 Chapters 8 and 9 of the Golden Bau. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Monsbruhe Helsingfors Finland. The Golden Bau by Sir James Frazier. Chapter 8. Departmental Kings of Nature. The preceding investigation has proved that the same union of sacred functions with the royal title, which meets us in the king of the wood at Nimi, the sacrificial king at Rome, and the magistrate called the king at Athens, occurs frequently outside the limits of classical antiquity, and is a common feature of societies at all stages from barbarism to civilisation. Further, it appears that the royal priest is often a king, not only in name but in fact, swaying the sceptre as well as the crochet. All this confirms the traditional view of the origin of the titular and priestly kings in the republics of ancient Greece and Italy, at least by showing that the combination of spiritual and temporal power of which Greco-Italian tradition preserved the memory has actually existed in many places. We have obviated any suspicion of improbability that might have attached to the tradition. Therefore, we may now fairly ask, may not the king of the wood have had an origin like that, which a probable tradition assigns to the sacrificial king of Rome and the titular king of Athens? In other words, may not his predecessors in office have been a line of kings whom a republican revolution stripped of their political power, leaving them only their religious functions and the shadow of a crown? There are at least two reasons for answering this question in the negative. One reason is drawn from the abode of the priest of Nemi, the other from his title, the king of the wood. If his predecessors had been kings in the ordinary sense, he would surely have been found residing, like the fallen kings of Rome and Athens, in the city of which the sceptre had passed from him. This city must have been a Riccia, for there was none nearer, but a Riccia was three miles off from his forest sanctuary by the lake shore. If he reigned, it was not in the city, but in the green wood. Again, his title, king of the wood, hardly allows us to suppose that he had ever been a king in the common sense of the word. More likely he was a king of nature, and of a special side of nature, namely the woods from which he took his title. If we could find instances of what we may call departmental kings of nature, that is, a person supposed to rule over particular elements or aspects of nature, they would probably present a closer analogy to the king of the wood than the divine kings we have been hitherto considering, whose control of nature is general rather than special. Instances of such departmental kings are not wanting. On a hill at Bomba near the mouth of the Congo, dwells Nambulu Vumu, king of the rain and storm. Of some of the tribes on the upper Nile we are told that they have no kings in the common sense, and the only persons whom they acknowledge as kings are the kings of the rain, Matakudo, who are credited with the power of giving rain at the proper time, that is, the rainy season. Before the rains begin to fall at the end of March, the country is a parched and added desert, and the cattle, which form the people's cheap wealth, perish for lack of grass. So, when the end of March draws on, each householder betakes himself to the king of the rain and offers him a cow that he may make the blizzard waters of heaven to drip on the brown and withered pastures. If no shower falls, the people assemble and demand that the king shall give them rain, and if the sky still continues cloudless, they rip up his belly in which he is believed to keep the storms. Amongst the barry tribe, one of these rain kings make rain by sprinkling water on the ground out of a handbell. Among tribes on the outskirts of Abyssinia, a similar office exists, and has been thus described by an observer. The priesthood of the Alphae, as he is called by the Barea and Kunama, is a remarkable one, he is believed to be able to make rain. This office formerly existed among the Al-Gids and appears to be still common to the Nuba Negroes. The Alphae of the Barea, who is also consulted by the northern Kunama, lives near Timbadire on a mountain alone with his family. The people bring him tribute in formal clothes and fruits, and cultivate for him a large field of his own. He is a kind of king, and his office passes by inheritance to his brother or sister's son. He is supposed to conjure down rain to drive away the locusts, but if he disappoints the people's expectation, and the great draught rises in the land, the Alphae is stoned to death, and his nearest relations are obliged to cast the first stone at him. When we pass through the country, the office of Alphae was still held by an old man, but I heard that rain-making had proved too dangerous for him, and the theater announced his office. In the backwoods of Cambodia live two mysterious sovereigns known as the King of the Fire and the King of the Water. Their fame is spread all over the south of the great Indo-Chinese peninsula, but only a faint echo of it has reached the west. Down to a few years ago, no European, so far as is known, had ever seen either of them, and their very existence might have passed for a fable. But it not that the lately communications were regularly maintained between them and the King of Cambodia, who year by year exchanged presents with them. Their royal functions are of a purely mystical or spiritual order. They have no political authority, they are simple peasants living by the sweat of their brow and the offerings of the faithful. According to one account, they live in absolute solitude, never meeting each other and never seeing a human face. They inhabit successively seven towers perched upon seven mountains, and every year they pass from one tower to another. People come furtively and cast within their reach what is needful for their subsistence. The kingship lasts seven years, the time necessary to inhabit all the towers successively, but many die before their time is out. The offices are hereditary in one or, according to others, two royal families, who enjoy a high consideration, have revenues assigned to them and are exempt from the necessity of tilling the ground. But naturally the dignity is not coveted, and when a vacancy occurs, all eligible men, they must be strong and have children, flee and hide themselves. Another account, admitting the reluctance of the hereditary candidates to accept the crown, does not countenance the report of the ermite-like seclusion in the seven towers. For it represents the people as prostrating themselves before the mystic kings whenever they appear in public, it being thought that a terrible hurricane would burst over the country if this mark of homage were omitted. Like many other sacred kings of whom we shall read in the sequel, the kings of fire and water are not allowed to die natural death, for that would lower their reputation. Accordingly, when one of them is seriously ill, the elders hold a consultation, and if they think he cannot recover, they stab him to death. His bodies burned and the ashes are piously collected and publicly honoured for five years. Part of them is given to the widow, and she keeps them in an urn, which she must carry on her back when she goes to weep on her husband's grave. We are told that the Fire King, the more important of the two, whose supernatural powers have never been questioned, officiates at marriages, festivals and sacrifices in honour of the young or spirit. On these occasions a special place is set apart for him, and the path by which he approaches is spread with white cotton cloths. A reason for confining the royal dignity to the same family is that this family is in possession of certain famous talismans, which would lose their virtue or disappear if they passed out of the family. These talismans are three. The fruit of a creeper called Kui, gathered ages ago at the time of the last deluge, was still fresh and green, a ratten, also very old, but bearing flowers that never fade, and lastly a sword containing a young or spirit who guards it constantly and works miracle with it. The spirit is said to be that of a slave whose blood chanced to fall upon the blade while it was being forged, and who died a voluntary death to expiate his involuntary offence. By means of the two former talismans, the Water King can raise a flood that would drown the whole earth. If the Fire King draws the magic sword a few inches from its sheath, the sun is hidden and men and beasts fall into a profound sleep, where he to draw it quite out of the scabbard, the world would come to an end. The this wondrous brand sacrifices of buffaloes, pigs, fowls and ducks are offered for rain. It is kept swathered in cotton and silk, and amongst the annual presents sent by the King of Cambodia were rich stuffs to wrap with the sacred sword. Contrary to the common usage of the country, which is to bury the dead, the bodies of both these mystic monarchs have burned, but their nails and some of their teeth and bones are religiously preserved as amulets. It is while the corpse is being consumed on the pyre that the kinsmen of the deceased magician flee to the forest and hide themselves for fear of being elevated to the invidious dignity which he has just vacated. The people go in search for them, and the first whose lurking place they discover is made King of Fire or Water. These, then, are examples of what I have called departmental kings of nature, but it is a far cry to Italy from the forests of Cambodia and the sources of denial. And though kings of rain, water and fire have been found, we have still to discover King of the Wood to match the Erichian priest who bore that title. Perhaps we shall find him nearer home. End of chapter 8. Chapter 9. The Worship of Trees. 1. Tree Spirits In the religious history of the Aryan race in Europe, the worship of trees has played an important part. Nothing could be more natural. For at the dawn of history Europe was covered with immense primeval forests in which the scattered clearings must have appeared like isolates in an ocean of green. Down to the first century before our era, the Hercunian forests stretched eastward from the Rhine for a distance at once vast and unknown. Germans whom Caesar questioned had travelled for two months through it without reaching the end. Four centuries later it was visited by the Emperor Julian and the solitude, the gloom, the silence of the forest appears to have made a deep impression on his sensitive nature. He declared that he knew nothing like it in the Roman Empire. In our own country, the wheels of Kent, Suri and Sussex are remnants of the great forests of Anderida, which once clothed the whole of the southeastern portion of the island. Westward it seems to have stretched till it joined another forest that extended from Hampshire to Devon. In the reign of Henry II, the citizens of London still hunted the wild bull and the boar in the woods of Hampstead. Even under the later Plantagenets, the royal forests were sixty-eight in number. In the Forest of Arden it was said that down to modern times a squirrel might leap from three to three for nearly the whole length of a Warwickshire. The excavation of ancient pile villages in the valley of the poor has shown that long before the rise and probability foundation of Rome, north of Italy was covered with dense woods of elms, chestnuts and especially of oaks. Archaeology is here confirmed by history, for classic writers contain many references to Italian forests which have now disappeared, as late as the fourth century before our era, Rome was divided from central Etruria by the dreaded Chimenean forest, which Levy compares to the woods of Germany. No merchant, if we may trust the Roman historian, had ever penetrated its pathless solitudes and it was deemed the most daring feat when a Roman general, after sending two scouts to explore its intricacies, led his army into the forest and, making his way to a ridge of the wooded mountains, looked down on the rich Etrurian fields spread out below. In Greece, beautiful woods of pine, oak and other trees still linger on the slopes of the high Arcadian mountains, still adorned with the averture, the deep gorge through which the ladon hurries to join the sacred alphas and were still, down to a few years ago, mirrored in the dark blue waters of the lonely lake of Pinyos, but there are mere fragments of the forests which clothe great tracts in antiquity and which, at a more remote epoch, may have spanned the Greek peninsula from sea to sea. From an examination of the Teutonic words for temple, Grimm has made it probable that amongst the Germans the oldest sanctuaries were natural woods. However, that may be, three worship is well attested for all the great European families of the Aryan stock. Amongst the Celts, the oak worship of the Druids is familiar to everyone, and their old word for sanctuary seems to be identical in origin and meaning with the Latin Nimus, a grove of woodland glade which still survives in the name of Nimi. Sacred groves were common among the ancient Germans and three worship is hardly extinct among their descendants at the present day. How serious that worship was in former times may be gathered from the ferocious penalty appointed by the old German laws for such as dared to peel the bark of a standing tree. The culprit's navel was to be cut out and nailed to the part of the tree which he had peeled, and he was to be driven round and round the tree till all his guts were wound about its trunk. The intentional punishment clear was to replace the dead bark my living substitute taken from the culprit. It was a life for a life, the life of a man, for the life of a tree. At Uppsala, the old religious capital of Sweden, there was a sacred grove in which every tree was regarded as divine. The hidden Slavs worshiped trees and groves. The Lithuanians were not converted to Christianity till towards the close of the 14th century, and amongst them at the date of their conversion the worship of trees was prominent. Some of them revered remarkable oaks and other great shady trees, from which they received oracular responses. Some maintained holy groves about their villages or houses, were even to break a twig would have been a sin. They thought that he who cut a bow in such a grove either died suddenly or was crippled in one of his limbs. Proofs of the prevalence of tree worship in ancient Greece and Italy are abundant. In the Sanctuary of Esculapius at Koss, for example, it was forbidden to cut down the cypress trees under the penalty of a thousand drachmas. But nowhere perhaps, in the ancient world, was this antique form of religion better preserved within the heart of the great metropolis itself. In the Forum, the busy center of Roman life, the sacred fig tree of Romulus was worshipped down to the days of the empire and the withering of its trunk was enough to spread consternation through the city. Again, on the slope of the Palatine hill, grew a cornel tree which was esteemed one of the most sacred objects in Rome. Whenever the tree appeared to a passerby to be drooping, he set up a hue and cry which was echoed by the people on the street and soon a crowd might be seen running helter-skelter from all sides in buckets of water, as if, says Plutarch, they were hastening to put out a fire. Among the tribes of the Finnish Eugrian stock in Europe, the heathen worship was performed for the most part in sacred groves which were always enclosed with a fence. Such a grove often consisted merely of a glade or clearing with a few trees dotted about upon which in former times the skins of the sacrificial victims were hung. The central point of the grove, at least among the tribes of the Volga, was the sacred tree besides which everything else sank into insignificance. Before it, the worshippers assembled and the priest offered his prayers. At its root the victim was sacrificed and its bows sometimes served as a pulpit. No wood might be hewn and no branch broken in the grove and the women were generally forbidden to enter it. But it is necessary to examine in some detail the notions on which the worship of trees and plants is based. To the savage the world in general is animate and trees and plants are no exception to this rule. He thinks that they have souls like his own and he treats them accordingly. They say, writes the ancient vegetarian porphyry, that primitive men led an unhappy life for their superstition did not stop at animals but extended even to plants. For why should the slaughter of an ox or a sheep make a greater wrong than the felling of a fur or an oak, seeing that the soul is implanted in these trees also? Similarly, the Hidatsa Indians of North America believe that every natural object has its spirit or to speak more properly its shade. Do these shades some consideration or respect this due? But not equal at all. For example, the shade of the cottonwood, the greatest tree in the valley of the Upper Misuri, is supposed to possess an intelligence which, if properly approached, may help the Indians in certain undertakings. But the shades of shrubs and grasses are of little account. When the Misuri, swollen by a freshet in spring, carries away parts of its banks and sweeps some tall tree into its current, it is said that the spirit of the tree cries while the roots still cling to the land and until the tree falls with a splash into the stream. Formerly the Indians considered it wrong to fell one of these giants and when large logs were needed, they may use only of trees which had fallen of themselves. Till lately some of the more credulous old men declared that many of the misfortunes of their people were caused by this modern disregard for the rights of the living cottonwood. The Iroquois believe that each species of tree, shrub, plant and herb had its own spirit, and to these spirits it was their custom to return thanks. The Wanika of Eastern Africa fancied that every tree and especially every coconut tree has its spirit. The destruction of the coconut tree is regarded as equivalent to matricide because that tree gives them life and nourishment as a mother does her child. Siamese monks believe that there are souls everywhere and that to destroy anything whatever is forcibly to dispossess a soul will not break a branch of a tree as they will not break the arm of an innocent person. These monks of course are Buddhists. But Buddhist animism is not a philosophical theory it is simply a common savage dogma incorporated in the system of an historical religion. To suppose with Ben III and others that the theories of animism and transmigration current among rude peoples of Asia are derived from Buddhism is to reverse the facts. Sometimes it is only particular sorts of trees that are supposed to be tenanted by spirits. At Gribalj in Dalmatia it is said that among great beaches, oaks and other trees there are some that are endowed with shades or souls and whoever fells one of them must die on the spot or at least live an invalid for the rest of his days. If a woodman fears that a tree which he has felled is one of this sort he must cut off the head of a live hen on the stump of the tree with the very same axe with which he cut down the tree. This will protect him from all harm even if the tree be one of the animated kind. The silk cotton trees which rare their enormous trunks to a stupendous height far out topping all the other trees of the forest are regarded with reverence throughout West Africa from the Senegal to the Niger and are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit. Among the avi-speaking people of the slave coast the indwelling god of this giant of the forest goes by the name of Huntin. Trees in which he specially dwells for it is not every silk cotton tree that he thus honors are surrounded by a girdle of palm leaves and sacrifices of foals and occasionally of human beings are fastened to the trunk or laid against the foot of the tree. A tree distinguished by a girdle of palm leaves may not be cut down or injured in any way and even silk cotton trees which are not supposed to be animated by Huntin may not be felled unless the woodman first offers the sacrifice of foals and palm oil to purge himself of the proposed sacrilege. To omit the sacrifice is an offence which may be punished with death. Among the Kangra mountains in the Punjab a girl used to be annually sacrificed to an old cedar tree the families of the village taking it in turn to supply the victim. The tree was cut down not very many years ago. If trees are animate they are necessarily sensitive and the cutting of them down becomes a delicate surgical operation which must be performed with as tender a regard as possible for the feelings of the sufferers who otherwise may turn and rend the careless or bungling operator. When an oak is being felled it gives a kind of shrieks or groans that may be heard a mile off as if it were the genius of the oak lamenting e wild a square had heard it several times. Very seldom cut down green or living trees from the idea that it puts them to pain and some of the medicine men profess to have heard wailing of the trees under the axe. Trees that bleed and utter cries of pain or indignation when they are hacked or burned occur very often in Chinese books even in standard histories. Old peasants in some parts of Austria still believe that forest trees are animate and will not allow an incision to be made in the bark without special cause. They have heard from their fathers that the tree feels the cut not less than a wounded man has heard. In felling a tree they beg its pardon. It is said that in the Upper Palatinate also old woodman still secretly asks a fine sound tree to forgive them before they cut it down. So in Giorghino the woodman craves pardon of the tree he fells. Before the Ilocanas of Luzon cut down trees in the virgin forest or on the mountains they decide some verses to the following effect. Be not uneasy my friend that we fell what we have been ordered to fell. This they do in order not to draw down on themselves the hatred of the spirits who live in the trees and who are apt to avenge themselves by visiting with grievous sickness such as injure them wantonly. The Basoga of Central Africa think that when a tree is cut down the angry spirit which inhabits it may cause the death of the chief and his family. To prevent this disaster they consult a medicine man before they fell a tree. If the man of skill gives leave to proceed the woodman first offers a foul and a goat to the tree then as soon he is given the first blow with the axe he applies his mouth to the cut and sucks some of the sap. In this way he forms a brotherhood with the tree just as two men become blood brothers by sucking each other's blood. After that he can cut down his three brother with impunity. But the spirits of vegetation are not always treated with deference and respect. If fair words and kind treatment do not move them stronger measures are sometimes resorted to. The durian tree of the East Indies whose smooth stem often shoots up to a height of 80 or 90 feet without sending out a branch bears a fruit of the most delicious flavor and the most disgusting stench. The malais cultivate the tree for the sake of its fruit and have been known to resort to a peculiar ceremony for the purpose of stimulating its fertility. Near Jangra in Selangor there is a small grove of durian trees and on a special chosen day the villagers use to assemble in it. Thereupon one of the local sorcerers would take a hatchet and deliver several shrewd blows on the trunk of the most barren of the trees and say, will you now bear fruit or not? If you do not, I shall fell you. To this the tree replied through the mouth of another man who had climbed the mangostin tree hard by the durian tree being unclimbable. Yes, I will now bear fruit. I beg of you not to fell me. So in Japan to make trees bear fruit two men go into an orchard. One of them climbs up a tree and the other stands at the foot with an axe. The man with the axe asks the tree whether it will yield a good crop next year and threatens to cut it down if it does not. To this the man among the branches replies on behalf of the tree that it will bear abundantly. Or does this mode of horticulture may seem to us? It has its exact parallels in Europe. On Christmas Eve many a south Slavonian and Bulgarian peasants swings an axe threateningly against the barren fruit tree while another man standing by intercedes for the manned tree saying, do not cut it down, it will soon bear fruit. Thrice the axe is swung and thrice the impending blow is arrested at the entreaty of the intercedeser. After that the frightened tree will certainly bear fruit next year. The conception of trees and plants as animated beings natural results in treating them as male and female who can be married to each other in a real and not merely a figurative or poetical sense of the word. The notion is not purely fanciful for plants like animals have their sexes and reproduce their kind by the union of the male and female elements. But whereas in the higher animals the organs of the two sexes are regularly separated between different individuals in most plants they exist together in every individual of the species. This rule however is by no means universal and in many species the male plant is distinct from the female. The distinction appears to have been covered by some savages for we are told that the Maori's are acquainted with the sex of the trees etc and have distinct names for the male and female of some trees. The ancients knew the difference between the male and the female date palm and fertilized them artificially by shaking the pollen of the male tree over the flowers of the female. This fertilization took place in spring. Among the heathen of Haran the month during which the palms were fertilized bore the name of the date month and at this time they celebrated the marriage festival of all the gods and goddesses. Different from this true and fruitful marriage of the palm are the false and barren marriages of plants which play a part in Hindu superstition. For example, if a Hindu has planted a grove of mangoes neither he nor his wife may taste of the fruit until he has formally married one of the trees as a bridegroom to a tree of a different sort commonly a tamarind tree which grows near it in the grove if there is no tamarind to act as a bride a jasmine will serve the turn. The expenses of such a marriage are often considerable for the more brahmanas are feasted at it the greater the glory of the owner of the grove. A family has been known to sell its golden and silver trinkets and to borrow all the money they could in order to marry a mango tree to a jasmine with dew, pomp and ceremony. On Christmas Eve German peasants used to tie fruit trees together with straw ropes to make them bear fruit saying that the trees were thus married. In the malukkas when the clove trees are in blossom they are treated like pregnant women no noise may be made near them no light or fire may be carried past them at night no one may approach them with his hat on almost uncovered in their presence These precautions are observed lest the tree should be alarmed or should drop its fruit too soon like the untimely delivery of a woman who has been frightened in her pregnancy. So in the eats the growing rice crop is often treated with the same considerable regard as a breeding woman. Thus in Amboina when the rice is in bloom the people say that it is pregnant and fire no guns and make no other noises near the field for fear less if the rice were thus disturbed it would miscarry and the crop would be all straw and no grain. Sometimes it is the souls of the dead which are believed to animate trees. The deary tribe of Central Australia regard as very sacred certain trees which are supposed to be their fathers transformed. Hence they speak with reverence of these trees and are careful that they shall not be cut down or burned. If the settlers require them to hew down the trees they earnestly protest against it asserting that were they to do so they would have no luck and might be punished for not protecting their ancestors. Some of the Philippine islanders believe that the souls of their ancestors are in certain trees which they therefore spare. If they are obliged to fell one of these trees they excuse themselves to it by saying that it was the priest who made them do it. The spirits take up their abode by preference in tall and stately trees with great spreading branches. When the wind rustles the leaves the natives fancy it is the voice of the spirit and they never pass near one of these trees without bowing respectfully and asking pardon of the spirit for disturbing his repose. Among the ignorotes every village has its sacred tree in which the soul of the dead forefathers of the hamlet reside offering some aid to the tree and any injury done to it is believed to entail some his fortune on the village where the tree cut down the village and all its inhabitants would inevitably perish. In Korea the souls of people who die of the plague or by the roadside and of women who expire in childbirth invariably take up their abode in trees. To such spirits offerings of cake, wine and pork are made on heaps of stones piled under the trees. In China it has been customary from time immemorial to plant trees on graves in order thereby to strengthen the soul of the deceased and thus to save his body from corruption and as the evergreen cypress and pine are deemed to be fuller of vitality than other trees they have been chosen by preference for this purpose. Hence the trees that grow on graves are sometimes identified with the souls of the departed. Among the Miaokia an aboriginal race of southern and western China a sacred tree stands at the entrance of every village and the inhabitants believe that it is tenanted by the soul of their first ancestor and that it rules their destiny. Sometimes there is a sacred grove near a village where the trees are suffered to rot and die on the spot the fallen branches come to the ground and no one may remove them unless he has first asked to leave the spirit of the tree and offered him a sacrifice. In the Maravis of southern Africa the burial ground is always regarded as a holy place where neither tree may be felt nor a beast killed because everything there is supposed to be tenanted by the souls of the dead. In most, if not all of these cases, the spirit is viewed as incooperate in the tree it animates the tree and must suffer and die with it but according to another and probably later opinion the tree is not the body but merely the abode of the tree spirit which can quit it and return to it at pleasure. The inhabitants of Siao an east Indian island believe in certain silver spirits who dwell in forests or in great solitary trees. At full moon the spirit comes forth from his lurking place and roams about. He has a big head, very long arms and legs and a ponderous body. In order to alleviate the wood spirits people bring offerings of food, fowls, goats and so forth to the places which they are supposed to haunt. The people of Nias think that when the tree dies its liberated spirit becomes a demon which can kill a coconut palm by merely lighting on its branches and can cause the death of all the children in a house by perching on one of the posts that support it. Further, they are of opinion that certain trees are at all times inhabited by rowing demons who if the trees were damaged would be set free to go about on errands of mischief. Hence the people respect these trees and are careful not to cut them down. Not a few ceremonies observe that cutting down haunted trees are based on the belief that the spirits have it in their power to quit the trees at pleasure or in case of need. Thus when the blue islanders are felling a tree they conjure the spirit of the tree to leave it and settle on another. The wily negro of the slave coast who wishes to fell a Nashorin tree but knows that he cannot do so as long as the spirit remains in the tree places a little palm oil on the ground as a bit and then when the unsuspecting spirit has quitted the tree to partake of this dainty hasnts to cut down its late abode. When the Tobuncus of Celebes are about to clear a piece of forest in order to plant rice they build a tiny house and furnish it with tiny clothes and some food and gold. Then they call together all the spirits of the wood offer them the little house with its contents and besiege them to quit the spot. After that they may safely cut down the wood without fearing to wound themselves in so doing. Before the Tumori another tribe of Celebes fell a tall tree they lay a quid of beetle at its foot and invite the spirit to leave the tree. Then they set a little ladder against the trunk to enable him to descend with safety and comfort. The mandalings of Sumatra endeavour to lay the blame of all such misdeeds at the door of the Dutch authorities. Thus, when a man is cutting a road through a forest and has to fell a tall tree which blocks the way he will not begin to ply his axe until he has said spirit who lodges in this tree take it not ill that I cut down but I will die dwelling for it is done at no wish of mine but by the order of the controller. And when he wishes to clear a piece of forestland for cultivation it is necessary that he should come to a satisfactory understanding with the woodland spirits who live there before he lays low their leafy dwellings. For this purpose he goes to the middle of the plot of ground stoops down and pretends to pick up a letter. Then unfolding a bit of paper he reads aloud an imaginary letter from the Dutch government in which he is strictly enjoined to set about clearing the land without delay. Having done so he says you hear that spirits I must begin clearing at once or I shall be hanged. Even when a tree has been felled so on into planks and used to build a house it is possible that the woodland spirit may still be lurking in the timber and accordingly some people seek to create him before or after they occupy a new house. Hence when a new dwelling is ready the torages of Celebes kill a goat a pig or a buffalo and smear all the woodwork with its blood. If the building is a lobo or spirit house a foul or a dog is killed on the ridge of the roof and its blood allowed to flow down on both sides. The rude Artonapu in such a case sacrifice a human being on the roof. This sacrifice on the roof of a lobo or temple serves the same purpose as the smearing of blood on the woodwork of an ordinary house. The intention is to propitiate the forest spirits who may still be in the timber they are thus put in good humour and will do the animates of the house no harm. For a like reason people in Celebes and the Moluccas are much afraid of planting a post upside down at the building of a house for the forest spirit who might still be in the timber would very naturally resent the indignity and visit the animates with sickness. The caions of Borneo are of opinion that tree spirits stand very stiffly on the point of honour and visit men with their displeasure for any injury done to them. Hence after building a house whereby they have been forced to ill-treat many trees. These people observe a period of penance for a year during which they must sustain from many things such as the killing of bears tiger cats and serpents. Two beneficent powers of tree spirits. When a tree comes to be viewed no longer as the body of the tree spirit but simply as its abode which it can quitted pleasure an important advance has been made in religious thought. Animism is passing into polytheism. In other words instead of regarding each tree as a living and conscious being man now sees in it merely a lifeless inert mass tenanted for a longer or shorter time by a supernatural being who as he can pass freely from tree to tree thereby enjoys a certain right of possession or lordship over the trees and ceasing to be a tree soul becomes a forest god. As soon as the tree spirit is thus in a measure disengaged from each particular tree he begins to change his shape and assume the body of a man in virtue of a general tendency of early thought to clothe all abstract spiritual being in concrete human form. Hence in classical art the sylvan deities are depicted in human shape the wooden character being denoted by a branch or some equally obvious symbol. But this change of shape does not affect the essential character of the tree spirit the powers which he exercised as a tree soul incorporate in a tree he still continues to wield as a god of trees this I shall now attempt to prove in detail I shall show first that trees considered as animate beings are credited with the power of making the rain to fall the sun to shine, flocks and herds to multiply, and women to bring forth easily and second that the very same powers are attributed to three gods conceived as anthropomorphic beings or as actually incarnate in living men. First then trees or tree spirits are believed to give rain and sunshine when the missionary Jerome of Prague was persuading the hidden Lithuanians to fell their sacred groves a multitude of women besought the prince of Lithuania to stop him saying that with the woods he was destroying the house of god from which they had been want to get rain and sunshine the moon that is in Assam think that if a tree in the sacred grove is felled the sylvan gods evince their displeasure by withholding rain in order to procure rain the inhabitants of Monio a village in the Sagaing district of Upper Burma choose the largest tamarind tree near the village and named it the haunt of the spirit nut who controls the rain then they offered bread, coconuts, plantains and fouls to the guardian spirit of the village sent to the spirit who gives rain and they prayed oh lord nut have pity on us poor mortals and stay not the rain inasmuch as our offering is given ungrudgingly let the rain fall day and night afterwards libations were made in honor of the spirit of the tamarind tree and still later three elderly women dressed in fine clothes and wearing necklaces and earrings sang the rain song again tree spirits make the crops to grow amongst the mundaris every village has its sacred grove and the grove deities are held responsible for the crops and are especially honored at the great agricultural festivals the negroes of the gold coast are in the habit of sacrificing at the foot of certain tall trees and they think that if one of these trees were felled all the fruits of the earth would perish the gallows dancing couples around sacred trees praying for a good harvest every couple consists of a man and woman or linked together by a stick of which each holds one end under their arms they carry green corn or grass Swedish peasants stick a leafy branch in each furrow of the corn fields believing that this will ensure an impondent crop the same idea comes out in the German and French custom of the harvest may this is a large branch or a whole tree which is decked with years of corn brought home on the last wagon from the harvest field and fastened on the roof of the farmhouse or of the barn where it remains for a year Mannhardt has proved that this branch or tree embodies the tree spirit conceived as the spirit of vegetation in general whose vivifying and fructifying influence is thus brought to bear upon the corn in particular hence in Swabia the harvest may fastened amongst the last stalks of corn left standing on the field in other places it is planted on the corn field and the last sheaf cut is attached to its trunk again the tree spirit makes the herds to multiply and blesses women with offspring in northern India the Imblika of Isenalis is a sacred tree on the 11th of the month Pallgun, February libations support the foot of the tree a red or yellow string is bound about its trunk the layers are offered to it for the fruitfulness of women, animals and crops again in northern India the coconut is steamed one of the most sacred fruits and is called Shripala or the fruit of Shri the goddess of prosperity it is a symbol of fertility and all through Upper India is kept in shrines and presented by the priests to women who desire to become mothers in the town of Kua near Old Calabar they used to grow a palm tree to any barren woman who ate a nut from its branches in Europe the May tree or May pole is apparently supposed to possess similar powers over both women and cattle thus in some parts of Germany on the 1st of May the peasants set up May trees or May bushes at the doors of stables and buyers one for each horse and cow this is thought to make the cows yield more milk of the Irish we are told that they fancy a green bow of a tree fastened on May day against the house will produce plenty of milk that summer on the 2nd of July some of the winds used to set up an oak tree in the middle of the village with an iron cock fastened to its top then they danced around it and drove the cattle around it to make them thrive the Circassians regard the pear tree as the protector of cattle so they cut down a young pear tree and placed it on the first branch and carried it home where it is adorned as a divinity almost every house has one such pear tree in autumn on the day of the festival the trees carried into the house with great ceremony to the sound of music and amid the joyous cries of all the inmates who compliment it on its fortunate arrival with his covered with candles and the cheeses fastened to its top round about it they eat drink and sing then they bid the tree goodbye and take it back into the courtyard where it remains for the rest of the year set up against the wall without receiving any mark of respect in the Tuho tribes of Maori the power of making women fruitful is ascribed to trees these trees are associated with the naval strings are definite medical ancestors as indeed the naval strings of all children used to be hung upon them down to quite recent times a barren woman has to embrace such a tree with her arms and she received a male or a female child according as she embraced the east or the west side the common European custom of placing a green bush on a May day before or on the house of beloved maiden probably originated in the belief of the fertilizing power of the tree spirits in some parts of Bavaria such bushes are set up also at the houses of newly married pairs and the practice is only omitted if the wife is near her confinement for in that case they say that the husband has set up a May bush for himself among the south Slavonians a barren woman who desires to have a child places a new chimise upon a fruitful tree on the eve of St. George's day next morning before sunrise she examines the garment and if she finds that some living creature has crept on it she hopes that her wish will be fulfilled within the year then she puts on the chimise confident that she will be as fruitful as the tree on which the garment has passed the night among the Karakirgis barren women roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple tree in order to obtain offspring lastly the power of granting to women an easy delivery a childbirth is subscribed to trees both in Sweden and Africa in some districts of Sweden there was formally a barred trade in the same tree lime, ash or elb in the neighborhood of every farm no one would pluck a single leaf of the sacred tree any injury to which was punished by ill luck or sickness pregnant women used to clash the tree in their arms in order to ensure an easy delivery in some Negro tribes of the Congo region pregnant women make themselves garments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree because they believe that this tree can help them from the dangers that tend childbearing the story that Leto claps the palm tree and an olive tree or two laurel trees when she was about to give birth to the divine twins Apollo and Artemis perhaps points to a similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain trees to facilitate delivery end of chapter 9 recording by Monsprough Helsingfors Finland Chapter 10 of the Golden Bau This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Monsprough The Golden Bau by Sir James Frazier Chapter 10 Relics of tree worship in modern Europe From the foregoing review of the beneficent qualities commonly ascribed to tree spirits It is easy to understand why customs like the maitry or maypole have prevailed so widely and figured so prominently in the popular festivals of European peasants In spring or early summer or even on mid-summer day it was and still is in many parts of Europe the custom to go out to the woods, cut down a tree and bring it into the village where it is set up amid general adjoicings or the people cut branches in the woods and fasten them on every house The intention of these customs is to bring home to the village and to each house the blessings which the tree spirits has in its power to bestow Hence the custom in some places of planting a maitry before every house or of carrying the village maitry from door to door that every household may receive its share of the blessing Out of the mass of evidence on this subject a few examples may be selected Sir Henry Peirce in his description of Westmeath writing in 1682 says On May Eve every family sets up before their door a green bush strewed over with yellow flowers which the meadows yield plentifully In countries where timber is plentiful they erect tall slender trees which stand high and they continue almost the whole year so as a stranger should go night to imagine that they were all signs of ale sellers and that all houses were ale houses In Northamptonshire a young tree 10 or 12 feet high used to be planted before each house on May Day so as to appear growing Flowers were thrown over it and strewn about the door Among ancient customs still retained by the Cornish may be reckoned that of decking their doors and porches on the first of May with green boughs of sycamore and hawthorne and of planting trees or rather stumps of trees before their houses In the north of England it was formerly the custom for young people to rise a little after midnight on the morning of the first of May and go out with music and the blowing of horns into the woods where they broke branches and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers This done they returned about sunrise and fastened the flower-decked branches over the doors and windows of their houses At Abingdon in Berkshire young people formerly went about in groups on May morning singing a carol of which the following are two of the verses We've been rambling all the night and some time of this day again we bring a garland gay A garland gay we bring you here and at your door we stand it is so sprout well-budded out the work of our lord's hand At the towns of Saffold Walden and Debeden in Essec on the first of May little girls go about in parties from door to door singing a song almost identical with the above and carrying garlands A doll dressed in white is usually placed in the middle of each garland Similar customs have been and indeed are still absurd in various parts of England The garlands are generally in the form of hoops intersecting each other at right angles It appears that a hoop reathed with rowan and march marigold and bearing suspended within it two balls is still carried on May day by villagers in some parts of Ireland The balls, which are sometimes covered with gold and silver paper are said to have originally represented the sun and moon In some villages on the Vosges Mountains on the first Sunday of May young girls go in bands from house to house singing a song in praise of May in which mention is made of the bread and meal that come in May If money is given them, they fasten a green bow to the door. If it is refused they wish the family many children and no bread to feed them In the French department of Mayen boys who bore the name of Mayottins used to go about from farm to farm on the first of May singing carols for which they received money or a drink They planted a small tree or a branch of a tree Near Savurn in Alsace bands of people go about carrying maytrees Among them is a man dressed in a white shirt with his face blackened In front of him is carried a large maytree, but each member of the band also carries a smaller one One of the company bears a huge basket in which he collects eggs bacon and so forth On the Thursday before Sunday the Russian villagers go out into the woods, sing songs weave garlands and cut down a young birch tree which they dress up in women's clothes or adorn with many colored shreds and ribbons After that comes a feast at the end of which they take the dressed up birch tree carry it home to their village with joyful dance and song and set it up in one of the houses where it remains as an honored guest till with Sunday On the two intervening days they go to the house where their guest is But on the third day with Sunday they take her to a stream and fling her into its waters throwing their garlands after her In this Russian custom the dressing of the birch in women's clothes shows how clearly the tree is personified and the throwing it into a stream is most probably a rain charm In some parts of Sweden on the eve of Mayday lads go about carrying each a bunch of twigs wholly or partly in leaf With the village fiddler at their head they make the round of the houses singing May songs The burden of their songs is a prayer for fine weather, a plentiful harvest and worldly and spiritual blessings One of them carries a basket in which he collects gifts of eggs and the like If they are well deceived they stick a leafy twig in the roof over the cottage door But in Sweden, Midsummer is the season when these ceremonies are chiefly observed On the eve of St. John, the 23rd of June the houses are thoroughly cleansed and garnished with grain, boughs and flowers Young fir trees are raised at the doorway and elsewhere about the homestead Very often small, umbrageous arbours are constructed in the garden In Stockholm, on this day a leaf market is held at which thousands of maypoles maystanger, from 6 inches to 12 feet high decorated with leaves, flowers and strips of coloured paper gilt eggshells, strung on reeds and so on, are exposed for sale Bonfires are lit on the hills and the people dance around them and jump over them But the chief event of the day is setting up the maypole This consists of a straight and tall spruce pine tree, stripped of its branches At times, hoops and other pieces of wood placed crosswise are attached to it at intervals whilst at others it is provided with bows, representing a man with his arms a kimbo From top to bottom not only the maistong, maypole itself but the hoops, bows etc are ornamented with leaves, flowers slips of various cloth gilt eggshells etc and on the top of it is a large vase or it may be a flag The racing of the maypole the decoration of which is done by the village maidens is in a fair of much ceremony and it comes out to it from all quarters and dance around it in a great ring Midsummer customs of the same sort used to be observed in some parts of Germany Thus, in the towns of the Upper Hearts Mountains tall fir trees with the bark peeled off their lower trunks were set up in open places and decked with flowers and eggs which were painted yellow and red Around these trees the young folk danced by day and the old folk in the evening In some parts of Bohemia also a maypole of Midsummer tree is erected on St. John's Eve The lads fetched a tall fir opine from the wood and set it up on a height where the girls deck it with nosegaze garlands and red ribbons It is afterwards burned It would be needless to illustrate at length the custom which has prevailed in various parts of Europe such as England, France and Germany or setting up a village maitry or maypole on May day A few examples will suffice The puritanical writer Philip Stubbs in his Anatomy of Abuses first published at London in 1583 has described with manifest disgust how they used to bring in the maypole in the days of Good Queen Bess His description affords us a vivid glimpse into Mary England in the older time Against May, Wednesday or other time all the young men and mates old men and wives run gadding overnight to the woods, groves and mountains where they spend all the night in pleasant pastimes and in the morning they return bringing with them birch and branches of trees to deck their assemblies with all And no marvel for there is a great lord present amongst them a superintendent and lord over the pastimes and sports, namely Satan Prince of Hell But the chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their maypole which they bring home with great veneration as does each ox having a sweet-nose gay of flowers placed on the tip of his horns and these oxen draw home this maypole this stinking idol rather which is covered all over with flowers and herbs bound round about with strings from the top to the bottom and sometime painted with various colors with two or three hundred men, women and children following it with great devotion and thus being reared up with handkerchiefs and flags hovering on the top they straw the ground around about bind green boughs around it set up summer halls, powers and arbors hard by it and then fall they to dance about it like as the heathen people did at the dedication of the idols whereof this is a perfect pattern or rather the thing itself I've heard it credibly reported and that Viva Voce my men of great gravity and reputation that of forty three score or a hundred maids going to the wood overnight there have scarcely the third part of them returned home again undefiled in Swabia on the first of May a tall fir tree used to be fetched into the village where it was decked with ribbons and set up then the people danced around it merrily to music the trees stood on the village green the whole year throughout until a fresh tree was brought in next mayday in Saxony people were not content with bringing the summer symbolically as king or queen into the village they brought the fresh green itself from the woods even into the houses that is the may or witsantide trees which are mentioned in documents from the 13th century onwards the fetching in of the may tree was also a festival the people went out into the woods to seek the may brought young trees especially firs and birches to the village and set them up before the doors of the houses or of the cattle stalls or in the rooms young fellows erected such may trees which were set before the chambers of their sweethearts besides these household mace a great may tree or may pole which had also been brought in solemn procession to the village was set up in the middle of the village or in the marketplace of the town it had been chosen by the whole community who watched over it most carefully generally the tree was stripped of its branches and leaves nothing but the crown being left on which were displayed ribbons and cloths a variety of victuals such as sausages cakes and eggs the young folk exerted themselves to obtain these prizes in the greasy poles which are still to be seen at our fairs we have a relic of these old may poles not uncommonly there was a race on foot or on horseback to the may tree a witsantide pastime which in course of time has been divested of its goal and survives as a popular custom at Bordeaux on the 1st of May the boys of each street used to erect in it a may pole which they adorned with garlands and a great crown and every evening during the whole of the month the young people of both sexes danced singing about the pole down to the present day may trees decked with flowers and ribbons are set up on may day in every village and hamlet of gay province under them the young folk make merry and the old folk rest in all these cases apparently the custom is or was to bring in a new may tree each year however in England the village may pole seems as a rule at least in later times to have been permanent not renewed annually villages of Upper Bavaria renew their may pole once every 3 4 or 5 years it is a fir tree fetched from the forest and amid all the reeds, flags and inscriptions with which it is bedecked the special part is the bunch of dark green foliage left at the top as a memento that in it we have to do not without a dead pole but with a living tree from the greenwood we can hardly doubt that originally the practice everywhere was to set up a new may tree every year as the object of the custom was to bring in the fructifying spirit of vegetation newly awakened in spring the end would have been defeated if instead of a living tree green and sappy an old wither one had been erected year after year or allowed to stand permanently when however the meaning of the custom had been forgotten and the may tree was regarded simply as a center for holiday merry making people saw no reason for felling a fresh tree every year and preferred to let the same tree stand permanently only digging into the fresh flowers on may day but even when the may pole had thus become a fixture the need of giving it the appearance of being a green tree not a dead pole was sometimes felt thus at Weaverham in Cheshire are two may poles which are decorated on this may day with all due attention to the ancient solemnity the sides are hung with garlands and the top terminated by a birch or other towel slender tree with its leaves on the bark being peeled and the stem spliced to the pole so as to give the appearance of one tree from the summit thus the renewal of the may tree is like the renewal of the harvest may each is intended to secure a fresh portion of the fertilizing spirit of vegetation and to preserve it throughout the year but whereas the efficacy of the harvest may is restricted to promoting the growth of the crops that of the may tree or may branch extends also as we have seen to women and cattle lastly it is worth noting that the old may tree is sometimes burned at the end of the year thus in the district of Prague young people break pieces of the public may tree and place them behind the holy pictures in their rooms where they remain till next may day and are then burned on the hearth in Württemberg the bushes which are set up on the houses on Palm Sunday are sometimes left there for a year and then burned so much for the tree spirit conceived as incorporate or imminent in the tree we have now to show that the tree spirit is often conceived and represented as detached from the tree and clothed in human form or even as embodied in living men or women the evidence for this anthropomorphic representation of the tree spirit is largely to be found in the popular customs of European peasantry there is an instructive class of cases in which the tree spirit is represented simultaneously in vegetable form and in human form which are set side by side as if for the express purpose of explaining each other in these cases the human representative of the tree spirit is sometimes a doll or puppet sometimes a living person but whether a puppet or a person it is placed beside a tree or bow so that together the person or puppet and the tree or bow form a sort of bilingual inscription the one being so to speak a translation of the other here therefore there is no room left for doubt that the spirit of the tree is actually represented in human form thus in Bohemia on the fourth Sunday in Lent young people throw a puppet called death into the water then the girls go into the wood cut down a young tree and fasten it to a puppet dressed in white clothes to look like a woman with this tree and puppet they go from house to house collecting gratuities and singing songs with the refrain we carry death out of the village we bring summer into the village here as we shall see later on the summer is the spirit of vegetation returning or reviving in spring in some parts of our own country without asking for pens with some small limitations of maples and with the finely dressed doll which they call the lady of the may in these cases the tree and the puppet are obviously regarded as equivalent a ton in Alsace a girl called the little May Rose dressed in white carries a small May tree which is gay with garlands and ribbons her companions collect gifts from door to door singing a song Little May Rose turned round three times let us look at you round and round Rose of the May come to the Greenland away we will be merry all so we go from the May to the roses in the course of the song a wish is expressed that those who give nothing may lose their fowls by the martin the vine may be a no clusters the tree no nuts the field no corn the producer the year is supposed to depend on the gifts offered to these May singers here and in the cases mentioned above where children go about with green bows or garlands on May Day singing and collecting money the meaning is that with the spirit of vegetation they bring plenty and good luck to the house and they expect to be paid for the service in Russian Lithuania on the 1st of May they used to set up a green tree before the village then the rustic swains chose the prettiest girl crowned her swayed her in birch branches and set her beside a May tree sang and shouted oh May, oh May in Brie, Île-de-France a May tree is erected in the mid-star village its top is crowned with flowers lower down it is twined with leaves and twigs still lower with huge green branches the girls dance around it and at the same time a lad wrapped in leaves and called Father May is led about in small towns of the Frankenwald mountains in northern Bavaria on the 2nd of May the tree is erected before a tavern and the man dances around it enveloped in straw from head to foot in such a way that the ears of corn unite above his head to form a crown he is called the Valbar and used to be led in procession through the streets which were adorned with sprigs of birch among the Slavs of Carintia on St. George's Day the 23rd of April the young people deck with flowers and garlands the tree which has been felled on the eve of the festival the tree is then carried in procession accompanied with music and joyful acclamations the chief figure in the procession being the Green George a young fellow clad from head to foot in green birch branches at the close of the ceremonies the Green George, that is an effigy of him is thrown into the water it is the aim of the lad who acts Green George to step out of his leafy envelope and substitute the effigy so adroitly that no one shall perceive the change in many places however the lad himself who plays the part of Green George is ducked in the river with the express intention of thus ensuing rain to make the fields and meadows green in summer in some places the cattle are crowned driven from their stalls to the accompaniment of a song Green George we bring Green George we accompany may he feed our herds well if not through water with him here we see that the same powers are making rain the same powers are transferring the cattle which are described to the tree spirit regarded as incooperate in the tree are also attributed to the tree spirit represented by a living man among the gypsies of Transylvania and Romania the festival of Green George is the chief celebration of spring some of them keep it on Easter Monday others on St. George's day the 23rd of April on the eve of the festival a young willow tree is cut down adorned with garlands set up in the ground women with child place one of their garments under the tree and leave it there overnight if next morning they find a leaf of the tree lying over the garment they know that their delivery will be easy second old people go to the tree in the evening spit on it thrice and say you will soon die but let us live next morning the gypsies gather about the willow the chief figure of the festival is Green George a lad who is concealed from top to toe in green leaves and blossoms he throws a few handfuls of grass to the beasts of the tribe in order that they may have no lack of fodder throughout the year then he takes three iron nails which have lain for three days and nights in water and knocks them into the willow after which he pulls them out and flings them into a running stream to propitiate the water spirits finally a pretense is made of throwing Green George into the water but in fact it is only a puppet made of leaves which is ducked in the stream in this version of the custom the powers of granting an easy delivery to women and of communicating vital energy to the second old are clearly ascribed to the willow while Green George the human double of the tree bestows food on the cattle and further ensures the favor of the water spirits by putting them in indirect communication with the tree without citing more examples to the same effect we may sum up the results of the preceding pages in the words of Monhart the customs quoted suffice to establish with certainty the conclusion that in these spring processions the spirit of vegetation is often represented both by the matri and in addition by a man dressed in green leaves or flowers or by a girl similarly adorned it is the same spirit which animates the tree and is active in the inferior plants and which we have recognized in the matri and the harvest may quite consistently the spirit is also supposed to manifest his present in the first flower of spring and reveals himself both in a girl representing a matros and also as a giver of harvest in the person of the valber the procession with this representative of the divinity was supposed to produce the same beneficial effects on the fowls, the fruit trees and the crops as the presence of the deity himself in other words the mamar was regarded not as an image but as an actual representative of the spirit of vegetation hence the wishes expressed by the attendants on the mayros and the matri that those who refused them gifts of eggs, bacon and so forth may have no share in the blessings which it is in the power of the itinerant spirit to bestow we may conclude that these begging processions with matris or maybows from door to door bringing the may or the summer had everywhere originally a serious and so to speak sacramental significance people really believed that the god of growth was present unseen in the bow by the procession he was brought to each house to bestow his blessing the names may, father may may, lady, queen of the may by which the anthropomorphic spirit of vegetation is often denoted show that the idea of the spirit of vegetation is planned with the personification of the season at which his powers are most strikingly manifested so far we have seen that the tree spirit or the spirit of vegetation in general is represented either in vegetable form alone as by a tree, bow or flower or in vegetable and human form simultaneously as by a tree, bow or flower in combination with a puppet or a living person it remains to show that the representation of him by a tree, bow or flower is sometimes entirely dropped while the representation of him by a living person remains in this case the representative character of the person is generally marked by dressing him or her in leaves or flowers sometimes too it is indicated by the name he or she bears thus in some parts of Russia on St. George's day the 23rd of April a youth is dressed out like our jack in the green with leaves and flowers the slovenes call him the green george holding a lighted torch in one hand he goes out to the corn fields followed by girls singing appropriate songs a circle of brushwood is next lighted in the middle of which is set the pie all who take part in the ceremony then sit down around the fire and divide the pie among them in this custom the green george dressed in leaves and flowers is plainly identical with the similarly disguised green george who is associated with the tree in the Corinthian, Transylvanian and Romanian customs observed on the same day again, we saw that in Russia at Whitsuntide a birch tree is dressed in women's clothes and set up in the house clearly equivalent to this is the custom observed on Whitt Monday by Russian girls in the district of Pinsk they choose the prettiest of their number and develop her in a mass of foliage taken from the birch trees and maples and carry her about through the village in Rula, as soon as the trees begin to grow green in spring the children assemble on a Sunday and go out into the woods where they choose one of their playmates to be the little leaf man they break branches from the trees and twine them about the child till only his shoes peep out from the leafy mantel holes are made in it for him to see through and do have the children lead the little leaf man that he may not stumble or fall singing and dancing they take him from house to house of food such as eggs cream, sausages and cakes lastly they sprinkle the leaf man with water and feast on the food they have collected in the Friktal, Switzerland, at Whitsantide boys go out into a wood and sway one of their numbers in leafy boughs he is called the Whitsantide Lout and being mounted on horseback with a green branch in his hand he is led back into the village at the village well a halt is called and the leaf clad lout is dismounted and ducked in the trough thereby he acquires the right of sprinkling water on everybody and he exercises the right especially on girls and street urchins the urchins march before him in vans begging him to give them a Whitsantide wetting in England the best known example of these leaf clad mummers is the Jack in the Green a chimney sweeper who walks encased in a pyramidical framework which is covered with holly and ivy and surmounted by a crown of flowers and ribbons thus arrayed he dances on May day at the head of a troop of chimney sweeps who collect pens in Friktal a similar frame of basket work is called the Whitsantide basket as soon as the trees begin to bud a spot is chosen in the wood and here the village lads make the frame with all secrecy lest others should forestall them leafy branches are twined around two hoops one of which rests on the shoulders of the wearer the other encircles his claves holes are made for his eyes and mouth and a large nose gate rounds the hole in this guise he appears suddenly in the village at the hour of vesper's preceded by three boys blowing on horns made a willow bog the great object of his supporters is to set up the Whitsantide basket on the village well and him there, despite the efforts of the lads from neighboring villages who seek to carry off the Whitsantide basket and set it up on their own well in the class of cases of which the foregoing are specimens it is obvious that the leaf clad person who is led about is equivalent to the matri, meibau or meidol which is carried from house to house by children begging both are representatives of the beneficent spirit of vegetation the visit to the house is recompensed by a present of money offered often the leaf clad person who represents the spirit of vegetation is known as the king or the queen thus for example he or she is called the mei king Whitsantide king, queen of mei and so on these titles, as Mann Hart observes imply that the spirit incorporated in vegetation is a ruler whose creative power extends far and wide in a village near Saltsvedel a matri is set up at Whitsantide and the boys race to it he who reaches his first it's king, a garden of flowers is put around his neck and in his hand he carries a meibush with which as the procession moves along he sweeps away the dew at each house they sing a song wishing the inmates good luck referring to the black cow in the stall milking white milk black hen on the nest laying white eggs and begging a gift of eggs bacon and so on at the village of Elgot in Silesia a ceremony called the king's race is observed at Whitsantide a pole with a clot tied to it is set up in a meadow and the young men ride past it on horseback each trying to snatch away the clot as he gallops by the one who succeeds in carrying it off and dipping it in the neighboring order is proclaimed king Hedda pole is clearly a substitute for a matri in the villages of Brunswick at Whitsantide a making is completely enveloped in a meibush in some parts of Turingen also they have a making at Whitsantide but he's dressed up rather differently a frame of wood is made in which a man can stand it is completely covered with birch boughs and is surmounted by a crown of birch and flowers in which a bell is fastened this frame is placed in the wood and the making gets into it the rest go out and look for him and when they have found him they lead him back in the village to the magistrate the clergymen and others who have to guess who is in the verdeerous frame if they guess wrong the making rings his bell by shaking his head and the forfeit of beer or the like must be paid by the unsuccessful guesser at Varstet the boys at Whitsantide choose by lot a king and a high steward the latter is completely concealed in a meibush wears a wooden crown driven with flowers and carries a wooden sword the king on the other hand is only distinguished by a nose gay in his cap and a reed with a red ribbon tied to it in his hand they beg for eggs from house to house threatening that where none are given none will be laid by the hens throughout the year in this custom the high steward appears for some reason to have served the insignia of the king at Hildesheim five or six young fellows go about on the afternoon of Whittemande cracking long whips in measured time and collecting eggs from the houses the chief person of the band is the leaf king lads weighted so completely in birch and twigs that nothing of him can be seen but his feet a huge headdress of birch and twigs adds to his apparent statue in his hand he carries a long crook with which he tries to catch stray dogs and children in some parts of Bohemia on Whittemande the young fellows disguise themselves in tall caps of birch bark adorned with flowers one of them is dressed as a king and dragged on a sledge to the village green and if on the way they pass a pool the sledge is always overturned into it arrived at the green they gather around the king the crier jumps on the stone or climbs up on a tree and recites lampoons about each house and its inmates the disguises of bark are stripped off and they go about the village in holiday attire carrying a maitry and begging cakes, eggs and corn are sometimes given them at Gros Vargula near Langen Salza in the 18th century a grasking used to be led about in procession at Whittemande he was encased in a pyramid of poplar branches the top of which was adorned with a royal crown of branches and flowers he rode on horseback with the leafy pyramid over him touch the ground and an opening was left in it only for his face surrounded by a cavalcade of young fellows he rode in procession to the town hall the parsonage and so on where they all got a drink of beer then under the seven lindons of the neighbouring somberberry the grasking was stripped of his green casing the crown was handed to the mayor and the branches were stuck in the flax fields in order to make the flax grow tall in this last trade the visualizing influences described to the representative of the tree spirit comes out clearly in the neighbourhood of Pilsen, Bohemia a conical hut of green branches without any door is erected at Whittemande in the midst of the village there is hut rides a troop of village lads with a king at their head he wears a sword at his side and a sugarloaf hat of rushes on his head in his train are a judge, a crier and a personage called a frog flayer this last is a sort of ragged merriander wearing a rusty old sword and bestriding a sorry hack on reaching the hut the crier dismounts and goes around it looking for a door finding none he says this is perhaps an enchanted castle the witches creep through the leaves and need no door at last he draws his sword and hues his way into the hut where there is a chair on which he seats himself and proceeds to criticise the villagers when this is over the frog flayer steps forward and after exhibiting a cage with frogs in it sets up a gallows on which he hangs the frogs in a row in the neighborhood of plus the ceremony differs in some points the king and his soldiers are completely clad in bog adorned with flowers and ribbons they all carry swords and ride horses which are gay with green branches and flowers while the village dames and girls are being criticised at the harbor a frog is secretly pinched and poked by the crier till it quacks sentence of death is passed on the frog by the king the hangman beheads it and flings the bleeding body among the spectators lastly the king is driven from the hut and pursued by the soldiers the pinching and beheading of the frog are doubtless as one heart observes a rain charm we have seen that some Indians of the orinoco beat frogs for the express purpose of producing rain and that killing a frog is a european rain charm often the spirit of vegetation in spring is represented by a queen instead of a king in the neighborhood of libcovic bohemia on the first Sunday in Lent girls dressed in white and wearing the first spring flowers as violets and daisies in their hair lead about the village a girl who is called a queen and is crowned with flowers during the procession which is conducted with great salinity none of the girls may stand still but must keep whirling around continually and singing in every house the queen announces the arrival of spring and wishes the inmates good luck and blessings for which she receives presents in german hungry the girls choose the prettiest girl to be their witsantide queen fast and a towering wreath on her brow and carry her singing through the streets at every house they stop sing old ballads and they see presents in the southeast of Ireland on May day the prettiest girl used to be chosen queen of the district for 12 months she was crowned with wild flowers feasting, dancing and rustic sports followed and were closed by a grand procession in the evening during her year of office she presided over rural gatherings of young people at dances and merry making if she married before the next May day her authority was at an end but her successor was not elected till that day came around the May queen is common in France and familiar in England again the spirit of vegetation is sometimes represented by a king and queen, a lord and lady or a bride groom and bride here again the parallelism holds between the anthropomorphic and the vegetable representation of the tree spirit for we have seen above that trees are sometimes married to each other at Halford in South Walkwickshire children go from house to house on May day walking two and two in procession and headed by a king and queen two boys carry a maypole some six or seven feet high which is covered with flowers and greenery fastened to it near the top are two crossbars at right angles to each other these are also decked with flowers and from the ends of the bars hang hoops similarly adorned at the houses the children sing may songs and receive money which is used to provide tea for them at the school house in the afternoon in a Bohemian village near Könninggrätts on Witt Monday the children play the king's game at which a king and queen march about under a canopy the queen wearing a garland and the youngest girl carrying two reeds on the plate behind them they are attended by boys and girls called groomsmen and bridesmaids and they go from house to house collecting gifts a regular feature in the popular celebration the Wittsantide in Silesia used to be and to some extent still is the contest for the kingship the contest took various forms but the mark or goal was generally the matry or maypole sometimes the youth who succeeded in climbing the smooth pole and bringing down the prize was proclaimed the Wittsantide king and his sweetheart the Wittsantide bride afterwards the king carrying the maybush repaired with the rest of the company to the ale house where a dance and feast ended the merry making often the young farmers and laborers raced on horseback to the maypole which was adorned with flowers, ribbons and the crown he who first reached the pole was the Wittsantide king and the rest had to obey his orders for that day the worst rider became the clown at the matry all dismounted and hoisted the king on their shoulders he nimbly swarmed up the pole and brought down the maybush and the crown which had been fastened to the top while the clown hurried to the ale house and proceeded to bolt 30 rolls of bread and to swig 4 quart bottles of brandy with the utmost possible dispatch he was followed by the king who bore the maybush and crown at the head of the company if from their arrival the clown had already disposed of the rolls and the brandy and greeted the king with a speech and a glass of beer his score was paid by the king otherwise he had to settle it himself after church time the procession wound through the village at the head of it rode the king decked with flowers and carrying the maybush next came the clown with his clothes turned inside out a great flaxen beard on his chain and the Wittsantide crown on his head two riders disguised as guards followed the procession drew up before every farmyard the two guards dismounted shut the clown into the house and claimed the contribution from the housewife to buy soap with which to wash the clown's beard custom allowed them to carry off any victuals which were not under lock and key last of all they came to the house in which the king's sweetheart lived she was greeted as Wittsantide queen and received suitable presents the Witt, a many-colored sash a cloth and an apron the king got a surprise a vest, a neck cloth and so forth and had the right of setting up the maybush or Wittsantide tree before his master's yard where it remained as an honorable token till the same day next year finally the procession took its way to the tavern where the king and queen opened the dance sometimes the Wittsantide king and queen succeeded to office in a different way a man of straw as large as life and crowned with red cap was conveyed in a cart between two men armed and disguised as guards to a place where a mock court was waiting to try him a great crowd followed the cart after a formal trial the straw man was condemned to death and fastened to a stake on the execution ground the young man with bandaged eyes tried to stab him with a spear he who succeeded became king and his sweetheart queen the straw man was known as the goliath in a parish of Denmark it used to be the custom at Wittsantide to dress up a little girl as the Wittsant bride and a little boy as her groom was attacked in all the finery of a grown-up bride and wore a crown of the freshest flowers of spring on her head her groom was as gay as flowers, ribbons and knots could make him the other children adorned themselves as best they could with the yellow flowers of the Trollius and Calta then they went in great state from farmhouse to farmhouse two little girls walking at the head of the procession as bridesmaids and six or eight outriders galloping ahead on hobby horses to announce their coming contributions of eggs, butter loaves, cream, coffee, sugar and tele-candles were received and coin-weighed away in baskets when they had made the round of the farms some of the farmer's wives helped to arrange the wedding feast and the children danced merrily in clogs on the stamped clay floor till the sun rose and the birds began to sing all this is now a thing of the past only the old folks still remember the little Wittsant bride and her mimic pomp we have seen that in Sweden the ceremonies associated elsewhere with Mayday or Wittsantide commonly take place at Midsummer accordingly, we find that in some parts of the Swedish province of Bleking they still choose a Midsummer's bride to whom the church coronet is occasionally lent the girl selects for herself a bride groom and the collection is made for the pair who for the time being are looked on as man and wife also choose each his bride a similar ceremony seems to be still kept up in Norway in the neighborhood of Bryansson doffiner on Mayday the lads wrap up in green leaves a young fellow whose sweet heart has deserted him or married another he lies down on the ground and feigns to be asleep when a girl who likes him and would marry him comes and wakes him and raising him up offers him her arm and a flag in the house where the pair lead off the dancing but they must marry within the year where they are treated as old bachelor and old maid and are the borrowed company of the young folks the lad is called a bride groom of the month of May in the alehouse he puts off his garment of leaves other which mixed with flowers his partner in the dance makes a nose gay and wears it at her breast next day when he leads her again to the alehouse like this is a Russian custom served in the district of Nirikta on the Thursday before Whitsunday the girls go out into the birchwood wind the girdle or band around the stately birch twist its lower branches into a wreath and kiss each other in pairs through the wreaths the girls who kiss through the wreath call each other gossips then one of the girls steps forward and mimicking a drunken man flings herself on the ground rolls on the grass and feigns to fall fast asleep then the girl wakens the pretended sleeper and kisses him then the whole bevy trips singing through the wood to twine garlands which they throw in the water in the fate of the garlands floating on the stream they read their own here the part of the sleeper was probably at one time played by a lad in these French and Russian customs we have a forsaken bride groom in the following a forsaken bride on Shrove Tuesday the Slovenes of Oberkrain drag a straw puppet with joyous prize up and down the village then they throw it in the water or burn it and from the height of the flames they judge of the abundance of the next harvest the noisy crew is followed by a female masker who drags a great board by a string and gives out the cheese a forsaken bride viewed in the light of what has gone before the awakening of the forsaken sleeper in these ceremonies probably represents the revival of vegetation in spring but it is not easy to assign their respective parts to the forsaken bride groom and to the girl who wakes him from his slumber is the sleeper of leafless forest or the bearer of winter is the girl who awakens him the fresh verdure or the genial sunshine of spring it is hardly possible on the evidence before us to answer these questions in the highlands of Scotland the revival of vegetation in spring used to be graphically represented the first of February thus in the hebrides the mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in a woman's apparel put it in a large basket and lay a wooden club by it and this they call breed's bed and then the mistress and servants cry three times breed is come, breed is welcome this they do just before going to bed and when they rise in the morning they look among the ashes expecting to see the impression of breed's club there which if they do they reckon it a true presage of a good crop and prosperous year and contrary they take as an ill omen the same custom is described by another witness thus upon the night before candle mass it is usual to make a bed with corn and hay a witch some blankets are led in a part of the house near the door when it is ready a person goes out and repeats three times breed it, breed it, come in and then the bed is ready one or more candles are left burning near it all night similarly in the Isle of Man on the eve of the first of February a festival was formally kept called in the monks language Lal Brishay in honour of the Irish lady who went over to the Isle of Man to receive the wales from Saint Moghul the custom was to gather a bundle of green rushes and standing with them in the hand on the threshold of the door to Saint Bridget to come and lodge with them that night in the monks language the invitation ran thus breed it, breed it targis matie tardin tea aims nogd foshil je in doris the breed it aslik the breed it hides taig in English Bridget, Bridget come to my house come to my house tonight open the door for Bridget and let Bridget come in after these words were repeated the rushes were strewn on the floor by way of a carpet or bed for Saint Bridget a custom very similar to this was also observed in some of the out aisles of the ancient kingdom of man in these monks and highland ceremonies it is obvious the saint bride or saint Bridget is an old heathen goddess of fertility disguised in a threadbare Christian cloak probably she is no other than Brigitte the Celtic goddess of fire and apparently of the crops often the marriage of the spirit of vegetation in spring though not directly represented is implied by naming the human representative of the spirit the bride dressing her in wedding attire thus in some villages of alt market with some tide while the boys go about carrying a matrie or leading a boy enveloped in leaves and flowers the girls lead about the May bride a girl dressed as a bride with a great nose gay in her hair they go from house to house the May bride singing a song in which she asks and tells the inmates of each house that if they give her something they will themselves have something the whole year through but if they give her nothing they will themselves have nothing in some parts of Westphalia two girls lead flower crowned girl called the witsentide bride from door to door singing a song in which they ask for eggs end of chapter 10 recording by Monsbru