virtue is ascribed to mistletoe which grows on an oak: it may not be
cut in the usual way: it must be caught as it falls to the ground; and it is
esteemed a panacea for all diseases, at least of children. In Sweden, also, it
is a popular superstition that if mistletoe is to possess its peculiar virtue, it
must either be shot down out of the oak or knocked down with stones.260
Similarly, “so late as the early part of the nineteenth century, people in
Wales believed that for the mistletoe to have any power, it must be shot or
struck down with stones off the tree where it grew.”261

Again, in respect of the healing virtues of mistletoe the opinion of modern
peasants, and even of the learned, has to some extent agreed with that of the
ancients. The Druids appear to have called the plant, or perhaps the oak on
which it grew, the “all-healer”;262 and “all-healer” is said to be still a name
of the mistletoe in the modern Celtic speech of Brittany, Wales, Ireland, and
Scotland.263 On St. John's morning (Midsummer morning) peasants of
Piedmont [pg 083] and Lombardy go out to search the oak-leaves for the
“oil of St. John,” which is supposed to heal all wounds made with cutting
instruments.264 Originally, perhaps, the “oil of St. John” was simply the
mistletoe, or a decoction made from it. For in Holstein the mistletoe,
especially oak-mistletoe, is still regarded as a panacea for green wounds
e and as a sure charm to secure success in hunting;265 and at Lacaune, in the
south of France, the old Druidical belief in the mistletoe as an antidote to all
poisons still survives among the peasantry; they apply the plant to the
stomach of the sufferer or give him a decoction of it to drink.266 Again, the
ancient belief that mistletoe is a cure for epilepsy has survived in modern
times not only among the ignorant but among the learned. Thus in Sweden
persons afflicted with the falling sickness think they can ward off attacks of
the malady by carrying about with them a knife which has a handle of oak
mistletoe;267 and in Germany for a similar purpose pieces of mistletoe used
to be hung round the necks of children.268 In the French province of
Bourbonnais a popular remedy for epilepsy is a decoction of mistletoe
which has been gathered on an oak on St. John's Day and boiled with rye-
flour.269 So at Bottesford in Lincolnshire a decoction of mistletoe is

supposed to be a palliative for this terrible disease.270 Indeed mistletoe was
recommended as a remedy for the falling sickness by high medical
authorities in England and Holland down to the eighteenth century.271 [pg
084] At Kirton-in-Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, it is thought that St. Vitus's
dance may be cured by the water in which mistletoe berries have been
boiled.272 In the Scotch shires of Elgin and Moray, down to the second half
of the eighteenth century, at the full moon of March people used to cut
withes of mistletoe or ivy, make circles of them, keep them all the year, and
profess to cure hectics and other troubles by means of them.273 In Sweden,
apparently, for other complaints a sprig of mistletoe is hung round the
patient's neck or a ring of it is worn on his finger.274

However, the opinion of the medical profession as to the curative virtues of
mistletoe has undergone a radical alteration. Whereas the Druids thought
that mistletoe cured everything, modern doctors appear to think that it cures
nothing.275 If they are right, we must conclude that the ancient and
widespread faith in the medicinal virtue of mistletoe is a pure superstition
based on nothing better than the fanciful inferences which ignorance has
drawn from the parasitic nature of the plant, its position high up on the
e branch of a tree seeming to protect it from the dangers to which plants and
animals are subject on the surface of the ground. From this point of view we
can perhaps understand why mistletoe has so long and so persistently been
prescribed as a cure for the falling sickness. As mistletoe cannot fall to the
ground because it is rooted on the branch of a tree high above the earth, it
e seems to follow as a necessary consequence that an epileptic patient cannot
possibly fall down in a fit so long as he carries a piece of mistletoe in his
f pocket or a decoction of mistletoe in his stomach. Such a train of reasoning
would probably be regarded even now as cogent by a large portion of the
human species.

Again the ancient Italian opinion that mistletoe extinguishes [pg 085] fire
appears to be shared by Swedish peasants, who hang up bunches of oak-
f mistletoe on the ceilings of their rooms as a protection against harm in
general and conflagration in particular.276 A hint as to the way in which
mistletoe comes to be possessed of this property is furnished by the epithet
“thunder-besom,” which people of the Aargau canton in Switzerland apply
e to the plant.277 For a thunder-besom is a shaggy, bushy excrescence on

a branches of trees, which is popularly believed to be produced by a flash of
278
t lightning; hence in Bohemia a thunder-besom burnt in the fire protects
279
n the house against being struck by a thunder-bolt. Being itself a product of
n lightning it naturally serves, on homoeopathic principles, as a protection
f against lightning, in fact as a kind of lightning-conductor. Hence the fire
which mistletoe in Sweden is designed especially to avert from houses may
be fire kindled by lightning; though no doubt the plant is equally effective
against conflagration in general.

Again, mistletoe acts as a master-key as well as a lightning-conductor; for it
is said to open all locks.280 However, in the Tyrol it can only exert this
power “under certain circumstances,” which are not specified.281 But
perhaps the most precious of all the virtues of mistletoe is that it affords
efficient protection against sorcery and witchcraft.282 That, no doubt, is the
reason why in Austria a twig of mistletoe is laid on the threshold as a
preventive of nightmare;283 and it may be the reason why in the north of [pg
086] England they say that if you wish your dairy to thrive you should give
your bunch of mistletoe to the first cow that calves after New Year's Day,284
s for it is well known that nothing is so fatal to milk and butter as witchcraft.
Similarly in Wales, for the sake of ensuring good luck to the dairy, people
a used to give a branch of mistletoe to the first cow that gave birth to a calf
after the first hour of the New Year; and in rural districts of Wales, where
mistletoe abounded, there was always a profusion of it in the farmhouses.
When mistletoe was scarce, Welsh farmers used to say, “No mistletoe, no
luck”; but if there was a fine crop of mistletoe, they expected a fine crop of
corn.285 In Sweden mistletoe is diligently sought after on St. John's Eve, the
people “believing it to be, in a high degree, possessed of mystic qualities;
and that if a sprig of it be attached to the ceiling of the dwelling-house, the
horse's stall, or the cow's crib, the Troll will then be powerless to injure
either man or beast.”286

With regard to the time when the mistletoe should be gathered opinions
have varied. The Druids gathered it above all on the sixth day of the moon,
the ancient Italians apparently on the first day of the moon.287 In modern
times some have preferred the full moon of March and others the waning
r moon of winter when the sun is in Sagittarius.288 But the favourite time
would seem to be Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day. We have seen that

both in France and Sweden special virtues are ascribed to mistletoe
gathered at Midsummer.289 The rule in Sweden is that “mistletoe must be
cut on the night of Midsummer Eve when sun and moon stand in the sign of
their might.”290 Again, in Wales it was believed that a sprig of mistletoe
gathered on St. John's Eve (Midsummer Eve), or at any time before the
berries appeared, would induce dreams of omen, both good [pg 087] and
bad, if it were placed under the pillow of the sleeper.291 Thus mistletoe is
one of the many plants whose magical or medicinal virtues are believed to
culminate with the culmination of the sun on the longest day of the year.
Hence it seems reasonable to conjecture that in the eyes of the Druids, also,
who revered the plant so highly, the sacred mistletoe may have acquired a
double portion of its mystic qualities at the solstice in June, and that
accordingly they may have regularly cut it with solemn ceremony on
Midsummer Eve.

Be that as it may, certain it is that the mistletoe, the instrument of Balder's
death, has been regularly gathered for the sake of its mystic qualities on
Midsummer Eve in Scandinavia, Balder's home.292 The plant is found
commonly growing on pear-trees, oaks, and other trees in thick damp
woods throughout the more temperate parts of Sweden.293 Thus one of the
two main incidents of Balder's myth is reproduced in the great midsummer
festival of Scandinavia. But the other main incident of the myth, the
e burning of Balder's body on a pyre, has also its counterpart in the bonfires
f which still blaze, or blazed till lately, in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden on
Midsummer Eve.294 It does not appear, indeed, that any effigy is burned in
these bonfires; but the burning of an effigy is a feature which might easily
e drop out after its meaning was forgotten. And the name of Balder's balefires
f (Balder's Bălar), by which these midsummer fires were formerly known in
Sweden,295 puts their connexion with Balder beyond the reach of doubt, and
makes it probable that in former times either a living representative or an
effigy of Balder was annually burned in them. Midsummer was the season
sacred to Balder, and the Swedish poet Tegner, in placing the burning of
e Balder at midsummer,296 may very well have followed an [pg 088] old
tradition that the summer solstice was the time when the good god came to
his untimely end.

Thus it has been shewn that the leading incidents of the Balder myth have
their counterparts in those fire-festivals of our European peasantry which
e undoubtedly date from a time long prior to the introduction of Christianity.
f The pretence of throwing the victim chosen by lot into the Beltane fire,297
s and the similar treatment of the man, the future Green Wolf, at the
midsummer bonfire in Normandy,298 may naturally be interpreted as traces
of an older custom of actually burning human beings on these occasions;
and the green dress of the Green Wolf, coupled with the leafy envelope of
f the young fellow who trod out the midsummer fire at Moosheim,299 seems
r to hint that the persons who perished at these festivals did so in the
character of tree-spirits or deities of vegetation. From all this we may
reasonably infer that in the Balder myth on the one hand, and the fire-
festivals and custom of gathering mistletoe on the other hand, we have, as it
were, the two broken and dissevered halves of an original whole. In other
words, we may assume with some degree of probability that the myth of
Balder's death was not merely a myth, that is, a description of physical
phenomena in imagery borrowed from human life, but that it was at the
same time the story which people told to explain why they annually burned
a human representative of the god and cut the mistletoe with solemn
ceremony. If I am right, the story of Balder's tragic end formed, so to say,
the text of the sacred drama which was acted year by year as a magical rite
to cause the sun to shine, trees to grow, crops to thrive, and to guard man
and beast from the baleful arts of fairies and trolls, of witches and warlocks.
The tale belonged, in short, to that class of nature myths which are meant to
be supplemented by ritual; here, as so often, myth stood to magic in the
relation of theory to practice.

But if the victims—the human Balders—who died by fire, whether in
spring or at midsummer, were put to death as living embodiments of tree-
n spirits or deities of vegetation, it would seem that Balder himself must have
been a tree-spirit [pg 089] or deity of vegetation. It becomes desirable,
a therefore, to determine, if we can, the particular kind of tree or trees, of
which a personal representative was burned at the fire-festivals. For we may
be quite sure that it was not as a representative of vegetation in general that
n the victim suffered death. The idea of vegetation in general is too abstract to
be primitive. Most probably the victim at first represented a particular kind
of sacred tree. Now of all European trees none has such claims as the oak to

d be considered as pre-eminently the sacred tree of the Aryans. Its worship is
d attested for all the great branches of the Aryan stock in Europe. We have
seen that it was not only the sacred tree, but the principal object of worship
of both Celts and Lithuanians.300 The roving Celts appear to have carried
k their worship of the oak with them even to Asia; for in the heart of Asia
Minor the Galatian senate met in a place which bore the pure Celtic name
of Drynemetum or “temple of the oak.”301 Among the Slavs the oak seems
302
e to have been the sacred tree of the great god Perun. According to Grimm,
e the oak ranked first among the holy trees of the Germans. It is certainly
known to have been adored by them in the age of heathendom, and traces of
its worship have survived in various parts of Germany almost to the present
day.303 Among the ancient Italians the oak was sacred above all other
trees.304 The image of Jupiter on the Capitol at Rome seems to have been
originally nothing but a natural oak-tree.305 At Dodona, perhaps the oldest of
all Greek sanctuaries, Zeus was worshipped as immanent in the sacred oak,
and the rustling of its leaves in the wind was [pg 090] his voice.306 If, then,
the great god of both Greeks and Romans was represented in some of his
oldest shrines under the form of an oak, and if the oak was the principal
object of worship of Celts, Germans, and Lithuanians, we may certainly
conclude that this tree was venerated by the Aryans in common before the
dispersion; and that their primitive home must have lain in a land which
was clothed with forests of oak.307

Now, considering the primitive character and remarkable similarity of the
fire-festivals observed by all the branches of the Aryan race in Europe, we
e may infer that these festivals form part of the common stock of religious
observances which the various peoples carried with them in their
wanderings from their old home. But, if I am right, an essential feature of
e those primitive fire-festivals was the burning of a man who represented the
tree-spirit. In view, then, of the place occupied by the oak in the religion of
the Aryans, the presumption is that the tree so represented at the fire-
festivals must originally have been the oak. So far as the Celts and
t Lithuanians are concerned, this conclusion will perhaps hardly be contested.
But both for them and for the Germans it is confirmed by a remarkable
piece of religious conservatism. The most primitive method known to man
of producing fire is by rubbing two pieces of wood against each other till
they ignite; and we have seen that this method is still used in Europe for

kindling sacred fires such as the need-fire, and that most probably it was
formerly resorted to at all the fire-festivals under discussion. Now it is
sometimes required that the need-fire, or other sacred fire, should be made
by the friction of a particular kind of wood; and when the kind of wood is
prescribed, whether among Celts, Germans, or [pg 091] Slavs, that wood
appears to be generally the oak.308 Thus we have seen that amongst the
Slavs of Masuren the new fire for the village is made on Midsummer Day
by causing a wheel to revolve rapidly round an axle of oak till the axle takes
fire.309 When the perpetual fire which the ancient Slavs used to maintain
chanced to go out, it was rekindled by the friction of a piece of oak-wood,
which had been previously heated by being struck with a grey (not a red)
stone.310 In Germany and the Highlands of Scotland the need-fire was
regularly, and in Russia and among the South Slavs it was sometimes,
kindled by the friction of oak-wood;311 and both in Wales and the Highlands
of Scotland the Beltane fires were lighted by similar means.312 Now, if the
sacred fire was regularly kindled by the friction of oak-wood, we may infer
that originally the fire was also fed with the same material. In point of fact,
it appears that the perpetual fire of Vesta at Rome was fed with oak-wood,313
and that oak-wood was the fuel consumed in the perpetual fire which
burned under the sacred oak at the great Lithuanian sanctuary of Romove.314
Further, that oak-wood was formerly the fuel burned in the midsummer
fires may perhaps be inferred from the custom, said to be still observed by
peasants in many mountain districts of Germany, of making [pg 092] up the
cottage fire on Midsummer Day with a heavy block of oak-wood. The block
is so arranged that it smoulders slowly and is not finally reduced to charcoal
till the expiry of a year. Then upon next Midsummer Day the charred
embers of the old log are removed to make room for the new one, and are
mixed with the seed-corn or scattered about the garden. This is believed to
guard the food cooked on the hearth from witchcraft, to preserve the luck of
the house, to promote the growth of the crops, and to preserve them from
blight and vermin.315 Thus the custom is almost exactly parallel to that of
the Yule-log, which in parts of Germany, France, England, Servia, and other
Slavonic lands was commonly of oak-wood.316 At the Boeotian festival of
the Daedala, the analogy of which to the spring and midsummer festivals of
modern Europe has been already pointed out, the great feature was the
felling and burning of an oak.317 The general conclusion is, that at those

periodic or occasional ceremonies the ancient Aryans both kindled and fed
the fire with the sacred oak-wood.318

But if at these solemn rites the fire was regularly made of oak-wood, it
follows that any man who was burned in it as a personification of the tree-
e spirit could have represented no tree but the oak. The sacred oak was thus
burned in duplicate; the wood of the tree was consumed in the fire, and
along with it was consumed a living man as a personification [pg 093] of
t the oak-spirit. The conclusion thus drawn for the European Aryans in
general is confirmed in its special application to the Scandinavians by the
relation in which amongst them the mistletoe appears to have stood to the
burning of the victim in the midsummer fire. We have seen that among
Scandinavians it has been customary to gather the mistletoe at midsummer.
n But so far as appears on the face of this custom, there is nothing to connect
g it with the midsummer fires in which human victims or effigies of them
were burned. Even if the fire, as seems probable, was originally always
made with oak-wood, why should it have been necessary to pull the
e mistletoe? The last link between the midsummer customs of gathering the
a mistletoe and lighting the bonfires is supplied by Balder's myth, which can
t hardly be disjoined from the customs in question. The myth suggests that a
f vital connexion may once have been believed to subsist between the
k mistletoe and the human representative of the oak who was burned in the
e fire. According to the myth, Balder could be killed by nothing in heaven or
earth except the mistletoe; and so long as the mistletoe remained on the oak,
t he was not only immortal but invulnerable. Now, if we suppose that Balder
e was the oak, the origin of the myth becomes intelligible. The mistletoe was
t viewed as the seat of life of the oak, and so long as it was uninjured nothing
could kill or even wound the oak. The conception of the mistletoe as the
y seat of life of the oak would naturally be suggested to primitive people by
r the observation that while the oak is deciduous, the mistletoe which grows
on it is evergreen. In winter the sight of its fresh foliage among the bare
e branches must have been hailed by the worshippers of the tree as a sign that
the divine life which had ceased to animate the branches yet survived in the
mistletoe, as the heart of a sleeper still beats when his body is motionless.
Hence when the god had to be killed—when the sacred tree had to be burnt
s —it was necessary to begin by breaking off the mistletoe. For so long as the
mistletoe remained intact, the oak (so people might think) was invulnerable;

all the blows of their knives and axes would glance harmless from its
surface. But once tear from the oak its sacred heart—the mistletoe—and the
tree nodded [pg 094] to its fall. And when in later times the spirit of the oak
came to be represented by a living man, it was logically necessary to
suppose that, like the tree he personated, he could neither be killed nor
wounded so long as the mistletoe remained uninjured. The pulling of the
mistletoe was thus at once the signal and the cause of his death.

On this view the invulnerable Balder is neither more nor less than a
personification of a mistletoe-bearing oak. The interpretation is confirmed
by what seems to have been an ancient Italian belief, that the mistletoe can
be destroyed neither by fire nor water;319 for if the parasite is thus deemed
t indestructible, it might easily be supposed to communicate its own
indestructibility to the tree on which it grows, so long as the two remain in
t conjunction. Or to put the same idea in mythical form we might tell how the
kindly god of the oak had his life securely deposited in the imperishable
mistletoe which grew among the branches; how accordingly so long as the
r mistletoe kept its place there, the deity himself remained invulnerable; and
how at last a cunning foe, let into the secret of the god's invulnerability, tore
the mistletoe from the oak, thereby killing the oak-god and afterwards
burning his body in a fire which could have made no impression on him so
long as the incombustible parasite retained its seat among the boughs.

But since the idea of a being whose life is thus, in a sense, outside himself,
must be strange to many readers, and has, indeed, not yet been recognized
in its full bearing on primitive superstition, it will be worth while to
a illustrate it by examples drawn both from story and custom. The result will
be to shew that, in assuming this idea as the explanation of Balder's relation
e to the mistletoe, I assume a principle which is deeply engraved on the mind
e of primitive man.

[pg 095]

Chapter X. The Eternal Soul in Folk-Tales.

In a former part of this work we saw that, in the opinion of primitive
people, the soul may temporarily absent itself from the body without
t causing death.320 Such temporary absences of the soul are often believed to
involve considerable risk, since the wandering soul is liable to a variety of
y mishaps at the hands of enemies, and so forth. But there is another aspect to
this power of disengaging the soul from the body. If only the safety of the
soul can be ensured during its absence, there is no reason why the soul
y should not continue absent for an indefinite time; indeed a man may, on a
e pure calculation of personal safety, desire that his soul should never return
to his body. Unable to conceive of life abstractly as a “permanent possibility
of sensation” or a “continuous adjustment of internal arrangements to
d external relations,” the savage thinks of it as a concrete material thing of a
definite bulk, capable of being seen and handled, kept in a box or jar, and
t liable to be bruised, fractured, or smashed in pieces. It is not needful that
the life, so conceived, should be in the man; it may be absent from his body
t and still continue to animate him by virtue of a sort of sympathy or action at
f a distance. So long as this object which he calls his life or soul remains
unharmed, the man is well; if it is injured, he suffers; if it is destroyed, he
dies. Or, to put it otherwise, when a man is ill or dies, the fact is explained
d by saying that the material object called his life or soul, whether it be in his
body or out of it, has either sustained injury or been destroyed. But there
may [pg 096] be circumstances in which, if the life or soul remains in the
man, it stands a greater chance of sustaining injury than if it were stowed
away in some safe and secret place. Accordingly, in such circumstances,
primitive man takes his soul out of his body and deposits it for security in
some snug spot, intending to replace it in his body when the danger is past.
Or if he should discover some place of absolute security, he may be content
to leave his soul there permanently. The advantage of this is that, so long as

the soul remains unharmed in the place where he has deposited it, the man
himself is immortal; nothing can kill his body, since his life is not in it.

Evidence of this primitive belief is furnished by a class of folk-tales of
which the Norse story of “The giant who had no heart in his body” is
f perhaps the best-known example. Stories of this kind are widely diffused
over the world, and from their number and the variety of incident and of
details in which the leading idea is embodied, we may infer that the
conception of an external soul is one which has had a powerful hold on the
d minds of men at an early stage of history. For folk-tales are a faithful
y reflection of the world as it appeared to the primitive mind; and we may be
sure that any idea which commonly occurs in them, however absurd it may
seem to us, must once have been an ordinary article of belief. This
assurance, so far as it concerns the supposed power of disengaging the soul
from the body for a longer or shorter time, is amply corroborated by a
comparison of the folk-tales in question with the actual beliefs and practices
of savages. To this we shall return after some specimens of the tales have
been given. The specimens will be selected with a view of illustrating both
the characteristic features and the wide diffusion of this class of tales.321

[pg 097]

In the first place, the story of the external soul is told, in various forms, by
all Aryan peoples from Hindoostan to the Hebrides. A very common form
f of it is this: A warlock, giant, or other fairyland being is invulnerable and
l immortal because he keeps his soul hidden far away in some secret place;
but a fair princess, whom he holds enthralled in his enchanted castle, wiles
his secret from him and reveals it to the hero, who seeks out the warlock's
soul, heart, life, or death (as it is variously called), and, by destroying it,
simultaneously kills the warlock. Thus a Hindoo story tells how a magician
called Punchkin held a queen captive for twelve years, and would fain
marry her, but she would not have him. At last the queen's son came to
rescue her, and the two plotted together to kill Punchkin. So the queen
n spoke the magician fair, and pretended that she had at last made up her
mind to marry him. “And do tell me,” she said, “are you quite immortal?
Can death never touch you? And are you too great an enchanter ever to feel
human suffering?” “It is true,” he said, “that I am not as others. Far, far
e

e away, hundreds of thousands [pg 098] of miles from this, there lies a
desolate country covered with thick jungle. In the midst of the jungle grows
l a circle of palm trees, and in the centre of the circle stand six chattees full of
a water, piled one above another: below the sixth chattee is a small cage,
which contains a little green parrot;—on the life of the parrot depends my
life;—and if the parrot is killed I must die. It is, however,” he added,
“impossible that the parrot should sustain any injury, both on account of the
inaccessibility of the country, and because, by my appointment, many
thousand genii surround the palm trees, and kill all who approach the
place.” But the queen's young son overcame all difficulties, and got
possession of the parrot. He brought it to the door of the magician's palace,
and began playing with it. Punchkin, the magician, saw him, and, coming
out, tried to persuade the boy to give him the parrot. “Give me my parrot!”
cried Punchkin. Then the boy took hold of the parrot and tore off one of his
wings; and as he did so the magician's right arm fell off. Punchkin then
stretched out his left arm, crying, “Give me my parrot!” The prince pulled
off the parrot's second wing, and the magician's left arm tumbled off. “Give
me my parrot!” cried he, and fell on his knees. The prince pulled off the
parrot's right leg, the magician's right leg fell off; the prince pulled off the
parrot's left leg, down fell the magician's left. Nothing remained of him
except the trunk and the head; but still he rolled his eyes, and cried, “Give
me my parrot!” “Take your parrot, then,” cried the boy; and with that he
wrung the bird's neck, and threw it at the magician; and, as he did so,
Punchkin's head twisted round, and, with a fearful groan, he died!322 In
another Hindoo tale an ogre is asked by his daughter, “Papa, where do you
keep your soul?” “Sixteen miles away from this place,” he said, “is a tree.
Round the tree are tigers, and bears, and scorpions, and snakes; on the top
of the tree is a very great fat snake; on his head is a little cage; in the cage is
a bird; and my soul is in that bird.” The end of the ogre is like that of the
magician in the previous tale. As the bird's [pg 099] wings and legs are torn
off, the ogre's arms and legs drop off; and when its neck is wrung he falls
down dead.323

In another Hindoo story a princess called Sodewa Bai was born with a
golden necklace about her neck, and the astrologer told her parents, “This is
no common child; the necklace of gold about her neck contains your
daughter's soul; let it therefore be guarded with the utmost care; for if it

l were taken off, and worn by another person, she would die.” So her mother
a caused it to be firmly fastened round the child's neck, and, as soon as the
child was old enough to understand, she told her its value, and warned her
never to let it be taken off. In course of time Sodewa Bai was married to a
e prince who had another wife living. The first wife, jealous of her young
l rival, persuaded a negress to steal from Sodewa Bai the golden necklace
a which contained her soul. The negress did so, and, as soon as she put the
necklace round her own neck, Sodewa Bai died. All day long the negress
used to wear the necklace; but late at night, on going to bed, she would take
it off and put it by till morning; and whenever she took it off, Sodewa Bai's
soul returned to her and she lived. But when morning came, and the negress
put on the necklace, Sodewa Bai died again. At last the prince discovered
the treachery of his elder wife and restored the golden necklace to Sodewa
Bai.324 In another Hindoo story a holy mendicant tells a queen that she will
bear a son, adding, “As enemies will try to take away the life of your son, I
may as well tell you that the life of the boy will be bound up in the life of a
big boal fish which is in your tank, in front of the palace. In the heart of the
fish is a small box of wood, in the box is a necklace of gold, that necklace is
the life of your son.” The boy was born and received the name of Dalim.
His mother was the Suo or younger queen. But the Duo or elder queen
hated the child, and learning the secret of his life, she caused the boal fish,
with which his life was bound up, to be caught. Dalim was playing near the
tank at the [pg 100] time, but “the moment the boal fish was caught in the
net, that moment Dalim felt unwell; and when the fish was brought up to
land, Dalim fell down on the ground, and made as if he was about to
breathe his last. He was immediately taken into his mother's room, and the
king was astonished on hearing of the sudden illness of his son and heir.
The fish was by the order of the physician taken into the room of the Duo
queen, and as it lay on the floor striking its fins on the ground, Dalim in his
mother's room was given up for lost. When the fish was cut open, a casket
was found in it; and in the casket lay a necklace of gold. The moment the
necklace was worn by the queen, that very moment Dalim died in his
mother's room.” The queen used to put off the necklace every night, and
whenever she did so, the boy came to life again. But every morning when
the queen put on the necklace, he died again.325

In a Cashmeer story a lad visits an old ogress, pretending to be her
grandson, the son of her daughter who had married a king. So the old ogress
took him into her confidence and shewed him seven cocks, a spinning
f wheel, a pigeon, and a starling. “These seven cocks,” said she, “contain the
lives of your seven uncles, who are away for a few days. Only as long as
the cocks live can your uncles hope to live; no power can hurt them as long
e as the seven cocks are safe and sound. The spinning-wheel contains my life;
a if it is broken, I too shall be broken, and must die; but otherwise I shall live
a on for ever. The pigeon contains your grandfather's life, and the starling
a your mother's; as long as these live, nothing can harm your grandfather or
your mother.” So the lad killed the seven cocks and the pigeon and the
d starling, and smashed the spinning-wheel; and at the moment he did so the
ogres and ogresses perished.326 In another story from Cashmeer an ogre
cannot die unless a particular pillar in the verandah of his palace be broken.
Learning the secret, a prince struck the pillar again and again till it was
broken in pieces. And it was as if each [pg 101] stroke had fallen on the
f ogre, for he howled lamentably and shook like an aspen every time the
prince hit the pillar, until at last, when the pillar fell down, the ogre also fell
down and gave up the ghost.327 In another Cashmeer tale an ogre is
e represented as laughing very heartily at the idea that he might possibly die.
He said that “he should never die. No power could oppose him; no years
could age him; he should remain ever strong and ever young, for the thing
wherein his life dwelt was most difficult to obtain.” It was in a queen bee,
which was in a honeycomb on a tree. But the bees in the honeycomb were
many and fierce, and it was only at the greatest risk that any one could
catch the queen. However, the hero achieved the enterprise and crushed the
queen bee; and immediately the ogre fell stone dead to the ground, so that
the whole land trembled with the shock.328 In some Bengalee tales the life of
a whole tribe of ogres is described as concentrated in two bees. The secret
was thus revealed by an old ogress to a captive princess who pretended to
fear lest the ogress should die. “Know, foolish girl,” said the ogress, “that
we ogres never die. We are not naturally immortal, but our life depends on a
secret which no human being can unravel. Let me tell you what it is, that
you may be comforted. You know yonder tank; there is in the middle of it a
crystal pillar, on the top of which in deep waters are two bees. If any human
being can dive into the waters, and bring up to land the two bees from the
pillar in one breath, and destroy them so that not a drop of their blood falls

to the ground, then we ogres shall certainly die; but if a single drop of blood
falls to the ground, then from it will start up a thousand ogres. But what
human being will find out this secret, or, finding it, will be able to achieve
the feat? You need not, therefore, darling, be sad; I am practically
immortal.” As usual, the princess reveals the secret to the hero, who kills
the bees, and that same moment all the ogres drop down dead, each on the
spot where he happened to be standing.329 In another Bengalee story it is [pg
102] said that all the ogres dwell in Ceylon, and that all their lives are in a
single lemon. A boy cuts the lemon in pieces, and all the ogres die.330

In a Siamese or Cambodian story, probably derived from India, we are told
that Thossakan or Ravana, the King of Ceylon, was able by magic art to
take his soul out of his body and leave it in a box at home, while he went to
the wars. Thus he was invulnerable in battle. When he was about to give
a battle to Rama, he deposited his soul with a hermit called Fire-eye, who was
r to keep it safe for him. So in the fight Rama was astounded to see that his
arrows struck the king without wounding him. But one of Rama's allies,
knowing the secret of the king's invulnerability, transformed himself by
magic into the likeness of the king, and going to the hermit asked back his
a soul. On receiving it he soared up into the air and flew to Rama,
a brandishing the box and squeezing it so hard that all the breath left the King
of Ceylon's body, and he died.331 In a Bengalee story a prince going into a
t far country planted with his own hands a tree in the courtyard of his father's
palace, and said to his parents, “This tree is my life. When you see the tree
green and fresh, then know that it is well with me; when you see the tree
fade in some parts, then know that I am in an ill case; and when you see the
whole tree fade, then know that I am dead and gone.”332 In another Indian
tale a prince, setting forth on his travels, left behind him a barley plant, with
instructions that it should be carefully tended and watched; for if it
flourished, he would be alive and well, but if it drooped, then some
mischance was about to happen to him. And so it fell out. For the prince
was beheaded, and as his head rolled off, the barley plant snapped in two
and the ear of barley fell to the ground.333 In the legend of [pg 103] the
origin of Gilgit there figures a fairy king whose soul is in the snows and
who can only perish by fire.334

In Greek tales, ancient and modern, the idea of an external soul is not
uncommon. When Meleager was seven days old, the Fates appeared to his
mother and told her that Meleager would die when the brand which was
blazing on the hearth had burnt down. So his mother snatched the brand
n from the fire and kept it in a box. But in after-years, being enraged at her
son for slaying her brothers, she burnt the brand in the fire and Meleager
expired in agonies, as if flames were preying on his vitals.335 Again, Nisus
King of Megara had a purple or golden hair on the middle of his head, and
e it was fated that whenever the hair was pulled out the king should die.
When Megara was besieged by the Cretans, the king's daughter Scylla fell
d in love with Minos, their king, and pulled out the fatal hair from her father's
e head. So he died.336 Similarly Poseidon made Pterelaus immortal by giving
n him a golden hair on his head. But when Taphos, the home of Pterelaus,
was besieged by Amphitryo, the daughter of Pterelaus fell in love with
Amphitryo and killed her father by plucking out the golden hair with which
his life was bound up.337 In a modern Greek folk-tale a man's strength lies in
three golden hairs on his head. When his mother pulls them out, he grows
weak and timid and is slain by his enemies.338 Another Greek story, in
which we may perhaps detect a reminiscence of Nisus and [pg 104] Scylla,
relates how a certain king, who was the strongest man of his time, had three
long hairs on his breast. But when he went to war with another king, and his
own treacherous wife had cut off the three hairs, he became the weakest of
men.339 In another modern Greek story the life of an enchanter is bound up
n with three doves which are in the belly of a wild boar. When the first dove
is killed, the magician grows sick; when the second is killed, he grows very
sick; and when the third is killed, he dies.340 In another Greek story of the
same sort an ogre's strength is in three singing birds which are in a wild
boar. The hero kills two of the birds, and then coming to the ogre's house
finds him lying on the ground in great pain. He shews the third bird to the
ogre, who begs that the hero will either let it fly away or give it to him to
eat. But the hero wrings the bird's neck, and the ogre dies on the spot.341 In a
variant of the latter story the monster's strength is in two doves, and when
the hero kills one of them, the monster cries out, “Ah, woe is me! Half my
life is gone. Something must have happened to one of the doves.” When the
second dove is killed, he dies.342 In another Greek story the incidents of the
three golden hairs and three doves are artificially combined. A monster has
on his head three golden hairs which open the door of a chamber in which

are three doves: when the first dove is killed, the monster grows sick; when
the second is killed, he grows worse; and when the third is killed, he dies.343
In another Greek tale an old man's strength is in a [pg 105] ten-headed
serpent. When the serpent's heads are being cut off, he feels unwell; and
when the last head is struck off, he expires.344 In another Greek story a
dervish tells a queen that she will have three sons, that at the birth of each
she must plant a pumpkin in the garden, and that in the fruit borne by the
pumpkins will reside the strength of the children. In due time the infants are
born and the pumpkins planted. As the children grow up, the pumpkins
grow with them. One morning the eldest son feels sick, and on going into
the garden they find that the largest pumpkin is gone. Next night the second
son keeps watch in a summer-house in the garden. At midnight a negro
appears and cuts the second pumpkin. At once the boy's strength goes out of
him, and he is unable to pursue the negro. The youngest son, however,
succeeds in slaying the negro and recovering the lost pumpkins.345

Ancient Italian legend furnishes a close parallel to the Greek story of
Meleager. Silvia, the young wife of Septimius Marcellus, had a child by the
god Mars. The god gave her a spear, with which he said that the fate of the
child would be bound up. When the boy grew up he quarrelled with his
n maternal uncles and slew them. So in revenge his mother burned the spear
on which his life depended.346 In one of the stories of the Pentamerone a
certain queen has a twin brother, a dragon. The astrologers declared at her
birth that she would live just as long as the dragon and no longer, the death
e of the one involving the death of the other. If the dragon were killed, the
only way to restore the queen to life would be to smear her temples, breast,
e pulses, and nostrils with the blood of the dragon.347 In a modern Roman
a version of “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” the magician tells the
princess, whom he holds captive in a floating rock in mid-ocean, that he
will never die. The princess reports this to the prince her husband, who has
come to rescue her. The prince replies, “It is impossible [pg 106] but that
there should be some one thing or other that is fatal to him; ask him what
that one fatal thing is.” So the princess asked the magician, and he told her
that in the wood was a hydra with seven heads; in the middle head of the
hydra was a leveret, in the head of the leveret was a bird, in the bird's head
was a precious stone, and if this stone were put under his pillow he would
die. The prince procured the stone, and the princess laid it under the

magician's pillow. No sooner did the enchanter lay his head on the pillow
than he gave three terrible yells, turned himself round and round three
times, and died.348

Another Italian tale sets forth how a great cloud, which was really a fairy,
used to receive a young girl as tribute every year from a certain city; and the
inhabitants had to give the girls up, for if they did not, the cloud would
a throw things at them and kill them all. One year it fell to the lot of the king's
daughter to be handed over to the cloud, and they took her in procession, to
the roll of muffled drums, and attended by her weeping father and mother,
to the top of a mountain, and left her sitting in a chair there all alone. Then
s the fairy cloud came down on the top of the mountain, set the princess in
her lap, and began to suck her blood out of her little finger; for it was on the
r blood of girls that this wicked fairy lived. When the poor princess was faint
with the loss of blood and lay like a log, the cloud carried her away up to
her fairy palace in the sky. But a brave youth had seen all that happened
from behind a bush, and no sooner did the fairy spirit away the princess to
her palace than he turned himself into an eagle and flew after them. He
s lighted on a tree just outside the palace, and looking in at the window he
beheld a room full of young girls all in bed; for these were the victims of
former years whom the fairy cloud had half killed by sucking their blood;
yet they called her mamma. When the fairy went away and left the girls, the
brave young man had food drawn up for them by ropes, and he told them to
ask the fairy how she might be killed and what was to become of them
when she died. It was a delicate question, but the fairy answered it, saying,
“I [pg 107] shall never die.” However, when the girls pressed her, she took
them out on a terrace and said, “Do you see that mountain far off there? On
that mountain is a tigress with seven heads. If you wish me to die, a lion
must fight that tigress and tear off all seven of her heads. In her body is an
egg, and if any one hits me with it in the middle of my forehead, I shall die;
but if that egg falls into my hands, the tigress will come to life again,
resume her seven heads, and I shall live.” When the young girls heard this
they pretended to be glad and said, “Good! certainly our mamma can never
die,” but naturally they were discouraged. However, when she went away
again, they told it all to the young man, and he bade them have no fear.
Away he went to the mountain, turned himself into a lion, and fought the
tigress. Meantime the fairy came home, saying, “Alas! I feel ill!” For six

days the fight went on, the young man tearing off one of the tigress's heads
each day, and each day the strength of the fairy kept ebbing away. Then
after allowing himself two days' rest the hero tore off the seventh head and
secured the egg, but not till it had rolled into the sea and been brought back
to him by a friendly dog-fish. When he returned to the fairy with the egg in
his hand, she begged and prayed him to give it her, but he made her first
restore the young girls to health and send them away in handsome carriages.
When she had done so, he struck her on the forehead with the egg, and she
fell down dead.349 Similarly in a story from the western Riviera a sorcerer
called Body-without-Soul can only be killed by means of an egg which is in
an eagle, which is in a dog, which is in a lion; and the egg must be broken
on the sorcerer's forehead. The hero, who achieves the adventure, has
received the power of changing himself into a lion, a dog, an eagle, and an
ant from four creatures of these sorts among whom he had fairly divided the
carcase of a dead ass.350

[pg 108]

Stories of the same sort are current among Slavonic peoples. In some of
them, as in the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, the warlock is
questioned by a treacherous woman as to the place where his strength
resides or his life or death is stowed away; and his suspicions being roused
n by her curiosity, he at first puts her off with false answers, but is at last
beguiled into telling her the truth, thereby incurring his doom through her
treachery. Thus a Russian story tells how a certain warlock called Kashtshei
or Koshchei the Deathless carried off a princess and kept her prisoner in his
f golden castle. However, a prince made up to her one day as she was
walking alone and disconsolate in the castle garden, and cheered by the
prospect of escaping with him she went to the warlock and coaxed him with
false and flattering words, saying, “My dearest friend, tell me, I pray you,
will you never die?” “Certainly not,” says he. “Well,” says she, “and where
s is your death? is it in your dwelling?” “To be sure it is,” says he, “it is in the
broom under the threshold.” Thereupon the princess seized the broom and
threw it on the fire, but although the broom burned, the deathless Koshchei
remained alive; indeed not so much as a hair of him was singed. Balked in
her first attempt, the artful hussy pouted and said, “You do not love me true,
for you have not told me where your death is; yet I am not angry, but love

you with all my heart.” With these fawning words she besought the warlock
to tell her truly where his death was. So he laughed and said, “Why do you
wish to know? Well then, out of love I will tell you where it lies. In a certain
field there stand three green oaks, and under the roots of the largest oak is a
worm, and if ever this worm is found and crushed, that instant I shall die.”
When the princess heard these words, she went straight to her lover and told
him all; and he searched till he found the oaks and dug up the worm and
crushed it. Then he hurried to the warlock's castle, but only to learn from
the princess that the warlock [pg 109] was still alive. Then she fell to
wheedling and coaxing Koshchei once more, and this time, overcome by
her wiles, he opened his heart to her and told her the truth. “My death,” said
he, “is far from here and hard to find, on the wide ocean. In that sea is an
island, and on the island there grows a green oak, and beneath the oak is an
iron chest, and in the chest is a small basket, and in the basket is a hare, and
in the hare is a duck, and in the duck is an egg; and he who finds the egg
and breaks it, kills me at the same time.” The prince naturally procured the
fateful egg and with it in his hands he confronted the deathless warlock. The
monster would have killed him, but the prince began to squeeze the egg. At
that the warlock shrieked with pain, and turning to the false princess, who
stood by smirking and smiling, “Was it not out of love for you,” said he,
“that I told you where my death was? And is this the return you make to
me?” With that he grabbed at his sword, which hung from a peg on the
wall; but before he could reach it, the prince had crushed the egg, and sure
enough the deathless warlock found his death at the same moment.351

In another version of the same story, when the cunning warlock deceives
the traitress by telling her that his death is in the broom, she gilds the
broom, and at supper the warlock sees it shining under the threshold and
f asks her sharply, “What's that?” “Oh,” says she, “you see how I honour
y you.” “Simpleton!” says he, “I was joking. My death is out there fastened to
the oak fence.” So next day when the warlock was out, the prince came and
gilded the whole fence; and in the evening when the warlock was at supper
he looked out of the window and saw the fence glittering like gold. “And
pray what may that be?” said he to the princess. “You see,” said she, “how I
n respect you. If you are dear to me, dear too is your death. That is why I have
e gilded the fence in which your death resides.” The speech pleased the
warlock, and in the fulness of his heart he revealed to her the fatal secret of

the egg. When the prince, with the help of some friendly animals, obtained
possession of the egg, he put it in his bosom and repaired to [pg 110] the
warlock's house. The warlock himself was sitting at the window in a very
gloomy frame of mind; and when the prince appeared and shewed him the
egg, the light grew dim in the warlock's eyes and he became all of a sudden
very meek and mild. But when the prince began to play with the egg and to
throw it from one hand to the other, the deathless Koshchei staggered from
one corner of the room to the other, and when the prince broke the egg,
Koshchei the Deathless fell down and died.352 “In one of the descriptions of
Koshchei's death, he is said to be killed by a blow on the forehead inflicted
by the mysterious egg—that last link in the magic chain by which his life is
darkly bound. In another version of the same story, but told of a snake, the
fatal blow is struck by a small stone found in the yolk of an egg, which is
inside a duck, which is inside a hare, which is inside a stone, which is on an
island.”353 In another Russian story the death of an enchantress is in a blue
rose-tree in a blue forest. Prince Ivan uproots the rose-tree, whereupon the
enchantress straightway sickens. He brings the rose-tree to her house and
finds her at the point of death. Then he throws it into the cellar, crying,
“Behold her death!” and at once the whole building shakes, “and becomes
an island, on which are people who had been sitting in Hell, and who offer
up thanks to Prince Ivan.”354 In another Russian story a prince is grievously
tormented by a witch who has got hold of his heart, and keeps it seething in
a magic cauldron.355

In a Bohemian tale a warlock's strength lies in an egg which is in a duck,
which is in a stag, which is under a tree. A seer finds the egg and sucks it.
Then the warlock grows as weak as a child, “for all his strength had passed
into the seer.”356 A Servian story relates how a certain warlock called True
n Steel carried off a prince's wife and kept her shut up in his cave. But the
prince contrived to get speech of her and told her that she must persuade
True Steel to reveal to [pg 111] her where his strength lay. So when True
Steel came home, the prince's wife said to him, “Tell me, now, where is
your great strength?” He answered, “My wife, my strength is in my sword.”
Then she began to pray and turned to his sword. When True Steel saw that,
he laughed and said, “O foolish woman! my strength is not in my sword,
but in my bow and arrows.” Then she turned towards the bow and arrows
and prayed. But True Steel said, “I see, my wife, you have a clever teacher

a who has taught you to find out where my strength lies. I could almost say
that your husband is living, and it is he who teaches you.” But she assured
him that nobody had taught her. When she found he had deceived her again,
she waited for some days and then asked him again about the secret of his
strength. He answered, “Since you think so much of my strength, I will tell
you truly where it is. Far away from here there is a very high mountain; in
the mountain there is a fox; in the fox there is a heart; in the heart there is a
bird, and in this bird is my strength. It is no easy task, however, to catch the
fox, for she can transform herself into a multitude of creatures.” So next
day, when True Steel went forth from the cave, the prince came and learned
from his wife the true secret of the warlock's strength. So away he hied to
the mountain, and there, though the fox, or rather the vixen, turned herself
into various shapes, he managed with the help of certain friendly eagles,
falcons, and dragons, to catch and kill her. Then he took out the fox's heart,
and out of the heart he took the bird and burned it in a great fire. At that
very moment True Steel fell down dead.357

In another Servian story we read how a dragon resided in a water-mill and
ate up two king's sons, one after the other. The third son went out to seek
his brothers, and coming to the water-mill he found nobody in it but an old
f woman. She revealed to him the dreadful character of the being that kept
n the mill, and how he had devoured the prince's two elder brothers, and she
e implored him to go away home before the same fate should overtake him.
But he was both [pg 112] brave and cunning, and he said to her, “Listen
well to what I am going to say to you. Ask the dragon whither he goes and
where his strength is; then kiss all that place where he tells you his strength
a is, as if from love, till you find it out, and afterwards tell me when I come.”
So when the dragon came in, the old woman began to question him, “Where
t in God's name have you been? Whither do you go so far? You will never
e tell me whither you go.” The dragon replied, “Well, my dear old woman, I
do go far.” Then the old woman coaxed him, saying, “And why do you go
so far? Tell me where your strength is. If I knew where your strength is, I
don't know what I should do for love; I would kiss all that place.”
Thereupon the dragon smiled and said to her, “Yonder is my strength, in
that fireplace.” Then the old woman began to fondle and kiss the fireplace;
and the dragon on seeing it burst into a laugh. “Silly old woman,” he said,
“my strength is not there. It is in the tree-fungus in front of the house.”

Then the old woman began to fondle and kiss the tree; but the dragon
laughed again and said to her, “Away, old woman! my strength is not there.”
“Then where is it?” asked the old woman. “My strength,” said he, “is a long
way off, and you cannot go thither. Far in another kingdom under the king's
city is a lake; in the lake is a dragon; in the dragon is a boar; in the boar is a
pigeon, and in the pigeon is my strength.” The murder was now out; so next
morning when the dragon went away from the mill to attend to his usual
business of eating people up, the prince came to the old woman and she let
him into the secret of the dragon's strength. The prince accordingly set off
to find the lake in the far country and the other dragon that lived in it. He
found them both at last; the lake was a still and lonely water surrounded by
green meadows, where flocks of sheep nibbled the sweet lush grass. The
hero tucked up his hose and his sleeves, and wading out into the lake called
aloud on the dragon to come forth and fight. Soon the monster emerged
from the water, slimy and dripping, his scaly back glistening in the morning
sun. The two grappled and wrestled from morning to afternoon of a long
summer day. What with the heat of the weather and the violence of his
exertions the dragon [pg 113] was quite exhausted, and said, “Let me go,
prince, that I may moisten my parched head in the lake and toss you to the
sky.” But the prince sternly refused; so the dragon relaxed his grip and sank
under the water, which bubbled and gurgled over the place where he
plunged into the depths. When he had disappeared and the ripples had
subsided on the surface, you would never have suspected that under that
calm water, reflecting the green banks, the white, straying sheep, the blue
sky, and the fleecy gold-flecked clouds of a summer evening, there lurked
so ferocious and dangerous a monster. Next day the combat was renewed
with the very same result. But on the third day the hero, fortified by a kiss
from the fair daughter of the king of the land, tossed the dragon high in air,
and when the monster fell with a most tremendous thud on the water he
burst into little bits. Out of the pieces sprang a boar which ran away as fast
as it could lay legs to the ground. But the prince sent sheep-dogs after it
which caught it up and rent it in pieces. Out of the pieces sprang a pigeon;
but the prince let loose a falcon, which stooped on the pigeon, seized it in
its talons, and brought it to the prince. In the pigeon was the life of the
dragon who kept the mill, so before inflicting on the monster the doom he
so richly merited, the prince questioned him as to the fate of his two elder
brothers who had perished at the hands, or rather under the claws and fangs,

of the dragon. Having ascertained how to restore them to life and to release
a multitude of other victims whom the dragon kept prisoners in a vault
under the water-mill, the prince wrung the pigeon's neck, and that of course
was the end of the dragon and his unscrupulous career.358

A Lithuanian story relates how a prince married a princess and got with her
a kingdom to boot. She gave him the keys of the castle and told him he
might enter every chamber except one small room, of which the key had a
bit of twine tied to it. But one day, having nothing to do, he amused himself
a by rummaging in all the rooms of the castle, and amongst the rest he went
into the little forbidden chamber. [pg 114] In it he found twelve heads and a
e man hanging on the hook of the door. The man said to the prince, “Oblige
me by fetching me a glass of beer.” The prince fetched it and the man drank
it. Then the man said to the prince, “Oblige me by releasing me from the
l hook.” The prince released him. Now the man was a king without a soul,
a and he at once availed himself of his liberty to come to an understanding
with the coachman of the castle, and between them they put the prince's
wife in the coach and drove off with her. The prince rode after them and
coming up with the coach called out, “Halt, Soulless King! Step out and
e fight!” The King stepped out and the fight began. In a trice the King had
f sliced the buttons off the prince's coat and pinked him in the side. Then he
e stepped into the coach and drove off. The prince rode after him again, and
e when he came up with the coach he called out, “Halt, Soulless King! Step
out and fight!” The King stepped out and they fought again, and again the
King sliced off the prince's buttons and pinked him in the side. Then, after
carefully wiping and sheathing his sword, he said to his discomfited
adversary, “Now look here. I let you off the first time for the sake of the
glass of beer you gave me, and I let you off the second time because you let
me down from that infernal hook; but if you fight me a third time, by Gad
I'll make mince meat of you.” Then he stepped into the coach, told the
coachman to drive on, jerked up the coach window with a bang, and drove
away like anything. But the prince galloped after him and coming up with
the coach for the third time he called out, “Halt, Soulless King! Step out
and fight!” The King did step out, and at it the two of them went, tooth and
nail. But the prince had no chance. Before he knew where he was, the King
ran him through the body, whisked off his head, and left him lying a heap of
raw mince beside the road. His wife, or rather his widow, said to the King,

“Let me gather up the fragments that remain.” The King said, “Certainly.”
So she made up the mince into a neat parcel, deposited it on the front seat of
the coach, and away they drove to the King's castle. Well to cut a long story
short, a brother-in-law of the deceased prince sent a hawk to fetch the water
of life; the hawk brought it in his beak; [pg 115] the brother-in-law poured
the water on the fragments of the prince, and the prince came to life again at
once safe and sound. Then he went to the King's castle and played on a little
pipe, and his wife heard it in the castle and said, “That is how my husband
used to play, whom the King cut in bits.” So she went out to the gate and
said to him, “Are you my husband?” “That I am,” said he, and he told her to
find out from the King where he kept his soul and then to come and tell
him. So she went to the King and said to him, “Where my husband's soul is,
there must mine be too.” The King was touched by this artless expression of
her love, and he replied, “My soul is in yonder lake. In that lake lies a stone;
in that stone is a hare; in the hare is a duck, in the duck is an egg, and in the
egg is my soul.” So the queen went and told her former husband, the prince,
and gave him plenty of money and food for the journey, and off he set for
the lake. But when he came to the lake, he did not know in which part of it
the stone was; so he roamed about the banks, and he was hungry, for he had
eaten up all the food. Then he met a dog, and the dog said to him, “Don't
shoot me dead. I will be a mighty helper to you in your time of need.” So he
let the dog live and went on his way. Next he saw a tree with two hawks on
it, an old one and a young one, and he climbed up the tree to catch the
young one. But the old hawk said to him, “Don't take my young one. He
will be a mighty helper to you in your time of need.” So the prince climbed
down the tree and went on his way. Then he saw a huge crab and wished to
break off one of his claws for something to eat, but the crab said to him,
“Don't break off my claw. It will be a mighty helper to you in your time of
need.” So he left the crab alone and went on his way. And he came to
people and got them to fish up the stone for him from the lake and to bring
it to him on the bank. And there he broke the stone in two and out of the
stone jumped a hare. But the dog seized the hare and tore him, and out of
the hare flew a duck. The young hawk pounced on the duck and rent it, and
out of the duck fell an egg, and the egg rolled into the lake. But the crab
fetched the egg out of the lake and brought it to the prince. Then the King
fell ill. So the prince went to the King and [pg 116] said, “You killed me.
Now I will kill you.” “Don't,” said the King. “I will,” said the prince. With

that he threw the egg on the ground, and the King fell out of the bed as dead
as a stone. So the prince went home with his wife and very happy they
were, you may take my word for it.359

Amongst peoples of the Teutonic stock stories of the external soul are not
wanting. In a tale told by the Saxons of Transylvania it is said that a young
man shot at a witch again and again. The bullets went clean through her but
did her no harm, and she only laughed and mocked at him. “Silly
n earthworm,” she cried, “shoot as much as you like. It does me no harm. For
know that my life resides not in me but far, far away. In a mountain is a
pond, on the pond swims a duck, in the duck is an egg, in the egg burns a
n light, that light is my life. If you could put out that light, my life would be at
y an end. But that can never, never be.” However, the young man got hold of
h the egg, smashed it, and put out the light, and with it the witch's life went
e out also.360 In this last story, as in many other stories of the same type, the
a hero achieves his adventure by the help of certain grateful animals whom he
had met and done a service to on his travels. The same incident occurs in
another German tale of this class which runs thus. Once upon a time there
f was a young fellow called Body-without-Soul, or, for short, Soulless, and
he was a cannibal who would eat nothing but young girls. Now it was a
custom in that country that the girls drew lots every year, and the one on
whom the lot fell was handed over to Soulless. In time it happened that the
l lot fell on the king's daughter. The king was exceedingly sorry, but what
a could he do? Law was law, and had to be obeyed. So they took the princess
e to the castle where Soulless resided; and he shut her up in the larder and
fattened her for his dinner. But a brave soldier undertook to rescue her, and
off he set for the cannibal's castle. Well, as he trudged along, what should he
see but a fly, an eagle, a bear, and a lion sitting in a field by the side of the
road, and quarrelling about their shares in a [pg 117] dead horse. So he
divided the carcase fairly between them, and as a reward the fly and the
eagle bestowed on him the power of changing himself at will into either of
their shapes. That evening he made himself into an eagle, and flew up a
high tree; there he looked about, but could see nothing but trees. Next
morning he flew on till he came to a great castle, and at the gate was a big
black board with these words chalked up on it: “Mr. Soulless lives here.”
When the soldier read that he was glad, and changed himself into a fly, and
flew buzzing from window to window, looking in at every one till he came

to the one where the fair princess sat a prisoner. He introduced himself at
once and said, “I am come to free you, but first you must learn where the
soul of Soulless really is.” “I don't know,” replied the princess, “but I will
ask.” So after much coaxing and entreaty she learned that the soul of
Soulless was in a box, and that the box was on a rock in the middle of the
Red Sea. When the soldier heard that, he turned himself into an eagle again,
flew to the Red Sea, and came back with the soul of Soulless in the box.
Arrived at the castle he knocked and banged at the door as if the house was
on fire. Soulless did not know what was the matter, and he came down and
opened the door himself. When he saw the soldier standing at it, I can
assure you he was in a towering rage. “What do you mean,” he roared, “by
knocking at my door like that? I'll gobble you up on the spot, skin and hair
and all.” But the soldier laughed in his face. “You'd better not do that,” said
he, “for here I've got your soul in the box.” When the cannibal heard that,
all his courage went down into the calves of his legs, and he begged and
entreated the soldier to give him his soul. But the soldier would not hear of
it; he opened the box, took out the soul, and flung it over his head; and that
same instant down fell the cannibal, dead as a door-nail.361

Another German story, which embodies the notion of the external soul in a
somewhat different form, tells how once upon a time a certain king had
three sons and a daughter, and for each of the king's four children there
f grew a flower in the king's garden, which was a life-flower; [pg 118] for it
bloomed and flourished so long as the child lived, but drooped and withered
e away when the child died. Now the time came when the king's daughter
married a rich man and went to live with him far away. But it was not long
before her flower withered in the king's garden. So the eldest brother went
forth to visit his brother-in-law and comfort him in his bereavement. But
when he came to his brother-in-law's castle he saw the corpse of his
murdered sister weltering on the ramparts. And his wicked brother-in-law
set before him boiled human hands and feet for his dinner. And when the
king's son refused to eat of them, his brother-in-law led him through many
chambers to a murder-hole, where were all sorts of implements of murder,
but especially a gallows, a wheel, and a pot of blood. Here he said to the
prince, “You must die, but you may choose your kind of death.” The prince
chose to die on the gallows; and die he did even as he had said. So the
eldest son's flower withered in the king's garden, and the second son went

forth to learn the fate of his brother and sister. But it fared with him no
better than with his elder brother, for he too died on the gallows in the
murder-hole of his wicked brother-in-law's castle, and his flower also
withered away in the king's garden at home. Now when the youngest son
was also come to his brother-in-law's castle and saw the corpse of his
murdered sister weltering on the ramparts, and the bodies of his two
murdered brothers dangling from the gallows in the murder-hole, he said
that for his part he had a fancy to die by the wheel, but he was not quite sure
how the thing was done, and would his brother-in-law kindly shew him?
“Oh, it's quite easy,” said his brother-in-law, “you just put your head in, so,”
and with that he popped his head through the middle of the wheel. “Just
so,” said the king's youngest son, and he gave the wheel a twirl, and as it
spun round and round, the wicked brother-in-law died a painful death,
which he richly deserved. And when he was quite dead, the murdered
brothers and sister came to life again, and their withered flowers bloomed
afresh in the king's garden.362

[pg 119]

In another German story an old warlock lives with a damsel all alone in the
midst of a vast and gloomy wood. She fears that being old he may die and
leave her alone in the forest. But he reassures her. “Dear child,” he said, “I
n cannot die, and I have no heart in my breast.” But she importuned him to
tell her where his heart was. So he said, “Far, far from here in an unknown
and lonesome land stands a great church. The church is well secured with
iron doors, and round about it flows a broad deep moat. In the church flies a
bird and in the bird is my heart. So long as the bird lives, I live. It cannot
die of itself, and no one can catch it; therefore I cannot die, and you need
have no anxiety.” However the young man, whose bride the damsel was to
have been before the warlock spirited her away, contrived to reach the
church and catch the bird. He brought it to the damsel, who stowed him and
it away under the warlock's bed. Soon the old warlock came home. He was
ailing, and said so. The girl wept and said, “Alas, daddy is dying; he has a
heart in his breast after all.” “Child,” replied the warlock, “hold your
tongue. I can't die. It will soon pass over.” At that the young man under the
bed gave the bird a gentle squeeze; and as he did so, the old warlock felt
very unwell and sat down. Then the young man gripped the bird tighter, and

the warlock fell senseless from his chair. “Now squeeze him dead,” cried
the damsel. Her lover obeyed, and when the bird was dead, the old warlock
also lay dead on the floor.363

In the Norse tale of “the giant who had no heart in his body,” the giant tells
the captive princess, “Far, far away in a lake lies an island, on that island
stands a church, in that church is a well, in that well swims a duck, in that
duck there is an egg, and in that egg there lies my heart.” The hero of the
n tale, with the help of some animals to whom he had been kind, obtains the
egg and squeezes it, at which [pg 120] the giant screams piteously and begs
for his life. But the hero breaks the egg in pieces and the giant at once
t bursts.364 In another Norse story a hill-ogre tells the captive princess that she
will never be able to return home unless she finds the grain of sand which
lies under the ninth tongue of the ninth head of a certain dragon; but if that
grain of sand were to come over the rock in which the ogres live, they
would all burst “and the rock itself would become a gilded palace, and the
lake green meadows.” The hero finds the grain of sand and takes it to the
top of the high rock in which the ogres live. So all the ogres burst and the
rest falls out as one of the ogres had foretold.365

In a Danish tale a warlock carries off a princess to his wondrous
subterranean palace; and when she anxiously enquires how long he is likely
to live, he assures her that he will certainly survive her. “No man,” he says,
“can rob me of my life, for it is in my heart, and my heart is not here; it is in
n safer keeping.” She urges him to tell her where it is, so he says: “Very far
from here, in a land that is called Poland, there is a great lake, and in the
lake is a dragon, and in the dragon is a hare, and in the hare is a duck, and
in the duck is an egg, and in the egg is my heart. It is in good keeping, you
may trust me. Nobody is likely to stumble upon it.” However, the hero of
the tale, who is also the husband of the kidnapped princess, has fortunately
received the power of turning himself at will into a bear, a dog, an ant, or a
falcon as a reward for having divided the carcase of a deer impartially
e between four animals of these species; and availing himself of this useful
art he not only makes his way into the warlock's enchanted palace but also
secures the egg on which the enchanter's life depends. No sooner has he [pg
121] smashed the egg on the enchanter's ugly face than that miscreant drops
down as dead as a herring.366

Another Danish story tells how a lad went out into the world to look for
service. He met a man, who hired him for three years and said he would
give him a bushel of money for the first year, two bushels of money for the
f second, and three bushels of money for the third. The lad was well content,
as you may believe, to get such good wages. But the man was a magician,
and it was not long before he turned the lad into a hare, by pronouncing
over him some strange words. For a whole year the lad scoured the woods
in the shape of a hare, and there was not a sportsman in all the country
round about that had not a shot at him. But not one of them could hit him.
At the end of the year the magician spoke some other words over him and
turned him back into human form and gave him the bushel of money. But
then the magician mumbled some other words, and the lad was turned into a
raven and flew up into the sky. Again all the marksmen of the
neighbourhood pointed their guns at him and banged away; but they only
wasted powder and shot, for not one of them could hit him. At the end of
the year the magician changed him back into a man and gave him two
bushelfuls of money. But soon after he changed him into a fish, and in the
form of a fish the young man jumped into the brook and swam down into
the sea. There at the bottom of the ocean he saw a most beautiful castle all
of glass and in it a lovely girl all alone. Round and round the castle he
swam, looking into all the rooms and admiring everything. At last he
remembered the words the magician had spoken when he turned him back
into a man, and by repeating them he was at once transformed into a
stripling again. He walked into the glass castle and introduced himself to
the girl, and though at first she was nearly frightened to death, she was soon
very glad to have him with her. From her he learned that she was no other
than the daughter of the magician, who kept her there for safety at the
bottom of the sea. The two now laid their heads together, and she told him
what to do. [pg 122] There was a certain king who owed her father money
and had not the wherewithal to pay; and if he did not pay by such and such
a day, his head was to be cut off. So the young man was to take service with
the king, offer him the bushels of money which he had earned in the service
of the magician, and go with him to the magician to pay his debt. But he
was to dress up as the court Fool so that the magician would not know him,
and in that character he was to indulge in horse-play, smashing windows
and so on, till the magician would fall into such a rage that though the king
had paid his debt to the last farthing he would nevertheless be condemned

to instant execution unless he could answer the magician's questions. The
questions would be these, “Where is my daughter?” “Would you know her
if you saw her?” Now the magician would cause a whole line of phantom
women to pass by, so that the young man would not be able to tell which of
them was the sorcerer's daughter; but when her turn came to pass by she
would give him a nudge as a sign, and so he would know her. Then the
magician would ask, “And where is my heart?” And the young man was to
say, “In a fish.” And the magician would ask, “Would you know the fish if
you saw it?” And he would cause all sorts of fishes to pass by, and the
young man would have to say in which of them was the heart of the
magician. He would never be able of himself to tell in which of them it was,
but the girl would stand beside him, and when the right fish passed by, she
would nudge him and he was to catch it and rip it up, and the magician
would ask him no more questions. Everything turned out exactly as she had
said. The king paid his debt to the last farthing; but the young man
disguised as the court Fool cut such capers and smashed so many glass
windows and doors that the heaps of broken glass were something frightful
to contemplate. So there was nothing for it but that the king, who was of
course responsible for the pranks of his Fool, should either answer the
magician's questions or die the death. While they were getting the axe and
the block ready in the courtyard, the trembling king was interrogated by the
stern magician. “Where is my daughter?” asked the sorcerer. Here the [pg
123] court Fool cut in and said, “She is at the bottom of the sea.” “Would
you know her if you saw her?” enquired the magician. “To be sure I
would,” answered the Fool. So the magician caused a whole regiment of
girls to defile before him, one after the other; but they were mere phantoms
and apparitions. Almost the last of all came the magician's daughter, and
when she passed the young man she pinched his arm so hard that he almost
shrieked with pain. However, he dissembled his agony and putting his arm
round her waist held her fast. The magician now played his last trump.
“Where is my heart?” said he. “In a fish,” said the Fool. “Would you know
the fish if you saw it?” asked the magician. “To be sure I would,” answered
the Fool. Then all the fishes of the sea swam past, and when the right one
came last of all, the girl nudged her lover; he seized the fish, and with one
stroke of his knife slit it from end to end. Out tumbled the magician's heart;
the young man seized it and cut it in two, and at the same moment the
magician fell dead.367

In Iceland they say that once a king's son was out hunting in a wood with
the courtiers, when the mist came down so thick that his companions lost
sight of the prince, and though they searched the woods till evening they
could not find him. At the news the king was inconsolable, and taking to his
n bed caused proclamation to be made that he who could find and bring back
his lost son should have half the kingdom. Now an old man and his old wife
lived together in a wretched hut, and they had a daughter. She resolved to
s seek the lost prince and get the promised reward. So her parents gave her
e food for the journey and a pair of new shoes, and off she set. Well, she
e walked and better walked for days, and at last she came towards evening to
a cave and going into it she saw two beds. One of them was covered with a
e cloth of silver and the other with a cloth of gold; and in the bed with the
n golden coverlet was the king's son fast asleep. She tried to wake him, but all
e in vain. Then she noticed some runes carved on the bedsteads, but she could
not read them. So she went back to the mouth [pg 124] of the cave and hid
e behind the door. Hardly had she time to conceal herself when she heard a
loud noise and saw two giantesses, two great hulking louts they were, stride
into the cave. No sooner were they in than one said to the other, “Ugh, what
a smell of human flesh in our cave!” But the other thought the smell might
come from the king's son. They went up to the bed where he was sleeping,
and calling two swans, which the girl had not perceived in the dim light of
the cave, they said:—

“Sing, sing, my swans,
That the king's son may wake.”

So the swans sang and the king's son awoke. The younger of the two hags
offered him food, but he refused it; then she asked him, if he would marry
her, but he said “No, certainly not.” Then she shrieked and said to the
swans:—

“Sing, sing, my swans,
That the king's son may sleep.”

The swans sang and the king's son fell fast asleep. Then the two giantesses
lay down in the bed with the silver coverlet and slept till break of day.
When they woke in the morning, they wakened the prince and offered him
food again, but he again refused it; and the younger hag again asked him if
he would have her to wife, but he would not hear of it. So they put him to
sleep again to the singing of the swans and left the cave. When they were
gone a while, the girl came forth from her hiding-place and waked the
king's son to the song of the swans, and he was glad to see her and to get the
news. She told him that, when the hag asked him again to marry her, he
must say, “Yes, but you must first tell me what is written on the beds, and
what you do by day.” So when it drew to evening, the girl hid herself again,
and soon the giantesses came, lit a fire in the cave, and cooked at it the
game they had brought with them. And the younger hag wakened the king's
son and asked him if he would have something to eat. This time he said
“Yes.” And when he had finished his supper, the giantess asked him if he
would have her to wife. “That I will,” said he, “but first you must tell me
what the runes mean that are carved on the bed.” She said that they meant:
—

[pg 125]

“Run, run, my little bed,
Run whither I will.”

He said he was very glad to know it, but she must also tell him what they
did all day long out there in the wood. The hag told him that they hunted
beasts and birds, and that between whiles they sat down under an oak and
threw their life-egg from one to the other, but they had to be careful, for if
the egg were to break, they would both die. The king's son thanked her
kindly, but next morning when the giantess asked him to go with them to
the wood he said that he would rather stay at home. So away went the
giantesses by themselves, after they had lulled him to sleep to the singing of
the swans. But hardly were their backs turned when out came the girl and
wakened the prince and told him to take his spear, and they would pursue
the giantesses, and when they were throwing their life-egg to each other he
was to hurl his spear at it and smash it to bits. “But if you miss,” said she,

“it is as much as your life is worth.” So they came to the oak in the wood,
and there they heard a loud laugh, and the king's son climbed up the tree,
and there under the oak were the two giantesses, and one of them had a
golden egg in her hand and threw it to the other. Just then the king's son
hurled his spear and hit the egg so that it burst. At the same time the two
hags fell dead to the ground and the slaver dribbled out of their mouths.368
In an Icelandic parallel to the story of Meleager the spae-wives or sibyls
come and foretell the high destiny of the infant Gestr as he lies in his cradle.
Two candles were burning beside the child, and the youngest of the spae-
wives, conceiving herself slighted, cried out, “I foretell that the child shall
live no longer than this candle burns.” Whereupon the chief sibyl put out
the candle and gave it to Gestr's [pg 126] mother to keep, charging her not
to light it again until her son should wish to die. Gestr lived three hundred
years; then he kindled the candle and expired.369

The conception of the external soul meets us also in Celtic stories. Thus a
tale, told by a blind fiddler in the island of Islay, relates how a giant carried
off a king's wife and his two horses and kept them in his den. But the horses
attacked the giant and mauled him so that he could hardly crawl. He said to
n the queen, “If I myself had my soul to keep, those horses would have killed
me long ago.” “And where, my dear,” said she, “is thy soul? By the books I
will take care of it.” “It is in the Bonnach stone,” said he. So on the morrow
t when the giant went out, the queen set the Bonnach stone in order
l exceedingly. In the dusk of the evening the giant came back, and he said to
a the queen, “What made thee set the Bonnach stone in order like that?”
“Because thy soul is in it,” quoth she. “I perceive,” said he, “that if thou
didst know where my soul is, thou wouldst give it much respect.” “That I
would,” said she. “It is not there,” said he, “my soul is; it is in the
threshold.” On the morrow she set the threshold in order finely, and when
the giant returned, he asked her, “What brought thee to set the threshold in
order like that?” “Because thy soul is in it,” said she. “I perceive,” said he,
“that if thou knewest where my soul is, thou wouldst take care of it.” “That
I would,” said she. “It is not there that my soul is,” said he. “There is a great
flagstone under the threshold. There is a wether under the flag. There is a
duck in the wether's belly, and an egg in the belly of the duck, and it is in
the egg that my soul is.” On the morrow when the giant was gone, they
raised the flagstone and out came the wether. They opened the wether and

out came the duck. They split the duck, and out came the egg. And the
queen took the egg and crushed it in her hands, and at that very moment the
giant, who was coming home in the dusk, fell down dead.370 In another
Celtic tale, a sea beast has carried off a king's [pg 127] daughter, and an old
smith declares that there is no way of killing the beast but one. “In the
island that is in the midst of the loch is Eillid Chaisfhion—the white-footed
hind, of the slenderest legs, and the swiftest step, and though she should be
caught, there would spring a hoodie out of her, and though the hoodie
should be caught, there would spring a trout out of her, but there is an egg
in the mouth of the trout, and the soul of the beast is in the egg, and if the
egg breaks, the beast is dead.” As usual the egg is broken and the beast
dies.371

In these Celtic tales the helpful animals reappear and assist the hero in
achieving the adventure, though for the sake of brevity I have omitted to
describe the parts they play in the plot. They figure also in an Argyleshire
story, which seems however to be of Irish origin; for the Cruachan of which
we hear in it is not the rugged and lofty mountain Ben Cruachan which
towers above the beautiful Loch Awe, but Roscommon Cruachan near
e Belanagare, the ancient palace of the kings of Connaught, long famous in
Irish tradition.372 The story relates how a big giant, King of Sorcha, stole
away the wife and the shaggy dun filly of the herdsman or king of
e Cruachan. So the herdsman baked a bannock to take with him by the way,
d and set off in quest of his wife and the filly. He went for a long, long time,
y till at last his soles were blackened and his cheeks were sunken, the yellow-
headed birds were going to rest at the roots of the bushes and the tops of the
thickets, and the dark clouds of night were coming and the clouds of day
were departing; and he saw a house far from him, but though it was far
from him he did not take long to reach it. He went in, and sat in the upper
end of the house, but there was no one within; and the fire was newly
kindled, the house newly swept, and the bed newly made; and who came in
but the hawk of Glencuaich, and she said to him, “Are you here, young son
of Cruachan?” “I am,” said he. The hawk said to him, “Do you know who
was here last night?” “I do not,” said he. “There were here,” [pg 128] said
she, “the big giant, King of Sorcha, your wife, and the shaggy dun filly; and
the giant was threatening terribly that if he could get hold of you he would
take the head off you.” “I well believe it,” said he. Then she gave him food

and drink, and sent him to bed. She rose in the morning, made breakfast for
him, and baked a bannock for him to take with him on his journey. And he
went away and travelled all day, and in the evening he came to another
house and went in, and was entertained by the green-headed duck, who told
him that the giant had rested there the night before with the wife and shaggy
dun filly of the herdsman of Cruachan. And next day the herdsman
journeyed again, and at evening he came to another house and went in and
was entertained by the fox of the scrubwood, who told him just what the
hawk of Glencuaich and the green-headed duck had told him before. Next
day the same thing happened, only it was the brown otter of the burn that
entertained him at evening in a house where the fire was newly kindled, the
floor newly swept, and the bed newly made. And next morning when he
awoke, the first thing he saw was the hawk of Glencuaich, the green-headed
duck, the fox of the scrubwood, and the brown otter of the burn all dancing
together on the floor. They made breakfast for him, and partook of it all
together, and said to him, “Should you be at any time in straits, think of us,
and we will help you.” Well, that very evening he came to the cave where
the giant lived, and who was there before him but his own wife? She gave
him food and hid him under clothes at the upper end of the cave. And when
the giant came home he sniffed about and said, “The smell of a stranger is
in the cave.” But she said no, it was only a little bird she had roasted. “And
I wish you would tell me,” said she, “where you keep your life, that I might
take good care of it.” “It is in a grey stone over there,” said he. So next day
when he went away, she took the grey stone and dressed it well, and placed
it in the upper end of the cave. When the giant came home in the evening he
said to her, “What is it that you have dressed there?” “Your own life,” said
she, “and we must be careful of it.” “I perceive that you are very fond of
me, but it is not [pg 129] there,” said he. “Where is it?” said she. “It is in a
grey sheep on yonder hillside,” said he. On the morrow, when he went
away, she got the grey sheep, dressed it well, and placed it in the upper end
of the cave. When he came home in the evening he said, “What is it that
you have dressed there?” “Your own life, my love,” said she. “It is not there
as yet,” said he. “Well!” said she, “you are putting me to great trouble
taking care of it, and you have not told me the truth these two times.” He
then said, “I think that I may tell it to you now. My life is below the feet of
the big horse in the stable. There is a place down there in which there is a
small lake. Over the lake are seven grey hides, and over the hides are seven

sods from the heath, and under all these are seven oak planks. There is a
trout in the lake, and a duck in the belly of the trout, an egg in the belly of
the duck, and a thorn of blackthorn inside of the egg, and till that thorn is
chewed small I cannot be killed. Whenever the seven grey hides, the seven
sods from the heath, and the seven oak planks are touched I shall feel it
wherever I shall be. I have an axe above the door, and unless all these are
cut through with one blow of it the lake will not be reached; and when it
will be reached I shall feel it.” Next day, when the giant had gone out
hunting on the hill, the herdsman of Cruachan contrived, with the help of
the friendly animals—the hawk, the duck, the fox, and the otter—to get
possession of the fateful thorn and to chew it before the giant could reach
him; and no sooner had he done so than the giant dropped stark and stiff, a
corpse.373

Another Argyleshire story relates how a certain giant, who lived in the
Black Corrie of Ben Breck, carried off three daughters of a king, one after
the other, at intervals of seven years. The bereaved monarch sent champions
f to rescue his lost daughters, but though they surprised the giant in his sleep
and cut off his head, it was all to no purpose; for as fast as they cut it off he
put it on again and made after them as if nothing had happened. So the
champions fled away before him as fast as they could lay legs to the
l ground, and the more agile of them escaped, but the shorter-winded he [pg
a 130] caught, bared them to the skin, and hanged them on hooks against the
turrets of his castle. So he went by the name of the Bare-Stripping
Hangman. Now this amiable man had announced his intention of coming to
fetch away the fourth and last of the king's daughters, when another seven
years should be up. The time was drawing near, and the king, with the
natural instincts of a father, was in great tribulation, when as good luck
would have it a son of the king of Ireland, by name Alastir, arrived in the
king's castle and undertook to find out where the Bare-Stripping Hangman
had hidden his soul. To cut a long story short, the artful Hangman had
hidden his soul in an egg, which was in the belly of a duck, which was in
the belly of a salmon, which was in the belly of a swift-footed hind of the
cliffs. The prince wormed the secret from a little old man, and by the help
of a dog, a brown otter, and a falcon he contrived to extract the egg from its
various envelopes and crushed it to bits between his hands and knees. So

when he came to the giant's castle he found the Bare-Stripping Hangman
lying dead on the floor.374

Another Highland story sets forth how Hugh, prince of Lochlin, was long
held captive by a giant who lived in a cave overlooking the Sound of Mull.
At last, after he had spent many years of captivity in that dismal cave, it
f came to pass that one night the giant and his wife had a great dispute, and
Hugh overheard their talk, and learned that the giant's soul was in a
precious gem which he always wore on his forehead. So the prince watched
his opportunity, seized the gem, and having no means of escape or
concealment, hastily swallowed it. Like lightning from the clouds, the
giant's sword flashed from its scabbard and flew between Hugh's head and
his body to intercept the gem before it could descend into the prince's
stomach. But it was too late; and the giant fell down, sword in hand, and
expired without a gasp. Hugh had now lost his head, it is true, but having
the giant's soul in his body he felt none the worse for the accident. So he
buckled the giant's sword at his side, mounted the grey filly, swifter than the
east wind, [pg 131] that never had a bridle, and rode home. But the want of
his head made a painful impression on his friends; indeed they maintained
that he was a ghost and shut the door in his face, so now he wanders for
ever in shades of darkness, riding the grey filly fleeter than the wind. On
stormy nights, when the wind howls about the gables and among the trees,
you may see him galloping along the shore of the sea “between wave and
sand.” Many a naughty little boy, who would not go quietly to bed, has been
carried off by Headless Hugh on his grey filly and never seen again.375

In Sutherlandshire at the present day there is a sept of Mackays known as
“the descendants of the seal,” who claim to be sprung from a mermaid, and
the story they tell in explanation of their claim involves the notion of the
external soul. They say that the laird of Borgie used to go down to the rocks
under his castle to bathe. One day he saw a mermaid close in shore,
combing her hair and swimming about, as if she were anxious to land. After
e watching her for a time, he noticed her cowl on the rocks beside him, and
knowing that she could not go to sea without it, he carried the cowl up to
the castle in the hope that she would follow him. She did so, but he refused
to give up the cowl and detained the sea-maiden herself and made her his
wife. To this she consented with great reluctance, and told him that her life

was bound up with the cowl, and that if it rotted or was destroyed she
would instantly die. So the cowl was placed for safety in the middle of a
great hay-stack, and there it lay for years. One unhappy day, when the laird
was from home, the servants were working among the hay and found the
cowl. Not knowing what it was, they shewed it to the lady of the house. The
sight revived memories of her old life in the depths of the sea, so she took
the cowl, and leaving her child in its cot, plunged into the sea and never [pg
132] came home to Borgie any more. Only sometimes she would swim
close in shore to see her boy, and then she wept because he was not of her
own kind that she might take him to sea with her. The boy grew to be a
man, and his descendants are famous swimmers. They cannot drown, and to
this day they are known in the neighbourhood as Sliochd an roin, that is,
“the descendants of the seal.”376

In an Irish story we read how a giant kept a beautiful damsel a prisoner in
his castle on the top of a hill, which was white with the bones of the
champions who had tried in vain to rescue the fair captive. At last the hero,
after hewing and slashing at the giant all to no purpose, discovered that the
n only way to kill him was to rub a mole on the giant's right breast with a
d certain egg, which was in a duck, which was in a chest, which lay locked
and bound at the bottom of the sea. With the help of some obliging salmon,
rams, and eagles, the hero as usual made himself master of the precious egg
t and slew the giant by merely striking it against the mole on his right
e breast.377 Similarly in a Breton story there figures a giant whom neither fire
e nor water nor steel can harm. He tells his seventh wife, whom he has just
married after murdering all her predecessors, “I am immortal, and no one
can hurt me unless he crushes on my breast an egg, which is in a pigeon,
which is in the belly of a hare; this hare is in the belly of a wolf, and this
wolf is in the belly of my brother, who dwells a thousand leagues from here.
e So I am quite easy on that score.” A soldier, the hero of the tale, had been of
service to an ant, a wolf, and a sea-bird, who in return bestowed on him the
power of turning himself into an ant, a wolf, or a sea-bird at will. By means
t of this magical power the soldier contrived to obtain the egg and crush it on
e the breast of the giant, who immediately expired.378 Another Breton story
a tells of a giant who was called Body-without-Soul because [pg 133] his life
did not reside in his body. He himself dwelt in a beautiful castle which hung
between heaven and earth, suspended by four golden chains; but his life

was in an egg, and the egg was in a dove, and the dove was in a hare, and
the hare was in a wolf, and the wolf was in an iron chest at the bottom of
the sea. In his castle in the air he kept prisoner a beauteous princess whom
he had swooped down upon and carried off in a magic chariot. But her lover
turned himself into an ant and so climbed up one of the golden chains into
the enchanted castle, for he had done a kindness to the king and queen of
ants, and they rewarded him by transforming him into an ant in his time of
need. When he had learned from the captive princess the secret of the
giant's life, he procured the chest from the bottom of the sea by the help of
the king of fishes, whom he had also obliged; and opening the chest he
killed first the wolf, then the hare, and then the dove, and at the death of
each animal the giant grew weaker and weaker as if he had lost a limb. In
the stomach of the dove the hero found the egg on which the giant's life
depended, and when he came with it to the castle he found Body-without-
Soul stretched on his bed at the point of death. So he dashed the egg against
the giant's forehead, the egg broke, and the giant straightway expired.379 In
another Breton tale the life of a giant resides in an old box-tree which grows
in his castle garden; and to kill him it is necessary to sever the tap-root of
the tree at a single blow of an axe without injuring any of the lesser roots.
This task the hero, as usual, successfully accomplishes, and at the same
moment the giant drops dead.380

The notion of an external soul has now been traced in folk-tales told by
Aryan peoples from India to Brittany and [pg 134] the Hebrides. We have
still to shew that the same idea occurs commonly in the popular stories of
peoples who do not belong to the Aryan stock. In the first place it appears in
n the ancient Egyptian story of “The Two Brothers.” This story was written
f down in the reign of Rameses II., about 1300 b.c. It is therefore older than
our present redaction of Homer, and far older than the Bible. The outline of
the story, so far as it concerns us here, is as follows. Once upon a time there
were two brethren; the name of the elder was Anpu and the name of the
younger was Bata. Now Anpu had a house and a wife, and his younger
brother dwelt with him as his servant. It was Anpu who made the garments,
f and every morning when it grew light he drove the kine afield. As he
walked behind them they used to say to him, “The grass is good in such and
such a place,” and he heard what they said and led them to the good pasture
t that they desired. So his kine grew very sleek and multiplied greatly. One

e day when the two brothers were at work in the field the elder brother said to
f the younger, “Run and fetch seed from the village.” So the younger brother
ran and said to the wife of his elder brother, “Give me seed that I may run to
the field, for my brother sent me saying, Tarry not.” She said, “Go to the
barn and take as much as thou wouldst.” He went and filled a jar full of
wheat and barley, and came forth bearing it on his shoulders. When the
woman saw him her heart went out to him, and she laid hold of him and
said, “Come, let us rest an hour together.” But he said, “Thou art to me as a
mother, and my brother is to me as a father.” So he would not hearken to
her, but took the load on his back and went away to the field. In the
evening, when the elder brother was returning from the field, his wife
feared for what she had said. So she took soot and made herself as one who
had been beaten. And when her husband came home, she said, “When thy
younger brother came to fetch seed, he said to me, Come, let us rest an hour
together. But I would not, and he beat me.” Then the elder brother became
like a panther of the south; he sharpened his knife and stood behind the
door of the cow-house. And when the sun set and the younger brother came
laden with all the herbs of the field, as was his wont [pg 135] every day, the
cow that walked in front of the herd said to him, “Behold, thine elder
brother stands with a knife to kill thee. Flee before him.” When he heard
what the cow said, he looked under the door of the cow-house and saw the
feet of his elder brother standing behind the door, his knife in his hand. So
he fled and his brother pursued him with the knife. But the younger brother
cried for help to the Sun, and the Sun heard him and caused a great water to
spring up between him and his elder brother, and the water was full of
crocodiles. The two brothers stood, the one on the one side of the water and
the other on the other, and the younger brother told the elder brother all that
had befallen. So the elder brother repented him of what he had done and he
lifted up his voice and wept. But he could not come at the farther bank by
reason of the crocodiles. His younger brother called to him and said, “Go
home and tend the cattle thyself. For I will dwell no more in the place
where thou art. I will go to the Valley of the Acacia. But this is what thou
shalt do for me. Thou shalt come and care for me, if evil befalls me, for I
will enchant my heart and place it on the top of the flower of the Acacia;
and if they cut the Acacia and my heart falls to the ground, thou shalt come
and seek it, and when thou hast found it thou shalt lay it in a vessel of fresh
water. Then I shall come to life again. But this is the sign that evil has

befallen me; the pot of beer in thine hand shall bubble.” So he went away to
the Valley of the Acacia, but his brother returned home with dust on his
head and slew his wife and cast her to the dogs.

For many days afterwards the younger brother dwelt alone in the Valley of
the Acacia. By day he hunted the beasts of the field, but at evening he came
e and laid him down under the Acacia, on the top of whose flower was his
f heart. And many days after that he built himself a house in the Valley of the
Acacia. But the gods were grieved for him; and the Sun said to Khnumu,
a “Make a wife for Bata, that he may not dwell alone.” So Khnumu made him
d a woman to dwell with him, who was perfect in her limbs more than any
woman on earth, for all the gods were in her. So she dwelt with him. But
one day a lock of [pg 136] her hair fell into the river and floated down to
the land of Egypt, to the house of Pharaoh's washerwomen. The fragrance
of the lock perfumed Pharaoh's raiment, and the washerwomen were
blamed, for it was said, “An odour of perfume in the garments of Pharaoh!”
So the heart of Pharaoh's chief washerman was weary of the complaints that
were made every day, and he went to the wharf, and there in the water he
spied the lock of hair. He sent one down into the river to fetch it, and,
because it smelt sweetly, he took it to Pharaoh. Then Pharaoh's magicians
were sent for and they said, “This lock of hair belongs to a daughter of the
Sun, who has in her the essence of all the gods. Let messengers go forth to
all foreign lands to seek her.” So the woman was brought from the Valley of
the Acacia with chariots and archers and much people, and all the land of
Egypt rejoiced at her coming, and Pharaoh loved her. But when they asked
her of her husband, she said to Pharaoh, “Let them cut down the Acacia and
let them destroy it.” So men were sent with tools to cut down the Acacia.
They came to it and cut the flower upon which was the heart of Bata; and
he fell down dead in that evil hour. But the next day, when the earth grew
light and the elder brother of Bata was entered into his house and had sat
down, they brought him a pot of beer and it bubbled, and they gave him a
jug of wine and it grew turbid. Then he took his staff and his sandals and
hied him to the Valley of the Acacia, and there he found his younger brother
lying dead in his house. So he sought for the heart of his brother under the
Acacia. For three years he sought in vain, but in the fourth year he found it
in the berry of the Acacia. So he threw the heart into a cup of fresh water.
And when it was night and the heart had sucked in much water, Bata shook

in all his limbs and revived. Then he drank the cup of water in which his
heart was, and his heart went into its place, and he lived as before.381

[pg 137]

In the Arabian Nights we read how Seyf el-Mulook, after wandering for
four months over mountains and hills and deserts, came to a lofty palace in
which he found the lovely daughter of the King of India sitting alone on a
golden couch in a hall spread with silken carpets. She tells him that she is
n held captive by a jinnee, who had swooped down on her and carried her off
while she was disporting herself with her female slaves in a tank in the
great garden of her father the king. Seyf el-Mulook then offers to smite the
e jinnee with the sword and slay him. “But,” she replied, “thou canst not slay
e him unless thou kill his soul.” “And in what place,” said he, “is his soul?”
She answered, “I asked him respecting it many times; but he would not
confess to me its place. It happened, however, that I urged him, one day,
e and he was enraged against me, and said to me, ‘How often wilt thou ask
me respecting my soul? What is the reason of thy question respecting my
soul?’ So I answered him, ‘O Hátim, there remaineth to me no one but thee,
excepting God; and I, as long as I live, would not cease to hold thy soul in
my embrace; and if I do not take care of thy soul, and put it in the midst of
my eye, how can I live after thee? If I knew thy soul, I would take care of it
as of my right eye.’ And thereupon he said to me, ‘When I was born, the
astrologers declared that the destruction of my soul would be effected by
the hand of one of the sons of the human kings. I therefore took my soul,
and put it into the crop of a sparrow, and I imprisoned the sparrow in a little
box, and put this into another small box, and this I put within seven other
small boxes, and I put these within seven chests, and the chests I put into a
coffer of marble within the verge of this circumambient ocean; for this part
is remote from the countries of mankind, and none of mankind can gain
access to it.’ ” But Seyf el-Mulook got possession of the sparrow and
strangled it, and the jinnee fell upon the ground a heap of black ashes.382 In
a modern [pg 138] Arabian tale a king marries an ogress, who puts out the
eyes of the king's forty wives. One of the blinded queens gives birth to a
son whom she names Mohammed the Prudent. But the ogress queen hated
him and compassed his death. So she sent him on an errand to the house of
her kinsfolk the ogres. In the house of the ogres he saw some things

hanging from the roof, and on asking a female slave what they were, she
said, “That is the bottle which contains the life of my lady the queen, and
the other bottle beside it contains the eyes of the queens whom my mistress
blinded.” A little afterwards he spied a beetle and rose to kill it. “Don't kill
it,” cried the slave, “for that is my life.” But Mohammed the Prudent
watched the beetle till it entered a chink in the wall; and when the female
slave had fallen asleep, he killed the beetle in its hole, and so the slave died.
Then Mohammed took down the two bottles and carried them home to his
father's palace. There he presented himself before the ogress queen and
said, “See, I have your life in my hand, but I will not kill you till you have
replaced the eyes which you took from the forty queens.” The ogress did as
she was bid, and then Mohammed the Prudent said, “There, take your life.”
But the bottle slipped from his hand and fell, the life of the ogress escaped
from it, and she died.383

[pg 139]

A Basque story, which closely resembles some of the stories told among
Aryan peoples, relates how a monster—a Body-without-Soul—detains a
princess in captivity, and is questioned by her as to how he might be slain.
With some reluctance he tells her, “You must kill a terrible wolf which is in
n the forest, and inside him is a fox, in the fox is a pigeon; this pigeon has an
egg in his head, and whoever should strike me on the forehead with this egg
would kill me.” The hero of the story, by name Malbrouk, has learned, in
the usual way, the art of turning himself at will into a wolf, an ant, a hawk,
or a dog, and on the strength of this accomplishment he kills the animals,
one after the other, and extracts the precious egg from the pigeon's head.
When the wolf is killed, the monster feels it and says despondently, “I do
not know if anything is going to happen to me. I am much afraid of it.”
When the fox and the pigeon have been killed, he cries that it is all over
with him, that they have taken the egg out of the pigeon, and that he knows
not what is to become of him. Finally the princess strikes the monster on the
forehead with the egg, and he falls a corpse.384 In a Kabyle story an ogre
declares that his fate is far away in an egg, which is in a pigeon, which is in
a camel, which is in the sea. The hero procures the egg and crushes it
between his hands, and the ogre dies.385 In a Magyar folk-tale, an old witch
detains a young prince called Ambrose in the bowels of the earth. At last

she confided [pg 140] to him that she kept a wild boar in a silken meadow,
and if it were killed, they would find a hare inside, and inside the hare a
pigeon, and inside the pigeon a small box, and inside the box one black and
one shining beetle: the shining beetle held her life, and the black one held
her power; if these two beetles died, then her life would come to an end
also. When the old hag went out, Ambrose killed the wild boar, and took out
the hare; from the hare he took the pigeon, from the pigeon the box, and
from the box the two beetles; he killed the black beetle, but kept the shining
one alive. So the witch's power left her immediately, and when she came
home, she had to take to her bed. Having learned from her how to escape
from his prison to the upper air, Ambrose killed the shining beetle, and the
old hag's spirit left her at once.386 In another Hungarian story the safety of
the Dwarf-king resides in a golden cockchafer, inside a golden cock, inside
a golden sheep, inside a golden stag, in the ninety-ninth island. The hero
overcomes all these golden animals and so recovers his bride, whom the
Dwarf-king had carried off.387

A Lapp story tells of a giant who slew a man and took away his wife. When
the man's son grew up, he tried to rescue his mother and kill the giant, but
fire and sword were powerless to harm the monster; it seemed as if he had
no life in his body. “Dear mother,” at last enquired the son, “don't you know
a where the giant has hidden away his life?” The mother did not know, but
promised to ask. So one day, when the giant chanced to be in a good
e humour, she asked him where he kept his life. He said to her, “Out yonder
on a burning sea is an island, in the island is a barrel, in the barrel is a
e sheep, in the sheep is a hen, in the hen is an egg, and in the egg is my life.”
a When the woman's son heard this, he hired a bear, a wolf, a hawk, and a
diver-bird and set off in a boat to sail to the island in the burning sea. He sat
with the hawk and the diver-bird under an iron tent in the middle of the
boat, and he set the bear and the wolf to row. That is why to this day the
bear's hair is dark brown and the wolf has dark-brown spots; for as they sat
at the [pg 141] oars without any screen they were naturally scorched by the
tossing tongues of flame on the burning sea. However, they made their way
over the fiery billows to the island, and there they found the barrel. In a
trice the bear had knocked the bottom out of it with his claws, and forth
sprang a sheep. But the wolf soon pulled the sheep down and rent it in
pieces. From out the sheep flew a hen, but the hawk stooped on it and tore it

with his talons. In the hen was an egg, which dropped into the sea and sank;
but the diver-bird dived after it. Twice he dived after it in vain and came up
to the surface gasping and spluttering; but the third time he brought up the
egg and handed it to the young man. Great was the young man's joy. At
once he kindled a great bonfire on the shore, threw the egg into it, and
rowed away back across the sea. On landing he went away straight to the
giant's abode, and found the monster burning, just as he had left the egg
burning on the island. “Fool that I was,” lamented the dying giant, “to
betray my life to a wicked old woman,” and with that he snatched at an iron
tube through which in happier days he had been wont to suck the blood of
his human victims. But the woman was too subtle for him, for she had taken
the precaution of inserting one end of the tube in the glowing embers of the
hearth; and so, when the giant sucked hard at the other end, he imbibed only
fire and ashes. Thus he burned inside as well as outside, and when the fire
went out the giant's life went out with it.388

A Samoyed story tells how seven warlocks killed a certain man's mother
and carried off his sister, whom they kept to serve them. Every night when
they came home the seven warlocks used to take out their hearts and place
them in a dish which the woman hung on the tent-poles. But the wife of the
n man whom they had wronged stole the hearts of the warlocks while they
slept, and took them to her husband. By break of day he went with the
hearts to the warlocks, and found them at the point of death. They all
begged for their hearts; but he threw six of their hearts to the ground, and
six of the warlocks died. The seventh and eldest warlock [pg 142] begged
hard for his heart and the man said, “You killed my mother. Make her alive
again, and I will give you back your heart.” The warlock said to his wife,
“Go to the place where the dead woman lies. You will find a bag there.
Bring it to me. The woman's spirit is in the bag.” So his wife brought the
bag; and the warlock said to the man, “Go to your dead mother, shake the
bag and let the spirit breathe over her bones; so she will come to life again.”
The man did as he was bid, and his mother was restored to life. Then he
hurled the seventh heart to the ground, and the seventh warlock died.389 In a
Kalmuck tale we read how a certain khan challenged a wise man to shew
his skill by stealing a precious stone on which the khan's life depended. The
sage contrived to purloin the talisman while the khan and his guards slept;
but not content with this he gave a further proof of his dexterity by

bonneting the slumbering potentate with a bladder. This was too much for
the khan. Next morning he informed the sage that he could overlook
everything else, but that the indignity of being bonneted with a bladder was
more than he could stand; and he ordered his facetious friend to instant
execution. Pained at this exhibition of royal ingratitude, the sage dashed to
the ground the talisman which he still held in his hand; and at the same
instant blood flowed from the nostrils of the khan, and he gave up the
ghost.390

In a Tartar poem two heroes named Ak Molot and Bulat engage in mortal
combat. Ak Molot pierces his foe through and through with an arrow,
grapples with him, and dashes him to the ground, but all in vain, Bulat
could not die. At last when the combat has lasted three years, a friend of Ak
n Molot sees a golden casket hanging by a white thread from the sky, and
bethinks him that perhaps this casket contains Bulat's soul. So he shot
through the white thread with an arrow, and down fell the casket. He
opened it, and in the casket sat ten white birds, and one of the birds was
Bulat's soul. Bulat wept when he saw that his soul was found in the casket.
But one after the other the birds were [pg 143] killed, and then Ak Molot
easily slew his foe.391 In another Tartar poem, two brothers going to fight
two other brothers take out their souls and hide them in the form of a white
herb with six stalks in a deep pit. But one of their foes sees them doing so
and digs up their souls, which he puts into a golden ram's horn, and then
sticks the ram's horn in his quiver. The two warriors whose souls have thus
been stolen know that they have no chance of victory, and accordingly
make peace with their enemies.392 In another Tartar poem a terrible demon
sets all the gods and heroes at defiance. At last a valiant youth fights the
demon, binds him hand and foot, and slices him with his sword. But still the
demon is not slain. So the youth asked him, “Tell me, where is your soul
hidden? For if your soul had been hidden in your body, you must have been
dead long ago.” The demon replied, “On the saddle of my horse is a bag. In
the bag is a serpent with twelve heads. In the serpent is my soul. When you
have killed the serpent, you have killed me also.” So the youth took the
saddle-bag from the horse and killed the twelve-headed serpent, whereupon
the demon expired.393 In another Tartar poem a hero called Kök Chan
deposits with a maiden a golden ring, in which is half his strength.
Afterwards when Kök Chan is wrestling long with a hero and cannot kill

him, a woman drops into his mouth the ring which contains half his
strength. Thus inspired with fresh force he slays his enemy.394

In a Mongolian story the hero Joro gets the better of his enemy the lama
Tschoridong in the following way. The lama, who is an enchanter, sends out
his soul in the form of a wasp to sting Joro's eyes. But Joro catches the
wasp in his hand, and by alternately shutting and opening his hand [pg 144]
a he causes the lama alternately to lose and recover consciousness.395 In a
Tartar poem two youths cut open the body of an old witch and tear out her
d bowels, but all to no purpose, she still lives. On being asked where her soul
is, she answers that it is in the middle of her shoe-sole in the form of a
seven-headed speckled snake. So one of the youths slices her shoe-sole with
his sword, takes out the speckled snake, and cuts off its seven heads. Then
the witch dies.396 Another Tartar poem describes how the hero Kartaga
grappled with the Swan-woman. Long they wrestled. Moons waxed and
waned and still they wrestled; years came and went, and still the struggle
went on. But the piebald horse and the black horse knew that the Swan-
woman's soul was not in her. Under the black earth flow nine seas; where
the seas meet and form one, the sea comes to the surface of the earth. At the
mouth of the nine seas rises a rock of copper; it rises to the surface of the
ground, it rises up between heaven and earth, this rock of copper. At the
foot of the copper rock is a black chest, in the black chest is a golden
casket, and in the golden casket is the soul of the Swan-woman. Seven little
birds are the soul of the Swan-woman; if the birds are killed the Swan-
woman will die straightway. So the horses ran to the foot of the copper
rock, opened the black chest, and brought back the golden casket. Then the
piebald horse turned himself into a bald-headed man, opened the golden
casket, and cut off the heads of the seven birds. So the Swan-woman died.397
In a Tartar story a chief called Tash Kan is asked where his soul is. He
answers that there are seven great poplars, and under the poplars a golden
well; seven Maralen (?) come to drink the water of the well, and the belly
of one of them trails on the ground; in this Maral is a golden box, in the
golden box is a silver box, in the silver box are seven quails, the head of
one of the quails is golden and its tail silver; that quail is Tash Kan's soul.
The hero of the story gets possession of the seven quails and wrings the
necks of six of them. [pg 145] Then Tash Kan comes running and begs the
hero to let his soul go free. But the hero wrings the last quail's neck, and

Tash Kan drops dead.398 In another Tartar poem the hero, pursuing his sister
who has driven away his cattle, is warned to desist from the pursuit because
his sister has carried away his soul in a golden sword and a golden arrow,
and if he pursues her she will kill him by throwing the golden sword or
shooting the golden arrow at him.399

A modern Chinese story tells how an habitual criminal used to take his soul
out of his own body for the purpose of evading the righteous punishment of
his crimes. This bad man lived in Khien (Kwei-cheu), and the sentences that
had been passed on him formed a pile as high as a hill. The mandarins had
a flogged him to death with sticks and flung his mangled corpse into the river,
but three days afterwards the scoundrel got his soul back again, and on the
fifth day he resumed his career of villainy as if nothing had happened. The
thing occurred again and again, till at last it reached the ears of the
Governor of the province, who flew into a violent passion and proposed to
the Governor-General to have the rascal beheaded. And beheaded he was;
but in three days the wretch was alive again with no trace of decapitation
about him except a slender red thread round his neck. And now, like a giant
refreshed, he began a fresh series of enormities. He even went so far as to
beat his own mother. This was more than she could bear, and she brought
the matter before the magistrate. She produced in court a vase and said, “In
this vase my refractory son has hidden his soul. Whenever he was conscious
of having committed a serious crime, or a misdeed of the most heinous
kind, he remained at home, took his soul out of his body, purified it, and put
it in the vase. Then the authorities only punished or executed his body of
flesh and blood, and not his soul. With his soul, refined by a long process,
he then cured his freshly mutilated body, which thus became able in three
days to recommence in the old way. Now, however, his crimes have reached
a climax, for he has beaten me, an old woman, and I cannot bear it. I pray
you, smash this vase, and [pg 146] scatter his soul by fanning it away with a
windwheel; and if then you castigate his body anew, it is probable that bad
son of mine will really die.” The mandarin took the hint. He had the rogue
cudgelled to death, and when they examined the corpse they found that
decay had set in within ten days.400

The Khasis of Assam tell of a certain Kyllong, king of Madur, who pursued
his conquests on a remarkable principle. He needed few or no soldiers,

because he himself was a very strong man and nobody could kill him
permanently; they could, it is true, put him to death, but then he came to life
again immediately. The king of Synteng, who was much afraid of him, once
chopped him in pieces and threw the severed hands and feet far away,
a thinking thus to get rid of him for good and all; but it was to no purpose.
d The very next morning Kyllong came to life again and stalked about as
e brisk as ever. So the king of Synteng was very anxious to learn how his
f rival contrived thus to rise from the dead; and he hit on a plan for worming
out the secret. He chose the fairest girl of the whole country, clad her in
royal robes, put jewels of gold and silver upon her, and said, “All these will
I give thee and more besides, if thou canst obtain for me King Kyllong's
secret, and canst inform me how he brings himself to life again after being
killed.” So he sent the girl to the slave-market in King Kyllong's country;
and the king saw and loved her and took her to wife. So she caressed him
and coaxed him to tell her his secret, and in a fatal hour he was beguiled
into revealing it. He said, “My life depends upon these things. I must bathe
every day and must wash my entrails. After that, I take my food, and there
is no one on earth who can kill me unless he obtains possession of my
entrails. Thus my life hangs only on my entrails.” His treacherous wife at
once sent word to the king of Synteng, who caused men to lie in wait while
Kyllong was bathing. As usual, Kyllong had laid his entrails on one side of
the bathing-place, while he disported himself in the water, intending
afterwards to wash them and replace them in his body. But before he could
do so, [pg 147] one of the liers-in-wait had seized the entrails and killed
him. The entrails he cut in pieces and gave to the dogs to eat. That was the
end of King Kyllong. He was never able to come to life again; his country
was conquered, and the members of the royal family were scattered far and
wide. Seven generations have passed since then.401

A Malay poem relates how once upon a time in the city of Indrapoora there
was a certain merchant who was rich and prosperous, but he had no
children. One day as he walked with his wife by the river they found a baby
girl, fair as an angel. So they adopted the child and called her Bidasari. The
a merchant caused a golden fish to be made, and into this fish he transferred
the soul of his adopted daughter. Then he put the golden fish in a golden
box full of water, and hid it in a pond in the midst of his garden. In time the
girl grew to be a lovely woman. Now the King of Indrapoora had a fair

e young queen, who lived in fear that the king might take to himself a second
wife. So, hearing of the charms of Bidasari, the queen resolved to put her
out of the way. She lured the girl to the palace and tortured her cruelly; but
Bidasari could not die, because her soul was not in her. At last she could
stand the torture no longer and said to the queen, “If you wish me to die,
you must bring the box which is in the pond in my father's garden.” So the
box was brought and opened, and there was the golden fish in the water.
The girl said, “My soul is in that fish. In the morning you must take the fish
out of the water, and in the evening you must put it back into the water. Do
not let the fish lie about, but bind it round your neck. If you do this, I shall
soon die.” So the queen took the fish out of the box and fastened it round
her neck; and no sooner had she done so, than Bidasari fell into a swoon.
But in the evening, when the fish was put back into the water, Bidasari
came to herself again. Seeing that she thus had the girl in her power, the
queen sent her home to her adopted parents. To save her from further
persecution her parents resolved to remove their daughter from the city. So
in a lonely and desolate spot they built a house and brought Bidasari thither.
There she dwelt alone, undergoing [pg 148] vicissitudes that corresponded
with the vicissitudes of the golden fish in which was her soul. All day long,
while the fish was out of the water, she remained unconscious; but in the
evening, when the fish was put into the water, she revived. One day the king
was out hunting, and coming to the house where Bidasari lay unconscious,
was smitten with her beauty. He tried to waken her, but in vain. Next day,
towards evening, he repeated his visit, but still found her unconscious.
However, when darkness fell, she came to herself and told the king the
secret of her life. So the king returned to the palace, took the fish from the
queen, and put it in water. Immediately Bidasari revived, and the king took
her to wife.402

Another story of an external soul comes from Nias, an island to the west of
Sumatra. Once on a time a chief was captured by his enemies, who tried to
put him to death but failed. Water would not drown him nor fire burn him
nor steel pierce him. At last his wife revealed the secret. On his head he had
a a hair as hard as a copper wire; and with this wire his life was bound up. So
d the hair was plucked out, and with it his spirit fled.403

A Hausa story from Northern Nigeria closely resembles some of the
European tales which we have noticed; for it contains not only the incident
of the external soul, but also the incident of the helpful animals, by whose
assistance the hero is able to slay the Soulless King and obtain possession
a of the kingdom. The story runs thus. A certain man and his wife had four
daughters born to them in succession, but [pg 149] every one of the baby
e girls mysteriously disappeared on the day when she was to be weaned; so
the parents fell under the suspicion of having devoured them. Last of all
e there was born to them a son, who to avoid accidents was left to wean
a himself. One day, as he grew up, the son received a magic lotion from an
e old woman, who told him to rub his eyes with it. He did so, and
immediately he saw a large house and entering it he found his eldest sister
married to a bull. She bade him welcome and so did her husband the bull;
and when he went away, the bull very kindly presented him with a lock of
his hair as a keepsake. In like manner the lad discovered his other three
sisters, who were living in wedlock with a ram, a dog, and a hawk
respectively. All of them welcomed him and from the ram, the dog, and the
hawk he received tokens of regard in the shape of hair or feathers. Then he
returned home and told his parents of his adventure and how he had found
his sisters alive and married. Next day he went to a far city, where he made
love to the Queen and persuaded her to plot with him against the life of the
King her husband. So she coaxed the King to shew his affection for her by
“taking his own life, and joining it to hers.” The unsuspecting husband, as
usual, fell into the trap set for him by his treacherous wife. He confided to
her the secret of his life. “My life,” said he, “is behind the city, behind the
city in a thicket. In this thicket there is a lake; in the lake is a rock; in the
rock is a gazelle; in the gazelle is a dove; and in the dove is a small box.”
The Queen divulged the secret to her lover, who kindled a fire behind the
city and threw into it the hair and feathers which he had received from the
friendly animals, his brothers-in-law. Immediately the animals themselves
appeared and readily gave their help in the enterprise. The bull drank up the
lake; the ram broke up the rock; the dog caught the gazelle; the hawk
captured the dove. So the youth extracted the precious box from the dove
and repaired to the palace, where he found the King already dead. His
Majesty had been ailing from the moment when the young man left the city,
and he grew steadily worse with every fresh success of the adventurer who
was to supplant him. So the hero became King and married the false Queen;

and his sisters' [pg 150] husbands were changed from animals into men and
received subordinate posts in the government. The hero's parents, too, came
to live in the city over which he reigned.404

A West African story from Southern Nigeria relates how a king kept his soul
in a little brown bird, which perched on a tall tree beside the gate of the
palace. The king's life was so bound up with that of the bird that whoever
should kill the bird would simultaneously kill the king and succeed to the
a kingdom. The secret was betrayed by the queen to her lover, who shot the
bird with an arrow and thereby slew the king and ascended the vacant
throne.405 A tale told by the Ba-Ronga of South Africa sets forth how the
e lives of a whole family were contained in one cat. When a girl of the family,
named Titishan, married a husband, she begged her parents to let her take
a the precious cat with her to her new home. But they refused, saying, “You
d know that our life is attached to it”; and they offered to give her an antelope
- or even an elephant instead of it. But nothing would satisfy her but the cat.
f So at last she carried it off with her and shut it up in a place where nobody
saw it; even her husband knew nothing about it. One day, when she went to
work in the fields, the cat escaped from its place of concealment, entered
n the hut, put on the warlike trappings of the husband, and danced and sang.
Some children, attracted by the noise, discovered the cat at its antics, and
when they expressed their astonishment, the animal only capered the more
and insulted them besides. So they went to the owner and said, “There is
somebody dancing in your house, and he insulted us.” “Hold your tongues,”
said he, “I'll soon put a stop to your lies.” So he went and hid behind the
door and peeped in, and there sure enough was the cat prancing about and
singing. He fired at it, and the animal dropped down dead. At the same
moment his wife fell to the ground in the field where she was at work; said
she, “I have been killed at home.” But she had strength enough left to ask
her husband to go with her to her parents' village, taking with him the [pg
151] dead cat wrapt up in a mat. All her relatives assembled, and bitterly
they reproached her for having insisted on taking the animal with her to her
husband's village. As soon as the mat was unrolled and they saw the dead
cat, they all fell down lifeless one after the other. So the Clan of the Cat was
destroyed; and the bereaved husband closed the gate of the village with a
branch, and returned home, and told his friends how in killing the cat he
had killed the whole clan, because their lives depended on the life of the

cat. In another Ronga story the lives of a whole clan are attached to a
buffalo, which a girl of the clan in like manner insists on taking with her.406

Ideas of the same sort meet us in stories told by the North American
Indians. Thus in one Indian tale the hero pounds his enemy to pieces, but
cannot kill him because his heart is not in his body. At last the champion
learns that his foe's heart is in the sky, at the western side of the noonday
n sun; so he reaches up, seizes the heart, and crushes it, and straightway his
d enemy expires. In another Indian myth there figures a personage Winter
e whose song brings frost and snow, but his heart is hidden away at a
distance. However, his foe finds the heart and burns it, and so the Snow-
maker perishes.407 A Pawnee story relates how a wounded warrior was
carried off by bears, who healed him of his hurts. When the Indian was
about to return to his village, the old he-bear said to him, “I shall look after
e you. I shall give you a part of myself. If I am killed, you shall be killed. If I
a grow old, you shall be old.” And the bear gave him a cap of bearskin, and at
parting he put his arms round the Indian and hugged him, and put his mouth
against the man's mouth and held the man's hands in his paws. The Indian
who told the tale conjectured that when the man died, the old bear died
also.408 The Navajoes tell of a certain mythical being called “the Maiden
that becomes a [pg 152] Bear,” who learned the art of turning herself into a
bear from the prairie wolf. She was a great warrior and quite invulnerable;
for when she went to war she took out her vital organs and hid them, so that
no one could kill her; and when the battle was over she put the organs back
in their places again.409 The Kwakiutl Indians of British Columbia tell of an
ogress, who could not be killed because her life was in a hemlock branch. A
brave boy met her in the woods, smashed her head with a stone, scattered
her brains, broke her bones, and threw them into the water. Then, thinking
he had disposed of the ogress, he went into her house. There he saw a
woman rooted to the floor, who warned him, saying, “Now do not stay
long. I know that you have tried to kill the ogress. It is the fourth time that
somebody has tried to kill her. She never dies; she has nearly come to life.
There in that covered hemlock branch is her life. Go there, and as soon as
you see her enter, shoot her life. Then she will be dead.” Hardly had she
finished speaking when sure enough in came the ogress, singing as she
walked:—

“I have the magical treasure,
I have the supernatural power,
I can return to life.”

Such was her song. But the boy shot at her life, and she fell dead to the
floor.410

[pg 153]

Chapter XI. The External Soul in Folk-
Custom.

§ 1. The External Soul in Inanimate Things.

Thus the idea that the soul may be deposited for a longer or shorter time in
some place of security outside the body, or at all events in the hair, is found
in the popular tales of many races. It remains to shew that the idea is not a
mere figment devised to adorn a tale, but is a real article of primitive faith,
n which has given rise to a corresponding set of customs.

We have seen that in the tales the hero, as a preparation for battle,
sometimes removes his soul from his body, in order that his body may be
l invulnerable and immortal in the combat. With a like intention the savage
removes his soul from his body on various occasions of real or imaginary
e peril. Thus among the people of Minahassa in Celebes, when a family
a moves into a new house, a priest collects the souls of the whole family in a
bag, and afterwards restores them to their owners, because the moment of
entering a new house is supposed to be fraught with supernatural danger.411
In Southern Celebes, when a woman is brought to bed, the messenger who
f fetches the doctor or the midwife always carries with him something made
of iron, such as a chopping-knife, which he delivers to the doctor. The
doctor must keep the thing in his house till the confinement is over, when
t he gives it back, receiving a fixed sum of money for doing so. The
chopping-knife, or whatever it is, represents the woman's soul, which at this
critical time is believed to be safer out of [pg 154] her body than in it.
a Hence the doctor must take great care of the object; for were it lost, the
t woman's soul would assuredly, they think, be lost with it.412 But in Celebes
a the convenience of occasionally depositing the soul in some external object
is apparently not limited to human beings. The Alfoors, or Toradjas, who
t inhabit the central district of that island, and among whose industries the
working of iron occupies a foremost place, attribute to the metal a soul
which would be apt to desert its body under the blows of the hammer, if
some means were not found to detain it. Accordingly in every smithy of
Poso—for that is the name of the country of these people—you may see
hanging up a bundle of wooden instruments, such as chopping-knives,

swords, spear-heads, and so forth. This bundle goes by the name of lamoa,
which is the general word for “gods,” and in it the soul of the iron that is
being wrought in the smithy is, according to one account, supposed to
reside. “If we did not hang the lamoa over the anvil,” they say, “the iron
would flow away and be unworkable,” on account of the absence of the
soul.413 However, according to another interpretation these wooden models
are substitutes offered to the gods in room of the iron, whose soul the
covetous deities might otherwise abstract for their own use, thus making the
metal unmalleable.414

Among the Dyaks of Pinoeh, a district of South-Eastern Borneo, when a
child is born, a medicine-man is sent for, who conjures the soul of the infant
a into half a coco-nut, [pg 155] which he thereupon covers with a cloth and
t places on a square platter or charger suspended by cords from the roof. This
y ceremony he repeats at every new moon for a year.415 The intention of the
n ceremony is not explained by the writer who describes it, but we may
conjecture that it is to place the soul of the child in a safer place than its
own frail little body. This conjecture is confirmed by the reason assigned
for a similar custom observed elsewhere in the Indian Archipelago. In the
f Kei Islands, when there is a newly-born child in a house, an empty coco-
n nut, split and spliced together again, may sometimes be seen hanging beside
a rough wooden image of an ancestor. The soul of the infant is believed to
a be temporarily deposited in the coco-nut in order that it may be safe from
the attacks of evil spirits; but when the child grows bigger and stronger, the
soul will take up its permanent abode in its own body. Similarly among the
e Esquimaux of Alaska, when a child is sick, the medicine-man will
f sometimes extract its soul from its body and place it for safe-keeping in an
amulet, which for further security he deposits in his own medicine-bag. 416 It
n seems probable that many amulets have been similarly regarded as soul-
boxes, that is, as safes in which the souls of the owners are kept for greater
A security.417 An old [pg 156] Mang'anje woman in the West Shire district of
e British Central Africa used to wear round her neck an ivory ornament,
hollow, and about three inches long, which she called her life or soul (moyo
e wanga). Naturally, she would not part with it; a planter tried to buy it of her,
but in vain.418 When Mr. James Macdonald was one day sitting in the house
of a Hlubi chief, awaiting the appearance of that great man, who was busy
decorating his person, a native pointed to a pair of magnificent ox-horns,

and said, “Ntame has his soul in these horns.” The horns were those of an
animal which had been sacrificed, and they were held sacred. A magician
had fastened them to the roof to protect the house and its inmates from the
thunder-bolt. “The idea,” adds Mr. Macdonald, “is in no way foreign to
South African thought. A man's soul there may dwell in the roof of his
house, in a tree, by a spring of water, or on some mountain scaur.”419
Among the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain there is a secret
society which goes by the name of Ingniet or Ingiet. On his entrance into it
every man receives a stone in the shape either of a human being or of an
animal, and henceforth his soul is believed to be knit up in a manner with
the stone. If it breaks, it is an evil omen for him; they say that the thunder
has struck the stone and that he who owns it will soon die. If nevertheless
the man survives the breaking of his soul-stone, they say that it was not a
proper soul-stone and he gets a new one instead.420 The emperor Romanus
Lecapenus was once informed by an astronomer that the life of Simeon,
prince of Bulgaria, was [pg 157] bound up with a certain column in
Constantinople, so that if the capital of the column were removed, Simeon
would immediately die. The emperor took the hint and removed the capital,
and at the same hour, as the emperor learned by enquiry, Simeon died of
heart disease in Bulgaria.421 The deified kings of ancient Egypt appear to
have enjoyed the privilege of depositing their spiritual doubles or souls (ka)
during their lifetime in a number of portrait statues, properly fourteen for
each king, which stood in the chamber of adoration (pa douaït) of the
temple and were revered as the equivalents or representatives of the
monarchs themselves.422 Among the Karens of Burma “the knife with which
the navel string is cut is carefully preserved for the child. The life of the
child is supposed to be in some way connected with it, for, if lost or
destroyed, it is said the child will not be long lived.”423 Among the Shawnee
Indians of North America it once happened that an eminent man was
favoured with a special revelation by the Great Spirit. Wisely refusing to
hide the sacred light of revelation under a bushel, he generously
communicated a few sparks of the illumination to John Tanner, a white man
who lived for many years as an Indian among the Indians. “Henceforth,”
said the inspired sage, “the fire must never be suffered to go out in your
lodge. Summer and winter, day and night, in the storm, or when it is calm,
you must remember that the life in your body, and the fire in your lodge, are

the same, and of the same date. If you suffer your fire to be extinguished, at
that moment your life will be at its end.”424

Again, we have seen that in folk-tales a man's soul or [pg 158] strength is
sometimes represented as bound up with his hair, and that when his hair is
f cut off he dies or grows weak. So the natives of Amboyna used to think that
their strength was in their hair and would desert them if it were shorn. A
criminal under torture in a Dutch Court of that island persisted in denying
n his guilt till his hair was cut off, when he immediately confessed. One man,
who was tried for murder, endured without flinching the utmost ingenuity
of his torturers till he saw the surgeon standing with a pair of shears. On
asking what this was for, and being told that it was to cut his hair, he begged
they would not do it, and made a clean breast. In subsequent cases, when
torture failed to wring a confession from a prisoner, the Dutch authorities
made a practice of cutting off his hair.425 In Ceram it is still believed that if
young people have their hair cut they will be weakened and enervated
thereby.426

Here in Europe it used to be thought that the maleficent powers of witches
and wizards resided in their hair, and that nothing could make any
impression on these miscreants so long as they kept their hair on. Hence in
France it was customary to shave the whole bodies of persons charged with
sorcery before handing them over to the torturer. Millaeus witnessed the
torture of some persons at Toulouse, from whom no confession could be
wrung until they were stripped and completely shaven, when they readily
f acknowledged the truth of the charge. A woman also, who apparently led a
pious life, was put to the torture on suspicion of witchcraft, and bore her
agonies with incredible constancy, until complete depilation drove her to
admit her guilt. The noted inquisitor Sprenger contented himself with
shaving the head of the suspected witch or wizard; but his more thorough-
going colleague Cumanus shaved the whole bodies of forty-one women
before committing them all to the flames. He had high authority for this
rigorous scrutiny, since Satan himself, in a sermon preached from the pulpit
of North Berwick church, comforted his many servants by assuring [pg
159] them that no harm could befall them “sa lang as their hair wes on, and
sould newir latt ane teir fall fra thair ene.”427 Similarly in Bastar, a province
of India, “if a man is adjudged guilty of witchcraft, he is beaten by the

crowd, his hair is shaved, the hair being supposed to constitute his power of
mischief, his front teeth are knocked out, in order, it is said, to prevent him
from muttering incantations.... Women suspected of sorcery have to
undergo the same ordeal; if found guilty, the same punishment is awarded,
and after being shaved, their hair is attached to a tree in some public
place.”428 So among the Bhils of India, when a woman was convicted of
witchcraft and had been subjected to various forms of persuasion, such as
hanging head downwards from a tree and having pepper put into her eyes, a
lock of hair was cut from her head and buried in the ground, “that the last
link between her and her former powers of mischief might be broken.”429 In
like manner among the Aztecs of Mexico, when wizards and witches “had
done their evil deeds, and the time came to put an end to their detestable
life, some one laid hold of them and cropped the hair on the crown of their
heads, which took from them all their power of sorcery and enchantment,
and then it was that by death they put an end to their odious existence.”430

§ 2. The External Soul in Plants.

Further it has been shewn that in folk-tales the life of a person is sometimes
so bound up with the life of a plant that the withering of the plant will
a immediately follow or be followed by the death of the person.431 Similarly
among the natives of the Pennefather River in Queensland, when a visiter
has made himself very agreeable and taken his departure, an effigy of him
e about three or four feet long is cut on some soft tree, such as the Canarium
australasicum, [pg 160] so as to face in the direction taken by the popular
t stranger. Afterwards from observing the state of the tree the natives infer the
r corresponding state of their absent friend, whose illness or death are
apparently supposed to be portended by the fall of the leaves or of the
tree.432 In Uganda, when a new royal enclosure with its numerous houses
was built for a new king, barkcloth trees used to be planted at the main
entrance by priests of each principal deity and offerings were laid under
each tree for its particular god. Thenceforth “the trees were carefully
guarded and tended, because it was believed that as they grew and
flourished, so the king's life and power would increase.”433 Among the
M'Bengas in Western Africa, about the Gaboon, when two children are born
on the same day, the people plant two trees of the same kind and dance
round them. The life of each of the children is believed to be bound up with
the life of one of the trees; and if the tree dies or is thrown down, they are
sure that the child will soon die.434 In Sierra Leone also it is customary at
the birth of a child to plant a shoot of a malep-tree, and they think that the
tree will grow with the child and be its god. If a tree which has been thus
planted withers away, the people consult a sorcerer on the subject.435 Among
the Wajagga of German East Africa, when a child is born, it is usual to plant
a cultivated plant of some sort behind the house. The plant is thenceforth
carefully tended, for they believe that were it to wither away the child
would die. When the navel-string drops from the infant, it is buried under
the plant. The species of birth-plant varies with the clan; members of one
clan, for example, plant a particular sort of banana, members of another
clan plant a sugar-cane, and so on.436 Among the Swahili of East Africa,

when a child is born, the afterbirth and navel-string are buried in [pg 161]
the courtyard and a mark is made on the spot. Seven days afterwards, the
hair of the child is shaved and deposited, along with the clippings of its
nails, in the same place. Then over all these relics of the infant's person a
coco-nut is planted. As the tree grows up from the nut, the child likes to
point it out to his playfellows and tell them, “This coco-nut palm is my
navel.” In planting the coco-nut the parents say, “May God cause our child
to grow up, that he or she may one day enjoy the coco-nut milk of the tree
which we plant here.”437 Though it is not expressly affirmed, we may
perhaps assume that such a birth-tree is supposed to stand in a sympathetic
relation with the life of the person. In the Cameroons, also, the life of a
person is believed to be sympathetically bound up with that of a tree.438 The
chief of Old Town in Calabar kept his soul in a sacred grove near a spring
of water. When some Europeans, in frolic or ignorance, cut down part of the
grove, the spirit was most indignant and threatened the perpetrators of the
deed, according to the king, with all manner of evil.439 Among the Fans of
the French Congo, when a chief's son is born, the remains of the navel-
string are buried under a sacred fig-tree, and “thenceforth great importance
is attached to the growth of the tree; it is strictly forbidden to touch it. Any
attempt on the tree would be considered as an attack on the human being
himself.”440 Among the Boloki of the Upper Congo a family has a plant
with red leaves (called nkungu) for its totem. When a woman of the family
is with child for the first time, one of the totemic plants is planted near the
hearth outside the house and is never destroyed, otherwise it is believed that
the child would be born thin and weak and would remain puny and sickly.
“The healthy life of the children and family is bound up with the healthiness
and life of the totem [pg 162] tree as respected and preserved by the
family.”441 Among the Baganda of Central Africa a child's afterbirth was
called the second child and was believed to be animated by a spirit, which
at once became a ghost. The afterbirth was usually buried at the root of a
banana tree, and afterwards the tree was carefully guarded by old women,
who prevented any one from going near it; they tied ropes of fibre from tree
to tree to isolate it, and all the child's excretions were thrown into this
enclosure. When the fruit ripened, it was cut by the old woman in charge.
The reason for guarding the tree thus carefully was a belief that if any
stranger were to eat of the fruit of the tree or to drink beer brewed from it,
he would carry off with him the ghost of the child's afterbirth, which had

been buried at the root of the banana-tree, and the living child would then
die in order to follow its twin ghost. Whereas a grandparent of the child, by
eating the fruit or drinking the beer, averted this catastrophe and ensured the
health of the child.442 Among the Wakondyo, [pg 163] at the north-western
corner of Lake Albert Nyanza, it is customary to bury the afterbirth at the
foot of a young banana-tree, and the fruit of this particular tree may be
eaten by no one but the woman who assisted at the birth.443 The reason for
the custom is not mentioned, but probably, as among the Baganda, the life
of the child is supposed to be bound up with the life of the tree, since the
afterbirth, regarded as a spiritual double of the infant, has been buried at the
root of the tree.

Some of the Papuans unite the life of a new-born child sympathetically with
that of a tree by driving a pebble into the bark of the tree. This is supposed
to give them complete mastery over the child's life; if the tree is cut down,
e the child will die.444 After a birth the Maoris used to bury the navel-string in
a sacred place and plant a young sapling over it. As the tree grew, it was a
tohu oranga or sign of life for the child; if it flourished, the child would
prosper; if it withered and died, the parents augured the worst for their
child.445 In the Chatham Islands, when the child of a leading man received
its name, it was customary to plant a tree, “the growth of which was to be as
the growth of the child,” and during the planting priests chanted a spell.446
In some parts of Fiji the navel-string of a male child is planted together with
a coco-nut or the slip of a breadfruit-tree, and the child's life is supposed to
be intimately connected with that of the tree.447 With certain Malayo-
Siamese families of [pg 164] the Patani States it is customary to bury the
afterbirth under a banana-tree, and the condition of the tree is afterwards
regarded as ominous of the child's fate for good or evil.448 In Southern
Celebes, when a child is born, a coco-nut is planted and watered with the
water in which the afterbirth and navel-string have been washed. As it
grows up, the tree is called the “contemporary” of the child.449 So in Bali a
coco-palm is planted at the birth of a child. It is believed to grow up equally
with the child, and is called its “life-plant.”450 On certain occasions the
Dyaks of Borneo plant a palm-tree, which is believed to be a complete
index of their fate. If it flourishes, they reckon on good fortune; but if it
withers or dies, they expect misfortune.451 Amongst the Dyaks of Landak
and Tajan, districts of Dutch Borneo, it is customary to plant a fruit-tree for

a child, and henceforth in the popular belief the fate of the child is bound up
with that of the tree. If the tree shoots up rapidly, it will go well with the
child; but if the tree is dwarfed or shrivelled, nothing but misfortune can be
expected for its human counterpart.452 According to another account, at the
naming of children and certain other festivals the Dyaks are wont to set a
sawang-plant, roots and all, before a priestess; and when the festival is over,
the plant is replaced in the ground. Such a plant becomes thenceforth a sort
of prophetic index for the person in whose honour the festival was held. If
the plant thrives, the man will be fortunate; if it fades or perishes, some evil
will befall him.453 The Dyaks also believe that at the birth of every person
on earth a flower grows up in the spirit world and leads a life parallel to his.
If the flower flourishes, [pg 165] the man enjoys good health, but if it
droops, so does he. Hence when he has dreamed bad dreams or has felt
unwell for several days, he infers that his flower in the other world is
neglected or sickly, and accordingly he employs a medicine-man to tend the
precious plant, weed the soil, and sweep it up, in order that the earthly and
unearthly life may prosper once more.454

It is said that there are still families in Russia, Germany, England, France,
and Italy who are accustomed to plant a tree at the birth of a child. The tree,
it is hoped, will grow with the child, and it is tended with special care.455
The custom is still pretty general in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland; an
apple-tree is planted for a boy and a pear-tree for a girl, and the people think
that the child will flourish or dwindle with the tree.456 In Mecklenburg the
h afterbirth is thrown out at the foot of a young tree, and the child is then
e believed to grow with the tree.457 In Bosnia, when the children of a family
f have died one after the other, the hair of the next child is cut with some
r ceremony by a stranger, and the mother carries the shorn tresses into the
garden, where she ties them to a fine young tree, in order that her child may
t grow and flourish like the tree.458 At Muskau, in Lausitz, it used to be
e customary for bride and bridegroom on the morning of their wedding-day to
plant a pair of young oaks side by side, and as each of the trees flourished
or withered, so the good luck of the person who planted it was believed to
wax or wane.459 On a promontory in Lake Keitele, in Finland, there used to
e stand an old fir-tree, which according to tradition had been planted by the
t first colonists to serve as a symbol or token of their fortune. First-fruits of
the harvest used to be offered to the tree [pg 166] before any one would

taste of the new crop; and whenever a branch fell, it was deemed a sign that
f some one would die. More and more the crown of the tree withered away,
and in the same proportion the family whose ancestors had planted the fir
dwindled away, till only one old woman was left. At last the tree fell, and
soon afterwards the old woman departed this life.460 When Lord Byron first
visited his ancestral estate of Newstead “he planted, it seems, a young oak
in some part of the grounds, and had an idea that as it flourished so should
he.”461 On a day when the cloud that settled on the later years of Sir Walter
Scott lifted a little, and he heard that Woodstock had sold for over eight
thousand pounds, he wrote in his journal: “I have a curious fancy; I will go
set two or three acorns, and judge by their success in growing whether I
shall succeed in clearing my way or not.”462 Near the Castle of Dalhousie,
not far from Edinburgh, there grows an oak-tree, called the Edgewell Tree,
which is popularly believed to be linked to the fate of the family by a
mysterious tie; for they say that when one of the family dies, or is about to
die, a branch falls from the Edgewell Tree. Thus, on seeing a great bough
drop from the tree on a quiet, still day in July 1874, an old forester
exclaimed, “The laird's deid noo!” and soon after news came that Fox
Maule, eleventh Earl of Dalhousie, was dead.463 At Howth Castle in Ireland
there is an old tree with which the fortunes of the St. Lawrence family are
supposed to be connected. The branches of the tree are propped on strong
supports, for tradition runs that when the tree falls the direct line of the
Earls of Howth will become extinct.464 On the old road from Hanover to
Osnabrück, at the village of Oster-Kappeln, there used to stand an ancient
oak, which put out its last green shoot in the year 1849. The [pg 167] tree
was conjecturally supposed to be contemporary with the Guelphs; and in
the year 1866, so fatal for the house of Hanover, on a calm summer
afternoon, without any visible cause, the veteran suddenly fell with a crash
and lay stretched across the highroad. The peasants regarded its fall as an ill
omen for the reigning family, and when King George V. heard of it he gave
orders that the giant trunk should be set up again, and it was done with
much trouble and at great expense, the stump being supported in position by
iron chains clamped to the neighbouring trees. But the king's efforts to prop
the falling fortunes of his house were vain; a few months after the fall of the
oak Hanover formed part of the Prussian monarchy.465

In the midst of the “Forbidden City” at Peking there is a tiny private garden,
where the emperors of the now fallen Manchu dynasty used to take the air
and refresh themselves after the cares of state. In accordance with Chinese
e taste the garden is a labyrinth of artificial rockeries, waterfalls, grottoes, and
kiosks, in which everything is as unlike nature as art can make it. The trees
in particular (Arbor vitae), the principal ornament of the garden, exhibit the
last refinement of the gardener's skill, being clipped and distorted into a
variety of grotesque shapes. Only one of the trees remained intact and had
been spared these deformations for centuries. Far from being stunted by the
axe or the shears, the tree was carefully tended and encouraged to shoot up
to its full height. “It was the ‘Life-tree of the Dynasty,’ and according to
legend the prosperity or fall of the present dynasty went hand in hand with
the welfare or death of the tree. Certainly, if we accept the tradition, the
days of the present reigning house must be numbered, for all the care and
attention lavished on the tree have been for some years in vain. A glance at
our illustration shews the tree as it still surpasses all its fellows in height
and size; but it owes its pre-eminence only to the many artificial props
which hold it up. In reality the ‘Life-tree of the Dynasty’ is dying, and
might fall over night, if one of its artificial props were suddenly to give
way. For the [pg 168] superstitious Chinese—and superstitious they
certainly are—it is a very, very evil omen.”466 Some twelve years have
passed since this passage was written, and in the interval the omen has been
fulfilled—the Manchu dynasty has fallen. We may conjecture that the old
tree in the quaint old garden has fallen too. So vain are all human efforts to
arrest the decay of royal houses by underpropping trees on which nature
herself has passed a sentence of death.

At Rome in the ancient sanctuary of Quirinus there grew two old myrtle-
trees, one named the Patrician and the other the Plebeian. For many years,
so long as the patricians were in the ascendant, their myrtle-tree flourished
and spread its branches abroad, while the myrtle of the plebeians was
e shrivelled and shrunken; but from the time of the Marsian war, when the
power of the nobles declined, their myrtle in like manner drooped and
withered, whereas that of the popular party held up its head and grew
strong.467 Thrice when Vespasia was with child, an old oak in the garden of
the Flavian family near Rome suddenly put forth branches. The first branch
f was puny and soon withered away, and the girl who was born accordingly

died within the year; the second branch was long and sturdy; and the third
was like a tree. So on the third occasion the happy father reported to his
mother that a future emperor was born to her as a grandchild. The old lady
only laughed to think that at her age she should keep her wits about her,
while her son had lost his; yet the omen of the oak came true, for the
grandson was afterwards the emperor Vespasian.468

In England children are sometimes passed through a cleft ash-tree as a cure
for rupture or rickets, and thenceforward a sympathetic connexion is
f supposed to exist between them and the tree. An ash-tree which had been
used for this purpose grew at the edge of Shirley Heath, on the road from
Hockly House to Birmingham. “Thomas Chillingworth, son of the owner of
e an adjoining farm, now about thirty-four, was, when an infant of a year old,
[pg 169] passed through a similar tree, now perfectly sound, which he
t preserves with so much care that he will not suffer a single branch to be
t touched, for it is believed the life of the patient depends on the life of the
tree, and the moment that it is cut down, be the patient ever so distant, the
rupture returns, and a mortification ensues, and terminates in death, as was
n the case in a man driving a waggon on the very road in question.” “It is not
h uncommon, however,” adds the writer, “for persons to survive for a time the
e felling of the tree.”469 The ordinary mode of effecting the cure is to split a
a young ash-sapling longitudinally for a few feet and pass the child, naked,
r either three times or three times three through the fissure at sunrise. In the
n West of England it is said that the passage should be “against the sun.” As
soon as the ceremony has been performed, the tree is bound tightly up and
the fissure plastered over with mud or clay. The belief is that just as the cleft
in the tree closes up, so the rupture in the child's body will be healed; but
d that if the rift in the tree remains open, the rupture in the child will remain
too, and if the tree were to die, the death of the child would surely follow.470

Down to the second half of the nineteenth century the remedy was still in
common use at Fittleworth and many other places in Sussex. The account of
the [pg 170] Sussex practice and belief is notable because it brings out very
n clearly the sympathetic relation supposed to exist between the ruptured
child and the tree through which it has been passed. We are told that the
patient “must be passed nine times every morning on nine successive days
at sunrise through a cleft in a sapling ash-tree, which has been so far given

up by the owner of it to the parents of the child, as that there is an
understanding it shall not be cut down during the life of the infant who is to
be passed through it. The sapling must be sound at heart, and the cleft must
be made with an axe. The child on being carried to the tree must be attended
by nine persons, each of whom must pass it through the cleft from west to
east. On the ninth morning the solemn ceremony is concluded by binding
the tree lightly with a cord, and it is supposed that as the cleft closes the
health of the child will improve. In the neighbourhood of Petworth some
cleft ash-trees may be seen, through which children have very recently been
passed. I may add, that only a few weeks since, a person who had lately
purchased an ash-tree standing in this parish, intending to cut it down, was
told by the father of a child, who had some time before been passed through
it, that the infirmity would be sure to return upon his son if it were felled.
Whereupon the good man said, he knew that such would be the case; and
therefore he would not fell it for the world.”471

A similar cure for various diseases, but especially for rupture and rickets,
has been commonly practised in other parts of Europe, as Germany, France,
Denmark, and Sweden; but in these countries the tree employed for the
purpose is usually not an ash but an oak; sometimes a willow-tree is
allowed or even prescribed instead. With these exceptions the practice and
the belief are nearly the same on the Continent as in England: a young oak
is split longitudinally and the two sides held forcibly apart while the sick
child is passed through the cleft; then the opening in the tree is closed, and
a bound up, and it is believed that as the cleft in the tree heals by the parts [pg
n 171] growing together again, so the rupture in the child will be
simultaneously cured. It is often laid down that the ceremony must be
performed in the strictest silence; sometimes the time prescribed is before
sunrise, and sometimes the child must be passed thrice through the cleft.472
In Oldenburg and Mecklenburg they say that the cure should be performed
on St. John's Eve (Midsummer Eve) by three men named John, who assist
each other in holding the split [pg 172] oak-sapling open and passing the
child through it.473 Some people, however, prefer Good Friday or Christmas
Eve as the season for the performance of the ceremony.474 In Denmark
copper coins are laid as an offering at the foot of the tree through which
sick persons have been passed; and threads, ribbons, or bandages which
have been worn by the sufferers are tied to a branch of the tree.475 In the

Greek island of Ceos, when a child is sickly, the parents carry it out into the
country “and the father selects a young oak; this they split up from the root,
then the father is assisted by another man in holding the tree open whilst the
mother passes the child three times through, and then they bind up the tree
well, cover it all over with manure, and carefully water it for forty days. In
the same fashion they bind up the child for a like period, and after the lapse
of this time they expect that it will be quite well.”476

In Mecklenburg, as in England, the sympathetic relation thus established
between the tree and the child is so close that if the tree is cut down the
child will die.477 In the island of Rügen people believe that when a person
n who has been thus cured of rupture dies, his soul passes into the same oak-
tree through which his body was passed in his youth.478 Thus it seems that
in ridding himself of the disease the sufferer is supposed to transfer a
certain vital part of his person to the tree so that it is impossible to injure the
d tree without at the same time injuring the man; and in Rügen this partial
e union is thought to be completed by the transmigration of the man's soul at
death into the tree. Apparently the disease is conceived as something
physical, which clings to the patient but can be stripped off him and left
t behind on the farther side of the narrow aperture through which he has
n forced his way; when the aperture is closed by the natural growth of the
tree, the door is as it [pg 173] were shut against the disease, which is then
unable to pursue and overtake the sufferer. Hence the idea at the root of the
custom is not so much that the patient has transferred his ailment to the tree,
as that the tree forms an impervious barrier between him and the malady
which had hitherto afflicted him. This interpretation is confirmed by the
t following parallels.
n
r In those parts of Armenia which are covered with forests, many great and
e ancient trees are revered as sacred and receive marks of homage. The
people burn lights before them, fumigate them with incense, sacrifice cocks
and wethers to them, and creep through holes in their trunks or push lean
and sickly children through them “in order to put a stop to the influence of
d evil spirits.”479 Apparently, they think that evil spirits cannot creep through
s the cleft in the holy tree, and therefore that the sick who have effected the
a passage are safe from their demoniacal pursuers. The same conception of a
fissure in a tree as an obstacle placed in the path of pursuing spirits meets us
e

in a number of savage customs. Thus in the island of Nias, when a man is in
training for the priesthood, he has to be introduced to the various spirits
between whom and mankind it will be his office to mediate. A priest takes
him to an open window, and while the drums are beating points out to him
the great spirit in the sun who calls away men to himself through death; for
it is needful that the future priest should know him from whose grasp he
will often be expected to wrest the sick and dying. In the evening twilight
d he is led to the graves and shewn the envious spirits of the dead, who also
e are ever drawing away the living to their own shadowy world. Next day he
is conducted to a river and shewn the spirit of the waters; and finally they
take him up to a mountain and exhibit to him the spirits of the mountains,
who have diverse shapes, some appearing like swine, others like buffaloes,
others like goats, and others again like men with long hair on their bodies.
When he has seen all this, his education is complete, but on his return from
the mountain the new priest may not at once enter his own house. For the
people think that, were he to do so, the [pg 174] dangerous spirits by whom
he is still environed would stay in the house and visit both the family and
the pigs with sickness. Accordingly he betakes himself to other villages and
passes several nights there, hoping that the spirits will leave him and settle
on the friends who receive him into their houses; but naturally he does not
reveal the intention of his visits to his hosts. Lastly, before he enters his
own dwelling, he looks out for some young tree by the way, splits it down
the middle, and then creeps through the fissure, in the belief that any spirit
which may still be clinging to him will thus be left sticking to the tree.480
Again, among the Bilqula or Bella Coola Indians of British Columbia “the
bed of a mourner must be protected against the ghost of the deceased. His
male relatives stick a thorn-bush into the ground at each corner of their
beds. After four days these are thrown into the water. Mourners must rise
early and go into the woods, where they stick four thorn-bushes into the
ground, at the corners of a square, in which they cleanse themselves by
rubbing their bodies with cedar branches. They also swim in ponds. After
swimming they cleave four small trees and creep through the clefts,
following the course of the sun. This they do on four subsequent mornings,
cleaving new trees every day. Mourners cut their hair short. The hair that
has been cut off is burnt. If they should not observe these regulations, it is
believed that they would dream of the deceased.”481 To the savage, who fails
to distinguish the visions of sleep from the [pg 175] appearances of waking

life, the apparition of a dead man in a dream is equivalent to the actual
presence of the ghost; and accordingly he seeks to keep off the spiritual
intruder, just as he might a creature of flesh and blood, by fencing his bed
with thorn-bushes. Similarly the practice of creeping through four cleft trees
is clearly an attempt to shake off the clinging ghost and leave it adhering to
the trees, just as in Nias the future priest hopes to rid himself in like manner
of the dangerous spirits who have dogged his steps from the mountains and
the graves.

This interpretation of the custom is strongly confirmed by a funeral
ceremony which Dr. Charles Hose witnessed at the chief village of the
Madangs, a tribe of Kayans who occupy a hitherto unexplored district in the
heart of Borneo. “Just across the river from where we were sitting,” says
Dr. Hose, “was the graveyard, and there I witnessed a funeral procession as
the day was drawing to a close. The coffin, which was a wooden box made
a from a tree-trunk, was decorated with red and black patterns in circles, with
k two small wooden figures of men placed at either end; it was lashed with
a rattans to a long pole, and by this means was lifted to the shoulders of the
n bearers, who numbered thirteen in all, and who then carried it to the
burying-ground. After the mourners had all passed over to the graveyard, a
man quickly cut a couple of small sticks, each five feet long and about an
inch in diameter. One of these he split almost the whole way down, and
e forced the unsplit end into the ground, when the upper part opened like a V,
leaving sufficient room for each person to pass through. He next split the
top of the other stick, and, placing another short stick in the cleft, made a
cross, which he also forced into the ground. The funeral procession climbed
the mound on which the cemetery was situated, passing through the V of
the cleft stick in single file. As soon as the coffin had been placed on the
stage erected for the purpose, the people commenced their return, following
on one another's heels as quickly as possible, each spitting out the words,
‘Pit balli krat balli jat tesip bertatip!’ (‘Keep back, and close out all things
evil, and sickness’) as they passed through the V-shaped stick. The whole
party having [pg 176] left the graveyard, the gate was closed by the simple
process of tying the cleft ends of the stick together, and a few words were
then said to the cross-stick, which they call ngring, or the wall that
separates the living from the dead. All who had taken part in the ceremony
then went and bathed before returning to their homes, rubbing their skins

with rough pebbles, the old Mosaic idea of the uncleanness of the dead, as
mentioned in Numbers (chap. xix.), evidently finding a place among their
religious beliefs. It is apparently a great relief to their minds to think that
they can shut out the spirit of the deceased. They believe that the spirit of
the dead is not aware that life has left the body until a short time after the
coffin has been taken to the graveyard, and then not until the spirit has had
leisure to notice the clothes, weapons, and other articles belonging to its
earthly estate, which are placed with the coffin. But before this takes place
the gate has been closed.”482

Here the words uttered by the mourners in passing through the cloven stick
shew clearly that they believe the stick to act as a barrier or fence, on the
t further side of which they leave behind the ghost or other dangerous spirit
r whose successful pursuit might entail sickness and death on the survivors.
Thus the passage of these Madang mourners through the cleft stick is
strictly analogous to the passage of ruptured English children through a
a cleft ash-tree. Both are simply ways of leaving an evil thing behind.
Similarly the subsequent binding up of the cloven stick in Borneo is
a analogous to the binding up of the cloven ash-tree in England. Both are
ways of barricading the road against the evil which is dogging your steps;
m having passed through the doorway you slam the door in the face of your
a pursuer. Yet it seems probable that the intention of binding up the cleft in a
tree through which a ruptured patient has been [pg 177] passed is not
e merely that of shutting the door on the malady conceived as a personal
f being; combined with this idea is perhaps the notion that in virtue of the law
of magical homoeopathy the rupture in the body of the sufferer will close
up exactly in the same measure as the cleft in the tree closes up through the
force of bandages and of natural growth. That this shade of meaning
n attaches to the custom is rendered probable by a comparison of an ancient
f Roman cure for dislocation, which has been preserved for us by the grave
authority of the elder Cato. He recommended that a green reed, four or five
feet long, should be taken, split down the middle, and held by two men to
the dislocated bones while a curious and now unintelligible spell was
s recited; then, when the spell had been recited and the aperture in the reed
e had closed, the reed was to be tied to the dislocated limb, and a perfect cure
d might be expected. Apparently it was supposed that just as the two sides of

the split reed came together and coalesced after being held apart, so the
483
a dislocated bones would come together and fit into their proper places.
e
But the usual idea in passing through a narrow aperture as a cure or
preventive of evil would seem to be simply that of giving the slip to a
dangerous pursuer. With this intention, doubtless, the savage Thays of
Tonquin repair after a burial to the banks of a stream and there creep
n through a triangle formed by leaning two reeds against each other, while the
e sorcerer souses them with dirty water. All the relations of the deceased must
wash their garments in the stream before they return home, and they may
not set foot in the house till they have shorn their hair [pg 178] at the foot of
the ladder. Afterwards the sorcerer comes and sprinkles the whole house
a with water for the purpose of expelling evil spirits.484 Here again we cannot
r
doubt that the creeping through the triangle of reeds is intended to rid the
mourners of the troublesome ghost. So when the Kamtchatkans had
disposed of a corpse after their usual fashion by throwing it to the dogs to
be devoured, they purified themselves as follows. They went into the forest
and cut various roots which they bent into rings, and through these rings
they crept twice. Afterwards they carried the rings back to the forest and
flung them away westward. The Koryaks, a people of the same region, burn
their dead and hold a festival in honour of the departed a year after the
death. At this festival, which takes place on the spot where the corpse was
burned, or, if that is too far off, on a neighbouring height, they sacrifice two
young reindeer which have never been in harness, and the sorcerer sticks a
great many reindeer horns in the earth, believing that thereby he is
dispatching a whole herd of these animals to their deceased friend in the
other world. Then they all hasten home, and purify themselves by passing
between two poles planted in the ground, while the sorcerer strikes them
with a stick and adjures death not to carry them off.485 The Tokoelawi in the
interior of Central Celebes hold a great sacrificial festival on the eighth day
after the death of a man or the ninth day after the death of a woman. When
the guests return homewards after the festival they pass under two poles
placed in a slanting direction against each other, and they may not look
round at the house where the death occurred. “In this way they take a final
leave of the soul of the deceased. Afterwards no more sacrifices are offered
to the soul.”486 Among the Toboengkoe, another tribe in the interior of
Central Celebes, when a man buries his wife, he goes to the grave by a

different road from that along which [pg 179] the corpse is carried; and on
certain days afterwards he bathes, and on returning from the bath must pass
through a teepee-shaped erection, which is formed by splitting a pole up the
middle and separating the two split pieces except at the top. “This he must
do in order that his second wife, if he has one, may not soon die.”487 Here
the notion probably is that the jealous ghost of the dead wife seeks to
avenge herself on her living rival by carrying off her soul with her to
deadland. Hence to prevent this catastrophe the husband tries to evade the
ghost, first by going to the grave along a different path, and second by
passing under a cleft stick, through which as usual the spirit cannot follow
him.

In the light of the foregoing customs, as well as of a multitude of
ceremonies observed for a similar purpose in all parts of the world,488 we
may safely assume that when people creep through rings after a death or
pass between poles after a sacrifice to the dead, their intention simply is to
e interpose a barrier between themselves and the ghost; they make their way
through a narrow pass or aperture through which they hope that the ghost
s will not be able to follow them. To put it otherwise, they conceive that the
e spirit of the dead is sticking to them like a burr, and that like a burr it may
e be rubbed or scraped off and left adhering to the sides of the opening
f through which they have squeezed themselves.

Similarly, when a pestilence is raging among the Koryaks, they kill a dog,
wind its guts about two poles, and pass between the poles,489 doubtless for
the sake of giving the slip to the demon of the plague in the same way that
n they give the slip to the ghost. When the Kayans of Borneo have been
n dogged by an evil spirit on a journey and are nearing their destination, they
fashion a small archway of boughs, light a fire under it, and pass in single
file under the archway and over the fire, spitting into the fire as they pass.
By this ceremony, we are told, “they thoroughly exorcise the [pg 180] evil
spirits and emerge on the other side free from all baleful influences.”490
Here, to make assurance doubly sure, a fire as well as an archway is
n interposed between the travellers and the dreadful beings who are walking
f unseen behind. To crawl under a bramble which has formed an arch by
s sending down a second root into the ground, is an English and Welsh cure
r for whooping-cough, rheumatism, boils, and other complaints. In some

parts of the west of England they say that to get rid of boils the thing to do
is to crawl through such a natural arch nine times against the sun; but in
Devonshire the patient should creep through the arch thrice with the sun,
f that is from east to west. When a child is passed through it for whooping-
cough, the operators ought to say:
a
r
“In bramble, out cough,
491
Here I leave the whooping-cough.”

In Perigord and other parts of France the same cure is employed for boils.492
In Bulgaria, when a person suffers from a congenital malady such as
scrofula, a popular cure is to take him to a neighbouring village and there
make him creep naked thrice through an arch, which is formed by inserting
the lower ends of two vine branches in the ground and joining their upper
ends together. When he has done so, he hangs his clothes on a tree, and
dons other garments. On his way home the patient must also crawl under a
ploughshare, which is held high enough to let him pass.493 Further, when [pg
181] whooping-cough is prevalent in a Bulgarian village, an old woman
will scrape the earth from under the root of a willow-tree. Then all the
children of the village creep through the opening thus made, and a thread
from the garment of each of them is hung on the willow. Adults sometimes
go through the same ceremony after recovering from a dangerous illness.494
Similarly, when sickness is rife among some of the villages to the east of
Lake Nyassa, the inhabitants crawl through an arch formed by bending a
wand and inserting the two ends in the ground. By way of further
precaution they wash themselves on the spot with medicine and water, and
then bury the medicine and the evil influence together in the earth. The
same ceremony is resorted to as a means of keeping off evil spirits, wild
beasts, and enemies.495

In Uganda “sometimes a medicine-man directed a sick man to provide an
animal, promising that he would come and transfer the sickness to the
n animal. The medicine-man would then select a plantain-tree near the house,
f kill the animal by it, and anoint the sick man with its blood, on his forehead,
a on each side of his chest, and on his legs above the knees. The plantain-tree
n selected had to be one that was about to bear fruit, and the medicine-man

s would split the stem from near the top to near the bottom, leaving a few
a inches not split both at the top and at the bottom; the split stem would be
k held open so that the sick man could step through it, and in doing so he
a would leave his clothing at the plantain-tree, and would run into the house
without looking back. When he entered the house, new clothes would be
n given him to wear. The plantain, the clothing, and meat would be carried
away by the medicine-man, who would deposit the plantain-tree on waste
land, but would take the meat and clothing for himself. Sometimes the
medicine-man would kill the animal near the hut, lay a stout stick across the
threshold, and narrow the doorway by partially filling it with branches of
trees; he would then put some of the blood on either side of the narrow
entrance, and some on the stick across the threshold, and [pg 182] would
also anoint with it the sick man, who would be taken outside for the
purpose. The patient would then re-enter the house, letting his clothing fall
off, as he passed through the doorway. The medicine-man would carry away
the branches, the stick, the clothing, and the meat. The branches and the
stick he would cast upon waste land, but the meat and the clothing he would
keep for himself.”496 Here the notion of transferring the sickness to the
animal is plainly combined with, we may almost say overshadowed by the
notion that the ailment is left behind adhering to the cleft plantain-stem or
to the stick and branches of the narrow opening through which the patient
has made his way. That obviously is why the plantain-stem or the stick and
branches are thrown away on waste land, lest they should infect other
people with the sickness which has been transferred to them.

The Kai of German New Guinea attribute sickness to the agency either of
ghosts or of sorcerers, but suspicion always falls at first on ghosts, who are
deemed even worse than the sorcerers. To cure a sick man they will
sometimes cleave a stick in the middle, leaving the two ends intact, and
then oblige the sufferer to insert his head through the cleft. After that they
i stroke his whole body with the stick from head to foot. “The stick with the
w soul-stuff of the ghosts is then hurled away or otherwise destroyed,
whereupon the sick man is supposed to recover.”497 Here the ghosts who
e cause the sickness are clearly supposed to be scraped from the patient's
body by means of the cleft stick, and to be thrown away or destroyed with
a the implement. The Looboos, a primitive tribe in the Mandailing district of
e Sumatra, stand in great fear of the wandering spirits of the dead

f (soemangots). But “they know all sorts of means of protecting themselves
e against the unwelcome visits of the spirits. For example, if a man has lost
his way in the forest, he thinks that this is the work of such a spirit
(soemangot), who dogs the [pg 183] wanderer and bedims his sight. So in
order to throw the malignant spirit off the track he takes a rattan and splits it
through the middle. By bending the rattan an opening is made, through
which he creeps. After that the rattan is quickly stretched and the opening
closes. By this procedure the spirit (so they think) cannot find the opening
again and so cannot further follow his victim.”498 Here therefore, the
passage through a cleft stick is conceived in the clearest way as an escape
from a spiritual pursuer, and the closing of the aperture when the fugitive
has passed through it is nothing but the slamming of the door in the face of
his invisible foe.

A similar significance is probably to be attached to other cases of
ceremonially passing through a cleft stick even where the intention of the
rite is not expressly alleged. Thus among the Ovambo of German South-
West Africa young women who have become marriageable perform a
variety of ceremonies; among other things they dance in the large and the
small cattle-kraal. On quitting the large cattle-kraal after the dance, and on
entering and quitting the small cattle-kraal, they are obliged to pass, one
after the other, through the fork of a cleft stick, of which the two sides are
held wide open by an old man.499 Among the Washamba of German East
Africa, when a boy has been circumcised, two women bring a long sugar-
cane, which still bears its leaves. The cane is split at some distance from its
upper and lower ends and the two sides are held apart so as to form a cleft
or opening; at the lower end of the cleft a danga ring is fastened. The father
and mother of the circumcised youth now place the sugar-cane between
them, touch the ring with their feet, and then slip through the cleft; and after
them the lad's aunt must also pass through the cleft sugar-cane.500 In both
these cases the passage through the cleft stick is probably intended to give
[pg 184] the slip to certain dangerous spirits, which are apt to molest people
at such critical seasons as puberty and circumcision.

Again, the passage through a ring or hoop is resorted to for like reasons as a
mode of curing or preventing disease. Thus in Sweden, when a natural ring
has been found in a tree, it is carefully removed and treasured in the family;
a

r for sick and especially rickety children are healed by merely passing
501
a through it. A young married woman in Sweden, who suffered from an
r infirmity, was advised by a wise woman to steal three branches of willow,
make them into a hoop, and creep through it naked, taking care not to touch
the hoop and to keep perfectly silent. The hoop was afterwards to be burnt.
She carried out the prescription faithfully, and her faith was rewarded by a
perfect cure.502 No doubt her infirmity was thought to adhere to the hoop
a and to be burnt with it. Similarly in Scotland children who suffered from
f hectic fever and consumptive patients used to be healed by passing thrice
through a circular wreath of woodbine, which was cut during the increase of
a the March moon and was let down over the body of the sufferer from the
head to the feet. Thus Jonet Stewart cured sundry women by “taking ane
a garland of grene woodbynd, and causing the patient pas thryis throw it,
quhilk thairefter scho cut in nyne pieces, and cast in the fyre.” Another wise
woman transmitted the sick “throw are girth of woodbind thryis thre times,
503
a saying, ‘I do this in name of the Father, the Sone, and the Halie Ghaist.’ ”
The Highlanders of Strathspey used to force all their sheep and lambs to
pass through a hoop of rowan-tree on All Saints' Day and Beltane (the first
504
k of November and the first of May), probably as a means of [pg 185]
r warding off the witches and fairies, who are especially dreaded at these
seasons, and against whose malignant arts the rowan-tree affords an
a efficient protection. In Oldenburg when a cow gives little or no milk, they
f milk her through a hole in a branch. In Eversten they say that this should be
done through a ring which an oak-tree has formed round the scar where a
branch has been sawn off. Others say the beast should be milked through a
“witch's nest,” that is, through the boughs of a birch-tree which have grown
in a tangle. Such a “witch's nest” is also hung up in a pig's stye to protect
505
a the pig against witchcraft. Hence the aim of milking a cow through a
“witch's nest” or through a natural wooden ring is no doubt to deliver the
poor creature from an artful witch who has been draining away the milk
a into her own pail, as witches are too apt to do. Again, in Oldenburg sick
children, and also adults and animals, are passed through a ring of rough
g unwashed yarn, just as it comes from the reel. To complete the cure you
should throw a hot coal thrice through the ring, then spit through it thrice,
and finally bury the yarn under a stone, where you leave it to rot. The writer
who reports these remedies explains them as intended to strip the
a witchcraft, as you might say, from the bodies of the victims, whether human

506
f or animal, on whom the witch has cast her spell. Among the Lushais of
Assam “five to ten days after the child is born its body is said to be covered
with small pimples, its lips become black and its strength decreases. The
n family then obtain a particular kind of creeping plant called vawm, which
they make into a coil. In the evening everything in the house that has a lid
or covering is uncovered, and the child is thrice passed through this coil,
which act is supposed to clear the [pg 186] child's skin and restore its
strength. After this is finished, the parents go to bed and the pots or other
receptacles are covered again by any of the other members of the family.
The parents themselves must not replace any of these lids for fear that they
might shut up the spirit of the child in them.”507 When the Kwakiutl Indians
of British Columbia fear the outbreak of an epidemic, a medicine-man takes
a large ring of hemlock branches and causes every member of the tribe to
pass through it. Each person puts his head through the ring and then moves
the ring downwards over his body till it has almost reached his feet, when
he steps out of it, right foot first. They think that this prevents the epidemic
from breaking out.508 In Asia Minor, “if a person is believed to be possessed
by an evil spirit, one form of treatment is to heat an iron-chain red-hot, form
it into a ring and pass the afflicted person through the opening, on the
theory that the evil spirit cannot pass the hot chain, and so is torn from his
victim and left behind.”509 Here the intention of the passage through the
aperture is avowedly to shake off a spiritual pursuer, who is deterred from
further pursuit not only by the narrowness of the opening but by the risk of
burning himself in the attempt to make his way through it.

But if the intention of these ceremonies is essentially to rid the performer of
some harmful thing, whether a disease or a ghost or a demon, which is
supposed to be clinging to him, we should expect to find that any narrow
hole or opening would serve the purpose as well as a cleft tree or stick, an
arch or ring of boughs, or a couple of posts fixed in the ground. And this
a expectation is not disappointed. On the coast of Morven and Mull thin
n ledges of rock may be seen pierced with large holes near the sea.
Consumptive people used to be brought thither, and after the tops of nine
[pg 187] waves had been caught in a dish and thrown on the patient's head,
he was made to pass through one of the rifted rocks thrice in the direction of
the sun.510 “On the farm of Crossapol in Coll there is a stone called Clach
Thuill, that is, the Hole Stone, through which persons suffering from

consumption were made to pass three times in the name of the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost. They took meat with them each time, and left some on the
stone. The bird that took the food away had the consumption laid upon it.
Similar stones, under which the patient can creep, were made use of in other
islands.”511 Here it is manifest that the patient left his disease behind him on
the stone, since the bird which carried off the food from the stone caught
the disease. In the Aberdeenshire river Dee, at Cambus o' May, near
Ballater, there is a rock with a hole in it large enough to let a person pass
through. Legend runs that childless women used to wade out to the stone
and squeeze themselves through the hole. It is said that a certain noble lady
tried the effect of the charm not very many years ago with indifferent
success.512 In the parish of Madern in Cornwall, near the village of Lanyon,
there is a perforated stone called the Mên-an-tol or “holed stone,” through
which people formerly crept as a remedy for pains in the back and limbs;
and at certain times of the year parents drew their children through the hole
to cure them of the rickets.513 The passage through the stone was also
deemed a cure for scrofula, provided it was made against the sun and
repeated three times or three times three.514

Near the little town of Dourgne, not far from Castres, in Southern France,
there is a mountain, and on the top of the mountain is a tableland, where a
number of large stones may be seen planted in the ground about a cross and
rising to a height of two to five feet above the [pg 188] ground. Almost all
of them are pierced with holes of different sizes. From time immemorial
a people used to assemble at Dourgne and the neighbourhood every year on
n the sixth of August, the festival of St. Estapin. The palsied, the lame, the
blind, the sick of all sorts, flocked thither to seek and find a cure for their
various infirmities. Very early in the morning they set out from the villages
where they had lodged or from the meadows where for want of better
accommodation they had been forced to pass the night, and went on
pilgrimage to the chapel of St. Estapin, which stands in a gorge at the
southern foot of the mountain. Having gone nine times in procession round
the chapel, they hobbled, limped, or crawled to the tableland on the top of
the mountain. There each of them chose a stone with a hole of the requisite
size and thrust his ailing member through the hole. For there are holes to
suit every complaint; some for the head, some for the arm, some for the leg,
and so on. Having performed this simple ceremony they were cured; the

lame walked, the blind saw, the palsied recovered the use of their limbs, and
so on. The chapel of the saint is adorned with the crutches and other
artificial aids, now wholly superfluous, which the joyful pilgrims left
behind them in token of their gratitude and devotion.515 About two miles
from Gisors, in the French department of Oise, there is a dolmen called Trie
or Trie- Chateau, consisting of three upright stones with a fourth and larger
stone laid horizontally on their tops. The stone which forms the back wall of
the dolmen is pierced about the middle by an irregularly shaped hole,
through which the people of the neighbourhood used from time immemorial
to pass their sickly children in the firm belief that the passage through the
stone would restore them to health.516

In the church of St. Corona at the village of Koppenwal, in Lower Bavaria,
there is a hole in the stone on which the [pg 189] altar rests. Through this
hole, while service was going on, the peasants used to creep, believing that
having done so they would not suffer from pains in their back at harvest.517
In the crypt of the old cathedral at Freising in Bavaria there is a tomb which
a is reputed to contain the relics of St. Nonnosius. Between a pillar of the
n tomb and the wall there is a narrow opening, through which persons
afflicted with pains in the back creep in order to obtain thereby some
mitigation of their pangs.518 In Upper Austria, above the Lake of Aber,
which is a sheet of dark-green water nestling among wooded mountains,
there stands the Falkenstein chapel of St. Wolfgang built close to the face of
a cliff that rises from a little green dale. A staircase leads up from the chapel
to a narrow, dark, dripping cleft in the rock, through which pilgrims creep
in a stooping posture “in the belief that they can strip off their bodily
sufferings or sins on the face of the rock.”519 Women with child also crawl
through the hole, hoping thus to obtain an easy delivery.520 In the Greek
island of Cythnos, when a child is sickly, the mother will take it to a hole in
a rock about half an hour distant from Messaria. There she strips the child
naked and pushes it through the hole in the rock, afterwards throwing away
the old garments and clothing the child in new ones.521

Near Everek, on the site of the ancient Caesarea in Asia Minor, there is a
rifted rock through which persons pass to rid themselves of a cough.522 A
writer well acquainted with Asia Minor has described how he visited “a
well-known pool of water tucked away in a beautiful nook high up among

a the Anatolian mountains, and with a wide reputation for sanctity and
n healing powers. We arrived just as the last of a flock of three hundred sheep
were being passed through a peculiar hole in the thin ledge of a huge rock
to deliver them from a disease of the liver supposed to prevent the proper
[pg 190] laying on of fat.”523 Among the Kawars of the Central Provinces in
India a man who suffers from intermittent fever will try to cure it by
walking through a narrow passage between two houses.524 In a ruined
church of St. Brandon, about ten miles from Dingle, in the west of Ireland,
there is a narrow window, through which sick women pass thrice in order to
525
e be cured. The Hindoos of the Punjaub think that the birth of a son after
three girls is unlucky for the parents, and in order to avert the ill-luck they
resort to a number of devices. Amongst other things they break the centre of
a a bronze plate and remove all but the rim; then they pass the luckless child
through the bronze rim. Moreover, they make an opening in the roof of the
room where the birth took place, and then pull the infant out through the
opening; and further they pass the child under the sill of the door.526 By
these passages through narrow apertures they apparently hope to rid the
child of the ill-luck which is either pursuing it or sticking to it like a burr.
For in this case, as in many similar ones, it might be hard to say whether the
riddance is conceived as an escape from the pursuit of a maleficent spirit or
as the abrasion of a dangerous substance which adheres to the person of the
sufferer.

Another way of ridding man and beast of the clinging infection of disease is
to pass them through a hole dug in the ground. This mode of cure was
practised in Europe during the Middle Ages, and has survived in Denmark
down to modern times. In a sermon preached by St. Eloi, Bishop of Noyon,
n in the sixth century, he forbade the faithful to practise lustrations and to
d drive their sheep through hollow trees and holes in the earth, “because by
e this they seem to consecrate them to the devil.”527 Theodore, Archbishop of
Canterbury, who died in 690 a.d., decreed that “if any one for the health of
his little son shall pass through a hole in the ground and then close it behind
him with thorns, let him [pg 191] do penance for eleven days on bread and
water.”528 Here the closing of the hole with thorns after the patient or his
e representative has passed through is plainly intended to barricade the
a narrow way against the pursuit of sickness personified as a demon; hence it
s confirms the general interpretation here given of these customs. Again,

r Burchard, Bishop of Worms, who died in a.d. 1025, repeated the same
condemnation: “Hast thou done what certain women are wont to do? I mean
those who have squalling babes; they dig the earth and pierce it, and
through that hole they drag the babe, and they say that thus the squalling
babe ceases to squall. If thou has done this or consented unto it, thou shalt
do penance for fifteen days on bread and water.”529 At Fünen in Denmark,
as late as the latter part of the nineteenth century, a cure for childish
ailments was to dig up several sods, arrange them so as to form a hole, and
then to pass the sick child through it.530 A simplified form of this cure is
adopted in Jutland. At twelve o'clock on a Thursday night you go to a
churchyard, dig up a circular piece of turf, and make a hole in it large
enough to permit the passage through it of your infant progeny. Taking the
sod with you, go home, salute nobody on the way, and speak to nobody. On
getting to your house, take the child and pass it thrice through the turf from
right to left; then take the turf back to the churchyard and replace it in
position. If the turf takes root and grows afresh, the child will recover; but if
the turf withers, there is no hope. Elsewhere it is at the hour of sunset rather
than of midnight that people cut the turf in the churchyard. The same cure is
applied to cattle which have been bewitched; though naturally in that case
you must cut a much bigger turf and make a much bigger hole in it to let a
horse or a cow through than is necessary for an infant.531 Here, again, the
conception of a sympathetic relation, established between [pg 192] the
sufferer and the thing which has rid him of his ailment, comes out clearly in
the belief, that if the turf through which the child has been passed thrives,
the child will thrive also, but that if the turf withers, the child will die.
Among the Corannas, a people of the Hottentot race on the Orange River,
“when a child recovers from a dangerous illness, a trench is dug in the
ground, across the middle of which an arch is thrown, and an ox made to
stand upon it; the child is then dragged under the arch. After this ceremony
the animal is killed, and eaten by married people who have children, none
else being permitted to participate of the feast.”532 Here the attempt to leave
the sickness behind in the hole, which is probably the essence of the
ceremony, may perhaps be combined with an endeavour to impart to the
child the strength and vigour of the animal. Ancient India seems also to
have been familiar with the same primitive notion that sickness could, as it
were, be stripped off the person of the sufferer by passing him through a
narrow aperture; for in the Rigveda it is said that Indra cured Apala of a

disease of the skin by drawing her through the yoke of the chariot; “thus the
god made her to have a golden skin, purifying her thrice.”533

[pg 193]

At the small village of Damun, on the Kabenau river, in German New
Guinea, a traveller witnessed the natives performing a ceremony of
initiation, of which the following rite formed part. The candidates for
a initiation, six in number, were boys and lads of various ages from about
r four years of age to sixteen or seventeen. The company betook themselves
a to the bed of a small stream, where at the end of a gully a hollow in the
f rocks formed a natural basin. At the entrance to the gully a sort of yoke, so
the traveller calls it, was erected by means of some poles, and from the
cross-piece plants were hung so as to make an arch. One of the men took up
his station in front of the arch, and as each candidate came up, the man
seized him, spat on his breast and back a clot of red spittle, and gave him
several severe blows with the stock of a plant. After that the candidate, who
had previously stripped himself naked, passed under the leafy arch and
bathed in the rocky pool at the other end of the gully. All the time that this
solemnity was proceeding another man sat perched on a neighbouring rock,
beating a drum and singing. Only men took part in the ceremony.534 Though
no explanation of the ceremony is given by the observer who witnessed it,
we may suppose that by passing under the yoke or arch the novices were
supposed to rid themselves of certain evil influences, whether conceived as
spiritual or not, which they left behind them on the further side of the
barrier. This interpretation is confirmed by the bath which each candidate
took immediately afterwards. In short the whole purpose of the rite would
seem to have been purificatory.

With the preceding examples before us, it seems worth while to ask whether
the ancient Italian practice of making conquered enemies to pass under a
yoke may not in its [pg 194] origin have been a purificatory ceremony,
designed to rid the foe of some uncanny powers before dismissing him to
his home. For apparently the ceremony was only observed with prisoners
f who were about to be released;535 had it been a mere mark of ignominy,
there seems to be no reason why it should not have been inflicted also on
men who were doomed to die. This conjectural explanation of the ceremony
a

is confirmed by the tradition that the Roman Horatius was similarly obliged
by his fellow-countrymen to pass under a yoke as a form of purification for
a the murder of his sister. The yoke by passing under which he cleansed
himself from his sister's blood was still to be seen in Rome when Livy was
writing his history under the emperor Augustus. It was an ancient wooden
beam spanning a narrow lane in an old quarter of the city, the two ends of
r the beam being built into the masonry of the walls on either side; it went by
f the name of the Sister's Beam, and whenever the wood decayed and
threatened to fall, the venerable monument, which carried back the thoughts
of passers-by to the kingly age of Rome, was repaired at the public
expense.536 If our interpretation of these customs is right, it was the ghost of
his murdered sister whom the Roman hero gave the slip to by passing under
the yoke; and it may have been the angry ghosts of slaughtered [pg 195]
Romans from whom the enemy's soldiers were believed to be delivered
when they marched under the yoke before being dismissed by their merciful
conquerors to their homes.

In a former part of this work we saw that homicides in general and
victorious warriors in particular are often obliged to perform a variety of
ceremonies for the purpose of ridding them of the dangerous ghosts of their
victims.537 If the ceremony of passing under the yoke was primarily
f designed, as I have suggested, to free the soldiers from the angry ghosts of
the men whom they had slain, we should expect to find that the victorious
Romans themselves observed a similar ceremony after a battle for a similar
purpose. Was this the original meaning of passing under a triumphal arch?
In other words, may not the triumphal arch have been for the victors what
a the yoke was for the vanquished, a barrier to protect them against the
pursuit of the spirits of the slain? That the Romans felt the need of
y purification from the taint of bloodshed after a battle appears from the
n opinion of Masurius, mentioned by Pliny, that the laurel worn by soldiers in
a triumphal procession was intended to purge them from the slaughter of the
e enemy.538 A special gate, the Porta Triumphalis, was reserved for the
m entrance of a victorious army into Rome;539 and it would be in accordance
f with ancient religious views if this distinction was originally not so much
an honour conferred as a precaution enforced to prevent the ordinary gates
from being polluted by the passage of thousands of blood-guilty men.540

r [pg 196]

e

f

§ 3. The External Soul in Animals.

But in practice, as in folk-tales, it is not merely with inanimate objects and
plants that a person is occasionally believed to be united by a bond of
a physical sympathy. The same bond, it is supposed, may exist between a
man and an animal, so that the welfare of the one depends on the welfare of
n the other, and when the animal dies the man dies also. The analogy between
a the custom and the tales is all the closer because in both of them the power
d of thus removing the soul from the body and stowing it away in an animal is
l often a special privilege of wizards and witches. Thus the Yakuts of Siberia
t believe that every shaman or wizard keeps his soul, or one of his souls,
f incarnate in an animal which is carefully concealed from all the world.
e “Nobody can find my external soul,” said one famous wizard, “it lies
hidden far away in the stony mountains of Edzhigansk.” Only once a year,
f when the last snows melt and the earth turns black, do these external souls
of wizards appear in the shape of animals among the dwellings of men.
They wander everywhere, yet none but wizards can see them. The strong
ones sweep roaring and noisily along, the weak steal about quietly and
f furtively. Often they fight, and then the wizard whose external soul is
beaten, falls ill or dies. The weakest and most cowardly wizards are they
n whose souls are incarnate in the shape of dogs, for the dog gives his human
double no peace, but gnaws his heart and tears his body. The most powerful
wizards are they whose external souls have the shape of stallions, elks,
n black bears, eagles, or boars. Again, the Samoyeds of the Turukhinsk region
hold that every shaman has a familiar spirit in the shape of a boar, which he
leads about by a magic belt. On the death of the boar the shaman himself
dies; and stories are told of battles between [pg 197] wizards, who send
their spirits to fight before they encounter each other in person.541 In
Yorkshire witches are thought to stand in such peculiarly close relations to
hares, that if a particular hare is killed or wounded, a certain witch will at
the same moment be killed or receive a hurt in her body exactly
corresponding to the wound in the hare.542 However, this fancy is probably a
case of the general European belief that witches have the power of

temporarily transforming themselves into certain animals, particularly hares
and cats, and that any hurts inflicted on such transformed animals are felt
by the witches who are concealed in the animals.543 But the notion that a
person can temporarily transform himself into an animal differs from the
notion that he can deposit his soul for a longer or shorter period in an
animal, while he himself retains the human form; though in the cloudy mind
of the peasant and the savage the two ideas may not always be sharply
distinguished. The Malays believe that “the soul of a person may pass into
another person or into an animal, or rather that such a mysterious relation
can arise between the two that the fate of the one is wholly dependent on
that of the other.”544

Among the Melanesians of Mota, one of the New Hebrides islands, the
conception of an external soul is carried out in the practice of daily life. The
Mota word for soul is atai. “The use of the word atai in Mota seems
properly and originally to have been to signify something peculiarly and
intimately connected with a person and sacred to him, something that he has
e set his fancy upon when he has seen it in what has seemed to him a
a wonderful manner, or some one has shewn it to him as such. Whatever the
thing might be the man believed it to be the reflection of his own
personality; he and his atai flourished, suffered, lived, and died together.
But the word must not be supposed to have been borrowed from this use
n and [pg 198] applied secondarily to describe the soul; the word carries a
l sense with it which is applicable alike to that second self, the visible object
r so mysteriously connected with the man, and to this invisible second self
which we call the soul. There is another Mota word, tamaniu, which has
almost if not quite the same meaning as atai has when it describes
something animate or inanimate which a man has come to believe to have
an existence intimately connected with his own. The word tamaniu may be
taken to be properly ‘likeness,’ and the noun form of the adverb tama, as,
like. It was not every one in Mota who had his tamaniu; only some men
fancied that they had this relation to a lizard, a snake, or it might be a stone;
sometimes the thing was sought for and found by drinking the infusion of
certain leaves and heaping together the dregs; then whatever living thing
was first seen in or upon the heap was the tamaniu. It was watched but not
fed or worshipped; the natives believed that it came at call, and that the life
of the man was bound up with the life of his tamaniu, if a living thing, or

with its safety; should it die, or if not living get broken or be lost, the man
would die. Hence in case of sickness they would send to see if the tamaniu
was safe and well. This word has never been used apparently for the soul in
Mota; but in Aurora in the New Hebrides it is the accepted equivalent. It is
well worth observing that both the atai and the tamaniu, and it may be
added the Motlav talegi, is something which has a substantial existence of
its own, as when a snake or stone is a man's atai or tamaniu; a soul then
when called by these names is conceived of as something in a way
substantial.”545

From this account, which we owe to the careful and accurate researches of
the Rev. Dr. Codrington, we gather that while every person in Mota has a
second self or external soul in a visible object called an atai, only some
n people have, it may be, a second external soul in another visible object
a called a tamaniu. We may conjecture that persons who have a tamaniu in
d addition to an atai are more than [pg 199] usually anxious as to the state of
their soul, and that they seek to put it in perfect security by what we may
call a system of double insurance, calculating that if one of their external
souls should die or be broken, they themselves may still survive by virtue of
the survival of the other. Be that as it may, the tamaniu discharges two
functions, one of them defensive and the other offensive. On the one hand,
so long as it lives or remains unbroken, it preserves its owner in life; and on
the other hand it helps him to injure his enemies. In its offensive character,
if the tamaniu happens to be an eel, it will bite its owner's enemy; if it is a
shark, it will swallow him. In its defensive character, the state of the
tamaniu is a symptom or life-token of the state of the man; hence when he
is ill he will visit and examine it, or if he cannot go himself he will send
another to inspect it and report. In either case the man turns the animal, if
animal it be, carefully over in order to see what is the matter with it; should
something be found sticking to its skin, it is removed, and through the relief
thus afforded to the creature the sick man recovers. But if the animal should
be found dying, it is an omen of death for the man; for whenever it dies he
dies also.546

In Melanesia a native doctor was once attending to a sick man. Just then “a
large eagle-hawk came soaring past the house, and Kaplen, my hunter, was
a going to shoot it; but the doctor jumped up in evident alarm, and said, ‘Oh,

n don't shoot; that is my spirit’ (niog, literally, my shadow); ‘if you shoot that,
- I will die.’ He then told the old man, ‘If you see a rat to-night, don't drive it
d away, 'tis my spirit (niog), or a snake which will come to-night, that also is
my spirit.’ ”547 It does not appear whether the doctor in this case, like the
giant or warlock in the tales, kept his spirit [pg 200] permanently in the bird
or in the animal, or whether he only transferred it temporarily to the
creature for the purpose of enabling him the better to work the cure, perhaps
by sending out his own soul in a bird or beast to find and bring back the lost
soul of the patient. In either case he seems to have thought, like the giant or
warlock in the stories, that the death of the bird or the animal would
simultaneously entail his own. A family in Nauru, one of the Marshall
Islands, apparently imagine that their lives are bound up with a species of
large fish, which has a huge mouth and devours human beings; for when
one of these fish was killed, the members of the family cried, “Our guardian
spirit is killed, now we must all die!”548

The theory of an external soul deposited in an animal appears to be very
prevalent in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria, the Cameroons, and the
y Gaboon.549 In the latter part of the nineteenth century two English
n missionaries, established at San Salvador, the capital of the King of Congo,
asked the natives repeatedly whether any of them had seen the strange, big,
East African goat which Stanley had given to a chief at Stanley Pool in
n 1877. But their enquiries were fruitless; no native would admit that he had
l seen the goat. Some years afterwards the missionaries discovered why they
y could obtain no reply to their enquiry. All the people, it turned out,
imagined that the missionaries believed the spirit of the King of Salvador to
t be contained in the goat, and that they wished to obtain possession of the
animal in order to exercise an evil influence on his majesty.550 The belief
l from the standpoint of the Congo savages was natural enough, since in that
f region some chiefs regularly link their fate to that of an animal. Thus the
a Chief Bankwa of Ndolo, on the Moeko River, had conferred this honour on
a certain hippopotamus of the neighbourhood, at which he would allow
a nobody to shoot.551 At the village of Ongek, in the Gaboon, a French
missionary slept in the hut of an old Fan chief. Awakened about two [pg
201] in the morning by a rustling of dry leaves, he lit a torch, when to his
f horror he perceived a huge black serpent of the most dangerous sort, coiled
in a corner, with head erect, shining eyes, and hissing jaws, ready to dart at

y him. Instinctively he seized his gun and pointed it at the reptile, when
suddenly his arm was struck up, the torch was extinguished, and the voice
of the old chief said, “Don't fire! don't fire! I beg of you. In killing the
t serpent, it is me that you would kill. Fear nothing. The serpent is my
d elangela.” So saying he flung himself on his knees beside the reptile, put
y his arms about it, and clasped it to his breast. The serpent received his
f caresses quietly, manifesting neither anger nor fear, and the chief carried it
off and laid it down beside him in another hut, exhorting the missionary to
have no fear and never to speak of the subject.552 His curiosity being excited
by this adventure, the missionary, Father Trilles, pursued his enquiries and
ascertained that among the Fans of the Gaboon every wizard is believed at
initiation to unite his life with that of some particular wild animal by a rite
of blood-brotherhood; he draws blood from the ear of the animal and from
his own arm, and inoculates the animal with his own blood, and himself
with the blood of the beast. Henceforth such an intimate union is
established between the two that the death of the one entails the death of the
other. The alliance is thought to bring to the wizard or sorcerer a great
accession of power, which he can turn to his advantage in various ways. In
the first place, like the warlock in the fairy tales who has deposited his life
outside of himself in some safe place, the Fan wizard now deems himself
invulnerable. Moreover, the animal with which he has exchanged blood has
become his familiar, and will obey any orders he may choose to give it; so
he makes use of it to injure and kill his enemies. For that reason the creature
with whom he establishes the relation of blood-brotherhood is never a tame
or domestic animal, but always a ferocious and dangerous wild beast, such
as a leopard, a black serpent, a crocodile, a hippopotamus, a wild boar, or a
vulture. Of [pg 202] all these creatures the leopard is by far the commonest
familiar of Fan wizards, and next to it comes the black serpent; the vulture
is the rarest. Witches as well as wizards have their familiars; but the animals
with which the lives of women are thus bound up generally differ from
those to which men commit their external souls. A witch never has a
panther for her familiar, but often a venomous species of serpent,
sometimes a horned viper, sometimes a black serpent, sometimes a green
one that lives in banana-trees; or it may be a vulture, an owl, or other bird
of night. In every case the beast or bird with which the witch or wizard has
contracted this mystic alliance is an individual, never a species; and when

the individual animal dies the alliance is naturally at an end, since the death
of the animal is supposed to entail the death of the man.553

Similar beliefs are held by the natives of the Cross River valley within the
German provinces of the Cameroons. Groups of people, generally the
f inhabitants of a village, have chosen various animals, with which they
believe themselves to stand on a footing of intimate friendship or
e relationship. Amongst such animals are hippopotamuses, elephants,
leopards, crocodiles, gorillas, fish, and serpents, all of them creatures which
t are either very strong or can easily hide themselves in the water or a thicket.
d This power of concealing themselves is said to be an indispensable
l condition of the choice of animal familiars, since the animal friend or helper
is expected to injure his owner's enemy by stealth; for example, if he is a
hippopotamus, he will bob up suddenly out of the water and capsize the
enemy's canoe. Between the animals and their human friends or kinsfolk
such a sympathetic relation is supposed to exist that the moment the animal
t dies the man dies also, and similarly the instant the man [pg 203] perishes
e so does the beast. From this it follows that the animal kinsfolk may never be
shot at or molested for fear of injuring or killing the persons whose lives are
e knit up with the lives of the brutes. This does not, however, prevent the
people of a village, who have elephants for their animal friends, from
hunting elephants. For they do not respect the whole species but merely
certain individuals of it, which stand in an intimate relation to certain
individual men and women; and they imagine that they can always
distinguish these brother elephants from the common herd of elephants
which are mere elephants and nothing more. The recognition indeed is said
to be mutual. When a hunter, who has an elephant for his friend, meets a
human elephant, as we may call it, the noble animal lifts up a paw and holds
it before his face, as much as to say, “Don't shoot.” Were the hunter so
inhuman as to fire on and wound such an elephant, the person whose life
was bound up with the elephant would fall ill.554

The Balong of the Cameroons think that every man has several souls, of
which one is in his body and another in an animal, such as an elephant, a
wild pig, a leopard, and so forth. When a man comes home, feeling ill, and
f says, “I shall soon die,” and dies accordingly, the people aver that one of his
g souls has been killed in a wild pig or a leopard, and that the death of the
e

external soul has caused the death of the soul in his body. Hence the corpse
is cut open, and a diviner determines, from an inspection of the inwards,
whether the popular surmise is correct or not.555

A similar belief in the external souls of living people is entertained by the
Ibos, an important tribe of the Niger delta, who inhabit a country west of
f the Cross River. They think that a man's spirit can quit his body for a time
n during life and take up its abode in an animal. This is called ishi anu, “to
turn animal.” A man who wishes to acquire this power procures a certain
drug from a wise man and mixes it with his food. After that his soul goes
out and enters [pg 204] into the animal. If it should happen that the animal
e is killed while the man's soul is lodged in it, the man dies; and if the animal
n be wounded, the man's body will presently be covered with boils. This
belief instigates to many deeds of darkness; for a sly rogue will sometimes
surreptitiously administer the magical drug to his enemy in his food, and
having thus smuggled the other's soul into an animal will destroy the
creature, and with it the man whose soul is lodged in it.556 A like belief is
reported to prevail among the tribes of the Obubura Hill district on the
Cross River in Southern Nigeria. Once when Mr. Partridge's canoe-men
wished to catch fish near a town of the Assiga tribe, the people objected,
saying, “Our souls live in those fish, and if you kill them we shall die.”557

The negroes of Calabar, at the mouth of the Niger, believe that every person
has four souls, one of which always lives outside of his or her body in the
f form of a wild beast in the forest. This external soul, or bush soul, as Miss
Kingsley calls it, may be almost any animal, for example, a leopard, a fish,
f or a tortoise; but it is never a domestic animal and never a plant. Unless he
is gifted with second sight, a man cannot see his own bush soul, but a
y diviner will often tell him what sort of creature his bush soul is, and after
that the man will be careful not to kill any animal of that species, and will
l strongly object to any one else doing so. A man and his sons have usually
h the same sort of animals for their bush souls, and so with a mother and her
daughters. But sometimes all the children of a family take after the bush
a soul of their father; for example, if his external soul is a leopard, all his sons
and daughters will have leopards for their external souls. And on the other
hand, sometimes they all take after their mother; for instance, if her external
soul is a tortoise, all the external souls of her sons and daughters will be

tortoises too. So intimately bound up is the life of the man with that of the
animal which he regards as his external or bush soul, that the death or injury
of the animal necessarily entails the death or injury of the man. [pg 205]
And, conversely, when the man dies, his bush soul can no longer find a
place of rest, but goes mad and rushes into the fire or charges people and is
knocked on the head, and that is an end of it. When a person is sick, the
diviner will sometimes tell him that his bush soul is angry at being
neglected; thereupon the patient will make an offering to the offended spirit
and deposit it in a tiny hut in the forest at the spot where the animal, which
is his external soul, was last seen. If the bush soul is appeased, the patient
recovers; but if it is not, he dies. Yet the foolish bush soul does not
understand that in injuring the man it injures itself, and that it cannot long
survive his decease.558

Such is the account which Miss Kingsley gives of the bush souls of the
Calabar negroes. Some fresh particulars are furnished by Mr. Richard
Henshaw, Agent for Native Affairs at Calabar. He tells us that a man may
only marry a woman who has the same sort of bush soul as himself; for
e example, if his bush soul is a leopard, his wife also must have a leopard for
her bush soul. Further, we learn from Mr. Henshaw that a person's bush soul
n need not be that either of his father or of his mother. For example, a child
with a hippopotamus for his bush soul may be born into a family, all the
members of which have wild pigs for their bush souls; this happens when
the child is a reincarnation of a man whose external soul was a
hippopotamus. In such a case, if the parents object to the intrusion of an
alien soul, they may call in a medicine-man to check its growth and finally
abolish it altogether, after which they will give the child their own bush
soul. Or they may leave the matter over till the child comes of age, when he
will choose a bush soul for himself with the help of a medicine-man, who
will also select the piece of bush or water in which the chosen animal lives.
When a man dies, then the animal which contains his [pg 206] external soul
“becomes insensible and quite unconscious of the approach of danger. Thus
a hunter can capture or kill him with perfect ease.” Sacrifices are often
offered to prevent other people from killing the animal in which a man's
bush soul resides. The tribes of Calabar which hold these beliefs as to the
bush soul are the Efik and Ekoi.559 The belief of the Calabar negroes in the
external soul has been described as follows by a missionary: “Ukpong is the

native word we have taken to translate our word soul. It primarily signifies
the shadow of a person. It also signifies that which dwells within a man on
which his life depends, but which may detach itself from the body, and
visiting places and persons here and there, again return to its abode in the
man.... Besides all this, the word is used to designate an animal possessed
of an ukpong, so connected with a person's ukpong, that they mutually act
upon each other. When the leopard, or crocodile, or whatever animal may
be a man's ukpong, gets sick or dies, the like thing happens to him. Many
individuals, it is believed, have the power of changing themselves into the
animals which are their ukpong.”560

Among the Ekoi of the Oban district, in Southern Nigeria, it is usual to hear
a person say of another that he or she “possesses” such and such an animal,
f meaning that the person has the power to assume the shape of that particular
f creature. It is their belief that by constant practice and by virtue of certain
hereditary secrets a man can quit his human body and put on that of a wild
n beast. They say that in addition to the soul which animates his human body
[pg 207] everybody has a bush soul which at times he can send forth to
animate the body of the creature which he “possesses.” When he wishes his
n bush soul to go out on its rambles, he drinks a magic potion, the secret of
which has been handed down from time immemorial, and some of which is
a always kept ready for use in an ancient earthen pot set apart for the purpose.
No sooner has he drunk the mystic draught than his bush soul escapes from
him and floats away invisible through the town into the forest. There it
begins to swell and, safe in the shadow of the trees, takes on the shape of
the man's animal double, it may be an elephant, a leopard, a buffalo, a wild
a boar, or a crocodile. Naturally the potion differs according to the kind of
animal into which a man is temporarily converted. It would be absurd, for
example, to expect that the dose which turns you into an elephant should
also be able to turn you into a crocodile; the thing is manifestly impossible.
A great advantage of these temporary conversions of a man into a beast is
that it enables the convert in his animal shape to pay out his enemy without
being suspected. If, for example, you have a grudge at a man who is a well-
to-do farmer, all that you have to do is to turn yourself by night into a
buffalo, an elephant, or a wild boar, and then, bursting into his fields, stamp
about in them till you have laid the standing crops level with the ground.
That is why in the neighbourhood of large well-tilled farms, people prefer

to keep their bush souls in buffaloes, elephants, and wild boars, because
these animals are the most convenient means of destroying a neighbour's
crops. Whereas where the farms are small and ill-kept, as they are round
about Oban, it is hardly worth a man's while to take the trouble of turning
into a buffalo or an elephant for the paltry satisfaction of rooting up a few
miserable yams or such like trash. So the Oban people keep their bush souls
in leopards and crocodiles, which, though of little use for the purpose of
destroying a neighbour's crops, are excellent for the purpose of killing the
man himself first and eating him afterwards. But the power of turning into
an animal has this serious disadvantage that it lays you open to the chance
of being wounded or even slain in your animal skin before you have time to
put it off and scramble back into your human integument. [pg 208] A
remarkable case of this sort happened only a few miles from Oban not long
ago. To understand it you must know that the chiefs of the Ododop tribe,
who live about ten miles from Oban, keep their bush souls, whenever they
are out on a ramble, in the shape of buffaloes. Well, one day the District
Commissioner at Oban saw a buffalo come down to drink at a stream which
runs through his garden. He shot at the beast and hit it, and it ran away
badly wounded. At the very same moment the head chief of the Ododop
tribe, ten miles away, clapped his hand to his side and said, “They have
killed me at Oban.” Death was not instantaneous, for the buffalo lingered in
pain for a couple of days in the forest, but an hour or two before its dead
body was discovered by the trackers the chief expired. Just before he died,
with touching solicitude he sent a message warning all people who kept
their external souls in buffaloes to profit by his sad fate and beware of going
near Oban, which was not a safe place for them. Naturally, when a man
keeps his external soul from time to time in a beast, say in a wild cow, he is
not so foolish as to shoot an animal of that particular sort, for in so doing he
might perhaps be killing himself. But he may kill animals in which other
people keep their external souls. For example, a wild cow man may freely
shoot an antelope or a wild boar; but should he do so and then have reason
to suspect that the dead beast is the animal double of somebody with whom
he is on friendly terms, he must perform certain ceremonies over the
carcase and then hurry home, running at the top of his speed, to administer
a particular medicine to the man whom he has unintentionally injured. In
this way he may possibly be in time to save the life of his friend from the
effects of the deplorable accident.561

[pg 209]

Near Eket in North Calabar there is a sacred lake, the fish of which are
carefully preserved because the people believe that their own souls are
f lodged in the fish, and that with every fish killed a human life would be
simultaneously extinguished.562 In the Calabar River not very many years
f ago there used to be a huge old crocodile, popularly supposed to contain the
n external soul of a chief who resided in the flesh at Duke Town. Sporting
vice-consuls used from time to time to hunt the animal, and once a
peculiarly energetic officer contrived to hit it. Forthwith the chief was laid
n up with a wound in his leg. He gave out that a dog had bitten him, but no
doubt the wise shook their heads and refused to be put off with so flimsy a
pretext.563 Again, among several tribes on the banks of the Niger between
Lokoja and the delta there prevails “a belief in the possibility of a man
possessing an alter ego in the form of some animal such as a crocodile or a
hippopotamus. It is believed that such a person's life is bound up with that
of the animal to such an extent that, whatever affects the one produces a
corresponding impression upon the other, and that if one dies the other must
speedily do so too. It happened not very long ago that an Englishman shot a
hippopotamus close to a native village; the friends of a woman who died the
same night in the village demanded and eventually obtained five pounds as
compensation for the murder of the woman.”564 Among the Montols of
Northern Nigeria, “in many of the compounds there will be found a species
of snake, of a non-poisonous sort, which, when full grown, attains a length
of about five feet and a girth of eight or nine inches. These snakes live in
and about the compound. They are not specially fed by the people of the
place, nor are places provided for them to nest in. They live generally in the
roofs of the small granaries and huts that make up the compound. They feed
upon small mammals, and no doubt serve a useful purpose in destroying
vermin which might otherwise eat the stored grain. They are not kept for the
purpose of destroying vermin, however. The Montols believe that at the
birth of [pg 210] every individual of their race, male and female, one of
these snakes, of the same sex, is also born. If the snake be killed, his human
partner in life dies also and at the same time. If the wife of a compound-
owner gives birth to a son, shortly after the interesting event, the snake of
the establishment will be seen with a young one of corresponding sex. From
the moment of birth, these two, the snake and the man, share a life of

common duration, and the measure of the one is the measure of the other.
Hence every care is taken to protect these animals from injury, and no
Montol would in any circumstances think of injuring or killing one. It is
said that a snake of this kind never attempts any injury to a man. There is
only one type of snake thus regarded.”565 Among the Angass, of the Kanna
District in Northern Nigeria, “when a man is born, he is endowed with two
distinct entities, life and a kurua (Arabic rin).... When the rin enters a man,
its counterpart enters some beast or snake at the same time, and if either
dies, so also does the body containing the counterpart. This, however, in no
wise prevents a man from killing any game, etc., he may see, though he
knows full well that he is causing thereby the death of some man or woman.
When a man dies, his life and rin both leave him, though the latter is
asserted sometimes to linger near the place of death for a day or two.”566
Again, at the town of Paha, in the northern territory of the Gold Coast, there
are pools inhabited by crocodiles which are worshipped by the people. The
natives believe that for every death or birth in the town a similar event takes
place among the crocodiles.567

In South Africa the conception of an external soul deposited in an animal,
which is so common in West Africa, appears to be almost unknown; at least
I have met with no clear traces of it in literature. The Bechuanas, indeed,
commonly believe that if a man wounds a crocodile, the man will be ill as
n long as the crocodile is ill of its wound, and [pg 211] that if the crocodile
dies, the man dies too. This belief is not, apparently, confined to the
Bechuana clan which has the crocodile for its totem, but is shared by all the
n other clans; all of them certainly hold the crocodile in respect.568 It does not
l appear whether the sympathetic relation between a man and a crocodile is
supposed by the Bechuanas to be lifelong, or only to arise at the moment
t when the man wounds the animal; in the latter case the shedding of the
h crocodile's blood might perhaps be thought to establish a relationship of
affinity or sympathy between the two. The Zulus believe that every man is
attended by an ancestral spirit (ihlozi, or rather idhlozi) in the form of a
serpent, “which specially guards and helps him, lives with him, wakes with
him, sleeps and travels with him, but always under ground. If it ever makes
its appearance, great is the joy, and the man must seek to discover the
meaning of its appearance. He who has no ihlozi must die. Therefore if any
one kills an ihlozi serpent, the man whose ihlozi it was dies, but the serpent

comes to life again.”569 But the conception [pg 212] of a dead ancestor
incarnate in a snake, on which the welfare or existence of one of his living
descendants depends, is rather that of a guardian spirit than of an external
soul.

Amongst the Zapotecs of Central America, when a woman was about to be
confined, her relations assembled in the hut, and began to draw on the floor
figures of different animals, rubbing each one out as soon as it was
completed. This went on till the moment of birth, and the figure that then
n remained sketched upon the ground was called the child's tona or second
self. “When the child grew old enough, he procured the animal that
represented him and took care of it, as it was believed that health and
n existence were bound up with that of the animal's, in fact that the death of
l both would occur simultaneously,” or rather that when the animal died the
man would die too.570 Among the [pg 213] Indians of Guatemala and
e Honduras the nagual or naual is “that animate or inanimate object,
f generally an animal, which stands in a parallel relation to a particular man,
so that the weal and woe of the man depend on the fate of the nagual.”571
According to an old writer, many Indians of Guatemala “are deluded by the
f devil to believe that their life dependeth upon the life of such and such a
l beast (which they take unto them as their familiar spirit), and think that
l when that beast dieth they must die; when he is chased, their hearts pant;
when he is faint, they are faint; nay, it happeneth that by the devil's delusion
they appear in the shape of that beast (which commonly by their choice is a
buck, or doe, a lion, or tigre, or dog, or eagle) and in that shape have been
shot at and wounded.”572 Herrera's account of the way in which the Indians
of Honduras acquired their naguals, runs thus: “The devil deluded them,
appearing in the shape of a lion or a tiger, or a coyte, a beast like a wolf, or
in the shape of an alligator, a snake, or a bird, that province abounding in
creatures of prey, which they called naguales, signifying keepers or
guardians, and when the bird died the Indian that was in league with him
died also, which often happened and was looked upon as infallible. The
manner of contracting this alliance was thus. The Indian repaired to the
river, wood, hill, or most obscure [pg 214] place, where he called upon the
devils by such names as he thought fit, talked to the rivers, rocks, or woods,
said he went to weep that he might have the same his predecessors had,
carrying a cock or a dog to sacrifice. In that melancholy fit he fell asleep,

and either in a dream or waking saw some one of the aforesaid birds or
other creatures, whom he entreated to grant him profit in salt, cacao, or any
other commodity, drawing blood from his own tongue, ears, and other parts
of his body, making his contract at the same time with the said creature, the
which either in a dream or waking told him, ‘Such a day you shall go
abroad asporting, and I will be the first bird or other animal you shall meet,
and will be your nagual and companion at all times.’ Whereupon such
friendship was contracted between them, that when one of them died the
other did not survive, and they fancied that he who had no nagual could not
be rich.”573 The Indians were persuaded that the death of their nagual would
entail their own. Legend affirms that in the first battles with the Spaniards
on the plateau of Quetzaltenango the naguals of the Indian chiefs fought in
the form of serpents. The nagual of the highest chief was especially
conspicuous, because it had the form of a great bird, resplendent in green
plumage. The Spanish general Pedro de Alvarado killed the bird with his
lance, and at the same moment the Indian chief fell dead to the ground.574

In many tribes of South-Eastern Australia each sex used to regard a
particular species of animals in the same way that a Central American
e Indian regarded his nagual, but with this difference, that whereas the Indian
f apparently knew the individual [pg 215] animal with which his life was
bound up, the Australians only knew that each of their lives was bound up
with some one animal of the species, but they could not say with which.
The result naturally was that every man spared and protected all the animals
f of the species with which the lives of the men were bound up; and every
woman spared and protected all the animals of the species with which the
e lives of the women were bound up; because no one knew but that the death
of any animal of the respective species might entail his or her own; just as
d the killing of the green bird was immediately followed by the death of the
h Indian chief, and the killing of the parrot by the death of Punchkin in the
f fairy tale. Thus, for example, the Wotjobaluk tribe of South-Eastern
Australia “held that ‘the life of Ngŭnŭngŭnŭt (the Bat) is the life of a man,
and the life of Yártatgŭrk (the Nightjar) is the life of a woman,’ and that
f when either of these creatures is killed the life of some man or of some
woman is shortened. In such a case every man or every woman in the camp
d feared that he or she might be the victim, and from this cause great fights
arose in this tribe. I learn that in these fights, men on one side and women

on the other, it was not at all certain which would be victorious, for at times
the women gave the men a severe drubbing with their yamsticks, while
often women were injured or killed by spears.” The Wotjobaluk said that
the bat was the man's “brother” and that the nightjar was his “wife.”575 [pg
216] The particular species of animals with which the lives of the sexes
were believed to be respectively bound up varied somewhat from tribe to
tribe. Thus whereas among the Wotjobaluk the bat was the animal of the
men, at Gunbower Creek on the Lower Murray the bat seems to have been
the animal of the women, for the natives would not kill it for the reason that
“if it was killed, one of their lubras [women] would be sure to die in
consequence.”576 In the Kurnai tribe of Gippsland the emu-wren (Stipiturus
malachurus) was the “man's brother” and the superb warbler (Malurus
cyaneus) was the “woman's sister”; at the initiation of young men into the
tribal mysteries the name of the emu-wren was invoked over the novices for
the purpose of infusing manly virtue into them.577 Among the Yuin on the
south-eastern coast of Australia, the “woman's sister” was the tree-creeper
(Climacteris scandens), and the men had both the bat and the emu-wren for
their “brothers.”578 In the Kulin nation each sex had a pair of “brothers” and
“sisters”; the men had the bat and the emu-wren for their “brothers,” and
the women had the superb warbler and the small nightjar for their
“sisters.”579 It is notable that in South-Eastern Australia the animals thus
associated with the lives of men and women were generally flying
creatures, either birds or bats. However, in the Port Lincoln tribe of South
Australia the man's “brother” and the woman's “sister” seem to have been
identified with the male and female respectively of a species of lizard; for
we read that “a small kind of lizard, the male of which is called ibirri, and
the female waka, is said to have divided the sexes in the human species; an
event that would appear not to be much approved of by the natives, since
either sex has a mortal hatred against the [pg 217] opposite sex of these
little animals, the men always destroying the waka and the women the
ibirri.”580 But whatever the particular sorts of creature with which the lives
of men and women were believed to be bound up, the belief itself and the
fights to which it gave rise are known to have prevailed over a large part of
South-Eastern Australia, and probably they extended much farther.581 The
belief was a very serious one, and so consequently were the fights which
sprang from it. Thus among some tribes of Victoria “the common bat
belongs to the men, who protect it against injury, even to the half-killing of

their wives for its sake. The fern owl, or large goatsucker, belongs to the
women, and, although a bird of evil omen, creating terror at night by its cry,
it is jealously protected by them. If a man kills one, they are as much
enraged as if it was one of their children, and will strike him with their long
poles.”582

The jealous protection thus afforded by Australian men and women to bats
and owls respectively (for bats and owls seem to be the creatures usually
allotted to the two sexes)583 is not based upon purely selfish considerations.
For each man believes that not only his own life but the lives of his father,
e brothers, sons, and so on are bound up with the lives of particular bats, and
f that therefore in protecting the bat species he is protecting the lives of all
d his male relations as well as his own. Similarly, each woman believes that
e the lives of her mother, sisters, daughters, and so forth, equally with her
f own, are bound up with the lives of particular owls, [pg 218] and that in
guarding the owl species she is guarding the lives of all her female relations
besides her own. Now, when men's lives are thus supposed to be contained
in certain animals, it is obvious that the animals can hardly be distinguished
from the men, or the men from the animals. If my brother John's life is in a
bat, then, on the one hand, the bat is my brother as well as John; and, on the
other hand, John is in a sense a bat, since his life is in a bat. Similarly, if my
sister Mary's life is in an owl, then the owl is my sister and Mary is an owl.
This is a natural enough conclusion, and the Australians have not failed to
draw it. When the bat is the man's animal, it is called his brother; and when
the owl is the woman's animal, it is called her sister. And conversely a man
addresses a woman as an owl, and she addresses him as a bat.584 So with the
other animals allotted to the sexes respectively in other tribes. For example,
among the Kurnai all emu-wrens were “brothers” of the men, and all the
men were emu-wrens; all superb warblers were “sisters” of the women, and
all the women were superb warblers.585

§ 4. A Suggested Theory of Totemism.586

But when a savage names himself after an animal, calls [pg 219] it his
brother, and refuses to kill it, the animal is said to be his totem. Accordingly
s in the tribes of South-Eastern Australia which we have been considering the
n bat and the owl, the emu-wren and the superb warbler, may properly be
described as totems of the sexes. But the assignation of a totem to a sex is
h comparatively rare, and has hitherto been discovered nowhere but in
d Australia. Far more commonly the totem is appropriated not to a sex, but to
e a clan, and is hereditary either in the male or female line. The relation of an
t individual to the clan totem does not differ in kind from his relation to the
d sex totem; he will not kill it, he speaks of it as his brother, and he calls
himself by its name. Now if the relations are similar, the explanation which
r holds good of the one ought equally to hold good of the other. Therefore the
reason why a clan revere a particular species of animals or plants (for the
n clan totem may be a plant) and call themselves after it, would seem to be a
belief that the life of each individual of the clan is bound up with some one
animal or plant of the species, and that his or her death would be the
consequence of killing that particular animal, or destroying that particular
e plant. This explanation of totemism squares very well with Sir George
Grey's definition of a totem or kobong in Western Australia. He says: “A
r certain mysterious connection exists between a family and its kobong, so
that a member of the family will never kill an animal of the species to
which his kobong belongs, should he find it asleep; indeed he always kills it
reluctantly, and never without affording it a chance to escape. This arises
from the family belief that some one individual of the species is their
nearest friend, to kill whom would be a great crime, and to be carefully
avoided. Similarly, a native who has a vegetable for his kobong may not
gather it under certain [pg 220] circumstances, and at a particular period of
the year.”587 Here it will be observed that though each man spares all the
animals or plants of the species, they are not all equally precious to him; far
from it, out of the whole species there is only one which is specially dear to
him; but as he does not know which the dear one is, he is obliged to spare

them all from fear of injuring the one. Again, this explanation of the clan
totem harmonizes with the supposed effect of killing one of the totem
species. “One day one of the blacks killed a crow. Three or four days
afterwards a Boortwa (crow) [i.e. a man of the Crow clan] named Larry
died. He had been ailing for some days, but the killing of his wingong
[totem] hastened his death.”588 Here the killing of the crow caused the death
of a man of the Crow clan, exactly as, in the case of the sex-totems, the
killing of a bat causes the death of a Bat-man or the killing of an owl causes
the death of an Owl-woman. Similarly, the killing of his nagual causes the
death of a Central American Indian, the killing of his bush soul causes the
death of a Calabar negro, the killing of his tamaniu causes the death of a
Banks Islander, and the killing of the animal in which his life is stowed
away causes the death of the giant or warlock in the fairy tale.

Thus it appears that the story of “The giant who had no heart in his body”
may perhaps furnish the key to the relation which is supposed to subsist
between a man and his totem. The totem, on this theory, is simply the
receptacle in which a man keeps his life, as Punchkin kept his life in a
parrot, and Bidasari kept her soul in a golden fish. It is no valid objection to
this view that when a savage has both a sex totem and a clan totem his life
must be bound up with two different animals, the death of either of which
d [pg 221] would entail his own. If a man has more vital places than one in
h his body, why, the savage may think, should he not have more vital places
f than one outside it? Why, since he can put his life outside himself, should
he not transfer one portion of it to one animal and another to another? The
divisibility of life, or, to put it otherwise, the plurality of souls, is an idea
t suggested by many familiar facts, and has commended itself to philosophers
e like Plato,589 as well as to savages. It finds favour also with the sages of
r China, who tell us that every human being is provided with what may be
called a male soul (shen) and a female soul (kwei), which by their
harmonious co-operation compose an organic unity. However, some
t Chinese philosophers will have it that each of the five viscera has its own
separate male soul (shen); and a Taoist treatise written about the end of the
tenth or beginning of the eleventh century has even enriched science with a
list of about three dozen souls distributed over the various parts of the
human frame; indeed, not content with a bare catalogue of these souls, the
learned author has annexed to the name and surname of each a brief

description of its size and stature, of the kind of dress in which it is clothed
and the shape of hat it wears.590 It is only when the notion of a soul, from
being a quasi-scientific hypothesis, becomes a theological dogma that its
unity and indivisibility are insisted upon as essential. The savage,
unshackled by dogma, is free to explain the facts of life by the assumption
of as many souls as he thinks necessary. Hence, for example, the Caribs
supposed that there was one soul in the head, another in the heart, and other
souls at all the places where an artery is felt pulsating.591 Some of the
Hidatsa Indians explain the phenomena of gradual death, when the
extremities appear dead first, by supposing that man has four [pg 222]
souls, and that they quit the body, not simultaneously, but one after the
other, dissolution being only complete when all four have departed.592 Some
of the Dyaks of Borneo and the Malays of the Peninsula believe that every
man has seven souls.593 The Alfoors of Poso in Celebes are of opinion that
he has three.594 The natives of Laos suppose that the body is the seat of
thirty spirits, which reside in the hands, the feet, the mouth, the eyes, and so
on.595 Hence, from the primitive point of view, it is perfectly possible that a
savage should have one soul in his sex totem and another in his clan totem.
However, as I have observed, sex totems have been found nowhere but in
Australia; so that as a rule the savage who practises totemism need not have
more than one soul out of his body at a time.596

If this explanation of the totem as a receptacle in which a man keeps his
soul or one of his souls is correct, we should expect to find some totemic
people of whom it is expressly said that every man amongst them is
believed to keep at least one soul permanently out of his body, and that the
destruction of this external soul is supposed to entail the death of its owner.
e Such a people are the Battas of Sumatra. The Battas are divided into
exogamous clans (margas) with descent in the male line; and each clan is
forbidden to eat [pg 223] the flesh of a particular animal. One clan may not
y eat the tiger, another the ape, another the crocodile, another the dog, another
the cat, another the dove, another the white buffalo, and another the locust.
l The reason given by members of a clan for abstaining from the flesh of the
particular animal is either that they are descended from animals of that
species, and that their souls after death may transmigrate into the animals,
f or that they or their forefathers have been under certain obligations to the
creatures. Sometimes, but not always, the clan bears the name of the

animal.597 Thus the Battas have totemism in full. But, further, each Batta
believes that he has seven or, on a more moderate computation, three souls.
One of these souls is always outside the body, but nevertheless whenever it
dies, however far away it may be at the time, that same moment the man
dies also.598 The writer who mentions this belief says nothing [pg 224]
about the Batta totems; but on the analogy of the Australian, Central
American, and African evidence we may conjecture that the external soul,
whose death entails the death of the man, is housed in the totemic animal or
plant.

Against this view it can hardly be thought to militate that the Batta does not
in set terms affirm his external soul to be in his totem, but alleges other
m grounds for respecting the sacred animal or plant of his clan. For if a savage
e seriously believes that his life is bound up with an external object, it is in
the last degree unlikely that he will let any stranger into the secret. In all
a that touches his inmost life and beliefs the savage is exceedingly suspicious
and reserved; Europeans have resided among savages for years without
discovering some of their capital articles of faith, and in the end the
discovery has often been the result of accident.599 Above all, the savage
lives in an intense and perpetual dread of assassination by sorcery; the most
r trifling relics of his person—the clippings of his hair and nails, his spittle,
the remnants of his food, his very name600—all these may, he fancies, be
turned by the [pg 225] sorcerer to his destruction, and he is therefore
anxiously careful to conceal or destroy them. But if in matters such as these,
which are but the outposts and outworks of his life, he is so shy and
t secretive, how close must be the concealment, how impenetrable the
reserve in which he enshrouds the inner keep and citadel of his being!
When the princess in the fairy tale asks the giant where he keeps his soul,
he often gives false or evasive answers, and it is only after much coaxing
and wheedling that the secret is at last wrung from him. In his jealous
reticence the giant resembles the timid and furtive savage; but whereas the
exigencies of the story demand that the giant should at last reveal his secret,
no such obligation is laid on the savage; and no inducement that can be
offered is likely to tempt him to imperil his soul by revealing its hiding-
place to a stranger. It is therefore no matter for surprise that the central
mystery of the savage's life should so long have remained a secret, and that

we should be left to piece it together from scattered hints and fragments and
from the recollections of it which linger in fairy tales.

§ 5. The Ritual of Death and Resurrection.

This view of totemism throws light on a class of religious rites of which no
adequate explanation, so far as I am aware, has yet been offered. Amongst
w many savage tribes, especially such as are known to practise totemism, it is
customary for lads at puberty to undergo certain initiatory rites, of which
one of the commonest is a pretence of killing the lad and bringing him to
life again. Such rites become intelligible if we suppose that their substance
n consists in extracting the youth's soul in order to transfer it to his totem. For
f the [pg 226] extraction of his soul would naturally be supposed to kill the
d youth or at least to throw him into a death-like trance, which the savage
hardly distinguishes from death. His recovery would then be attributed
h either to the gradual recovery of his system from the violent shock which it
t had received, or, more probably, to the infusion into him of fresh life drawn
y from the totem. Thus the essence of these initiatory rites, so far as they
consist in a simulation of death and resurrection, would be an exchange of
life or souls between the man and his totem. The primitive belief in the
g possibility of such an exchange of souls comes clearly out in the story of
the Basque hunter who affirmed that he had been killed by a bear, but that
the bear had, after killing him, breathed its own soul into him, so that the
bear's body was now dead, but he himself was a bear, being animated by the
bear's soul.601 This revival of the dead hunter as a bear is exactly analogous
to what, on the theory here suggested, is supposed to take place in the
ceremony of killing a lad at puberty and bringing him to life again. The lad
dies as a man and comes to life again as an animal; the animal's soul is now
in him, and his human soul is in the animal. With good right, therefore, does
he call himself a Bear or a Wolf, etc., according to his totem; and with good
right does he treat the bears or the wolves, etc., as his brethren, since in
these animals are lodged the souls of himself and his kindred.

Examples of this supposed death and resurrection at [pg 227] initiation are
as follows. In the Wonghi or Wonghibon tribe of New South Wales “the
youths on approaching manhood attend a meeting of the tribe. The

ceremonies of initiation are secret, and at them none but the men of the tribe
who have been initiated attend with the novices. At the spot where the
f ceremonies are to be performed, a large oval space is cleared. The old men
d of the tribe conduct the ceremonies, and the ‘medicine man’ of the tribe is
the master of them. Part of the proceedings consists in knocking out a tooth
g and giving a new designation to the novice, indicating the change from
youth to manhood. When the tooth is knocked out, a loud humming noise is
f heard, which is made with an instrument of the following description: a flat
h piece of wood is made with serrated edges, and having a hole at one end, to
which a string is attached, and this swung round produces a humming noise.
The uninitiated are not even allowed to see this instrument. Women are
forbidden to be present at these ceremonies, and should one, by accident or
otherwise, witness them, the penalty is death. The penalty for revealing the
secrets is probably the same. When everything is prepared the women and
children are covered with boughs, and the men retire, with the young
fellows who are to be initiated, to a little distance. It is said that the youths
are sent away a short distance one by one, and that they are each met in turn
by a Being, who, so far as I can understand, is believed to be something
between a blackfellow and a spirit. This Being, called Thuremlin, it is said,
takes the youth to a distance, kills him, and in some instances cuts him up,
after which he restores him to life and knocks out a tooth. Their belief in the
power of Thuremlin is undoubted.”602

The foregoing account, while it applies strictly to one tribe only, may be
regarded as typical of the initiation ceremonies performed on young men
e throughout the tribes of South-Eastern and Central Australia, except that
among the Central tribes the practice of knocking out a tooth on these
occasions is replaced by the equally mysterious and much severer bodily
mutilations of circumcision and subincision, [pg 228] which are not
practised by the tribes of the South-East.603 The instrument whose humming
n or booming sound accompanies the critical operation of knocking out the
tooth of the novice, is the now well-known bull-roarer, which figures in
d many savage rites of initiation. Its true nature is concealed from the women
and uninitiated lads, who are taught to believe that its sonorous and long-
drawn notes are the voice of the mythical being, often called Daramulun,
who lives in the sky, instituted the rites, and superintends their performance.
The hollow roar of the slat of wood, as it is swung round and round,

f “represents the muttering of thunder, and the thunder is the voice of
i Daramulun, and therefore its sound is of the most sacred character. Umbara
y once said to me, ‘Thunder is the voice of him (pointing upward to the sky)
604
a calling on the rain to fall and make everything grow up new.’ ” This
supposed resemblance of the sound to [pg 229] thunder probably explains a
y certain use which the Dieri, a tribe of Central Australia, made of the
instrument. When [pg 230] a young man had passed through an initiatory
n rite, which consisted in cutting a row of gashes in his back, he was given a
a bull-roarer, and when he went out in search of game, he used to twirl the
f implement in the belief that by doing so, while his wounds were still
unhealed, he created a good harvest of snakes, lizards, and other reptiles,
d which the natives employ as food; but on the contrary they imagined that
these supplies of food would be cut off for ever, if a woman were to see a
bull-roarer which had been swung at the rites of initiation.605 No doubt these
savages, living in a parched wilderness where the existence of plants and
animals depends on rare and irregular showers,606 have observed that [pg
231] the fall of rain is regularly followed by a great and sudden increase in
the food supply, and that this increase is most marked after violent thunder-
storms. Hence by making a noise like thunder with the help of bull-roarers
they probably hope, on the principle of imitative magic, to bring on a
thunder-storm and with it a fertilizing deluge of rain.

For the same reason in the parched and torrid regions of Arizona and New
Mexico the Indians make great use of the bull-roarer in their ceremonies for
procuring rain. For example, when Captain Bourke was at the Pueblo Indian
d village of Walpi in the month of August, 1881, he saw the instrument in use
e at the snake dance. “The medicine-men twirled it rapidly, and with a
f uniform motion, about the head and from front to rear, and succeeded in
faithfully imitating the sound of a gust of rain-laden wind. As explained to
me by one of the medicine-men, by making this sound they compelled the
wind and rain to come to the aid of the crops. At a later date I found it in
use among the Apache, and for the same purpose.”607 The Zuñi Indians of
New Mexico whirl bull-roarers “to create enthusiasm” among the mythical
e beings who are supposed to cause rain, or for the purpose of making them
gather in the air over the village.608 In a Zuñi rain-making ceremony, while
n one medicine-man whirls a bull-roarer, another whips up a mixture of water
and meal into frothy suds symbolic of clouds, and a third plays a flute. “All

this is an invocation to the gods for rain—the one great and perpetual prayer
of the people of this arid land.”609 This supposed connexion of the
instrument with thunder-storms explains why the Navajos of the same torrid
d country say that the bull-roarer should always be made of wood from a
pine-tree that has been struck by lightning;610 and why the Bakairi of Brazil
call the unpretentious [pg 232] instrument by a name that means “thunder
and lightning.”611 The resemblance of the sound of the bull-roarer to the
roaring of the wind is doubtless the reason why in the Torres Straits Islands
wizards whirled bull-roarers in order to make the wind to blow,612 and why,
when Caffres wish for calm weather, they forbid boys to play with bull-
roarers, because they think that the booming noise attracts a gale of wind.613
Hence, as an instrument whose sound resembles the rumbling of thunder,
the roar of wind, and the patter of rain, the bull-roarer is naturally swung by
agricultural savages as a powerful means of promoting the growth of the
crops. In the island of Kiwai, off the mouth of the Fly River in British New
Guinea, bull-roarers are whirled in order to ensure a good crop of yams,
sweet potatoes, and bananas.614 Similarly the Yabim of German New Guinea
imagine that by twirling bull-roarers while they mention the names of the
dead they produce a fine crop of taro.615

But why among the Dieri of Central Australia should the power of
attracting rain and so ensuring a supply of food be specially attributed to a
young man whose back has just been scored and whose wounds are still
f raw? Perhaps the reason may be that the blood dripping from the gashes is
thought to resemble rain and therefore to be endowed with a magical
y potency of drawing showers from the clouds. The conjecture is confirmed
n by the observation that the Dieri actually do bleed themselves avowedly for
the purpose of making rain, and they are not the only people in Australia
and elsewhere who have resorted to this singular mode of [pg 233] putting
n an end to a drought.616 Altogether the foregoing evidence seems to hint that
the whole virtue of the bull-roarer resides, as its English name implies, in its
voice, and that its original significance was simply that of a magical
n instrument for causing thunder, wind, and rain.617 When these natural
phenomena came to be personified as spirits, the sound of the bull-roarer
was naturally interpreted as their voice.

Among the tribes on the Brisbane River in Queensland the weird sound of
the bull-roarers swung at initiation was believed by the women and children
d to be made by the wizards in swallowing the boys and bringing them up
again as young men. The Ualaroi of the Upper Darling River said that the
t boy met a ghost, who killed him and brought him to life again as a young
man. Among the natives on the Lower Lachlan and Murray Rivers it was
d Thrumalun (Daramulun) who was thought to slay and resuscitate the
novices.618 In the Arunta tribe of Central Australia, at the moment when the
lads are being circumcised, the bull-roarer sounds in the darkness all round
the ceremonial ground; and the awestruck women, listening in the distance,
believe that it is the voice of a spirit called Twanyirika, who lives in wild
and inaccessible regions and only comes out when a youth is initiated. They
e think that the spirit enters the body of the lad after the operation of
a circumcision has been performed and carries him away into the bush,
keeping him there till his wound is healed. While the newly circumcised
youth is out in the wilds, carefully secluded from the sight of the women
e and children, he constantly sounds the bull-roarer. When he has recovered
from the wound, the spirit leaves him and he returns to camp an initiated, or
rather partially initiated, man. He has learned, at all events, the secret of
Twanyirika; for no sooner is he circumcised than an elder brother comes up
to him, and placing in his hands a bundle [pg 234] of sacred sticks or stones
(churinga), says, “Here is Twanyirika, of whom you have heard so much.
They are churinga and will help you to heal quickly; guard them well, or
else you and your mothers and sisters will be killed.”619

In this account nothing is said about killing the lad and bringing him to life
again; but a belief in the death and resurrection of the novices at initiation is
e expressly affirmed to be part of the feminine creed in other tribes of Central
Australia. Thus in the Unmatjera tribe both women and children believe that
e Twanyirika kills the youth and afterwards brings him to life again during
the period of initiation. The rites of initiation in this tribe, as in the other
Central tribes, comprise the operations of circumcision and subincision; and
t as soon as the second of these has been performed on him, the young man
receives from his father a sacred stick (churinga), with which, he is told, his
d spirit was associated in the remotest past. While he is out in the bush
recovering from his wounds, he must swing the bull-roarer, or a being who
lives up in the sky will swoop down and carry him off.620 In the Urabunna

n tribe of Central Australia a lad at initiation receives a bull-roarer, the very
name of which (chimbaliri) is never heard by women and children. They
are taught to believe that the sound of it is the voice of a spirit called
Witurna, who takes the boy away, cuts out all his bowels, provides him with
n a new set, and brings him back an initiated youth. The lad is warned that on
d no account may he allow a woman or a child to see the sacred stick, else he
and his mother and sisters will fall down as dead as stones.621 In the
Binbinga tribe, on the western coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, the women
and children believe that the noise of the bull-roarer at initiation is made by
a spirit named Katajalina, who lives in an ant-hill and comes [pg 235] out
and eats up the boy, afterwards restoring him to life.622 Similarly among
their neighbours the Anula the women imagine that the droning sound of
the bull-roarer is produced by a spirit called Gnabaia, who swallows the
lads at initiation and afterwards disgorges them in the form of initiated men.
In this tribe, after a lad has been subincised as well as circumcised, he is
presented with a bull-roarer and informed that the instrument was originally
made by the whirlwind, that it is sacred or tabooed, and that it may on no
account be shewn to women or children.623

Among the tribes settled on the southern coast of New South Wales, of
which the Coast Murring tribe may be regarded as typical, the drama of
a resurrection from the dead was exhibited in a graphic form to the novices at
initiation. Before they were privileged to witness this edifying spectacle
they had been raised to the dignity of manhood by an old man, who
e promoted them to their new status by the simple process of knocking a
d tooth out of the mouth of each with the help of a wooden chisel and
e hammer. The ceremony of the resurrection has been described for us in
detail by an eye-witness, the late Dr. A. W. Howitt, one of the best
t authorities on the customs of the Australian aborigines. The scene selected
for the sacred drama was the bottom of a deep valley, where a sluggish
e stream wound through a bed of tall sharp-edged sedge. Though the hour
f was between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning, the sun had but just
h peeped over the mountains which enclosed the valley like a wall on the
east; and while the upper slopes, clothed with a forest of tall rowan trees,
looked warm and bright in sunshine, which shot between the grey stems and
under the light feathery foliage of the trees, all the bottom of the dell was
e still in deep shadow and dank with the moisture of the night's rain. While

e the novices rested and warmed themselves at a crackling fire, the initiated
men laid their heads together, prepared a stock of decorations made of
n stringy bark, and dug a grave. There was some discussion as to the shape of
e the grave, but the man who was to be buried in it decided the question by
e declaring that he [pg 236] would be laid in it on his back at full length. He
was a man of the eagle-hawk totem and belonged to the tribal subdivision
e called Yibai. So while two men under his directions were digging the grave
with sticks in the friable granitic soil, he superintended the costume of the
other actors in the drama. Sheets of bark were beaten out into fleeces of
stringy fibre, and in these garments six performers were clothed from head
to foot so that not even a glimpse could be obtained of their faces. Four of
them were tied together by a cord which was fastened to the back of their
heads, and each of them carried two pieces of bark in his hands. The other
two walked free, but hobbled along bent double and supporting their tottery
steps on staves to mark the weight of years; for they played the part of two
medicine-men of venerable age and great magical power. By this time the
grave was ready, and the eagle-hawk man stretched himself in it at full
length on a bed of leaves, his head resting on a rolled-up blanket, just as if
he were a corpse. In his two hands, crossed on his chest, he held the stem of
a young tree (Persoonia linearis), which had been pulled up by the roots
and now stood planted on his chest, so that the top of it rose several feet
above the level of the ground. A light covering of dried sticks filled the
grave, and dead leaves, tufts of grass, and small plants were artistically
arranged over them so as to complete the illusion. All being now ready, the
novices were led by their sisters' husbands to the grave and placed in a row
beside it, while a singer, perched on the trunk of a fallen tree at the head of
the grave, crooned a melancholy ditty, the song of Yibai. Though the words
of the song consisted merely of a monotonous repetition of the words
Burrin-burrin Yibai, that is, Stringy-bark Yibai, they were understood to
refer to the eagle-hawk totem, as well as to the tribal subdivision of the
buried man. Then to the slow, plaintive but well-marked air of the song the
actors began to move forward, winding among the trees, logs, and rocks.
On came the four disguised men, stepping in time to the music, swaying
from side to side, and clashing their bark clappers together at every step,
while beside them hobbled the two old men keeping a little aloof to mark
their superior dignity. They represented a [pg 237] party of medicine-men,
guided by two reverend seniors, who had come on pilgrimage to the grave

of a brother medicine-man, him of the eagle-hawk totem, who lay buried
here in the lonely valley, now illumined by the warm rays of the sun; for by
this time the morning was wearing on to noon. When the little procession,
chanting an invocation to Daramulun, had defiled from among the rocks
and trees into the open, it drew up on the side of the grave opposite to the
novices, the two old men taking up a position in the rear of the dancers. For
some time the dance and song went on till the tree that seemed to grow
from the grave began to quiver. “Look there!” cried the sisters' husbands to
the novices, pointing to the trembling leaves. As they looked, the tree
quivered more and more, then was violently agitated and fell to the ground,
while amid the excited dancing of the dancers and the chanting of the
tuneful choir the supposed dead man spurned from him the superincumbent
mass of sticks and leaves, and springing to his feet danced his magic dance
in the grave itself, and exhibited in his mouth the magic substances which
he was supposed to have received from Daramulun in person.624

In some tribes of Central and Northern Australia the initiation of a
medicine-man into the mysteries of his craft is supposed to be accomplished
e by certain spirits, who kill him, cut out his internal organs, and having
provided him with a new set bring him to life again. Sometimes the spirits
a kindly replace the man's human organs by their own spiritual organs;
sometimes along with the new organs they insert magical stones in his body
s or even a serpent, and the stones or the serpents naturally endow the new
wizards with marvellous powers. In some tribes the initiation takes place in
t a cave, where the spirits dwell. After the man has been restored to life with
e a new heart, a new pair of lungs, and so forth, he returns to his people in a
d more or less dazed condition, which his friends may at first mistake for
insanity, though afterwards they recognize [pg 238] its true character as
m inspiration.625 One eminent medical practitioner in the Unmatjera tribe
assured Messrs. Spencer and Gillen that when he came to himself after the
operation, which in his case was performed by an aged doctor, he had
completely forgotten who he was and all about his past life. After a time his
venerable friend led him back to the camp and shewed it to him, and said,
“That woman there is your wife,” for she had gone clean out of his head.626
We shall see presently that this temporary oblivion, a natural effect of the
shock to the nervous system produced by resuscitation from the dead, is
characteristic of novices under similar circumstances in other lands. Among

the Arunta of Alice Springs the cave where the mystic initiation takes place
is a limestone cavern in a range of hills which rises to the north of the wide
level expanse known as the Emily plain. None of the ordinary natives
would dare to set foot in the awful grotto, which they believe to extend for
miles into the bowels of the earth and to be tenanted by certain ancestral
spirits, who live there in perpetual sunshine and amid streams of running
water, an earthly paradise by contrast with the arid sun-scorched steppes
and barren mountains outside. White men have explored the cave, and if
they perceived no spirits, they found bats in plenty. The man who aspires to
the rank of a wizard lies down at the mouth of the cave and falls asleep; and
as he sleeps one of the ancestral spirits steals up to him and drives an
invisible spear through his neck from back to front. The point of the spear
comes out through the man's tongue, leaving a hole through which you
could put your little finger, and this hole the man retains for the rest of his
natural life, or at least so long as he retains his magical powers; for if the
hole should close up, these spiritual gifts and graces would depart from
him. A second thrust from the invisible spear transfixes the man's head from
ear to ear; he drops down dead, and is immediately transported into the
depths of the cavern, where the spirits dissect his dead body, extract the old
viscera, and [pg 239] replace them with a new set in the manner already
described.627

In this account of the manner in which medicine-men obtain their magical
powers not only are the supposed death and resurrection of the novice
worthy of attention, but also the exchange of internal organs which in the
n Binbinga and Mara tribes is supposed to be effected between the man and
the spirit;628 for this exchange resembles that which, on the theory I have
suggested, may be thought to take place between a lad and his totem at the
ceremonies of initiation which mark the momentous transition from
boyhood to manhood. Further, the bodily mutilation which is the visible
sign of the medicine-man's initiation (for however the hole may be made it
certainly exists in the tongues of regular Arunta practitioners) corresponds
to the bodily mutilations of other sorts, which in many savage tribes attest
to the world that the mutilated persons are fullgrown men. What the precise
meaning of such mutilations may be, still remains very obscure; but they
seem in some cases to be directly associated with the conception of death
and resurrection.

This association certainly comes out plainly in the rites of initiation through
which in some parts of New Guinea all lads must pass before they attain to
f the status of adults. The rites are observed by a group of tribes who occupy
contiguous territories about Finsch Harbour and Huon Gulf in German New
e Guinea. The tribes in question are the Yabim, the Bukaua, the Kai, and the
f Tami. All of them except the Kai belong to the Melanesian stock and are
therefore presumably immigrants from the adjoining islands; but the Kai,
who inhabit the rugged, densely wooded, and rainy mountains inland from
Finsch Harbour, belong to the aboriginal Papuan stock and differ from their
neighbours in speech as well as in appearance. Yet the [pg 240] rites of
initiation which all these tribes celebrate and the beliefs which they
associate with them are so similar that a single description will apply
accurately enough to them all. All of them, like many Australian tribes,
require every male member of the tribe to be circumcised before he ranks as
a full-grown man; and the tribal initiation, of which circumcision is the
central feature, is conceived by them, as by some Australian tribes, as a
a process of being swallowed and disgorged by a mythical monster, whose
voice is heard in the humming sound of the bull-roarer. Indeed the New
Guinea tribes not only impress this belief on the minds of women and
children, but enact it in a dramatic form at the actual rites of initiation, at
n which no woman or uninitiated person may be present. For this purpose a
f hut about a hundred feet long is erected either in the village or in a lonely
- part of the forest. It is modelled in the shape of the mythical monster; at the
end which represents his head it is high, and it tapers away at the other end.
A betel-palm, grubbed up with the roots, stands for the backbone of the
great being and its clustering fibres for his hair; and to complete the
resemblance the butt end of the building is adorned by a native artist with a
pair of goggle eyes and a gaping mouth. When after a tearful parting from
their mothers and women folk, who believe or pretend to believe in the
monster that swallows their dear ones, the awe-struck novices are brought
face to face with this imposing structure, the huge creature emits a sullen
growl, which is in fact no other than the humming note of bull-roarers
swung by men concealed in the monster's belly. The actual process of
deglutition is variously enacted. Among the Tami it is represented by
causing the candidates to defile past a row of men who hold bull-roarers
over their heads; among the Kai it is more graphically set forth by making
them pass under a scaffold on which stands a man, who makes a gesture of

swallowing and takes in fact a gulp of water as each trembling novice
passes beneath him. But the present of a pig, opportunely offered for the
redemption of the youth, induces the monster to relent and disgorge his
victim; the man who represents the monster accepts the gift vicariously, a
gurgling sound is heard, and [pg 241] the water which had just been
swallowed descends in a jet on the novice. This signifies that the young
man has been released from the monster's belly. However, he has now to
undergo the more painful and dangerous operation of circumcision. It
follows immediately, and the cut made by the knife of the operator is
explained to be a bite or scratch which the monster inflicted on the novice
in spewing him out of his capacious maw. While the operation is
proceeding, a prodigious noise is made by the swinging of bull-roarers to
represent the roar of the dreadful being who is in the act of swallowing the
young men.

When, as sometimes happens, a lad dies from the effect of the operation, he
is buried secretly in the forest, and his sorrowing mother is told that the
n monster has a pig's stomach as well as a human stomach, and that
e unfortunately her son slipped into the wrong stomach, from which it was
impossible to extricate him. After they have been circumcised the lads must
remain for some months in seclusion, shunning all contact with women and
even the sight of them. They live in the long hut which represents the
monster's belly; among the Yabim they beguile the tedium of this enforced
leisure by weaving baskets and playing on certain sacred flutes, which are
never used except on these occasions. The instruments are of two patterns.
One is called the male and the other the female; and they are believed to be
married to each other. No woman may see these mysterious flutes; if she
did, she would die. When the long seclusion is over, the lads, now ranking
as initiated men, are brought back with great pomp and ceremony to the
village, where they are received with sobs and tears of joy by the women, as
if the grave had given up its dead. At first the young men keep their eyes
rigidly closed or even sealed with a plaster of chalk, and they appear not to
understand the words of command which are given them by an elder.
Gradually, however, they come to themselves as if awaking from a stupor,
and next day they bathe and wash off the crust of white chalk with which
their bodies had been coated.629

[pg 242]

It is highly significant that all these tribes of New Guinea apply the same
word to the bull-roarer and to the monster, who is supposed to swallow the
novices at circumcision, and whose fearful roar is represented by the hum
of the harmless wooden instruments. The word in the speech of the Yabim
and Bukaua is balum; in that of the Kai it is ngosa; and in that of the Tami it
is kani. Further, it deserves to be noted that in three languages out of the
w four the same word which is applied to the bull-roarer and to the monster
means also a ghost or spirit of the dead, while in the fourth language (the
s Kai) it signifies “grandfather.” From this it seems to follow that the being
who swallows and disgorges the novices at initiation is believed to be a
powerful ghost or ancestral spirit, and that the bull-roarer, which bears his
t name, is his material representative. That would explain the jealous secrecy
with which the sacred implement is kept from the sight of women. While
they are not in use, the bull-roarers are stowed away in the men's club-
houses, which no woman may enter; indeed no woman or uninitiated person
may set eyes on a bull-roarer under pain of death.630 Similarly among the
Tugeri or Kaya-Kaya, a large Papuan tribe on the south coast of Dutch New
[pg 243] Guinea, the name of the bull-roarer, which they call sosom, is
given to a mythical giant, who is supposed to appear every year with the
south-east monsoon. When he comes, a festival is held in his honour and
bull-roarers are swung. Boys are presented to the giant, and he kills them,
but considerately brings them to life again.631

In certain districts of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands, the drama
of death and resurrection used to be acted with much solemnity before the
a eyes of young men at initiation. The ceremonies were performed in certain
h sacred precincts of oblong shape, enclosed by low walls or rows of stones
but open to the sky. Such a precinct was called a Nanga, and it might be
described as a temple dedicated to the worship of ancestors; for in it
sacrifices and prayers were offered to the ancestral spirits. For example, the
d first-fruits of the yam harvest were regularly presented with great ceremony
to the souls of the dead in the temple before the bulk of the crop was dug
n for the people's use, and no man might taste of the new yams until this
solemn offering had been made. The yams so offered were piled up in the
sacred enclosure and left to rot there; if any man were so bold as to eat of
e

632
f these dedicated fruits, it was believed that he would go mad. Any initiated
man had the right of approaching the ancestral spirits at any time in their
holy place, where he would pray to them for help and protection and
propitiate them by laying down his offering of a pig, or yams, or eels, or
cloth, or what not.633 Of these offerings perhaps the most curious was that of
the foreskins of young men, who were circumcised as a sort of vicarious
sacrifice or atonement for [pg 244] the recovery of a sick relative, it might
be either their father or one of their father's brothers. The bloody foreskins,
stuck in the cleft of a split reed, were presented to the ancestral gods in the
temple by the chief priest, who prayed for the sick man's recovery.634 The
temple or sacred enclosure was divided into two or three compartments by
cross walls of stones, and the inmost of these compartments was the Nanga-
tambu-tambu, or Holy of Holies.635

In these open-air temples of the dead the ceremony of initiating young men
was performed as a rule every year at the end of October or the beginning
of November, which was the commencement of the Fijian New Year; hence
e the novices who were initiated at that season went by the name of Vilavou
e or New Year's Men. The exact time for celebrating the rite was determined
by the flowering of the ndrala tree (Erythrina); but it roughly coincided
e with the New Year of the Tahitians and Hawaiians, who dated the
commencement of the year by observation of the Pleiades. The highlanders
of Fiji, who alone celebrated these rites, did not trouble their heads about
e the stars.636 As a preparation [pg 245] for the solemnity the heads of the
novices were shaved and their beards, if they had any, were carefully
eradicated. On four successive days they went in procession to the temple
and there deposited in the Holy of Holies their offerings of cloth and
weapons to the ancestral spirits. But on the fifth and great day of the
festival, when they again entered the sacred ground, they beheld a sight
which froze their souls with horror. Stretched on the ground was a row of
dead or seemingly dead and murdered men, their bodies cut open and
covered with blood, their entrails protruding. At the further end sat the High
Priest, regarding them with a stony glare, and to reach him the trembling
novices had to crawl on hands and knees over the ghastly blood-bedabbled
corpses that lay between. Having done so they drew up in a line before him.
Suddenly he blurted out a piercing yell, at which the counterfeit dead men
started to their feet and ran down to the river to cleanse themselves from the

blood and guts of pigs with which they were beslobbered. The High Priest
now unbent his starched dignity, and skipping from side to side cried in
stridulous tones, “Where are the people of my enclosure? Are they gone to
Tonga Levu? Are they gone to the deep sea?” He was soon answered by a
deep-mouthed chant, and back from the river marched the dead men come
to life, clean, fresh, and garlanded, swaying their bodies in time to the
music of their solemn hymn. They took their places in front of the novices
and a religious silence ensued. Such was the drama of death and
resurrection. It was immediately followed by a sacramental meal. Four old
men of the highest order of initiates now entered the Holy of Holies. The
first bore a cooked yam carefully wrapt up in leaves so that no part of it
should touch the hands of the bearer: the second carried a piece of baked
pork similarly enveloped: the third held a drinking-cup full of water and
wrapt round with native cloth; and the fourth bore a napkin of the same
stuff. The first elder passed along the row of novices putting the end of the
yam into each of their [pg 246] mouths, and as he did so each of them
nibbled a morsel of the sacred food: the second elder did the same with the
hallowed pork: the third elder followed with the holy water, with which
each novice merely wetted his lips; and the fourth elder wiped all their
mouths with his napkin. Then the high priest or one of the elders addressed
the young men, warning them solemnly against the sacrilege of betraying to
the profane vulgar any of the high mysteries which they had witnessed, and
threatening all such traitors with the vengeance of the gods. The general
intention of the initiatory rites seems to have been to introduce the young
men to the worshipful spirits of the dead at their temple, and to cement the
bond between them by a sacramental meal.637

The people of Rook, an island between New Guinea and New Britain, hold
festivals at which one or two disguised men, their heads covered with
wooden masks, go dancing through the village, followed by all the other
e men. They demand that the circumcised boys who have not yet been
f swallowed by Marsaba (the devil) shall be given up to them. The boys,
trembling and shrieking, are delivered to them, and must creep between the
legs of the disguised men. Then the procession moves through the village
e again, and announces that Marsaba has eaten up the boys, and will not
disgorge them till he receives a present of pigs, taro, and so forth. So all the
villagers, according to their means, contribute provisions, which are then

consumed in the name of Marsaba.638 In New Britain all males are members
e of an association called the Duk-duk. The boys are admitted to it very
young, but are not fully initiated till their fourteenth year, when they receive
from the Tubuvan or Tubuan a [pg 247] terrible blow with a cane, which is
f supposed to kill them. The Tubuan and the Duk-duk are two disguised men
- who represent cassowaries. They dance with a short hopping step in
n imitation of the cassowary. Each of them wears a huge hat like an
extinguisher, woven of grass or palm-fibres; it is six feet high, and descends
to the wearer's shoulders, completely concealing his head and face. From
the neck to the knees the man's body is hidden by a crinoline made of the
leaves of a certain tree fastened on hoops, one above the other. The Tubuan
e is regarded as a female, the Duk-duk as a male. The former is supposed to
e breed and give birth to the novices, who are accordingly looked upon as
newly born. The female masks are very plain compared with the male
masks. Two of them are regularly kept from year to year in order that they
may annually breed new Duk-duks. When they are wanted for this purpose
they are brought forth, decorated afresh, and provided with new leaf dresses
to match. According to one account, women and children may not look
upon one of these disguised men or they would die. So strong is this
superstition among them that they will run away and hide as soon as they
hear him coming, for they are aware of his approach through a peculiar
shrieking noise he utters as he goes along. In the district of Berara, where
red is the Duk-duk colour, the mere sight of a red cloth is enough to make
the women take to their heels. The common herd are not allowed to know
who the masker is. If he stumbles and his hat falls to the ground, disclosing
his face, or his crinoline is torn to tatters by the bushes, his attendants
immediately surround him to hide his person from the vulgar eye.
According to one writer, indeed, the performer who drops his mask, or lets
it fall so that the sharp point at the top sticks in the ground, is put to death.
The institution of the Duk-duk is common to the neighbouring islands of
New Ireland and the Duke of York.639

[pg 248]

Among the Galelareese and Tobelorese of Halmahera, an island to the west
of New Guinea, boys go through a form of initiation, part of which seems to
consist in a pretence of begetting them anew. When a number of boys have
n

reached the proper age, their parents agree to celebrate the ceremony at
e their common expense, and they invite others to be present at it. A shed is
erected, and two long tables are placed in it, with benches to match, one for
the men and one for the women. When all the preparations have been made
for a feast, a great many skins of the rayfish, and some pieces of a wood
which imparts a red colour to water, are taken to the shed. A priest or elder
causes a vessel to be placed in the sight of all the people, and then begins,
with significant gestures, to rub a piece of the wood with the ray-skin. The
powder so produced is put in the vessel, and at the same time the name of
one of the boys is called out. The same proceeding is repeated for each boy.
Then the vessels are filled with water, after which the feast begins. At the
third cock-crow the priest smears the faces and bodies of the boys with the
red water, which represents the blood shed at the perforation of the hymen.
Towards daybreak the boys are taken to the wood, and must hide behind the
largest trees. The men, armed with sword and shield, accompany them,
dancing and singing. The priest knocks thrice on each of the trees behind
which a boy is hiding. All day the boys stay in the wood, exposing
themselves to the heat of the sun as much as possible. In the evening they
bathe and return to the shed, where the women supply them with food.640

[pg 249]

In the west of Ceram boys at puberty are admitted to the Kakian
association.641 Modern writers have commonly regarded this association as
primarily a political league instituted to resist foreign domination. In reality
its objects are purely religious and social, though it is possible that the
priests may have occasionally used their powerful influence for political
ends. The society is in fact merely one of those widely-diffused primitive
f institutions, of which a chief object is the initiation of young men. In recent
years the true nature of the association has been duly recognized by the
f distinguished Dutch ethnologist, J. G. F. Riedel. The Kakian house is an
e oblong wooden shed, situated under the darkest trees in the depth of the
forest, and is built to admit so little light that it is impossible to see what
goes on in it. Every village has such a house. Thither the boys who are to be
initiated are conducted blindfold, followed by their parents and relations.
Each boy is led by the hand by two men, who act as his sponsors or
guardians, looking after him during the period of initiation. When all are

assembled before the shed, the high priest calls aloud upon the devils.
Immediately a hideous uproar is heard to proceed from the shed. It is made
by men with bamboo trumpets, who have been secretly introduced into the
building by a back door, but the women and children think it is made by the
devils, [pg 250] and are much terrified. Then the priests enter the shed,
followed by the boys, one at a time. As soon as each boy has disappeared
within the precincts, a dull chopping sound is heard, a fearful cry rings out,
and a sword or spear, dripping with blood, is thrust through the roof of the
shed. This is a token that the boy's head has been cut off, and that the devil
has carried him away to the other world, there to regenerate and transform
him. So at sight of the bloody sword the mothers weep and wail, crying that
the devil has murdered their children. In some places, it would seem, the
boys are pushed through an opening made in the shape of a crocodile's jaws
or a cassowary's beak, and it is then said that the devil has swallowed them.
The boys remain in the shed for five or nine days. Sitting in the dark, they
hear the blast of the bamboo trumpets, and from time to time the sound of
musket shots and the clash of swords. Every day they bathe, and their faces
and bodies are smeared with a yellow dye, to give them the appearance of
having been swallowed by the devil. During his stay in the Kakian house
each boy has one or two crosses tattooed with thorns on his breast or arm.
When they are not sleeping, the lads must sit in a crouching posture without
moving a muscle. As they sit in a row cross-legged, with their hands
stretched out, the chief takes his trumpet, and placing the mouth of it on the
hands of each lad, speaks through it in strange tones, imitating the voice of
the spirits. He warns the lads, under pain of death, to observe the rules of
the Kakian society, and never to reveal what has passed in the Kakian
house. The novices are also told by the priests to behave well to their blood
relations, and are taught the traditions and secrets of the tribe.

Meantime the mothers and sisters of the lads have gone home to weep and
mourn. But in a day or two the men who acted as guardians or sponsors to
the novices return to the village with the glad tidings that the devil, at the
intercession of the priests, has restored the lads to life. The men who bring
e this news come in a fainting state and daubed with mud, like messengers
freshly arrived from the nether world. Before leaving the Kakian house,
each lad receives from the priest a stick adorned at both ends with [pg 251]
cock's or cassowary's feathers. The sticks are supposed to have been given

to the lads by the devil at the time when he restored them to life, and they
serve as a token that the youths have been in the spirit land. When they
return to their homes they totter in their walk, and enter the house
backward, as if they had forgotten how to walk properly; or they enter the
house by the back door. If a plate of food is given to them, they hold it
upside down. They remain dumb, indicating their wants by signs only. All
this is to shew that they are still under the influence of the devil or the
spirits. Their sponsors have to teach them all the common acts of life, as if
they were new-born children. Further, upon leaving the Kakian house the
boys are strictly forbidden to eat of certain fruits until the next celebration
of the rites has taken place. And for twenty or thirty days their hair may not
be combed by their mothers or sisters. At the end of that time the high priest
takes them to a lonely place in the forest, and cuts off a lock of hair from
the crown of each of their heads. After these initiatory rites the lads are
deemed men, and may marry; it would be a scandal if they married before.

In the region of the Lower Congo a simulation of death and resurrection is,
or rather used to be, practised by the members of a guild or secret society
t called ndembo. The society had nothing to do with puberty or circumcision,
f though the custom of circumcision is common in the country. Young people
and adults of both sexes might join the guild; after initiation they were
y called “the Knowing Ones” (nganga). To found a branch of the society it
e was necessary to have an albino, who, whether a child, lad, or adult, was the
acknowledged head of the society.642 The ostensible reason for starting a
branch of the guild in a district was commonly an epidemic of sickness,
“and the [pg 252] idea was to go into ndembo to die, and after an indefinite
period, from a few months to two or three years, to be resurrected with a
new body not liable to the sickness then troubling the countryside. Another
reason for starting a ndembo was a dearth of children in a district. It was
believed that good luck in having children would attend those who entered
or died ndembo. But the underlying idea was the same, i.e. to get a ‘new
body’ that would be healthy and perform its functions properly.” The
quarters of the society were always a stockaded enclosure in a great thick
forest; a gate of planks painted yellow and red gave access to it, and within
there was an assemblage of huts. The place was fenced to keep intruders
from prying into the mysteries of the guild, and it was near water.
Uninitiated persons might walk on the public roads through the forest, but if

they were caught in bye-paths or hunting in the woods, they were flogged,
fined, and sometimes killed. They might not even look upon the persons of
those who had “died ndembo”; hence when these sanctified persons were
roving about the forest or going to the river, the booming notes of a drum
warned the profane vulgar to keep out of their way.

When the stockade and the huts in the forest were ready to receive all who
wished to put off the old man or woman and to put on the new, one of the
initiates gave the sign and the aspirant after the higher life dropped down
like dead in some public place, it might be the market or the centre of the
town where there were plenty of people to witness the edifying spectacle.
The initiates immediately spread a pall over him or her, beat the earth round
about the pretended corpse with plantain stalks, chanted incantations, fired
guns, and cut capers. Then they carried the seemingly dead body away into
the forest and disappeared with it into the stockade. The spectacle proved
infectious; one after another in the emotional, excitable crowd of negroes
followed the example, dropped down like dead, and were carried off,
sometimes in a real cataleptic state. In this way fifty to a hundred or more
novices might feign death and be transported into the sacred enclosure.
There they were supposed not only to die but to rot till only a single [pg
253] bone of their body remained, of which the initiated had to take the
greatest care in expectation of the joyful resurrection that was soon to
follow. However, though they were both dead and rotten, they consumed a
large quantity of food, which their credulous relatives brought to them in
baskets, toiling with the loads on their backs over the long paths through the
forest in the sweltering heat of the tropical day. If the relations failed to
discharge this pious and indispensable duty, their kinsman in the sacred
enclosure ran a risk of dying in good earnest, or rather of being spirited
away to a distant town and sold as a slave.

Shut up within the stockade for months or years, the men and women, boys
and girls, dispensed with the superfluity of clothes, rubbed their naked
bodies with red ochre or powdered camwood instead, and gave themselves
e up to orgies of unbridled lust. Some feeble attempts were made to teach
them the rudiments of a secret language, but the vocabulary was small and
its principles lacking in ingenuity. The time during which this seclusion
lasted might vary from three months to three years. When the circumstances

which had furnished the pretext for instituting the society had passed away,
whether it was that the epidemic had died out or that the birth-rate had
sensibly increased, murmurs would begin to be heard among friends and
relatives in the town, who did not see why they should be taxed any longer
to support a set of idle and dissolute ruffians in the forest, and why they
should trudge day after day in the sweat of their brow to carry provisions to
them. So the supplies would begin to run short, and whenever that
happened the mystery of the resurrection was sure to follow very soon after.

Accordingly it would be announced that on a certain market-day the new
initiates, now raised from the dead, would reveal themselves in all their
glory to the astonished gaze of the public. The glad tidings were received
e with enthusiasm, and crowds assembled from all the country round about to
welcome those who had come back from the world beyond the grave. When
all were gathered in eager expectancy in the market-place, the sounds of
e distant music would be heard, and soon the gay procession would defile
into the open square and march round it, while the dusky skins, reddened
y with camwood [pg 254] powder, glistened in the sunshine, the gay garments
fluttered in the wind, and the tassels of palm-leaf fibre dangled at every
arm. In the crowd of spectators many parents would recognize their
children in the marching figures of the procession, and girls and boys would
point out their brothers and sisters and eagerly call out their names. But in
the stolid faces of the initiates not an eye would gleam with recognition, not
a muscle would twitch with an involuntary expression of delight; for having
just been raised from the dead they were supposed to know nothing of their
former life, of friends and relations, of home and country. There might be in
the crowd a mother or a sister not seen for years; or, more moving still, the
novice might look in vain for loved and remembered faces that would never
be seen in the market-place again. But whatever his feelings might be, he
must rigidly suppress them under pain of a flogging, a fine, or even death.
At last the parade was over and the procession broke up. Then the old hands
introduced the new hands to their own parents and brothers and sisters, to
their old homes and haunts. For still the novices kept up the pretence that
everything was new and strange to them, that they could not speak their
mother tongue, that they did not know their own fathers and mothers, their
own town and their own houses; nay that they had forgotten even how to eat
their food. So everything and everybody had to be shewn to them and their

names and meanings explained. Their guides would lead them about the
town, pointing out the various roads and telling where they led to—this one
to the watering-place on the river, this to the forest, that to the farms, and so
on: they would take up the commonest domestic utensils and shew what
they were used for: they would even chew the food and put it into the
mouths of the novices, like mother birds feeding their callow young. For
some time afterwards the resuscitated persons, attended by their mentors,
would go about the town and the neighbourhood acting in a strange way
like children or mad folk, seizing what they wanted and trying to beat or
even kill such as dared to refuse them anything. Their guardian would
generally restrain these sallies; but sometimes he would arrange with [pg
255] his hopeful pupils to be out of sight when two or three of them clubbed
together to assault and rob an honest man, and would only return in time to
share the booty. After a while, however, the excitement created by the
resurrection would wear off; the dead folk come to life were expected to
have learned their lessons, and if they forgot themselves, their memory was
promptly refreshed by the law.643

[pg 256]

The following account of the rites, as practised in this part of Africa, was
given to Adolf Bastian by an interpreter. “The great fetish lives in the
interior of the forest-land, where nobody sees him and nobody can see him.
f When he dies, the fetish priests carefully collect his bones in order to bring
l them to life again, and they nourish them, that he may be clothed anew in
h flesh and blood. But it is not good to speak of it. In the land of Ambamba
every one must die once, and when the fetish priest shakes his calabash
against a village, all the men and lads whose hour is come fall into a state of
t lifeless torpidity, from which they generally arise after three days. But if the
fetish loves a man he carries him away into the bush and buries him in the
fetish house, often for many years. When he comes to life again, he begins
to eat and drink as before, but his understanding is gone and the fetish man
must teach him and direct him in every motion, like the smallest child. At
first this can only be done with a stick, but gradually his senses return, so
that it is possible to talk with him, and when his education is complete, the
priest brings him back to his parents. They would seldom recognize their
son but for the express assurances of the fetish priest, who moreover recalls

previous events to their memory. He who has not gone through the
ceremony of the new birth in Ambamba is universally looked down upon
and is not admitted to the dances.”644

In the same part of Africa we hear of a fetish called Malassi, the votaries of
which form a secret order of the usual sort with a variety of ranks to which
the initiates are promoted. “The candidate is plunged into a magic sleep
a within the temple-hut, and while he sleeps he beholds a bird or other object
with which his existence is henceforth [pg 257] sympathetically bound up,
r just as the life of the young Indian is bound up with the animal which he
sees in his dream at puberty. All who have been born again at initiation,
a after their return to a normal state, bear the name of Swamie (a sacred
designation also in India) or, if they are women, Sumbo (Tembo), and wear
as a token the ring called sase, which consists of an iron hoop with a fruit
attached to it.”645 Similarly among the Fans of the Gaboon a young warrior
acquires his guardian spirit by dreaming. He is secluded in the forest, drinks
a fermented and intoxicating liquor, and smokes hemp. Then he falls into a
heavy sleep, and next morning he must describe exactly to the fetish priest
the animal, tree, mineral, or whatever it may have been which he saw in his
dream. This magical dream is repeated on three successive nights; and after
that the young man is sent forth by the priest to seek and bring back the
beast, bird, reptile, or whatever it was of which he dreamed. The youth
obeys, reduces the animal or thing to cinders or ashes, and preserves these
calcined remains as a talisman which will protect him against many
dangers.646 However, in these rites there is no clear simulation of dying and
coming to life again.

Rites of death and resurrection were formerly observed in Quoja, on the
west coast of Africa, to the north of the Congo. They are thus described by
an old writer:—“They have another ceremony which they call Belli-Paaro,
f but it is not for everybody. For it is an incorporation in the assembly of the
l spirits, and confers the right of entering their groves, that is to say, of going
h and eating the offerings which the simple folk bring thither. The initiation
or admission to the Belli-Paaro is celebrated every twenty or twenty-five
years. The initiated recount marvels of the ceremony, saying that they are
e roasted, that they entirely change their [pg 258] habits and life, and that
they receive a spirit quite different from that of other people and quite new

lights. The badge of membership consists in some lines traced on the neck
between the shoulders; the lines seem to be pricked with a needle. Those
who have this mark pass for persons of spirit, and when they have attained a
certain age they are allowed a voice in all public assemblies; whereas the
uninitiated are regarded as profane, impure, and ignorant persons, who dare
not express an opinion on any subject of importance. When the time for the
ceremony has come, it is celebrated as follows. By order of the king a place
is appointed in the forest, whither they bring the youths who have not been
marked, not without much crying and weeping; for it is impressed upon the
youths that in order to undergo this change it is necessary to suffer death.
So they dispose of their property, as if it were all over with them. There are
always some of the initiated beside the novices to instruct them. They teach
them to dance a certain dance called killing, and to sing verses in praise of
Belli. Above all, they are very careful not to let them die of hunger, because
if they did so, it is much to be feared that the spiritual resurrection would
profit them nothing. This manner of life lasts five or six years, and is
comfortable enough, for there is a village in the forest, and they amuse
themselves with hunting and fishing. Other lads are brought thither from
time to time, so that the last comers have not long to stay. No woman or
uninitiated person is suffered to pass within four or five leagues of the
sacred wood. When their instruction is completed, they are taken from the
wood and shut up in small huts made for the purpose. Here they begin once
more to hold communion with mankind and to talk with the women who
bring them their food. It is amusing to see their affected simplicity. They
pretend to know no one, and to be ignorant of all the customs of the
country, such as the customs of washing themselves, rubbing themselves
with oil, and so forth. When they enter these huts, their bodies are all
covered with the feathers of birds, and they wear caps of bark which hang
down before their faces. But after a time they are dressed in clothes and
taken to a great open place, where all the people of the neighbourhood [pg
259] are assembled. Here the novices give the first proof of their capacity
by dancing a dance which is called the dance of Belli. After the dance is
over, the novices are taken to the houses of their parents by their
instructors.”647

Miss Kingsley informs us that “the great point of agreement between all
these West African secret societies lies in the methods of initiation. The boy,

if he belongs to a tribe that goes in for tattooing, is tattooed, and is handed
over to instructors in the societies' secrets and formulae. He lives, with the
other boys of his tribe undergoing initiation, usually under the rule of
several instructors, and for the space of one year. He lives always in the
forest, and is naked and smeared with clay. The boys are exercised so as to
become inured to hardship; in some districts, they make raids so as to
perfect themselves in this useful accomplishment. They always take a new
t name, and are supposed by the initiation process to become new beings in
n the magic wood, and on their return to their village at the end of their
course, they pretend to have entirely forgotten their life before they entered
the wood; but this pretence is not kept up beyond the period of festivities
given to welcome them home. They all learn, to a certain extent, a new
language, a secret language only understood by the initiated. The same
removal from home and instruction from initiated members is observed also
with the girls. However, in their case, it is not always a forest-grove they are
secluded in, sometimes it is done in huts. Among the Grain Coast tribes,
however, the girls go into a magic wood until they are married. Should they
have to leave the wood for any temporary reason, they must smear
themselves with white clay. A similar custom holds good in Okÿon, Calabar
district, where, should a girl have to leave the fattening-house, she must be
covered with white clay.”648

Among the natives of the Sherbro, an island lying close [pg 260] to the
coast of Sierra Leone, there is a secret society called the purra or poro,
“which is partly of a religious, but chiefly of a political nature. It resembles
free-masonry in excluding females, and in obliging every member by a
a solemn oath, which I believe is seldom violated, not to divulge the sacred
mysteries, and to yield a prompt and implicit obedience to every order of
f their superiors. Boys of seven or eight years of age are admitted, or rather
serve a novitiate until they arrive at a proper age; for it is difficult to
procure exact information, and even somewhat dangerous to make many
w inquiries. Every person on entering the society lays aside his former name
e and assumes a new one; to call him by his old name would produce a
a dispute. They have a superior or head purra man, assisted by a grand
council, whose commands are received with the most profound reverence
f and absolute submission, both by the subordinate councils and by
individuals. Their meetings are held in the most retired spots, amid the

h gloom of night, and carried on with inquisitorial secrecy. When the purra
comes into a town, which is always at night, it is accompanied with the
most dreadful howlings, screams, and other horrid noises. The inhabitants,
t who are not members of the society, are obliged to secure themselves within
doors; should any one be discovered without, or attempting to peep at what
is going forward, he would inevitably be put to death. To restrain the
curiosity of the females, they are ordered to continue within doors, clapping
their hands incessantly, so long as the purra remains. Like the secret
tribunal, which formerly existed in Germany, it takes cognizance of
offences, particularly of witchcraft and murder, but above all of contumacy
and disobedience in any of its own members, and punishes the guilty with
death in so secret and sudden a manner, that the perpetrators are never
known: indeed, such is the dread created by this institution, that they are
never even inquired after.”649 When the members of the purra or [pg 261]
poro society visit a town, the leader of the troop, whom an English writer
calls “the Poro devil,” draws discordant notes from a sort of reed flute, the
holes of which are covered with spiders' webs. The only time when this
devil and his rout make a prolonged stay in the town is on the evening
before the day on which the newly initiated lads are to be brought back
from the forest. Then the leader and his satellites parade the streets for
hours, while all the uninitiated men, women, and children remain shut up in
their houses, listening to the doleful strains of the flute, which signify that
the devil is suffering the pangs of childbirth before he brings forth the
initiated lads; for he is supposed to have been pregnant with them the whole
of the rainy season ever since they entered into the forest. When they come
forth from the wood, they wear four or five coils of twisted ferns round
their waists in token of their being initiated members of the order.650 Among
the Soosoos of Senegambia there is a similar secret society called semo:
“the natives who speak English call it African masonry. As the whole
ceremonies are kept very private, it is difficult to discover in what they
consist: but it is said that the novices are met in the woods by the old men,
who cut marks on several parts of their bodies, but most commonly on the
belly; they are also taught a language peculiar to the semo, and swear
dreadful oaths never to divulge the secrets revealed to them. The young
men are then made to live in the woods for twelve months, and are
supposed to be at liberty to kill any one who approaches and does not
understand the language of the semo.... It is said, when women are so

unfortunate as to intrude upon the semo, they kill them, cut off their breasts,
and hang them up by the side of the paths as a warning [pg 262] to others.
This circumstance is perhaps less deserving of credit, because the Soosoos
are fond of telling wonderful and horrid stories respecting this institution.
They say, for instance, that when first initiated their throats are cut, and they
continue dead for some time; at length they are reanimated and initiated
into the mysteries of the institution, and are enabled to ramble about with
much more vigour than they possessed before.”651

While the belief or the pretence of death and resurrection at initiation is
common among the negroes of West Africa, few traces of it appear to be
f found among the tribes in the southern, central, and eastern parts of that
w continent; and it is notable that in these regions secret societies, which
flourish in the West, are also conspicuously absent. However, the Akikuyu
e of British East Africa “have a curious custom which requires that every boy
just before circumcision must be born again. The mother stands up with the
h boy crouching at her feet; she pretends to go through all the labour pains,
and the boy on being reborn cries like a babe and is washed. He lives on
milk for some days afterwards.”652 A fuller description of the ceremony was
given by a member of the Kikuyu tribe as follows: “A day is appointed, any
time of year, by father and mother. If the father is dead another elder is
called in to act as proxy in his stead, or if the mother is not living another
woman to act in her place. Any woman thus acting as representative is
looked upon in future by the boy as his own mother. A goat or sheep is
killed in the afternoon by any one, usually not by the father, and the
stomach and intestines reserved. The ceremony begins in the evening. A
piece of skin is cut in a circle, and passed over one shoulder of the
candidate and under the other arm. The stomach of the goat is similarly
treated and passed over the other shoulder and under the other arm. All the
boy's ornaments are removed, but not his clothes. No men are allowed
inside the hut, but women are present. The mother sits on a hide on the floor
with the boy between [pg 263] her knees. The sheep's gut is passed round
the woman and brought in front of the boy. The woman groans as in labour,
another woman cuts the gut, and the boy imitates the cry of a new-born
infant. The women present all applaud, and afterwards the assistant and the
mother wash the boy. That night the boy sleeps in the same hut as the
mother.”653 Here the cutting of the sheep's gut, which unites the mother to

the boy, is clearly an imitation of severing the navel string. Nor is it boys
alone who are born again among the Akikuyu. “Girls go through the rite of
second birth as well as boys. It is sometimes administered to infants. At one
time the new birth was combined with circumcision, and so the ceremony
admitted to the privileges and religious rites of the tribe. Afterwards trouble
took place on account of mere boys wishing to take their place alongside of
the young men and maintaining they were justified in doing so. The old
men then settled the matter by separating the two. Unless the new birth has
been administered the individual is not in a position to be admitted to
circumcision, which is the outward sign of admittance to the nation. Any
who have not gone through the rite cannot inherit property, nor take any
part in the religious rites of the country.”654 For example, a man who has not
been born again is disqualified for carrying his dying father out into the
wilds and for disposing of his body after death. The new birth seems to take
place usually about the tenth year, but the age varies with the ability of the
father to provide a goat, whose guts are necessary to enable the boy or girl
to be born again in due form.655

Among the Bondeis, a tribe on the coast of German East Africa, opposite to
the island of Pemba, one of the rites of initiation into manhood consists in a
f pretence of [pg 264] slaying one of the lads with a sword; the entrails of a
fowl are placed on the boy's stomach to make the pretence seem more
e real.656 Among the Bushongo, who inhabit a district of the Belgian Congo
f bounded on the north and east by the Sankuru River and on the west by the
Kasai, young boys had formerly to undergo certain rites of initiation,
amongst which a simulation of killing them would seem to have had a
f place, though in recent times the youths have been allowed to escape the
ordeal by the payment of a fine. The supreme chief of the tribe, who in old
e days bore the title of God on Earth (Chembe Kunji), used to assemble all the
lads who had just reached puberty and send them away into the forest,
e where they remained for several months under the care of one of his sons.
During their seclusion they were deemed unclean and might see no one; if
t they chanced to meet a woman, she had to flee before them. By night the
old men marched round the quarters of the novices, raising hideous cries
and whirling bull-roarers, the noise of which the frightened lads took to be
the voices of ghosts. They wore nothing but a comb, and passed their
leisure hours in learning to make mats and baskets. After about a month

t they had to submit to the first ordeal. A trench about ten feet deep was dug
e in the ground and roofed over with sticks and earth so as to form a dark
tunnel. In the sides of the tunnel were cut niches, and in each niche a man
e took post, whose business it was to terrify the novices. For this purpose one
of them was disguised in the skin of a leopard, a second was dressed as a
warrior with a knife in his hand, a third was a smith with his furnace and
red-hot irons, and a fourth was masked to look like an ugly ape, while he
too gripped a knife in his hand. The novices generally recoiled in dismay
from each of these apparitions, and it was only by means of reiterated taunts
and threats that the elders forced them to traverse the whole length of the
tunnel. After the lapse of another month the youths had to face another
ordeal of a similar character. A low tunnel, about three feet deep, was dug in
the earth, and sticks were inserted [pg 265] in it so that their tops projected
from the surface of the ground. At the end of the tunnel a calabash was set
full of goat's blood. By way of encouraging the timid novices the master of
the ceremonies himself crawled through the tunnel, his progress under
ground being revealed to the novices above ground by the vibrations of the
sticks with which he collided in the dark passage. Then having bedabbled
his nose, his mouth, and all the rest of his body with the goat's blood, he
emerged from the tunnel on hands and knees, dripping with gore and to all
appearance in the last stage of exhaustion. Then he lay prostrate on his
stomach in a state of collapse; the elders declared him to be dead and
carried him off. The chief now ordered the lads to imitate the example set
them by the master of the ceremonies, but they begged and prayed to be
excused. At first the chief was inexorable, but in time he relented and
agreed to accept a fine of so many cowries as a ransom paid by the youths
for exemption from the ordeal. A month later the last of the ordeals took
place. A great trunk of a tree was buried with its lower end in the earth and
surrounded for three-quarters of its circumference with arrows stuck in the
ground so that the barbs were pointed towards the tree. The chief and the
leading men sat down at the gap in the circle of arrows, so as to conceal the
gap from the eyes of the novices and other spectators, among whom the
women were allowed to be present. To the eyes of the uninitiated it now
seemed that the tree was surrounded by a bristling hedge of arrows, to fall
upon which would be death. All being ready the master of the ceremonies
climbed the tree amid breathless silence, and having reached the top, which
was decorated with a bunch of leaves, he looked about him and asked the

women, “Shall I come down?” “No! no!” they shrieked, “you will be killed
by the arrows.” Then, turning disdainfully from these craven souls, the
gallant man addressed himself to the youths and repeated his question,
“Shall I come down?” A shout of “Yes!” gave the answer that might have
been expected from these heroic spirits. In response the master of the
ceremonies at once slid down the tree and, dropping neatly to the ground
just at the gap in the hedge of arrows, presented himself unscathed to the
gaze of the excited assembly. The chief [pg 266] now ordered the young
men to go up and do likewise. But the dauntless courage with which they
had contemplated the descent of the master of the ceremonies entirely
forsook them when it came to their turn to copy his shining example. Their
mothers, too, raised a loud cry of protest, joining their prayers and
entreaties to those of their hopeful sons. After some discussion the chief
consented to accept a ransom, and the novices were dispensed from the
ordeal. Then they bathed and were deemed to have rid themselves of their
uncleanness, but they had still to work for the chief for three months before
they ranked as full-grown men and might return to their villages.657

Among the Indians of Virginia, an initiatory ceremony, called Huskanaw,
took place every sixteen or twenty years, or oftener, as the young men
f happened to grow up. The youths were kept in solitary confinement in the
woods for several months, receiving no food but an infusion of some
e intoxicating roots, so that they went raving mad, and continued in this state
f eighteen or twenty days. “Upon this occasion it is pretended that these poor
creatures drink so much of the water of Lethe that they perfectly lose the
f remembrance of all former things, even of their parents, their treasure, and
their language. When the doctors find that they have drunk sufficiently of
the Wysoccan (so they call this mad potion), they gradually restore them to
y their senses again by lessening the intoxication of their diet; but before they
are perfectly well they bring them back into their towns, while they are still
wild and crazy through the violence of the medicine. After this they are
very fearful of discovering anything of their former remembrance; for if
such a thing should happen to any of them, they must immediately be
Huskanaw'd again; and the second time the usage is so severe that seldom
any one escapes with life. Thus they must pretend to have forgot the very
use of their tongues, so as not to be able to speak, nor understand anything
that is spoken, till they learn it again. Now, whether this be real or

counterfeit, I don't know; but certain it is that they [pg 267] will not for
some time take notice of anybody nor anything with which they were
before acquainted, being still under the guard of their keepers, who
constantly wait upon them everywhere till they have learnt all things
perfectly over again. Thus they unlive their former lives, and commence
men by forgetting that they ever have been boys.”658

Among some of the Indian tribes of North America there exist certain
religious associations which are only open to candidates who have gone
f through a pretence of being killed and brought to life again. In 1766 or 1767
d Captain Jonathan Carver witnessed the admission of a candidate to an
association called “the friendly society of the Spirit” (Wakon-Kitchewah)
t among the Naudowessies, a Siouan or Dacotan tribe in the region of the
great lakes. The candidate knelt before the chief, who told him that “he
e himself was now agitated by the same spirit which he should in a few
moments communicate to him; that it would strike him dead, but that he
would instantly be restored again to life; to this he added, that the
h communication, however terrifying, was a necessary introduction to the
advantages enjoyed by the community into which he was on the point of
being admitted. As he spoke this, he appeared to be greatly agitated; till at
last his emotions became so violent, that his countenance was distorted, and
n his whole frame convulsed. At this juncture he threw something that
appeared both in shape and colour like a small bean, at the young man,
h which seemed to enter his mouth, and he instantly fell as motionless as if he
had been shot.” For a time the man lay like dead, but under a shower of
blows he shewed signs of consciousness, and finally, discharging from his
l mouth the bean, or whatever it was that the chief had thrown at him, he
h came to life.659 In other tribes, for example, the [pg 268] Ojebways,
Winnebagoes, and Dacotas or Sioux, the instrument by which the candidate
is apparently slain is the medicine-bag. The bag is made of the skin of an
t animal (such as the otter, wild cat, serpent, bear, raccoon, wolf, owl,
weasel), of which it roughly preserves the shape. Each member of the
e society has one of these bags, in which he keeps the odds and ends that
make up his “medicine” or charms. “They believe that from the
miscellaneous contents in the belly of the skin bag or animal there issues a
spirit or breath, which has the power, not only to knock down and kill a
man, but also to set him up and restore him to life.” The mode of killing a

man with one of these medicine-bags is to thrust it at him; he falls like
dead, but a second thrust of the bag restores him to life.660 Among the
Dacotas the institution of the medicine-bag or mystery-sack was attributed
to Onktehi, the great spirit of the waters, who ordained that the bag should
consist of the skin of the otter, raccoon, weasel, squirrel, or loon, or a
species of fish and of serpents. Further, he decreed that the bag should
contain four sorts of medicines of magical qualities, which should represent
fowls, quadrupeds, herbs, and trees. Accordingly, swan's down, buffalo hair,
grass roots, and bark from the roots of trees are kept by the Dacotas in their
medicine-bags. From this combination there proceeds a magical influence
(tonwan) so powerful that no human being can of his own strength
withstand it. When the god of the waters had prepared the first medicine-
bag, he tested its powers on four candidates for initiation, who all perished
under the shock. So he consulted with his wife, the goddess of the earth,
and by [pg 269] holding up his left hand and pattering on the back of it with
the right, he produced myriads of little shells, whose virtue is to restore life
to those who have been slain by the medicine-bag. Having taken this
precaution, the god chose four other candidates and repeated the experiment
of initiation with success, for after killing them with the bag he immediately
resuscitated them by throwing one of the shells into their vital parts, while
he chanted certain words assuring them that it was only sport and bidding
them rise to their feet. That is why to this day every initiated Dacota has one
of these shells in his body. Such was the divine origin of the medicine-
dance of the Dacotas. The initiation takes place in a special tent. The
candidate, after being steamed in a vapour-bath for four successive days,
plants himself on a pile of blankets, and behind him stands an aged member
of the order. “Now the master of the ceremonies, with the joints of his knees
and hips considerably bent, advances with an unsteady, uncouth hitching,
sack in hand, wearing an aspect of desperate energy, and uttering his ‘Heen,
heen, heen’ with frightful emphasis, while all around are enthusiastic
demonstrations of all kinds of wild passions. At this point the sack is raised
near a painted spot on the breast of the candidate, at which the tonwan is
discharged. At the instant the brother from behind gives him a push and he
falls dead, and is covered with blankets. Now the frenzied dancers gather
around, and in the midst of bewildering and indescribable noises, chant the
words uttered by the god at the institution of the ceremony, as already
recorded. Then the master throws off the covering, and chewing a piece of

the bone of the Onktehi, spirts it over him, and he begins to show signs of
returning life. Then as the master pats energetically upon the breast of the
initiated person, he, convulsed, strangling, struggling, and agonizing,
heaves up the shell which falls from his mouth on a sack placed in readiness
to receive it. Life is restored and entrance effected into the awful mysteries.
He belongs henceforth to the medicine-dance, and has a right to enjoy the
medicine-feast.”661

[pg 270]

A ceremony witnessed by the castaway John R. Jewitt during his captivity
among the Indians of Nootka Sound doubtless belongs to this class of
f customs. The Indian king or chief “discharged a pistol close to his son's ear,
who immediately fell down as if killed, upon which all the women of the
house set up a most lamentable cry, tearing handfuls of hair from their
e heads, and exclaiming that the prince was dead; at the same time a great
f number of the inhabitants rushed into the house armed with their daggers,
muskets, etc., enquiring the cause of their outcry. These were immediately
followed by two others dressed in wolf skins, with masks over their faces
representing the head of that animal. The latter came in on their hands and
feet in the manner of a beast, and taking up the prince, carried him off upon
their backs, retiring in the same manner they entered.”662 In another place
Jewitt mentions that the young prince—a lad of about eleven years of age—
wore a mask in imitation of a wolf's head.663 Now, as the Indians of this part
of America are divided into totem clans, of which the Wolf clan is one of
the principal, and as the members of each clan are in the habit of wearing
some portion of the totem animal about their person,664 it is probable that
the prince belonged to the Wolf clan, and that the ceremony described by
Jewitt represented the killing of the lad in order that he might be born anew
as a wolf, much in the same way that the Basque hunter supposed himself to
have been killed and to have come to life again as a bear.

This conjectural explanation of the ceremony has, since it was first put
forward, been confirmed by the researches of Dr. Franz Boas among these
f Indians; though it would seem [pg 271] that the community to which the
d chief's son thus obtained admission was not so much a totem clan as a
secret society called Tlokoala, whose members imitated wolves. The name
t

Tlokoala is a foreign word among the Nootka Indians, having been
e borrowed by them from the Kwakiutl Indians, in whose language the word
means the finding of a manitoo or personal totem. The Nootka tradition
f runs that this secret society was instituted by wolves who took away a
chief's son and tried to kill him, but, failing to do so, became his friends,
taught him the rites of the society, and ordered him to teach them to his
friends on his return home. Then they carried the young man back to his
village. They also begged that whenever he moved from one place to
n another he would kindly leave behind him some red cedar-bark to be used
by them in their own ceremonies; and to this custom the Nootka tribes still
adhere. Every new member of the society must be initiated by the wolves.
At night a pack of wolves, personated by Indians dressed in wolf-skins and
e wearing wolf-masks, make their appearance, seize the novice, and carry
him into the woods. When the wolves are heard outside the village, coming
to fetch away the novice, all the members of the society blacken their faces
and sing, “Among all the tribes is great excitement, because I am Tlokoala.”
Next day the wolves bring back the novice dead, and the members of the
society have to revive him. The wolves are supposed to have put a magic
stone into his body, which must be removed before he can come to life. Till
this is done the pretended corpse is left lying outside the house. Two
wizards go and remove the stone, which appears to be quartz, and then the
novice is resuscitated.665 Among the Niska Indians of British Columbia,
who are divided into four principal clans with the raven, the wolf, the eagle,
and the bear for their respective totems, the novice at initiation is always
brought back by an artificial totem animal. Thus when a [pg 272] man was
about to be initiated into a secret society called Olala, his friends drew their
knives and pretended to kill him. In reality they let him slip away, while
they cut off the head of a dummy which had been adroitly substituted for
him. Then they laid the decapitated dummy down and covered it over, and
the women began to mourn and wail. His relations gave a funeral banquet
and solemnly burnt the effigy. In short, they held a regular funeral. For a
whole year the novice remained absent and was seen by none but members
of the secret society. But at the end of that time he came back alive, carried
by an artificial animal which represented his totem.666

In these ceremonies the essence of the rite appears to be the killing of the
novice in his character of a man and his restoration to life in the form of the

animal which is thenceforward to be, if not his guardian spirit, at least
linked to him in a peculiarly intimate relation. It is to be remembered that
e the Indians of Guatemala, whose life was bound up with an animal, were
supposed to have the power of appearing in the shape of the particular
e creature with which they were thus sympathetically united.667 Hence it
seems not unreasonable to conjecture that in like manner the Indians of
British Columbia may imagine that their life depends on the life of some
d one of that species of creature to which they assimilate themselves by their
n costume. At least if that is not an article of belief with the Columbian
Indians of the present day, it may very well have been so with their
ancestors in the past, and thus may have helped to mould the rites and
n ceremonies both of the totem clans and of the [pg 273] secret societies. For
though these two sorts of communities differ in respect of the mode in
which membership of them is obtained—a man being born into his totem
clan but admitted into a secret society later in life—we can hardly doubt
that they are near akin and have their root in the same mode of thought.668
That thought, if I am right, is the possibility of establishing a sympathetic
relation with an animal, a spirit, or other mighty being, with whom a man
deposits for safe-keeping his soul or some part of it, and from whom he
receives in return a gift of magical powers.

The Carrier Indians, who dwell further inland than the tribes we have just
been considering, are divided into four clans with the grouse, the beaver, the
toad, and the grizzly bear for their totems. But in addition to these clan
totems the tribe recognized a considerable number of what Father Morice
e calls honorific totems, which could be acquired, through the performance of
certain rites, by any person who wished to improve his social position. Each
totem clan had a certain number of honorific totems or crests, and these
might be assumed by any member of the clan who fulfilled the required
e conditions; but they could not be acquired by members of another clan.
Thus the Grouse clan had for its honorific totems or crests the owl, the
a moose, the weasel, the crane, the wolf, the full moon, the wind, and so on;
the Toad clan had the sturgeon, the porcupine, the wolverine, the red-
headed woodpecker, the “darding knife,” and so forth; the Beaver clan had
the mountain-goat for one of its [pg 274] honorific totems; and the goose
was a honorific totem of the Grizzly Bear clan. But the common bear, as a
a honorific totem or crest, might be assumed by anybody, whatever his clan.

The common possession of a honorific totem appears to have constituted
the same sort of bond among the Carrier Indians as the membership of a
secret society does among the coast tribes of British Columbia; certainly the
h rites of initiation were similar. This will be clear from Father Morice's
account of the performances, which I will subjoin in his own words. “The
connection of the individual with his crest appeared more especially during
t ceremonial dances, when the former, attired, if possible, with the spoils of
the latter, was wont to personate it in the gaze of an admiring assemblage.
On all such occasions, man and totem were also called by the same name.
The adoption of any such 'rite' or crest was usually accompanied by
initiatory ceremonies or observances corresponding to the nature of the
crest, followed in all cases by a distribution of clothes to all present. Thus
whenever anybody resolved upon getting received as Lulem or Bear, he
would, regardless of the season, divest himself of all his wearing apparel
and don a bear-skin, whereupon he would dash into the woods there to
remain for the space of three or four days and nights in deference to the
wonts of his intended totem animal. Every night a party of his fellow-
villagers would sally out in search of the missing ‘bear.’ To their loud calls:
Yi! Kelulem (Come on, Bear!) he would answer by angry growls in
imitation of the bear. The searching party making for the spot where he had
been heard, would find by a second call followed by a similar answer that
he had dexterously shifted to some opposite quarter in the forest. As a rule,
he could not be found, but had to come back of himself, when he was
speedily apprehended and conducted to the ceremonial lodge, where he
would commence his first bear-dance in conjunction with all the other
totem people, each of whom would then personate his own particular totem.
Finally would take place the potlatch [distribution of property] of the newly
initiated ‘bear,’ who would not forget to present his captor with at least a
whole dressed skin. The initiation to the ‘Darding Knife’ was quite a
theatrical performance. A lance was prepared [pg 275] which had a very
sharp point so arranged that the slightest pressure on its tip would cause the
steel to gradually sink into the shaft. In the sight of the multitude crowding
the lodge, this lance was pressed on the bare chest of the candidate and
apparently sunk in his body to the shaft, when he would tumble down
simulating death. At the same time a quantity of blood—previously kept in
the mouth—would issue from the would-be corpse, making it quite clear to
the uninitiated gazers-on that the terrible knife had had its effect, when lo!

upon one of the actors striking up one of the chants specially made for the
circumstance and richly paid for, the candidate would gradually rise up a
new man, the particular protégé of the ‘Darding Knife.’ ”669

In the former of these two initiatory rites of the Carrier Indians the
prominent feature is the transformation of the man into his totem animal; in
the latter it is his death and resurrection. But in substance, probably, both
e are identical. In both the novice dies as a man and revives as his totem,
whether that be a bear, a “darding” knife, or what not; in other words, he
has deposited his life or some portion of it in his totem, with which
accordingly for the future he is more or less completely identified. Hard as
it may be for us to conceive why a man should choose to identify himself
f with a knife, whether “darding” or otherwise, we have to remember that in
Celebes it is to a chopping-knife or other iron tool that the soul of a woman
in labour is transferred for safety;670 and the difference between a chopping-
knife and a “darding” knife, considered as a receptacle for a human soul, is
r perhaps not very material. Among the Thompson Indians of British
Columbia warriors who had a knife, an arrow, or any other weapon for their
personal totem or guardian spirit, enjoyed this signal advantage over their
fellows that they were for all practical purposes invulnerable. If an arrow
did hit them, which seldom happened, they vomited [pg 276] the blood up,
and the hurt soon healed. Hence these arrow-proof warriors rarely wore
armour, which would indeed have been superfluous, and they generally
took the most dangerous posts in battle. So convinced were the Thompson
Indians of the power of their personal totem or guardian spirit to bring them
back to life, that some of them killed themselves in the sure hope that the
spirit would immediately raise them up from the dead. Others, more
prudently, experimented on their friends, shooting them dead and then
awaiting more or less cheerfully their joyful resurrection. We are not told
that success crowned these experimental demonstrations of the immortality
of the soul.671

The Toukaway Indians of Texas, one of whose totems is the wolf, have a
ceremony in which men, dressed in wolf-skins, run about on all fours,
howling and mimicking wolves. At last they scratch up a living tribesman,
e who has been buried on purpose, and putting a bow and arrows in his
hands, bid him do as the wolves do—rob, kill, and murder.672 The ceremony

probably forms part of an initiatory rite like the resurrection from the grave
of the old man in the Australian rites.

The simulation of death and resurrection or of a new birth at initiation
appears to have lingered on, or at least to have left traces of itself, among
f peoples who have advanced far beyond the stage of savagery. Thus, after
f his investiture with the sacred thread—the symbol of his order—a Brahman
d is called “twice born.” Manu says, “According to the injunction of the
revealed texts the first birth of an [pg 277] Aryan is from his natural mother,
g the second happens on the tying of the girdle of Muñga grass, and the third
on the initiation to the performance to a Srauta sacrifice.”673 A pretence of
killing the candidate perhaps formed part of the initiation to the Mithraic
mysteries.674

Thus, on the theory here suggested, wherever totemism is found, and
wherever a pretence is made of killing and bringing to life again the novice
at initiation, there may exist or have existed not only a belief in the
r possibility of permanently depositing the soul in some external object—
animal, plant, or what not—but an actual intention of so doing. If the
t question is put, why do men desire to deposit their life outside their bodies?
n the answer can only be that, like the giant in the fairy tale, they think it safer
e to do so than to carry it about with them, just as people deposit their money
with a banker rather than carry it on their persons. We have seen that at
f critical periods the life or soul is sometimes temporarily stowed away in a
t safe place till the danger is past. But institutions like totemism are not
resorted to merely on special occasions of danger; they are systems into
e which every one, or at least every male, is obliged to be initiated at a certain
r period of life. Now the period of life at which initiation takes place is
e regularly puberty; and this fact suggests that the special danger which
totemism and systems like it are intended to obviate is supposed not to arise
till sexual maturity has been attained, in fact, that the danger apprehended is
believed to attend the relation of the sexes to each other. It would be easy to
prove by a long array of facts that the sexual relation is associated in the
primitive mind with many serious perils; but the exact nature of the danger
apprehended is still [pg 278] obscure. We may hope that a more exact
e acquaintance with savage modes of thought will in time disclose this central
f

mystery of primitive society, and will thereby furnish the clue, not only to
totemism, but to the origin of the marriage system.

[pg 279]

Chapter XII. The Golden Bough.

Thus the view that Balder's life was in the mistletoe is entirely in harmony
with primitive modes of thought. It may indeed sound like a contradiction
that, if his life was in the mistletoe, he should nevertheless have been killed
r by a blow from the plant. But when a person's life is conceived as embodied
n in a particular object, with the existence of which his own existence is
inseparably bound up, and the destruction of which involves his own, the
object in question may be regarded and spoken of indifferently as his life or
his death, as happens in the fairy tales. Hence if a man's death is in an
object, it is perfectly natural that he should be killed by a blow from it. In
the fairy tales Koshchei the Deathless is killed by a blow from the egg or
the stone in which his life or death is secreted;675 the ogres burst when a
certain grain of sand—doubtless containing their life or death—is carried
over their heads;676 the magician dies when the stone in which his life or
death is contained is put under his pillow;677 and the Tartar hero is warned
that he may be killed by the golden arrow or golden sword in which his soul
has been stowed away.678

[pg 280]

The idea that the life of the oak was in the mistletoe was probably
suggested, as I have said, by the observation that in winter the mistletoe
w growing on the oak remains green while the oak itself is leafless. But the
e position of the plant—growing not from the ground but from the trunk or
branches of the tree—might confirm this idea. Primitive man might think
that, like himself, the oak-spirit had sought to deposit his life in some safe
f place, and for this purpose had pitched on the mistletoe, which, being in a
k sense neither on earth nor in heaven, might be supposed to be fairly out of
e harm's way. In the first chapter we saw that primitive man seeks to preserve
the life of his human divinities by keeping them poised between earth and
heaven, as the place where they are least likely to be assailed by the dangers

e that encompass the life of man on earth. We can therefore understand why it
f has been a rule both of ancient and of modern folk-medicine that the
mistletoe should not be allowed to touch the ground; were it to touch the
ground, its healing virtue would be gone.679 This may be a survival of the
e old superstition that the plant in which the life of the sacred tree was
concentrated should not be exposed to the risk incurred by contact with the
earth. In an Indian legend, which offers a parallel to the Balder myth, Indra
swore to the demon Namuci that he would slay him neither by day nor by
d night, neither with staff nor with bow, neither with the palm of the hand nor
with the fist, neither with the wet nor with the dry. But he killed him in the
morning twilight by sprinkling over him the foam of the sea.680 The foam of
the sea is just such [pg 281] an object as a savage might choose to put his
life in, because it occupies that sort of intermediate or nondescript position
between earth and sky or sea and sky in which primitive man sees safety. It
is therefore not surprising that the foam of the river should be the totem of a
clan in India.681

Again, the view that the mistletoe owes its mystic character partly to its not
growing on the ground is confirmed by a parallel superstition about the
mountain-ash or rowan-tree. In Jutland a rowan that is found growing out of
the top of another tree is esteemed “exceedingly effective against
witchcraft: since it does not grow on the ground witches have no power
over it; if it is to have its full effect it must be cut on Ascension Day.”682
a Hence it is placed over doors to prevent the ingress of witches.683 In Sweden
and Norway, also, magical properties are ascribed to a “flying-rowan”
(flögrönn), that is to a rowan which is found growing not in the ordinary
fashion on the ground but on another tree, or on a roof, or in a cleft of the
rock, where it has sprouted from seed scattered by birds. They say that a
man who is out in the dark should have a bit of “flying-rowan” with him to
chew; else he runs a risk of being bewitched and of being unable to stir
from the spot.684 A Norwegian story relates how once on a time a Troll so
bewitched some men who were ploughing in a field that they could not
drive a straight furrow; only one of the ploughmen was able to resist the
enchantment because by good luck his plough was made out of a “flying-
rowan.”685 In Sweden, too, the “flying-rowan” is used to make the divining
rod, which discovers hidden treasures. This useful art has nowadays
unfortunately [pg 282] been almost forgotten, but three hundred years ago it

was in full bloom, as we gather from the following contemporary account.
“If in the woods or elsewhere, on old walls or on high mountains or rocks
you perceive a rowan-tree (runn) which has sprung from a seed that a bird
has dropped from its bill, you must either knock or break off that rod or tree
in the twilight between the third day and the night after Ladyday. But you
must take care that neither iron nor steel touches it and that in carrying it
home you do not let it fall on the ground. Then place it under the roof on a
spot under which you have laid various metals, and you will soon be
surprised to see how that rod under the roof gradually bends in the direction
of the metals. When your rod has sat there in the same spot for fourteen
days or more, you take a knife or an awl, which has been stroked with a
magnet, and with it you slit the bark on all sides, and pour or drop the blood
of a cock (best of all the blood from the comb of a cock which is all of one
colour) on the said slits in the bark; and when the blood has dried, the rod is
ready and will give public proof of the efficacy of its marvellous
properties.”686 Just as in Scandinavia the parasitic rowan is deemed a
countercharm to sorcery, so in Germany the parasitic mistletoe is still
commonly considered a protection against witchcraft, and in Sweden, as we
saw, the mistletoe which is gathered on Midsummer Eve is attached to the
ceiling of the house, the horse's stall or the cow's crib, in the belief that this
renders the Troll powerless to injure man or beast.687

[pg 283]

The view that the mistletoe was not merely the instrument of Balder's death,
but that it contained his life, is countenanced by the analogy of a Scottish
f superstition. Tradition ran that the fate of the Hays of Errol, an estate in
s Perthshire, near the Firth of Tay, was bound up with the mistletoe that grew
on a certain great oak. A member of the Hay family has recorded the old
d belief as follows: “Among the low country families the badges are now
h almost generally forgotten; but it appears by an ancient MS. and the
tradition of a few old people in Perthshire, that the badge of the Hays was
the mistletoe. There was formerly in the neighbourhood of Errol, and not far
from the Falcon stone, a vast oak of an unknown age, and upon which grew
a profusion of the plant: many charms and legends were considered to be
connected with the tree, and the duration of the family of Hay was said to
be united with its existence. It was believed that a sprig of the mistletoe cut

by a Hay on Allhallowmas eve, with a new dirk, and after surrounding the
tree three times sunwise, and pronouncing a certain spell, was a sure charm
against all glamour or witchery, and an infallible guard in the day of battle.
A spray gathered in the same manner was placed in the cradle of infants,
and thought to defend them from being changed for elf-bairns by the fairies.
Finally, it was affirmed, that when the root of the oak had perished, ‘the
grass should grow in the hearth of Errol, and a raven should sit in the
falcon's nest.’ The two most unlucky deeds which could be done by one of
the name of Hay were, to kill a white falcon, and to cut down a limb from
the oak of Errol. When the old tree was destroyed I could never learn. The
estate has been some time sold out of the family of Hay, and of course it is
said that the fatal oak was cut down a short time before.”688 The old
superstition is recorded in verses which are traditionally ascribed to Thomas
the Rhymer:—

“While the mistletoe bats on Errol's aik,
And that aik stands fast,
The Hays shall flourish, and their good grey hawk
Shall nocht flinch before the blast.
[pg 284]
But when the root of the aik decays,
And the mistletoe dwines on its withered breast,
The grass shall grow on Errol's hearthstane,
689
And the corbie roup in the falcon's nest.”

The idea that the fate of a family, as distinct from the lives of its members,
is bound up with a particular plant or tree, is no doubt comparatively
f modern. The older view may have been that the lives of all the Hays were in
this particular mistletoe, just as in the Indian story the lives of all the ogres
are in a lemon; to break a twig of the mistletoe would then have been to kill
e one of the Hays. Similarly in the island of Rum, whose bold mountains the
f voyager from Oban to Skye observes to seaward, it was thought that if one
of the family of Lachlin shot a deer on the mountain of Finchra, he would
die suddenly or contract a distemper which would soon prove fatal.690
Probably the life of the Lachlins was bound up with the deer on Finchra, as

the life of the Hays was bound up with the mistletoe on Errol's oak, and the
life of the Dalhousie family with the Edgewell Tree.

It is not a new opinion that the Golden Bough was the mistletoe.691 True,
Virgil does not identify but only compares [pg 285] it with mistletoe. But
this may be only a poetical device to cast a mystic glamour over the humble
plant. Or, more probably, his description was based on a popular
superstition that at certain times the mistletoe blazed out into a supernatural
golden glory. The poet tells how two doves, guiding Aeneas to the gloomy
n vale in whose depth grew the Golden Bough, alighted upon a tree, “whence
d shone a flickering gleam of gold. As in the woods in winter cold the
mistletoe—a plant not native to its tree—is green with fresh leaves and
twines its yellow berries about the boles; such seemed upon the shady
holm-oak the leafy gold, so rustled in the gentle breeze the golden leaf.”692
Here Virgil definitely describes the Golden Bough as growing on a holm-
oak, and compares it with the mistletoe. The inference is almost inevitable
that the Golden Bough was nothing but the mistletoe seen through the haze
of poetry or of popular superstition.

Now grounds have been shewn for believing that the priest of the Arician
grove—the King of the Wood—personified the tree on which grew the
e Golden Bough.693 Hence if that tree was the oak, the King of the Wood must
have been a personification of the oak-spirit. It is, therefore, easy to
understand why, before he could be slain, it was necessary to break the
Golden Bough. As an oak-spirit, his life or death was in the mistletoe on the
oak, and so long as the mistletoe remained intact, he, like Balder, could not
g die. To slay him, therefore, it was necessary to break the mistletoe, and
e probably, as in the case of Balder, to throw it at him. And to complete the
t parallel, it is only necessary to suppose that the King of the Wood was
y formerly burned, dead or alive, at the midsummer fire festival which, as we
have seen, was annually celebrated in the Arician grove.694 The perpetual
fire which burned in the grove, like the perpetual [pg 286] fire which
k burned in the temple of Vesta at Rome and under the oak at Romove,695 was
d probably fed with the sacred oak-wood; and thus it would be in a great fire
n of oak that the King of the Wood formerly met his end. At a later time, as I
k have suggested, his annual tenure of office was lengthened or shortened, as
the case might be, by the rule which allowed him to live so long as he could

prove his divine right by the strong hand. But he only escaped the fire to
fall by the sword.

Thus it seems that at a remote age in the heart of Italy, beside the sweet
Lake of Nemi, the same fiery tragedy was annually enacted which Italian
r merchants and soldiers were afterwards to witness among their rude
kindred, the Celts of Gaul, and which, if the Roman eagles had ever
e swooped on Norway, might have been found repeated with little difference
among the barbarous Aryans of the North. The rite was probably an
essential feature in the ancient Aryan worship of the oak.696
e
It only remains to ask, Why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough?697
The whitish-yellow of the mistletoe berries is hardly enough to account for
ef the name, for Virgil says that the bough was altogether golden, stem as well
ne as leaves.698 Perhaps the name may be derived from the rich golden yellow
which a bough of mistletoe assumes when it has been cut and kept for some
months; the bright tint is not confined to the leaves, but spreads to the stalks
e as well, so that the whole branch appears to be indeed a Golden Bough.
Breton peasants hang up [pg 287] great bunches of mistletoe in front of
their cottages, and in the month of June these bunches are conspicuous for
the bright golden tinge of their foliage.699 In some parts of Brittany,
especially about Morbihan, branches of mistletoe are hung over the doors of
t stables and byres to protect the horses and cattle,700 probably against
e witchcraft.

The yellow colour of the withered bough may partly explain why the
e mistletoe has been sometimes supposed to possess the property of
disclosing treasures in the earth;701 for on the principles of homoeopathic
ne magic there is a natural affinity between a yellow bough and yellow gold.
This suggestion is confirmed by the analogy of the marvellous properties
popularly ascribed to the mythical fern-seed or fern-bloom. We saw that
fern-seed is popularly supposed to bloom like gold or fire on Midsummer
y Eve.702 Thus in Bohemia it is said that “on St. John's Day fern-seed blooms
with golden blossoms that gleam like fire.”703 Now it is a property of this
e mythical fern-seed that whoever has it, or will ascend a mountain holding it
s in his hand on Midsummer Eve, will discover a vein of gold or will see the
treasures of the earth shining with a bluish flame.704 In Russia they say that

if you [pg 288] succeed in catching the wondrous bloom of the fern at
e midnight on Midsummer Eve, you have only to throw it up into the air, and
it will fall like a star on the very spot where a treasure lies hidden.705 In
Brittany treasure-seekers gather fern-seed at midnight on Midsummer Eve,
and keep it till Palm Sunday of the following year; then they strew the seed
706
t on ground where they think a treasure is concealed. Tyrolese peasants
m imagine that hidden treasures can be seen glowing like flame on
d Midsummer Eve, and that fern-seed, gathered at this mystic season, with
707
d the usual precautions, will help to bring the buried gold to the surface. In
l the Swiss canton of Freiburg people used to watch beside a fern on St.
John's night in the hope of winning a treasure, which the devil himself
sometimes brought to them.708 In Bohemia they say that he who procures
the golden bloom of the fern at this season has thereby the key to all hidden
treasures; and that if maidens will spread a cloth under the fast-fading
bloom, red gold will drop into it.709 And in the Tyrol and Bohemia if you
place fern-seed among money, the money will never decrease, however
much of it you spend.710 Sometimes the [pg 289] fern-seed is supposed to
711
t bloom on Christmas night, and whoever catches it will become very rich.
m In Styria they say that by gathering fern-seed on Christmas night you can
force the devil to bring you a bag of money.712 In Swabia likewise you can,
by taking the proper precautions, compel Satan himself to fetch you a
e packet of fern-seed on Christmas night. But for four weeks previously, and
during the whole of the Advent season, you must be very careful never to
f pray, never to go to church, and never to use holy water; you must busy
yourself all day long with devilish thoughts, and cherish an ardent wish that
the devil would help you to get money. Thus prepared you take your stand,
between eleven and twelve on Christmas night, at the meeting of two roads,
over both of which corpses have been carried to the churchyard. Here many
people meet you, some of them dead and buried long ago, it may be your
parents or grandparents, or old friends and acquaintances, and they stop and
greet you, and ask, “What are you doing here?” And tiny little goblins hop
and dance about and try to make you laugh. But if you smile or utter a
single word, the devil will tear you to shreds and tatters on the spot. If,
however, you stand glum and silent and solemn, there will come, after all
the ghostly train has passed by, a man dressed as a hunter, and that is the
devil. He will hand you a paper cornet full of fern-seed, which you must
keep and carry about with you as long as you live. It will give you the