 Chapter 60 of THE GOLDEN BOW At the outset of this book two questions were proposed for answer. Why had the priest of Erychia to slay his predecessor? And why, before doing so, had he to pluck the golden bow? Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The priest of Erychia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human divinities on whose life the welfare of the community and even the course of nature in general are believed to be intimately dependent. It does not appear that the subjects or worshipers of such a spiritual potentate form to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship in which they stand to him. Probably their ideas on the point are vague and fluctuating, and we should err if we attempt to define the relationship with logical precision. All that the people know, or rather imagine, is that somehow they themselves, their cattle and their crops are mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is well or ill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds thrive or languish with disease, and the fields yield an abundant or a scanty harvest. The worst evil which they can conceive of is the natural death of the ruler, whether he succumbed to sickness or old age. For in the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrous consequences on themselves and their possessions. Fatal epidemics would sweep away man and beast. The earth would refuse her increase. Nay, the very frame of nature itself might be dissolved. To guard against these catastrophes it is necessary to put the king to death while he is still in the full bloom of his divine manhood in order that his sacred life transmitted in unabated force to his successor may renew its youth, and thus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous incarnations may remain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security that men and animals shall in like manner renew their youth by a perpetual succession of generations, and that seed-time and harvest, and summer and winter, and rain and sunshine shall never fail. That, if my conjecture is right, is why the priest of Erychia, the king of the wood at Nemi, had regularly to perish by the sword of his successor. But we still have to ask, what was the golden bow, and why had each candidate for the Erychian priesthood to pluck it before they could slay the priest? These questions I will now try to answer. It will be well to begin by noticing two of those rules or taboos by which, as we have seen, the life of divine kings or priests is regulated. The first of these rules, to which I would call the reader's attention, is that the divine personage may not touch the ground with his foot. This rule was observed by the supreme pontiff of the Zapotecs in Mexico. He profaned his sanctity if he so much as touched the ground with his foot. Montezuma, emperor of Mexico, never set foot on the ground. He was always carried on the shoulders of noblemen, and if he lighted anywhere, they laid rich tapestry for him to walk upon. For the Mikado of Japan to touch the ground with his foot was a shameful degradation. Indeed, in the 16th century, it was enough to deprive him of his office. Outside his palace, he was carried on men's shoulders. Within it, he walked on exquisitely wrought mats. The king and queen of Tahiti might not touch the ground anywhere but within their hereditary domains. For the ground on which they trod became sacred. In traveling from place to place, they were carried on the shoulders of sacred men. They were always accompanied by several pairs of these sanctified attendants, and when it became necessary to change their bearers, the king and queen vaulted onto the shoulders of their new bearers without letting their feet touch the ground. It was an evil omen if the king of Dosuma touched the ground, and he had to perform an expiatory ceremony. Within his palace, the king of Persia walked upon carpets on which no one else might tread. Outside of it, he was never seen on foot, but only in a chariot or on horseback. In old days, the king of Siam never set foot upon the earth but was carried on a throne of gold from place to place. Formerly, neither the kings of Uganda, nor their mothers, nor their queens might walk on foot outside of the spacious enclosures in which they lived. Whenever they went forth, they were carried on the shoulders of men of the buffalo clan, several of whom accompanied any of these royal personages on a journey, and took it in turn to bear the burden. The king sat astride the bearer's neck with a leg over each shoulder, and his feet tucked under the bearer's arm. When one of these royal carriers grew tired, he shot the king onto the shoulders of a second man without allowing the royal feet to touch the ground. In this way, they went at a great pace and traveled long distances in a day when the king was on a journey. The bearers had a special hut in the king's enclosure in order to be at hand the moment they were wanted. Among the Bakuba, or rather Bushongo, a nation in the southern region of the Congo, down to a few years ago, persons of the royal blood were forbidden to touch the ground. They must sit on a hide, a chair, or the back of a slave who crouched on hands and feet. Their feet rested on the feet of others. When they traveled, they were carried on the backs of men, but the king journeyed in a litter supported on shafts. Among the Igbo people of Awka in southern Nigeria, the priest of the earth has to observe many taboos. For example, he may not see a corpse, and if he meets one on the road, he must hide his eyes with his wristlet. He must abstain from many foods such as eggs, birds of all sort, mutton, dog, bushbuck, and so forth. He may neither wear nor touch a mask, and no masked man may enter his house. If a dog enters his house, it is killed and thrown out. As priest of the earth, he may not sit on the bare ground, nor eat things that have fallen on the ground, nor may earth be thrown at him. According to ancient Brahmanic ritual, a king at his inauguration trod in a tiger's skin and a golden plate. He was shod with shoes of boar's skin, and so long as he lived there after, he may not stand on the earth with his bare feet. But besides persons who are permanently sacred or tabooed and are therefore permanently forbidden to touch the ground with their feet, there are others who enjoy the character of sanctity or taboo only on certain occasions, and to whom accordingly the prohibition in question only applies at the definite seasons during which they exhale the odor of sanctity. Thus, among the Kenyans or Bahaus of central Borneo, while the priestesses are engaged in the performance of certain rites, they may not step on the ground, and boards are laid for them to tread on. Warriors, again, on the warpath are surrounded, so to say, by an atmosphere of taboo. Hence, some Indians of North America might not sit on the bare ground the whole time they were out on a war-like expedition. In Laos, the hunting of elephants gives rise to many taboos. One of them is that the chief hunter may not touch the earth with his foot. Accordingly, when he alights from his elephant, the others spread a carpet of leaves for him to step upon. Apparently, holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or whatever we may call that mysterious quality which is supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed persons, is conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical substance or fluid with which the sacred man is charged just as a laden jar is charged with electricity, and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the holiness or magical virtue in the man can be discharged and drained away by contact with the earth, which on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for the magical fluid. Hence, in order to preserve the charge from running to waste, the sacred or tabooed personage must be carefully prevented from touching the ground. In electrical language, he must be insulated. If he is not to be emptied of the precious substance or fluid with which he, as a vial, is filled to the brim. And in many cases, apparently the insulation of the tabooed person is recommended as a precaution not merely for his own sake, but for the sake of others. For since the virtue of holiness or taboo is, so to say, a powerful explosive which the smallest touch may detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general safety to keep it within narrow bounds lest breaking out it should blast, blight, and destroy whatever it comes into contact with. Section 2. Not to see the sun. The second rule to be noted is that the sun may not shine upon the divine person. This rule was observed both by the Mikado and by the Pontiffs of the Zapotecs. The latter, quote, was looked upon as a god whom the earth was not worthy to hold, nor the sun to shine upon, close quote. The Japanese would not allow that the Mikado should expose his sacred person to the open air, and the sun was not thought worthy to shine on his head. The Indians of Granada in South America, quote, kept those who were to be rulers or commanders, whether men or women, locked up for several years when they were children, some of them seven years, and this so close that they were not to see the sun. For if they should happen to see it, they forfeited their lordship, eating certain sorts of food appointed, and those who were their keepers at certain times went into their retreat or prison and scorched them severely, close quote. Thus, for example, the heir to the throne of Bogota, who was not the sun, but the sister's son of the king, had to undergo a rigorous training from his infancy. He lived in complete retirement in a temple where he might not see the sun nor eat salt nor converse with a woman. He was surrounded by guards who observed his conduct and noted all his actions. If he broke a single one of the rules laid down for him, he was deemed infamous and forfeited all his rights to the throne. So, too, the heir to the kingdom of Sagomoso, before succeeding to the crown, had to fast for seven years in the temple, being shut up in the dark and not allowed to see the sun or light. The prince who was to become Inca of Peru had to fast for a month without seeing light. Section 3. The Seclusion of Girls at Puberty Now it is remarkable that the foregoing two rules, not to touch the ground and not to see the sun, are observed either separately or conjointly by girls at puberty in many parts of the world. Thus, amongst the negroes of the Wango girls at puberty are confined in separate huts, and they may not touch the ground with any part of their bare body. Among the Zulus and Kindred tribes of South Africa, when the first signs of puberty show themselves, quote, while a girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the field, she runs to the river and hides herself among the reeds for a day so as not to be seen by men. She covers her head carefully with her blanket that the sun may not shine on it and shrivel her up into a withered skeleton, as would result from exposure to the sun's beams. After dark, she returns to her home and is secluded, close, quote, in a hut for some time. With the Awakonde, a tribe at the northern end of Lake Nyasa, it is a rule that after her first menstruation a girl must be kept apart with a few companions of her own sex in a darkened house. The floor is covered with dry banana leaves, but no fire may be lit in the house, which is called the House of the Awasungu, that is, of the maidens who have no hearts. In New Ireland, girls are confined for four or five years in small cages being kept in the dark and not allowed to set foot on the ground. The custom has been thus described by an eyewitness, quote, I heard from a teacher about some strange custom connected with some of the young girls here, so I asked the chief to take me to the house where they were. The house was about 25 feet in length and stood in a reed and bamboo enclosure across the entrance to which a bundle of dried grass was suspended to show that it was strictly taboo. Inside the house were three conical structures about seven or eight feet in height and about 10 or 12 feet in circumference at the bottom and for about four feet from the ground at which point they tapered off to a point at the top. These cages were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus tree, sewn quite close together so that no light and little or no air could enter. On one side of each is an opening, which is closed by a double door of plated coconut tree and pandanus tree leaves. About three feet from the ground, there is a stage of bamboo which forms the floor. In each of these cages, we were told there was a young woman confined, each of whom had to remain for at least four or five years without ever being allowed to go outside the house. I could scarcely credit the story when I heard it. The whole thing seemed too horrible to be true. I spoke to the chief and told him that I wished to see the inside of the cages and also to see the girls that I might make them a present of a few beads. He told me that it was taboo, forbidden for any men but their own relations to look at them. But I suppose the promised beads acted as an inducement and so he sent away for some old lady who had charge and who alone is allowed to open the doors. While we were waiting, we could hear the girls talking to the chief in a quarrelous way, as if objecting to something or expressing their fears. An old woman came at length and certainly she did not seem a very pleasant jailer or guardian, nor did she seem to favor the request of the chief to allow us to see the girls, as she regarded us with anything but pleasant looks. However, she had to undo the door when the chief told her to do so, and then the girls peeped out at us and when told to do so, they held out their hands for the beads. I, however, purposely sat at some distance away and merely held out the beads to them, as I wished to draw them quite outside that I might inspect the inside of the cages. This desire of mine gave rise to another difficulty, as these girls were not allowed to put their feet to the ground all the time they were confined in these places. However, they wished to get the beads and so the old lady had to go outside and collect a lot of pieces of wood and bamboo which she placed on the ground and then going to one of the girls she helped her down and held her hand as she stepped from one piece of wood to another until she came near enough to get the beads I held out to her. I then went to inspect the inside of the cage out of which she had come but could scarcely put my head inside of it. The atmosphere was so hot and stifling. It was clean and contained nothing but a few short lengths of bamboo for holding water. There was only room for the girl to sit or lie down in a crouched position on the bamboo platform and when the doors are shut it must be nearly or quite dark inside. The girls are never allowed to come out except once a day to bathe in a dish or wooden bowl placed close to each cage. They say that they perspire profusely. They are placed in these stifling cages when quite young and must remain there until they are young women when they are taken out and have each a great marriage feast provided for them. One of them was about 14 or 15 years old and the chief told us that she had been there for five years but would soon be taken out now. The other two were about eight and ten years old and they have to stay there for several years longer. Close quote. In Kabadi, a district of British New Guinea, quote, daughters of chiefs when they are about 12 or 13 years of age are kept indoors for two or three years never being allowed under any pretense to descend from the house and the house is so shaded that the sun cannot shine on them. Close quote. Among the Yabeem and Bukawa, two neighboring and kindred tribes on the coast of northern New Guinea, a girl at puberty is secluded for some five or six weeks in an inner part of the house but she may not sit on the floor lest her uncleanliness should cleave to it so a log of wood is placed for her to squat on. Moreover, she may not touch the ground with her feet, hence if she is obliged to quit the house for a short time she is muffled up in mats and walks on two halves of a coconut shell which are fastened like sandals to her feet by creeping plants. Among the Ut Danoms of Borneo, girls at the age of eight or ten years are shut up in a little room or cell of the house and cut off from all intercourse with the world for a long time. The cell, like the rest of the house, is raised on piles above the ground and is lit by a single small window opening on a lonely place so that the girl is in almost total darkness. She may not leave the room on any pretext whatever, not even for the most necessary purposes. None of her family may see her all the time she is shut up but a single slave woman is appointed to wait on her. During her lonely confinement which often lasts seven years, the girl occupies herself in weaving mats or with other handiwork. Her bodily growth is stunted by the long want of exercise and when, on attaining womanhood, she is brought out her complexion is pale and wax-like. She is now shown the sun, the earth, the water, the trees and the flowers as if she were newly born. Then a great feast is made a slave is killed and the girl is smeared with his blood. In Serum, girls at puberty were formally shut up by themselves in a hut which was kept dark. In Yap, one of the Caroline islands, should a girl be overtaking by her first menstruation on the public road, she may not sit down on the earth but must beg for a coconut shell to put under her. She is shut up for several days but at a distance from her parent's house and afterwards she is bound to sleep for a hundred days in one of the special houses which are provided for the use of menstruous women. In the island of Mobwig, Taurus straits, when the signs of puberty appear on a girl, a circle of bushes is made in a dark corner of the house. Here, decked with shoulder belts, armlets, leglets just below wearing a chaplet on her head and shell ornaments in her ears, on her chest and on her back. She squats in the midst of the bushes which are piled so high round about her that only her head is visible. In this state of seclusion she must remain for three months. All this time the sun may not shine upon her but at night she is allowed to slip out of the hut and the bushes that hedge her in have changed. She may not feed herself or handle food but is fed by one or two old women, her maternal aunts who are especially appointed to look after her. One of these women cooks food for her at a special fire in the forest. The girl is forbidden to eat turtle or turtle's eggs during the season when the turtles are breeding but no vegetable food is refused her. Even her own father may come into the house while her seclusion lasts for if her father saw her at this time he would certainly have bad luck in his fishing and would probably smash his canoe the very next time he went out in it. At the end of three months she is carried down to a freshwater creek by her attendants hanging on to their shoulders in such a way that her feet do not touch the ground. While the women of the tribe form a ring round her and thus escort her back to the beach. Arrived at the shore she is stripped of her ornaments and the bearers stagger with her into the creek while they immerse her and all the other women join in splashing water over both the girl and her bearers. When they come out of the water one of the two attendants makes a heap of grass for her to charge and squat upon. The others run to the reef catches a small crab tears off its claws and hastens back with them to the creek. Here in the meantime a fire has been kindled and the claws are roasted at it. The girl is then fed by her attendants with the roasted claws. After that she is freshly decorated and the whole party marches back to the village in a single rank the girl walking in the center between her two old aunts who hold her by the wrists. The husbands of her aunts now receive her and lead her into the house of one of them where all partake of food and the girl is allowed once more to feed herself in the usual manner. A dance follows in which the girl takes a prominent part dancing between the husbands of the two aunts who had charge of her in her retirement. Among the Yai Kana tribe of North York Peninsula in Northern Queensland that puberty is said to live by herself for a month or six weeks. No man may see her though any woman may. She stays in a hut or shelter specially made for her on the floor of which she lies supine. She may not see the sun and towards sunset she must keep her eyes shut until the sun has gone down otherwise it is thought that her nose will be diseased. During her seclusion she may eat nothing that lives in salt water or a snake would kill her. An old woman waits upon her and supplies her with roots, yams and water. Some Australian tribes are want to bury their girls at such seasons more or less deeply in the ground perhaps in order to hide them from the light of the sun. Among the Indians of California a girl at her first menstruation quote was meant to be possessed of a particular degree of supernatural power and this was not always regarded as entirely defiling or malevolent. Often however there was a strong feeling of the power of evil inherent in her condition. Not only was she secluded from her family and her community but an attempt was made to seclude the world from her. One of the injunctions most strongly laid upon her was to look about her. She kept her head bowed and was forbidden to see the world and the sun. Some tribes covered her with a blanket. Many of the customs in this connection resemble those of the North Pacific coast most strongly. Such as the prohibition to the girl to touch or scratch her head with her hand a special implement being furnished her for the purpose. Sometimes she could only eat when fed and in other cases fasted all together close quote Among the Chinook Indians who inhabited the coast of Washington state when a chief's daughter attained to puberty she was hidden for five days from the view of the people. She might not look at them nor at the sky nor might she pick berries. It was believed that if she were to look at the sky the weather would be bad and the berries it would rain and that when she hung her towel of cedar bark on a spruce tree the tree withered up at once. She went out of the house by a separate door and bathed in a creek far from the village. She fasted for some days and for many days more she might not eat fresh food. Amongst the ot or Nuqa Indians of Vancouver Island when girls reached puberty they are placed in a sort of gallery in the house quote and are there surrounded completely with mats so that neither the sun nor any fire can be seen. In this cage they remain for several days water is given them but no food. The longer a girl remains in this retirement the greater honor it is to the parents but she is disgraced for life if it is known that she has seen fire or the sun during this initiatory ordeal close quote pictures of the mythical thunderbird are painted on the screens behind which she hides during her seclusion she may neither move nor lie down but must always sit in a squatting posture she may not touch her hair with her hands but is allowed to scratch her head with a comb or a piece of bone provided for the purpose to scratch her body is also forbidden it is believed that every scratch would leave a scar for eight months after reaching maturity she may not eat any fresh food particularly salmon moreover she must eat by herself and use a cup and dish of her own. In the sets out tribe of British Columbia a girl at puberty wears a large hat of skin which comes down over her face and screens it from the sun it is believed that if she were to expose her face to the sun or to the sky rain would fall the hat protects her face also against the fire which ought not to strike her skin to shield her hands she wears mittens in her mouth she carries the tooth of an animal to prevent her own teeth from becoming hollow for a whole year she may not see blood unless her face is blackened otherwise she would grow blind for two years she wears the hat and lives in a hut by herself although she is allowed to see other people at the end of two years a man takes the hat from her head and throws it away in the Bilcoula tribe of British Columbia when a girl attains puberty she must stay in the shed which serves as her bedroom where she has a separate fireplace she is not allowed to descend to the main part of the house and may not sit by the fire of the family for four days she is bound to remain motionless in a sitting posture she fasts during the day but is allowed a little food and drink very early in the morning after the four days seclusion she may leave her room but only through a separate opening cut in the floor which is raised on piles she may not yet come into the chief room in leaving the house she wears a large hat which protects her face against the rays of the sun it is believed that if the sun were to shine on her face her eyes would suffer she may pick berries on the hills but may not come near the river or sea for a whole year where she to eat fresh salmon her senses or her mouth would be changed into a long beak amongst the Tlingit or Tlingit or Kulosh Indians of Alaska when a girl shows signs of womanhood she used to be confined to a little hut or cage which was completely blocked up with the exception of a small air hole in this dark and filthy abode she had to remain a year at fire, exercise, or associates only her mother and a female slave might supply her with nourishment her food was put in at the little window she had to drink out of the wing bone of a white-headed eagle the time of her seclusion was afterwards reduced in some places to six or three months or even less she had to wear a sort of hat with long flaps that her gaze might not pollute the sky for she was thought unfit for the sun to shine upon and it was imagined that her look would destroy the luck of a hunter, fisher, or gambler turn things to stone and do other mischief at the end of her confinement her clothes were burnt new ones were made and a feast was given at which a slit was cut in her underlip parallel to the mouth and a piece of wood or shell was inserted to keep the aperture open among the cognacs an Eskimo people of Alaska a girl at puberty was placed in a small hut in which she had to remain on her hands and feet for six months then the hut was enlarged a little so as to allow her to straighten her back but in this posture she had to remain for six months more all this time she was regarded as an unclean being with whom no one might hold intercourse when symptoms of puberty appeared on a girl for the first time the guiranes of southern Brazil on the borders of Paraguay used to sew her up in a hammock leaving only a small opening in it to allow her to breathe in this condition wrapped up and shrouded like a corpse she was kept for two or three days or so long as the symptoms lasted and during this time she had to observe a most rigorous fast after that she was entrusted to a matron who cut the girl's hair and enjoined her to abstain most strictly from eating flesh of any kind until her hair should be grown long enough to hide her ears in similar circumstances the Chiricuanos of southeastern Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof where she stayed for a month the second month the hammock was let halfway down from the roof and in the third month old women armed with sticks entered the hut and ran about striking everything they met saying they were hunting the snake that had wounded the girl among the Matacos or Matagayos an Indian tribe of the Grand Chaco a girl at puberty has to remain in seclusion for some time she lies covered up with branches or other things in a corner of the hut seeing no one and speaking to no one and during this time she may eat neither flesh nor fish meantime a man beats a drum in front of the house among the Uracares an Indian tribe of eastern Bolivia when a girl perceives the signs of puberty her father constructs a little hut with palm trees near the house in this cabin he shuts up his daughter so that she cannot see the light and there she remains fasting rigorously for four days amongst the Matacos when a girl shows the first signs of puberty she is hung in a hammock at the highest point of the hut for the first few days she may not leave the hammock by day but at night she must come down, light a fire and spend the night beside it else she would break out in sores on her neck, throat and other parts of her body so long as the symptoms are at their height she must fast rigorously when they have abated she may come down and take up her abode in a little compartment that is made for her in the darkest corner of the hut in the morning she may cook her food but it must be at a separate fire and in a vessel of her own after about ten days the magician comes and undoes the spell by muttering charms and breathing on her and on the more valuable of the things with which she has come in contact the pots and drinking vessels which she used are broken and the fragments buried after her first bath the girl must submit to be beaten by her mother with thin rods without uttering a cry at the end of the second period she is again beaten but not afterwards she is now clean and can mix again with people the Indians of Guyana after keeping the girl in her hammock at the top of the hut for a month expose her to certain large ants whose bite is very painful sometimes in addition to being stung with ants the sufferer has to fast day and night so long as she remains slung up on high in her hammock so that when she comes down she is reduced to a skeleton when a Hindu maiden reaches maturity she is kept in a dark room for four days and is forbidden to see the sun she is regarded as unclean no one may touch her her diet is restricted to boiled rice, milk, sugar, curds and Cameron without salt on the morning of the fifth day she goes to a neighboring tank accompanied by five women whose husbands are alive smeared with turmeric water they all bathe and return home throwing away the mat and other things that were in the room the Rahri Brahmans of Bengal compel a girl at puberty to live alone and do not allow her to see the face of any male for three days she remains shut up in a dark room and has to undergo certain penances fish flesh and sweet meats are forbidden her she must live upon rice and ghee among the tea-ons of Malabar a girl is thought to be polluted for four days from the beginning of her first menstruation during this time she must keep to the north side of the house where she sleeps on a glass mat of particular kind in a room festooned with garlands of young coconut leaves another girl keeps her company and sleeps with her but she may not touch any other person tree or plant further she may not see the sky and woe be tied her if she catches sight of a crow or a cat her diet must be strictly vegetarian without salt, tamarins or chilies armed against evil spirits by a knife which is placed on the mat or carried on her person in Cambodia a girl at puberty is put to bed under a mosquito curtain where she should stay a hundred days usually however four five, ten or twenty days is thought enough and even this in a hot climate and under the close meshes of the curtain is sufficiently trying according to another account a Cambodian maiden at puberty is said to quote enter into the shade close quote during her retirement which according to the rank and position of her family may last any time from a few days to several years she has to observe a number of rules such as not to be seen by a strange man not to eat flesh or fish and so on she goes nowhere not even to the pagoda but this state of seclusion is discontinued during eclipses at such times she goes forth and pays her devotions to the monster who is supposed to cause eclipses by catching the heavenly bodies between his teeth this permission to break her rule of retirement and appear abroad during an eclipse seems to show how literally the injunction is interpreted which forbids maidens entering on womanhood to look upon the sun a superstition so widely diffused as this might be expected to leave traces in legends and folktales and it has done so the Greek story of Dane who was confined by her father in a subterranean chamber or a brazen tower but impregnated by Zeus who reached her in the shape of a shower of gold perhaps belongs to this class of tales it has its counterpart in the legend which the Kyrgyz of Siberia tell of their ancestry a certain Khan had a fair daughter whom he kept in a dark iron house that no man might see her an old woman tended her and when the girl was grown to maidenhood she asked the old woman where do you go so often my child said the Dane there is a bright world in that bright world your father and mother live and all sorts of people live there that is where I go the maiden said good mother I will tell nobody but show me that bright world so the old woman took the girl out of the iron house but when she saw the bright world the girl tottered and fainted and the eye of God fell upon her and she conceived her angry father put her in a golden chest and sent her floating away over the wide sea the shower of gold in the Greek story and the eye of God in the Kyrgyz legend probably stand for sunlight and the sun the idea that women may be impregnated by the sun is not uncommon in the legends and there are even traces of it in marriage customs section 4 reasons for the seclusion of girls at puberty the motive for the restraints so commonly imposed on girls at puberty is the deeply ingrained dread which primitive man universally entertains of menstruous blood he fears it at all times but especially on its first appearance hence the restrictions under which women lie at their first menstruation are usually more stringent than those which they have to observe at any subsequent recurrence of the mysterious flow some evidence of the fear and of the customs based on it has been cited in an earlier part of this work but as the terror for it is nothing less which the phenomenon periodically strikes into the mind of the savage has deeply influenced his life and institutions it may be well to illustrate the subject with some further examples thus in the encounter bay tribe of south australia there is or used to be a quote superstition which obliges a woman to separate herself from the camp at the time of her monthly illness when if a young man or boy should approach she calls out and he immediately makes a circuit to avoid her if she is negligent upon this point she exposes herself to scolding and sometimes to severe beating by her husband or nearest relation because the boys are told from their infancy that if they see the blood they will become gray-headed and their strength will fail prematurely close quote the dairy of central australia believe that if a woman at these times were to eat fish or bathe in a river the fish would all die and the water would dry up the aroota of the same region forbid menstruous women to gather the iryakura bulbs which form a staple article of diet for both men and women they think that were a woman to break this rule the supply of fruits would fail in some australian tribes the seclusion of menstruous women was even more rigid and was enforced by severe penalties than a scolding or a beaten thus quote there is a regulation relating to camps in the wakelbura tribe which forbids the women coming into the encampment by the same path as the men any violation of this rule would in a large camp be punished the reason for this is the dread with which they regard the menstrual period of women during such a time a woman is kept entirely away from the camp half a mile at least a woman in such condition has boughs of some tree of her totem tied around her loins and is constantly watched and guarded for it is thought that should any male be so unfortunate as to see a woman in such a condition to die if such a woman were to let herself be seen by a man she would probably be put to death when the woman has recovered she is painted red and white her head covered with feathers and returns to the camp close quote in muralug one of the torres straits islands a menstruous woman may not eat anything that lives in the sea else the natives believe the torres would fail in galela to the west of new guinea women at their monthly periods may not enter a tobacco field or the plants would be attacked by disease the min ang kabawers of sumatra are persuaded that if a woman in her unclean state were to go near a rice field the crop would be spoiled the bushmen of south africa think that by a glance they would die at the time when she ought to be kept in strict retirement men become fixed in whatever positions they happen to occupy with whatever they were holding in their hands and are changed into trees that talk cattle rearing tribes of south africa hold that their cattle would die if the milk were drunk by a menstruous woman and they fear the same disaster if a drop of her blood were to fall on the ground and the oxen were to pass over it to prevent such a calamity women in general not menstruous women only are forbidden to enter the cattle enclosure and more than that they may not use the ordinary paths in entering the village or in passing from one hut to another they are obliged to make circuitous tracks at the back of the huts in order to avoid the ground in the middle of the village the cattle stand or lie down these women's tracks may be seen at every calfre village among the baganda in like manner no menstruous woman might drink milk or come into contact with any milk vessel and she might not touch anything that belonged to her husband nor sit on his mat nor cook his food if she touched anything of his at such a time it seemed equivalent to wishing him dead or to actually working magic for his destruction were she to handle any article of his he would surely fall ill were she to touch his weapons he would certainly be killed in the next battle further the baganda would not suffer a menstruous woman to visit a well if she did so they feared that the water would dry up and that she herself would fall sick and die unless she confessed her fault and the medicine man made atonement for her among the akikuyu of british east africa if a new hut is built in a village and the wife chances to menstruate in it on the day she lights the first fire there the hut must be broken down and demolished the very next day the woman may on no account sleep a second night in it there is a curse both on her and on it according to the talmud if a woman at the beginning of her period passes between two men she thereby kills one of them peasants of the lebanon think that menstruous women are the cause of many misfortunes their shadow causes flowers to wither and trees to perish it even arrests the movements of serpents if one of them mounts a horse the animal might die or at least be disabled for a long time the gaikiris of the orinoco believe that when a woman has her courses everything upon which she steps will die and that if a man treads on the place where she has passed his legs will immediately swell up among the bribri indians of Costa Rica a married woman at her periods for plates only banana leaves which when she has done with them she throws away in a sequestered spot for should a cow find and eat them the animal would waste away and perish also she drinks only out of a special vessel because any person who should afterwards drink out of the same vessel would infallibly pine away and die among the tribes of north american indians the custom was that women in their courses retired from the camp or the village and lived during the time of their uncleanness in special huts or shelters which were appropriated for their use there they dwelt apart eating and sleeping by themselves warming themselves at their own fires and strictly abstaining from all communications with men who shunned them just as if they were stricken thus to take examples the creek and kindred indians of the united states compelled women at menstruation to live in separate huts at some distance from the village there the women had to stay at the risk of being surprised and cut off by enemies it was thought quote a most horrid and dangerous pollution close quote to go near the women at such times and the danger extended to enemies who if they slew the women had to cleanse themselves from the pollution by means of certain sacred herbs and roots the steciallis indians of british columbia imagined that if a menstruous woman were to step over a bundle of arrows the arrows would thereby be rendered useless and might even cause the death of their owner and similarly that if she passed in front of a hunter who carried a gun the weapon would never shoot straight again among the chipaways and other indians of the hudson bay territory menstruous women are excluded from the camp and take up their abode in huts of branches they wear long hoods which effectually conceal the head and breast they may not touch the household furniture nor any objects used by men for their touch is supposed to defile them so that their subsequent use would be followed by certain mischief or misfortune such as disease or death they must drink out of a swan's bone they may not walk on the common paths nor cross the tracks of animals they quote are never permitted to walk on the ice of rivers or lakes or near the part where the men are hunting beaver or where a fishing net is set for fear of averting their success they are also prohibited at those times from partaking of the head of any animal and even from walking in or crossing the track where the head of a deer moose beaver and many other animals have lately been carried either on a sledge or on the back to be guilty of a violation of this custom is considered as of the greatest importance because they firmly believe that it would be a means of preventing the hunter from having an equal success in his future excursions close quote so the lapse forbid women at menstruation to walk on that part of the shore where the fishers are in the habit of setting out their fish and the eskimo of bearing straight believe that if hunters were to come near women in their courses they would catch no game for a like reason the carrier Indians will not suffer a menstruous woman to cross the tracks of animals if need be she is carried over by them they think that if she waited in a stream or a lake the fish would die amongst the civilized nations of Europe the superstitions which cluster around this mysterious aspect of women's nature are not less extravagant than those which prevail among savages in the oldest existing cyclopedia the natural history of Pliny the list of dangers apprehended from menstruation is longer than any furnished by mere barbarians according to Pliny the touch of a menstruous woman turned wine to vinegar blighted crops killed seedlings blasted gardens brought down the fruit from trees dimmed mirrors, blunted razors especially at the waning of the moon killed bees or at least drove them from their hives caused mares to miscarry and so forth similarly in various parts of Europe it is still believed that if a woman in her courses enters a brewery the beer will turn sour if she touches beer wine, vinegar, or milk it will go bad if she makes jam it will not keep if she mounts a mare it will miscarry if she touches buds they will wither if she climbs a cherry tree it will die in Brunswick people think that if a menstruous woman assists in the killing of a pig the pork will putrify in the greek island of Kalymnos a woman at such times may not go to the well to draw water nor cross a running stream nor enter the sea her presence in a boat is said to raise storms thus the object of secluding women at menstruation is to neutralize the dangerous influences which are supposed to emanate from them at such times that the dangerous believed to be especially great at the first menstruation appears from the unusual precautions taken to isolate girls at this crisis two of these precautions have been illustrated above namely the rules that the girls may not touch the ground nor see the sun the general effect of these rules is to keep her suspended so to say between heaven and earth whether enveloped in her hammock and slung up to the roof as in South America or raised above the ground in a dark and narrow cage as in New Ireland she can be out of the way if doing mischief since being shut off from both the earth and from the sun she can poison neither of these great sources of life by her deadly contagion in short she is rendered harmless by being in electrical language insulated but the precautions thus taken to isolate or insulate the girl are dictated by a regard for her own safety as for the safety of others for it is thought that she herself would suffer if she were to neglect the prescribed regimen thus Zulu girls as we have seen believe that they would shrivel to skeletons if the sun were to shine on them at puberty and the makusis imagine that if a young woman were to transgress the rules she would suffer from sores on various parts of her body in short the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which if not kept within bounds may prove destructive both to herself and to all with whom she comes in contact to repress this force within the limits necessary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in question the same explanation applies to the observance of the same rules by divine kings and priests the uncleanness as it is called of girls at puberty and the sanctity of holy men do not to the primitive mind differ materially from each other they are only different manifestations of the same mysterious energy which like energy in general is in itself neither good nor bad but becomes beneficent or a maleficent according to its application accordingly if at puberty divine personages may neither touch the ground nor see the sun the reason is on the one hand a fear lest their divinity might at contact with earth or heaven discharge itself with fail violence on ether and on the other hand an apprehension that the divine being thus drained of his etheral virtue might thereby be incapacitated for the future performance of those magical functions upon the proper discharge of which the safety of the people and even of the world is believed to hang thus the rules in question fall under the head of the taboos which we examined in an earlier part of this book they are intended to preserve the life of the divine person and with it the life of his subjects and worshipers where it is thought can a precious yet dangerous life yet once so safe and so harmless as when it is neither in heaven nor in earth but as far as possible suspended between the two chapter 61 the myth of balder a deity whose life might in a sense be said to be neither in heaven nor on earth but between the two was the Norse Balder the good and beautiful god the son of the great god Odin and himself the wisest mildest best beloved of all the immortals the story of his death as it is told in the younger or prose edda runs thus once in a time balder dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to forebode his death there upon the gods held a council and resolved to make him secure against every danger so the goddess frig took an oath from fire and water iron and all metals stone and earth from trees, sicknesses and poisons and from all four-footed beasts, birds and creeping things that they would not hurt balder when this was done balder was deemed invulnerable so the gods amused themselves by setting him in their midst while some shot at him others hewed at him and others threw stones at him but whatever they did nothing could hurt him and at this they were all glad only Loki the mischief maker was displeased and he went in the guise of an old woman to frig who told him that the weapons of the gods could not wound balder since she had made them swear not to hurt him then Loki asked have all these things swarmed to spare balder she answered east of Valhalla grows a plant called mistletoe it seemed to me too young to swear so Loki went and pulled the mistletoe and took it to the assembly of the gods there he found the blind god Holter standing at the outside of the circle Loki asked him why do you not shoot at balder Holter answered because I do not see where he stands besides I have no weapon then Loki said do like the rest and show balder honour as they do I will show you where he stands and you will shoot him with his twig Holter took the mistletoe and threw it at balder as Loki directed him the mistletoe struck balder and pierced him through and through and he fell down dead and that was the greatest misfortune that ever befell gods and men for a while the gods stood speechless then they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly they took balder's body and brought it to the seashore there stood balder's ship it was called ringhorn and was the hugest of all ships the gods wished to launch the ship and to burn balder's body on it but the ship would not stir so they sent for a giantus called Hyrokin she came riding on a wolf and gave the ship such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook then balder's body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his ship when his wife Nana saw that her heart burst for sorrow and she died so she was laid on the funeral pile with her husband and fire was put to it balder's horse too with all its trappings was burned on the pile whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage balder was worshiped in Norway on one of the bays of the beautiful Sangne Fjord which penetrates far into the depths of the solemn Norwegian mountains with their somber pine forests and their lofty cascades dissolving into spray before they reached the dark water of the fjord below balder had a great sanctuary it was called Balder's Grove a palisade enclosed the hallowed ground and within it stood a spacious temple with the images of many gods but none of them was worshiped with such devotion as Balder so great was the ah with which the heathen regarded the place that no man might harm another there nor steal his cattle nor defile himself with women but women cared for the images of the gods in the temple they warmed them at the fire anointed them with oil and dried them with cloths whatever may be thought of an historical kernel underlying a mythical husk in the legend of Balder the details of the story suggest that it belongs to that class of myths which have been dramatized and ritual or to put it otherwise which have been performed as magical ceremonies for the sake of producing those natural effects which they describe in figurative language a myth is never so graphic and precise in its details as when it is so to speak the book of the words which are spoken and acted by the performers of the sacred rite that the Norse story of Balder was a myth of this sort will become probable if we can prove that ceremonies resembling the incidents in the tale have been performed by Norsemen and other European peoples now the main incidents in the tale are two first the pulling of the mistletoe and second the death and burning of the god and both of them may perhaps be found to have had their counterparts in yearly rites observed whether separately or conjointly by people in various parts of Europe these rites will be described and discussed in the following chapters we shall begin with the annual festivals of fire to preserve the pulling of the mistletoe for consideration later on and of chapter 61 chapter 62 part 1 of the golden bow this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the golden bow by Sir James Frazier chapter 62 part 1 the fire festivals of Europe section 1 the fire festivals in general all over Europe the peasants have been accustomed from time immemorial to kindle bonfires on certain days of the year and to dance round or leap over them customs of this kind can be traced back on historical evidence to the middle ages and their analogy to similar customs observed in antiquity is strong internal evidence to prove that their origin must be sought in a period long prior to the spread of Christianity indeed the earliest proof of their observance in northern Europe is furnished by the attempts made by Christian synods in the 8th century to put them down as heathenish rites not uncommonly effigies are burned in these fires or a pretense is made of burning a living person in them and there are grounds for believing that anciently human beings were actually burned on these occasions a brief view of the customs in question will bring out the traces of human sacrifice and will serve at the same time to throw light on their meaning the seasons of the year when the bonfires are most commonly lit are spring and mid summer but in some places they are kindled also at the end of autumn or during the course of the winter particularly on Halloween or the 31st of October Christmas Day and the eve of 12th day space forbids me to describe all these festivals at length a few specimens must serve to illustrate their general character we shall begin with the fire festivals of spring which usually fall on the first Sunday of Lent that is Quadregasima or Invokavit Easter Eve and Mayday section 2 the Lenten Fires the custom of kindling bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent has prevailed in Belgium the north of France and many parts of Germany thus in the Belgian André for a week or a fortnight before the day of the great fire as it is called children go about from farm to farm collecting fuel at Grand Hallel anyone who refuses the request is pursued next day by the children who try to blacken his face with the ashes of the extinct fire when the day has come they cut down bushes especially juniper and broom and in the evening great bonfires blaze on all the heights it is a common saying that seven bonfires should be seen if the village is to be safe for migrations if the muse happens to be frozen hard at the time bonfires are lit also on the ice at Grand Hallel they set up a pole called Macral or The Witch in the midst of the pile and the fire is kindled by the man who was last married in the village in the neighborhood of Morland Wells a straw man is burnt in the fire young people and children dance and sing round the bonfires and leap over the embers to secure good crops or a happy marriage within the year or as a means of guarding themselves against colic in Brabant on the same Sunday down to the beginning of the 19th century women and men disguised in female attire used to go with burning torches to the fields where they danced and sang comic songs for the purpose as they alleged of driving away the wicked sower who was mentioned in the gospel for the day at Patiorgas in the province of Hanalt down to about 1840 the custom was observed under the name of Escobion or Escobion every year on the first Sunday in Lent which was called the day of the little Escobion young folks and children used to run with light to torches through the gardens and orchards as they ran they cried like the pitch of their voices bear apples, bear pairs and cherries all black to Escobion at these words the torchbearer whirled his blazing brand and hurled it among the branches of the apple trees the pear trees and the cherry trees the next Sunday was called the day of the great Escobion and the same race with lighted torches among the trees of the orchards was repeated in the afternoon till darkness fell in the French department of the André the whole village used to dance and sing around the bonfires which were lighted on the first Sunday in Lent here too it was the person last married sometimes a man and sometimes a woman who put the match to the fire the custom is still kept up very commonly in the district cats used to be burnt in the fire or roasted to death by being held over it and while burning the shepherds drove their flocks through the smoke and flames as a sure means of guarding them against sickness and witchcraft in some communes it was believed that the livelier the dance around the fire the better would be the crops that year in the French province of Franck Comté to the west of the Hurra Mountains the first Sunday in Lent is known as the Sunday of the firebrands on account of the fires which it is customary to set at day on the Saturday or the Sunday the village lads harness themselves to a cart and drag it about the streets stopping at the doors of the houses where there are girls and begging for a faggot when they have got enough they cart the fuel to a spot at some little distance from the village pile it up and set it on fire all the people of the parish come out to see the bonfire in some villages when the bells ring alas the signal for the observance is given by cries of to the fire to the fire lads lasses and children dance around the blaze and when the flames have died down they vie with each other in leaping over the red embers he or she who does so without singeing his or her garments will be married within the year young folk also carry lighted torches about the streets or fields and when they pass and orchard they cray out more fruit than leaves down to recent years at Lavillon in the department of doves it was the young married couple of the year who had charge of the bonfires in the midst of the bonfire a pole was planted with a wooden figure of a cock fastened to the top then there were races and the winner received the cock as a prize in Avogne fires are everywhere kindled on the evening of the first Sunday in Lent every village every hamlet even every ward every isolated farm has its bonfire or Figo as it is called which blazes up as the shades of night are falling the fires may be seen flaring on the heights and in the plains the people dance and sing round about them and leap through the flames then they proceed to the ceremony of the granae mai the granae mio is a torch of straw fastened to the top of a pole when the pyre is half consumed the bystanders kindle the tortures at the expiring flames and carry them into the neighboring orchards fields and gardens wherever there are fruit trees as they march they sing at the top of their voices granae my friend, granae my father granae my mother then they pass the burning torches under the branches of every tree singing brando brandunci tasche bronzo in plan penne that is fire brand burn every branch of basketful in some villages the people also run across the sown fields and shake the ashes of the torches on the ground also they put some of the ashes in the fowls nests in order that the hens relay plenty of eggs throughout the year when all these ceremonies have been performed everybody goes home and feasts the special dishes of the evening are fritters and pancakes here the application of the fire to the fruit trees to the sown fields and to the nests of the poultry is clearly a charm intended to ensure fertility and the granae to whom the invocations are addressed and who gives his name to the torches may possibly be as Dr. Pomerol suggests no other than the ancient Celtic god Cranos whom the Romans identified with Apollo and whose worship is attested by inscriptions found not only in France but in Scotland and on the Danube the custom of carrying lighted torches of straw about the orchards and fields to fertilize them on the first Sunday of Lent seems to have been common in France whether it was accompanied with the practice of kindling bonfires or not thus in the province of Picard a quote on the first Sunday of Lent people carried torches through the fields exercising the field mice the Darnell and the smut they imagined that they did much good to the gardens and caused the onions to grow large children ran about the fields torch in hand to make the land more fertile close quote at Fergay a village between the Hiora and the Comde Aen the torches at this season were kindled on the top of a mountain and the bearers went to every house in the village demanding roasted peas and obliging all couples who had been married within the year to dance in Barrie a district of central France it appears that bonfires are not lighted on this day but when the sun has set the whole population of the villages armed with blazing torches of straw disperse over the country and scour the fields the vineyards and the orchards seen from afar the multitude of moving lights twinkling in the darkness appear like willow the wisps chasing each other across the plains along the hillsides and on the valleys when the men waved their flambos the fruit trees the women and children tie bands of wheat and straw around the tree trunks the effect of the ceremony is supposed to be to avert the various plagues from which the fruits of the earth are apt to suffer and the bands of straw fastened round the stems of the trees are believed to render them fruitful in Germany Austria and Switzerland at the same season similar customs have prevailed in the Eiffel mountains, Renish Prussia on the first Sunday in Lent young people used to collect straw and brushwood from house to house these they carried to an eminence and piled up round a tall slim beech tree to which a piece of wood was fastened at right angles to form a cross the structure was known as the hut or castle fire was set to it and the young people marched around the blazing castle bareheaded each carrying a lighted torch and praying aloud sometimes a strawman was burnt in the hut people observed the direction in which the smoke blew from the fire if it blew towards the corn fields it was a sign that the harvest would be abundant on the same day in some parts of the Eiffel a great wheel was made of straw and dragged by three horses to the top of the hill the village boys marched at nightfall set fire to the wheel and sent it rolling down the slope at Oberstattfeld the wheel had to be provided by the young man who was last married about Echernauk in Luxembourg the same ceremony is called burning the witch at Vorarlberg in the Tyrol on the first Sunday in Lent a slender young fir tree is surrounded by a pile of straw and firewood to the top of the tree is fastened a human figure called the witch made of old clothes and stuffed with gunpowder at night the hole is set on fire and boys and girls dance around it swinging torches and singing rhymes in which the words corn in the winnowing basket the plow in the earth may be distinguished in Swavia on the first Sunday in Lent a figure called the witch or the old wife or winter's grandmother is made up of clothes and fastened to a pole this is stuck in the middle of a pile of wood to which fire is applied while the witch is burning the young people throw blazing discs into the air the discs are thin round pieces of wood a few inches in diameter with notched edges to imitate the rays of the sun or stars they have a hole in the middle by which they are attached to the end of a wand before the disc is thrown it is set on fire the wand is swung to and fro and the impetus thus communicated to the disc is augmented by dashing the rod sharply against a sloping board the burning disc is thus thrown off and mounting high into the air describes a long fiery curve before it reaches the ground the charred embers of the burned witch and discs are taken home and planted in the flax field the same night in the belief that they will keep a vermin from the fields in the Haroon Mountains situated on the borders of Hess and Bavaria the people used to march to the top of a hill or eminence on the first Sunday in Lent children and lads carried to torches brooms doved with tar and poles swathed in straw a wheel wrapped in combustibles was kindled and rolled down the hill and the young people rushed about the fields with their burning torches and brooms till at last they flung them in a heap and standing round them struck up a hymn or a popular song the object of running about the fields with the blazing torches was to drive away the wicked sower or it was done in honor of the virgin that she might preserve the fruits of the earth throughout the year and bless them in neighboring villages of Hess between the Haroon and the Vogel Mountains it was thought that wherever the burning wheels roll the fields will be safe from hail and storm in Switzerland also it is or used to be customary to kindle bonfires on high places in the evening of the first Sunday in Lent and the day is therefore popularly known as Spark Sunday the custom prevailed for example throughout the canton of Lucerne boys went about from house to house begging for wood and straw then piled the fuel on a conspicuous mountain or hill round about a pole which bore a straw effigy called the witch at nightfall the pile was set on fire and the young folks danced wildly round it some of them cracking whips ringing bells and when the fire burned low enough they leaped over it this was called burning the witch in some parts of the canton also they used to wrap old wheels in straw and thorns put a light to them and send them rolling and blazing downhill the more bonfires could be seen sparkling and flaring in the darkness the more fruitful was the year expected to be and the higher the dancers leapt or over the fire the higher it was thought would grow the flax in some districts it was the last married man or woman who must kindle the bonfire it hardly seems possible to separate from these bonfires kindled on the first Sunday in Lent the fires in which about the same season the effigy called death is burned as part of the ceremony of carrying out death we have seen that at Spackendorf in Austria and Celesia on the morning of Rupert's day a straw man dressed in a fur coat and a fur cap is laid in a hole outside the village and they're burned and that while it is blazing everyone seeks to snatch a fragment of it which he fastens to a branch of the highest tree in his garden or berries in his field believing that this will make the crops grow better the ceremony is known as the bearing of the dead even when the straw man is not designated as death the meaning of the observance is probably the same for the name death as I have tried to show does not express the original intention of the ceremony at Cobarn in the Eiffel mountains the lads make up a straw man on Shrove Tuesday the effigy is formally tried and accused of having perpetrated all the thefts that have been committed in the neighborhood throughout the year being condemned to death the straw man is led through the village shot and burned upon a pyre they dance around the blazing pile and the last bride must sleep over it in Oldenburg on the evening of Shrove Tuesday people used to make long bundles of straw which they set on fire and then ran about the fields waving them shrieking and singing wild songs finally they burned a straw man on the field in the district of Düsseldorf the straw man burned on Shrove Tuesday was made of an unthreshed sheaf of corn on the first Monday after the spring equinox the urchins of Zurich drag a straw man on a little cart through the streets while at the same time the girls carry about a matri when vespers ring the straw man is burned in the district of Aachen on Ash Wednesday a man used to be encased in pea straw and taken to an appointed place here he slipped quietly out of his straw casing which was then burned the children thinking that it was the man who was being burned in the Valdeladro or Tyrol on the last day of the carnival a figure is made up of straw and brushwood and then burned the figure is called the old woman and the ceremony burning the old woman section 3 the Easter fires another occasion on which these fire festivals are held is Easter Eve the Saturday before Easter Sunday on that day it has been customary in Catholic countries to extinguish all the lights in the churches and then to make a new fire sometimes with flint and steel sometimes with a burning glass at this fire is lit the great pachal or Easter candle which is then used to rekindle all the extinguished lights in the church in many parts of Germany a bonfire is also kindled by means of the new fire on some open space near the church it is consecrated and the people bring sticks of oak walnut and beech which they char in the fire and then take home with them some of these charred sticks are there upon burned at home in a newly kindled fire with a prayer that God will preserve the homestead from fire lightning and hail thus every house receives new fire some of the sticks are kept throughout the year and laid on the hearth fire during heavy thunderstorms to prevent the house from being struck by lightning or they are inserted in the roof with the like intention others are placed in the fields gardens and meadows with a prayer that God will keep them from blight and hail such fields and gardens are thought to thrive more than others the corn and the plants that grow in them are not beaten down by hail nor devoured by mice vermin and beetles no which harms them and the ears of corn stand close and full the charred sticks are also applied to the plough the ashes of the Easter bonfire together with the ashes of the consecrated pollen branches are mixed with the seed at sowing a wooden figure called Judas is sometimes burned in the consecrated bonfire and even where this custom has been abolished the bonfire itself in some places goes by the name of the burning of Judas the essentially pagan character of the Easter fire festival appears plainly both from the mode in which it is celebrated by the peasants and from the superstitious beliefs which they associate with it all over northern and central Germany from Altmark and Anhalt on the east through Brunswick Hanover, Oldenburg the Harz district and Hesse Tuestphalia the Easter bonfires still blaze simultaneously on the hilltops as many as forty may sometimes be counted within sight at once long before Easter the young people have been busy collecting firewood every farmer contributes and tar barrels, petroleum cases and so forth go to swell the pile neighboring villages vie with each other as to which shall send up the brightest blaze the fires are always kindled year after year on the same hill which accordingly often takes the name of Easter mountain it is a fine spectacle to watch from some eminence the bonfires flaring up one after another on the neighboring heights as far as their light reaches so far in the belief of the peasants the fields will be fruitful and the houses on which they shine will be safe from conflagration or sickness at Volkmarsten in places in Hesse the people used to observe which way the wind blew the flames and then they sowed flaxseed in that direction confident that it would grow well brands taken from the bonfires preserve houses from being struck by lightning and the ashes increase the fertility of the fields protect them from ice and mixed with the drinking water of cattle make the animals thrive and insure them against plague as the flames die down young and old leap over them and cattle are sometimes driven through the smoldering embers in some places tar barrels or wheels wrapped in straw used to be set on fire and then sent rolling down the hillside in others the boys light torches and wisps of straw at the bonfires and rush about brandishing them in their hands in Munster land these Easter fires are always kindled upon certain definite hills which are thence known as Easter or Pashall mountains the whole community assembles about the fire the young men and maidens singing Easter hymns march round and round the fire till the blaze dies down then the girls jump over the fire in a line one after the other each supported by two young men who hold her hands at run beside her in the twilight boys with blazing bundles of straw run over the fields to make them fruitful at Delmenhorst in Oldenburg it used to be the custom to cut down two trees plant them in the ground side by side and pile 12 tar barrels against each brushwood was then heaped about the trees and on the evening of Easter Saturday the boys after rushing about with blazing their hands set fire to the whole at the end of the ceremony the urchins tried to blacken each other and the clothes of grown-up people in the Altmark it is believed that as far as the blaze of the Easter bonfire is visible the corn will grow well throughout the year and no conflagration will break out at Brown Road in the Harz Mountains it was the custom to burn squirrels in the Easter bonfire in the Altmark bones were burned in it near Forkheim in Upper Franken a straw man called the Judas used to be burned in the churchyards on Easter Saturday the whole village contributed wood to the pyre on which he perished and the charred sticks were afterwards kept and planted in the fields on Walpurgis Day or the 1st of May to preserve the wheat from blight and mildew years ago or more the custom at Althenaburg in Upper Bavaria used to be as follows on the afternoon of Easter Saturday the lads collected wood which they piled in a cornfield while in the middle of the pile they set up a tall wooden cross all swathed and straw after the evening service they lighted their lanterns at the consecrated candle in the church and ran with them at full speed to the pyre each striving to get there first the first to arrive set fire to the heap no woman or girl might come near the bonfire but they were allowed to watch it from a distance as the flames rose the men and lads rejoiced and made Mary shouting we are burning the Judas the man who had been the first to reach the pyre and to kindle it was rewarded on Easter Sunday by the women who gave him colored eggs at the church door the object of the whole ceremony was to keep off the hail at other villages of Upper Bavaria the ceremony which took place between 9 and 10 at night on Easter Saturday was called Burning the Easter Man on a height about a mile from the village the young people set up a tall cross enveloped in straw so that it looked like a man with his arms stretched out this was the Easter Man no lad under 18 years of age might take part in the ceremony one of the young men stationed himself beside the Easter Man holding in his hand a consecrated taper which he had brought from the church and lighted the rest stood at equal intervals in a great circle round the cross at a given signal they raced thrice round the circle and then at a second signal ran straight at the cross and at the lad with the lighted taper beside it the one who reached the goal first had the right of setting fire to the Easter Man great was the dubulation while he was burning when he had been consumed in the flames three lads were chosen from among the rest and each of the three drew a circle on the ground where they stick thrice around the ashes then they all left the spot on Easter Monday the villagers gathered the ashes and strewed them on their fields also they planted in the fields palm branches which had been consecrated on Palm Sunday and sticks which had been charred and hallowed on Good Friday all for the purpose of protecting their fields against showers of hail in some parts of Swabia the Easter fires might not be kindled with iron or steel or flint but only by the friction of wood the custom of the Easter fires appears to have prevailed all over central and western Germany from north to south we find it also in Holland where the fires were kindled on the highest eminences and the people danced round them and leapt through the flames or over the glowing embers here too as often in Germany the materials for the bonfire were collected by the young folk from door to door in many parts of Sweden firearms are discharged in all directions on Easter Eve and huge bonfires are lighted on hills and eminences some people think that the intention is to keep off the troll and other evil spirits who are especially active at this season section 4 the Beltane Fires in the central highlands of Scotland bonfires known as the Beltane Fires were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the 1st of May and the traces of human sacrifice at them were particularly clear and unequivocal the custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places far into the 18th century and the descriptions of the ceremony by riders of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them in the words of their authors the fullest of the descriptions is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsey, Laird of Octurtire near Cref the patron of Burns and the friend of Sir Walter Scott he says quote but the most considerable of the druidical festivals is that of Beltane or Mayday which was lately observed in some parts of the highlands with extraordinary ceremonies like the other public worship of the druids the Beltane feast seems to have been performed on hills or eminences they thought it degrading to him whose temple is the universe to suppose that he would dwell in any house made with hands their sacrifices were therefore offered in the open air frequently upon the tops of hills where they were presented with the grandest views of nature and were nearest to the seat of warmth and order and to tradition such was the manner of celebrating this festival in the highlands within the last hundred years but since the decline of superstition it has been celebrated by the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their cattle were pasturing thither the young folks repaired in the morning and cut a trench on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the company and in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed which of old they kindled with tine eigen i.e. forced fire or need fire although for many years past they have been contented with common fire yet we shall now describe the process because it will hereafter appear that recourse is still had to the tine eigen upon extraordinary emergencies the night before the fires in the country were carefully extinguished and next morning the materials for exciting the sacred fire were prepared the most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of sky, mole, and tyrie a well seasoned plank of oak was procured in the midst of which a hole was moored a wimble of the same timber was then applied the end of which they fitted to the hole but in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different they used a frame of green wood of a square form in the center of which was an axel tree in some places three times three persons in others three times nine were required for turning round by turns the axel tree or wimble if any of them had been guilty of murder adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue so soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch trees and is very combustible this fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven and manifold where the virtues ascribed to it they esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft and a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases both in the human species and in cattle and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their nature changed after kindling the bonfire with the tine eigen the company prepared their vitals and as soon as they had finished their meal they amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire towards the close of the entertainment the person who officiated as master of the feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge called ambannak betaine i.e. the belting cake it was divided into a number of pieces and distributed in great form to the company there was one particular piece which whoever got was called kailebek belting i.e. the belting keraline a term of great reproach upon his being known part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of putting him into the fire but the majority interposing he was rescued and in some places they laid him flat on the ground making as if they would quarter him afterwards he was pelted with egg shells and retained the odious appellation during the whole year and while the feast was fresh in people's memory they effected to speak of the kailebek belting as dead close quote in the parish of calender a beautiful district of western Perthshire the belting custom was still in vogue towards the end of the 18th century it has been described as follows by the parish minister of the time quote upon the first day of May which is called belting all the boys in a township or hamlet meet in the moors they cut a table in the green sod of a round figure by casting a trench in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole company they kindle a fire and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard they need a cake of oatmeal which is toasted at the embers against a stone after the custard is eaten up they divide the cake into so many portions as similar as possible to one another in size and shape as there are persons in the company they douse one of these portions all over with charcoal until it be perfectly black they put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet everyone, blindfold draws out a portion he who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit whoever draws the black bit is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal whose favor they mean to implore in rendering the year productive of the sustenance of man and beast there is little doubt of these inhuman sacrifices having been once offered in this country as well as in the east although they now pass from the act of sacrificing and only compel the devoted person to leap three times through the flames with which the ceremonies of this festival are closed close quote Thomas Pennitt who traveled in Perthshire in the year 1769 tells us that quote on the first of May the herdsmen of every village hold their bell team a rural sacrifice they cut a square trench on the ground leaving the turf in the middle on that they make a fire of wood on which they dress a large coddle of eggs, butter, oatmeal and to bring besides the ingredients of the coddle plenty of beer and whiskey for each of the company must contribute something the rites begin with spilling some of the coddle on the ground by way of libation on that everyone takes a cake of oatmeal upon which are raised nine square knobs each dedicated to some particular being the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds to some particular animal the real destroyer of them each person then turns his face to the fire breaks off a knob and flinging it over his shoulder says this I give to thee preserve thou my horses this to thee preserve thou my sheep and so on after that they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals this I give to thee oh fox spare thou my lambs this to thee oh hooded crow this to thee oh eagle when the ceremony is over they dine on the coddle and after the feast is finished what is left is hid by two persons deputed for that purpose but on the next Sunday they reassemble and finish the relics of the first entertainment close quote another writer of the 18th century has described the Beltane Festival as it was held in the parish of Logaret in Perthshire he says quote on the first of May old style a festival called Beltane is annually held there it is chiefly celebrated by the cowherds who assemble by scores in the fields to dress a dinner for themselves of boiled milk and eggs these dishes they eat with a sort of cake baked for the occasion having small lumps in the form of nipples raised all over the surface close quote in this last account no mention is made of bonfires but they were probably lighted for a contemporary writer informs us that in the parish of Kirk Mikael which adjoins the parish of Logaret on the east the custom of lighting a fire in the fields and baking a consecrated cake on the first of May was not quite obsolete in his time we may conjecture that the cake with knobs was formerly used for the purpose of determining who should be the Beltane carline or victim doomed to the flames a trace of this custom survived perhaps in the custom of baking oatmeal cakes of a special kind and rolling them downhill about noon on the first of May for it was thought that the person whose cake broke as it rolled would die or be fortunate within the year these cakes or banoxes we call them in Scotland were baked in the usual way but they were washed over with a thin batter composed of whipped egg milk or cream and a little oatmeal this custom appears to have prevailed at or near Coongassie in Inverness Shire in the northeast of Scotland the Beltane fires were still kindled in the latter half of the 18th century and herdsmen of several farms used to gather dry wood, kindle it and dance three times south ways about the burning pile but in this region according to a later authority the Beltane fires were lit not on the first but on the second of May, old style they were called bone fires the people believed that on that evening at night the witches were broad and busy casting spells on cattle killing cows milk to counteract their machinations pieces of row entry and woodbine but especially of row entry were placed over the doors of the cowhouses and fires were kindled by every farmer and codder old thatch, straw furs or broom was piled in a heap and set on fire a little after sunset while some of the bystanders kept tossing the blazing mass and hoisted portions of it on pitchforks or poles and ran hither and thither holding them as high as they could meantime the young people danced round the fire or ran through the smoke shouting fire blaze and burn the witches fire fire burn the witches in some districts a large round cake of oat or barley meal was rolled through the ashes when all the fuel was consumed the people scattered the ashes far and wide until the night grew quite dark they continued to run through them crying fire burn the witches in the hybrids quote, the Beltane Bannock is smaller than that made at St. Michael's but is made in the same way it is no longer made in Oist but Father Allen remembers seeing his grandfather make one about 25 years ago there was also a cheese made generally on the 1st of May which was kept to the next Beltane as a sort of charm against the bewitching of milk produce the Beltane customs seem to have been the same as elsewhere every fire was put out and a large one lit on the top of the hill and the cattle driven round at sunwards to keep off Muraine all the year each man would take home fire wherewith to kindle his own close quote in Wales also the custom of lighting Beltane fires at the beginning of May used to be observed but the day on which they were kindled varied from the eve of May Day to the 3rd of May the flame was sometimes elicited by the friction of two pieces of oak as appears from the following description quote, the fire was done in this way nine men would turn their pockets inside out and see pieces of money and all metals were off their persons then the men went into the nearest woods and collected sticks of nine different kinds of trees these were carried to the spot where the fire had to be built there a circle was cut in the sod and the sticks were set crosswise all around the circle the people stood and watched the proceedings one of the men would take two bits of oak and rub them together until a flame was kindled this was applied to the sticks and soon a large fire was made sometimes two fires were set up side by side these fires whether one or two were called coelserth or bonfire round cakes of oatmeal and brown meal were split in four and placed in a small flower bag and everybody present had to pick out a portion the last bit in the bag fell to the lot of the bag holder each person who chanced to pick up a piece of the brown meal cake was compelled to leap three times over the flames or to run thrice between the two fires by which means the people thought they were sure of a plentiful harvest shouts and screams of those who had to face the ordeal could be heard ever so far and those who chanced to pick the oatmeal portions sang and danced and clapped their hands in approval as the holders of the brown bits leapt three times over the flames or ran three times between the two fires close quote the belief of the people that by leaping thrice over the bonfires or running thrice between them they ensured a plentiful harvest is worthy of note the mode in which this result was supposed to be brought about is indicated by another writer on Welsh folklore according to whom it used to be held that quote the bonfires lighted in May or mid-summer protected the lands from sorcery so that good crops would follow the ashes were also considered valuable as charms close quote hence it appears that the heat of the fires was thought to fertilize the fields not directly by quickening the seeds in the ground but indirectly by counteracting the baleful influence of witchcraft or perhaps by burning up the persons of the witches the Beltane fires seem to have been kindled also in Ireland for Cormac or somebody in his name says that quote Beltane May Day was so called from the Lucky Fire or the Two Fires which the druids of Arryn used to make on that day with great tantations close quote and cattle he adds used to be brought to those fires or to be driven between them as a safeguard against the diseases of the year the custom of driving cattle through or between fires on May Day or the eve of May Day persisted in Ireland down to a time within living memory the first of May is a great popular festival in the more southern parts of Sweden on the eve of the festival huge bonfires which should be lighted by striking two flints together blaze on all the hills and gnolls every large hamlet has its own fire round which the young people dance in a ring the old folk notice whether the flames incline to the north or to the south in the former case the spring will be cold and backward it will be mild and genial in Bohemia on the eve of May Day young people kindle fires on hills and eminences at crossways and in pastures and dance round them they leap over the glowing embers or even through the flames the ceremony is called burning the witches in some places an effigy representing a witch used to be burnt in the bonfire we have to remember that the eve of May Day is the notorious wall-purchase night when the witches are everywhere speeding unseen through the air on their hellish errands on the switching night children in Voigtland also light bonfires on the heights and leap over them moreover they wave burning brooms or toss them into the air so far as the light of the bonfire reaches so far will a blessing be cast on the fields the kindling of the fires on wall-purchase night is called driving away the witches the custom of kindling fires on the eve of May Day or wall-purchase night for the purpose of burning the witches is or used to be widespread in the Tyrol Moravia, Saxony and Solicia End of chapter 62 part 1