The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 09 of 12)

In the evening all the people assembled at the temple, the courts of which they lit up by a multitude of lanterns and candles. There they passed the night without sleeping, and at midnight, while the trumpets, flutes, and horns discoursed solemn music, a portable framework or palanquin was brought forth, bedecked with festoons of maize-cobs and peppers and filled with seeds of all sorts. This the bearers set down at the door of the chamber in which the wooden image of the goddess stood. Now the chamber was adorned and wreathed, both outside and inside, with wreaths of maize-cobs, peppers, pumpkins, roses, and seeds of every kind, a wonder to behold; the whole floor was covered deep with these verdant offerings of the pious. When the music ceased, a solemn procession came forth of priests and dignitaries, with flaring lights and smoking censers, leading in their midst the girl who played the part of the goddess. Then they made her mount the framework, where she stood upright on the maize and peppers and pumpkins with which it was strewed, her hands resting on two bannisters to keep her from falling. Then the priests swung the smoking censers round her; the music struck up again, and while it played, a great dignitary of the temple suddenly stepped up to her with a razor in his hand and adroitly shore off the green feather she wore on her head, together with the hair in which it was fastened, snipping the lock off by the root. The feather and the hair he then presented to the wooden image of the goddess with great solemnity and elaborate ceremonies, weeping and giving her thanks for the fruits of the earth and the abundant crops which she had bestowed on the people that year; and as he wept and prayed, all the people, standing in the courts of the temple, wept and prayed with him. When that ceremony was over, the girl descended from the framework and was escorted to the place where she was to spend the rest of the night. But all the people kept watch in the courts of the temple by the light of torches till break of day.

The girl who personated the Goddess of the Maize carried in procession and worshipped with offerings of human blood. The human representative of the Maize Goddess put to death on a heap of corn and her skin flayed and worn by a priest.

The morning being come, and the courts of the temple being still crowded by the multitude, who would have deemed it sacrilege to quit the precincts, the priests again brought forth the damsel attired in the costume of the goddess, with the mitre on her head and the cobs of maize about her neck. Again she mounted the portable framework or palanquin and stood on it, supporting herself by her hands on the bannisters. Then the elders of the temple lifted it on their shoulders, and while some swung burning censers and others played on instruments or sang, they carried it in procession through the great courtyard to the hall of the god Huitzilopochtli and then back to the chamber, where stood the wooden image of the Maize Goddess, whom the girl personated. There they caused the damsel to descend from the palanquin and to stand on the heaps of corn and vegetables that had been spread in profusion on the floor of the sacred chamber. While she stood there all the elders and nobles came in a line, one behind the other, carrying the saucers of dry and clotted blood which they had drawn from their ears by way of penance during the seven days' fast. One by one they squatted on their haunches before her, which was the equivalent of falling on their knees with us, and scraping the crust of blood from the saucer cast it down before her as an offering in return for the benefits which she, as the embodiment of the Maize Goddess, had conferred upon them. When the men had thus humbly offered their blood to the human representative of the goddess, the women, forming a long line, did so likewise, each of them dropping on her hams before the girl and scraping her blood from the saucer. The ceremony lasted a long time, for great and small, young and old, all without exception had to pass before the incarnate deity and make their offering. When it was over, the people returned home with glad hearts to feast on flesh and viands of every sort as merrily, we are told, as good Christians at Easter partake of meat and other carnal mercies after the long abstinence of Lent. And when they had eaten and drunk their fill and rested after the night watch, they returned quite refreshed to the temple to see the end of the festival. And the end of the festival was this. The multitude being assembled, the priests solemnly incensed the girl who personated the goddess; then they threw her on her back on the heap of corn and seeds, cut off her head, caught the gushing blood in a tub, and sprinkled the blood on the wooden image of the goddess, the walls of the chamber, and the offerings of corn, peppers, pumpkins, seeds, and vegetables which cumbered the floor. After that they flayed the headless trunk, and one of the priests made shift to squeeze himself into the bloody skin. Having done so they clad him in all the robes which the girl had worn; they put the mitre on his head, the necklace of golden maize-cobs about his neck, the maize-cobs of feathers and gold in his hands; and thus arrayed they led him forth in public, all of them dancing to the tuck of drum, while he acted as fugleman, skipping and posturing at the head of the procession as briskly as he could be expected to do, incommoded as he was by the tight and clammy skin of the girl and by her clothes, which must have been much too small for a grown man.[689 - Diego Duran, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España (Mexico, 1867-1880), ii. 179-184. This remarkable festival appears not to be noticed by the other early Spanish writers such as Sahagun, Acosta, and Torquemada, who have given us detailed descriptions of the Mexican festivals. It might perhaps have been conjectured that Duran was here describing the similar festival of the Mother of the Gods (see above, pp. 288 (#x_22_i18)sqq.), which fell about the same time of the year. But the conjecture is excluded by the simple fact that Duran describes both festivals, the one immediately after the other, assigning as their dates the fifteenth and sixteenth of September respectively (op. cit. ii. 180, 185 sq.). Almost nothing is known about Duran except that he was a Spanish monk, apparently a native of Mexico, who had weak health and died in 1588. His work remained in manuscript till it was edited at Mexico in 1867-1880 by José F. Ramirez. The original manuscript is preserved in the Natìonal Library at Madrid. The accounts contained in his history bear internal marks of authenticity and are in general supported by the independent testimony of the other early Spanish authorities.]

Identification of the human victim with the Goddess of Maize whom she personated.

In the foregoing custom the identification of the young girl with the Maize Goddess appears to be complete. The golden maize cobs which she wore round her neck, the artificial maize cobs which she carried in her hands, the green feather which was stuck in her hair in imitation (we are told) of a green ear of maize, all set her forth as a personification of the corn-spirit; and we are expressly informed that she was specially chosen as a young girl to represent the young maize, which at the time of the festival had not yet fully ripened. Further, her identification with the corn and the corn-goddess was clearly announced by making her stand on the heaps of maize and there receive the homage and blood-offerings of the whole people, who thereby returned her thanks for the benefits which in her character of a divinity she was supposed to have conferred upon them. Once more, the practice of beheading her on a heap of corn and seeds and sprinkling her blood, not only on the image of the Maize Goddess, but on the piles of maize, peppers, pumpkins, seeds, and vegetables, can seemingly have had no other object but to quicken and strengthen the crops of corn and the fruits of the earth in general by infusing into their representatives the blood of the Corn Goddess herself. The analogy of this Mexican sacrifice, the meaning of which appears to be indisputable, may be allowed to strengthen the interpretation which I have given of other human sacrifices offered for the crops.[690 - Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i. 236 sqq.] If the Mexican girl, whose blood was sprinkled on the maize, indeed personated the Maize Goddess, it becomes more than ever probable that the girl whose blood the Pawnees similarly sprinkled on the seed corn personated in like manner the female Spirit of the Corn; and so with the other human beings whom other races have slaughtered for the sake of promoting the growth of the crops.

The resurrection of the Maize Goddess set forth by the wearing of the skin of her human representative.

Lastly, the concluding act of the sacred drama, in which the body of the dead Maize Goddess was flayed and her skin worn, together with all her sacred insignia, by a man who danced before the people in this grim attire, seems to be best explained on the hypothesis that it was intended to ensure that the divine death should be immediately followed by the divine resurrection. If that was so, we may infer with some degree of probability that the practice of killing a human representative of a deity has commonly, perhaps always, been regarded merely as a means of perpetuating the divine energies in the fulness of youthful vigour, untainted by the weakness and frailty of age, from which they must have suffered if the deity had been allowed to die a natural death.

Xipe, the Flayed God, and the Mexican festival of the Flaying of Men.

This interpretation of the Mexican custom of flaying human beings and permitting or requiring other persons to parade publicly in the skins of the victims may perhaps be confirmed by a consideration of the festival at which this strange rite was observed on the largest scale, and which accordingly went by the name of the Festival of the Flaying of Men (Tlacaxipeualiztli). It was celebrated in the second month of the Aztec year, which corresponded to the last days of February and the early part of March. The exact day of the festival was the twentieth of March, according to one pious chronicler, who notes with unction that the bloody rite fell only one day later than the feast which Holy Church solemnizes in honour of the glorious St. Joseph. The god whom the Aztecs worshipped in this strange fashion was named Xipe, “the Flayed One,” or Totec, “Our Lord.” On this occasion he also bore the solemn name of Youallauan, “He who drinks in the Night.” His image was of stone and represented him in human form with his mouth open as if in the act of speaking; his body was painted yellow on the one side and drab on the other; he wore the skin of a flayed man over his own, with the hands of the victim dangling at his wrists. On his head he had a hood of various colours, and about his loins a green petticoat reaching to his knees with a fringe of small shells. In his two hands he grasped a rattle like the head of a poppy with the seeds in it; while on his left arm he supported a yellow shield with a red rim. At his festival the Mexicans killed all the prisoners they had taken in war, men, women, and children. The number of the victims was very great. A Spanish historian of the sixteenth century estimated that in Mexico more people used to be sacrificed on the altar than died a natural death. All who were sacrificed to Xipe, “the Flayed God,” were themselves flayed, and men who had made a special vow to the god put on the skins of the human victims and went about the city in that guise for twenty days, being everywhere welcomed and revered as living images of the deity. Forty days before the festival, according to the historian Duran, they chose a man to personate the god, clothed him in all the insignia of the divinity, and led him about in public, doing him as much reverence all these days as if he had really been what he pretended to be. Moreover, every parish of the capital did the same; each of them had its own temple and appointed its own human representative of the deity, who received the homage and worship of the parishioners for the forty days.

The human shambles. The holy beggars clad in the skins of the flayed human victims.

On the day of the festival these mortal gods and all the other prisoners, with the exception of a few who were reserved for a different death, were killed in the usual way. The scene of the slaughter was the platform on the summit of the god Huitzilopochtli's temple. Some of the poor wretches fainted when they came to the foot of the steps and had to be dragged up the long staircase by the hair of their heads. Arrived at the summit they were slaughtered one by one on the sacrificial stone by the high priest, who cut open their breasts, tore out their hearts, and held them up to the sun, in order to feed the great luminary with these bleeding relics. Then the bodies were sent rolling down the staircase, clattering and turning over and over like gourds as they bumped from step to step till they reached the bottom. There they were received by other priests, or rather human butchers, who with a dexterity acquired by practice slit the back of each body from the nape of the neck to the heels and peeled off the whole skin in a single piece as neatly as if it had been a sheepskin. The skinless body was then fetched away by its owner, that is, by the man who had captured the prisoner in war. He took it home with him, carved it, sent one of the thighs to the king, and other joints to friends, or invited them to come and feast on the carcase in his house. The skins of the human victims were also a perquisite of their captors, and were lent or hired out by them to men who had made a vow of going about clad in the hides for twenty days. Such men clothed in the reeking skins of the butchered prisoners were called Xixipeme or Tototectin after the god Xipe or Totec, whose living image they were esteemed and whose costume they wore. Among the devotees who bound themselves to this pious exercise were persons who suffered from loathsome skin diseases, such as smallpox, abscesses, and the itch; and among them there was a fair sprinkling of debauchees, who had drunk themselves nearly blind and hoped to recover the use of their precious eyes by parading for a month in this curious mantle. Thus arrayed, they went from house to house throughout the city, entering everywhere and asking alms for the love of God. On entering a house each of these reverend palmers was made to sit on a heap of leaves; festoons of maize and wreaths of flowers were placed round his body; and he was given wine to drink and cakes to eat. And when a mother saw one of these filthy but sanctified ruffians passing along the street, she would run to him with her infant and put it in his arms that he might bless it, which he did with unction, receiving an alms from the happy mother in return. The earnings of these begging-friars on their rounds were sometimes considerable, for the rich people rewarded them handsomely. Whatever they were, the collectors paid them in to the owners of the skins, who thus made a profit by hiring out these valuable articles of property. Every night the wearers of the skins deposited them in the temple and fetched them again next morning when they set out on their rounds. At the end of the twenty days the skins were dry, hard, shrivelled and shrunken, and they smelt so villainously that people held their noses when they met the holy beggars arrayed in their fetid mantles. The time being come to rid themselves of these encumbrances, the devotees walked in solemn procession, wearing the rotten skins and stinking like dead dogs, to the temple called Yopico, where they stripped themselves of the hides and plunged them into a tub or vat, after which they washed and scrubbed themselves thoroughly, while their friends smacked their bare bodies loudly with wet hands in order to squeeze out the human grease with which they were saturated. Finally, the skins were solemnly buried, as holy relics, in a vault of the temple. The burial service was accompanied by chanting and attended by the whole people; and when it was over, one of the high dignitaries preached a sermon to the assembled congregation, in which he dwelt with pathetic eloquence on the meanness and misery of human existence and exhorted his hearers to lead a sober and quiet life, to cultivate the virtues of reverence, modesty, humility and obedience, to be kind and charitable to the poor and to strangers; he warned them against the sins of robbery, fornication, adultery, and covetousness; and kindling with the glow of his oratory, he passionately admonished, entreated, and implored all who heard him to choose the good and shun the evil, drawing a dreadful picture of the ills that would overtake the wicked here and hereafter, while he painted in alluring colours the bliss in store for the righteous and the rewards they might expect to receive at the hands of the deity in the life to come.

Various Mexican gods personated by the men clad in the skins of the human victims.

While most of the men who masqueraded in the skins of the human victims appear to have personated the Flayed God Xipe, whose name they bore in the form Xixipeme, others assumed the ornaments and bore the names of other Mexican deities, such as Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl; the ceremony of investing them with the skins and the insignia of divinity was called netcotoquiliztli, which means “to think themselves gods.” Amongst the gods thus personated was Totec. His human representative wore, over the skin of the flayed man, all the splendid trappings of the deity. On his head was placed a curious crown decorated with rich feathers. A golden crescent dangled from his nose, golden earrings from his ears, and a necklace of hammered gold encircled his neck. His feet were shod in red shoes decorated with quail's feathers; his loins were begirt with a petticoat of gorgeous plumage; and on his back three small paper flags fluttered and rustled in the wind. In his left hand he carried a golden shield and in his right a rattle, which he shook and rattled as he walked with a majestic dancing step. Seats were always prepared for this human god; and when he sat down, they offered him a paste made of uncooked maize-flour. Also they presented to him little bunches of cobs of maize chosen from the seed-corn; and he received as offerings the first fruits and the first flowers of the season.[691 - B. de Sahagun, Histoire Générale des Choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite par D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), pp. 37 sq., 58-60, 87-94, 584 sq.; E. Seler, Altmexikanische Studien, ii. (Berlin, 1899) pp. 76-100, 171-188 (the latter passage gives the Aztec text of Sahagun's account with a German translation); Diego Duran, Historia de las Indias de Nueva España (Mexico, 1867-1880), ii. 147-155; J. de Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. x. cap. 11, vol. ii. pp. 252 sq. (Madrid, 1723). Compare F. S. Clavigero, History of Mexico, translated by C. Cullen, Second Edition (London, 1807), i. 297 sq.; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale (Paris, 1857-1859), iii. 503 sq.; H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States (London, 1875-1876), ii. 306 sqq. According to Torquemada, the prisoners were flayed alive, but this statement is not, so far as I know, supported by the other early Spanish authorities. It is Duran who gives the 20th of March as the date of the festival at which the captives were killed and skinned; but this is inconsistent with the evidence of Sahagun, according to whom the second Aztec month, in which the festival fell, ended with the 13th of March. See B. de Sahagun, Histoire Générale des Choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, p. 51.]

Men roasted alive as images of the Fire-god.

In the eighteenth and last month of their year, which fell in January, the Mexicans held a festival in honour of the god of fire. Every fourth year the festival was celebrated on a grand scale by the sacrifice of a great many men and women, husbands and wives, who were dressed in the trappings of the fire-god and regarded as his living images. Bound hand and foot, they were thrown alive into a great furnace, and after roasting in it for a little were raked out of the fire before they were dead in order to allow the priest to cut the hearts out of their scorched, blistered, and still writhing bodies in the usual way.[692 - J. de Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. x. cap. 30, vol. ii. pp. 285 sq. (Mexico, 1723); B. de Sahagun, Histoire Générale des Choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite par D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), pp. 164 sq. The latter writer does not describe the mode in which the victims were sacrificed at this quadriennial festival; but he describes as in the text the annual sacrifice of victims in honour of the fire-god in the tenth month of the Mexican year (op. cit. pp. 67 sq., 129 sqq.). Compare F. S. Clavigero, History of Mexico, translated by C. Cullen, Second Edition (London, 1807), i. 306 sq.; H. H. Bancroft, The Native Races of the Pacific States, ii. 329 sq.] The intention of the sacrifice probably was to maintain the Fire-god in full vigour, lest he should grow decrepit or even die of old age, and mankind should thus be deprived of his valuable services. This important object was attained by feeding the fire with live men and women, who thus as it were poured a fresh stock of vital energy into the veins of the Fire-god and perhaps of his wife also. But they had to be raked out of the flames before they were dead; for clearly it would never do to let them die in the fire, else the Fire-god whom they personated would die also. For the same reason their hearts had to be torn from their bodies while they were still palpitating; what use could the Fire-god make of human hearts that were burnt to cinders?

Women flayed in honour of the Fire-god and their skins worn by men who personated gods.

This was the ordinary mode of sacrificing the human representatives of the Fire-god every fourth year. But in Quauhtitlan, a city distant four leagues from the city of Mexico, the custom was different. On the eve of the festival two women were beheaded on the altar of the temple and afterwards flayed, faces and all, and their thigh bones extracted. Next morning two men of high rank clothed themselves in the skins, including the skins of the women's faces, which they put over their own; and thus arrayed and carrying in their hands the thigh bones of the victims they came down the steps of the temple roaring like wild beasts. A vast crowd of people had assembled to witness the spectacle, and when they saw the two men coming down the steps in the dripping skins, brandishing the bones, and bellowing like beasts, they were filled with fear and said, “There come our gods!” Arrived at the foot of the staircase these human gods engaged in a dance, which they kept up for the rest of the day, never divesting themselves of the bloody skins till the festival was over.[693 - J. de Torquemada, Monarquia Indiana, lib. x. cap. 30, vol. ii. p. 286 (Madrid, 1723). Compare F. S. Clavigero, History of Mexico, translated by C. Cullen, Second Edition (London, 1807), i. 283 sq.; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale, iii. 539 sq.]

The personation of a god by a man wearing the skin of a human victim is probably intended to represent and ensure the resurrection of the deity. The idea of resurrection from the dead is suggested by the observation of snakes and other creatures that cast their skins.

The theory that the custom of wearing the skin of a flayed man or woman and personating a god in that costume is intended to represent the resurrection of the deity derives some support from the class of persons who made a vow to masquerade in the skins. They were, as we have seen, especially men who suffered from diseases of the skin and the eyes: they hoped, we are told, by wearing the skins to be cured of their ailments, and the old Spanish monk who records the belief adds dryly that some were cured and some were not.[694 - B. de Sahagun, Histoire Générale des Choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite par D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon, pp. 37, 93; E. Seler, Altmexikanische Studien, ii. (Berlin. 1889) pp. 96, 185 (quoting the Aztec text of Sahagun).] We may conjecture that by donning the skins of men who had acted the part of gods they expected to slough off their own diseased old skins and to acquire new and healthy skins, like those of the deities. This notion may have been suggested to them by the observation of certain animals, such as serpents and lizards, which seem to renew their youth by casting their skins and appear refreshed and renovated in new integuments. That many savages have noticed such transformations in the animal world is proved by the tales which some of them tell to account for the origin of death among mankind. For example, the Arawaks of British Guiana say that man was created by a good being whom they call Kururumany. Once on a time this kindly creator came to earth to see how his creature man was getting on. But men were so ungrateful that they tried to kill their Maker. Hence he took from them the gift of immortality and bestowed it upon animals that change their skins, such as snakes, lizards, and beetles.[695 - R. Schomburgk, Reisen in Britisch-Guiana (Leipsic, 1847-1848), ii. 319. I have already noticed this and the following stories of the origin of death in The Belief in Immortality, i. 69 sqq.] Again, the Tamanachiers, an Indian tribe of the Orinoco, tell how the creator kindly intended to make men immortal by telling them that they should change their skins. He meant to say that by so doing they should renew their youth like serpents and beetles. But the glad tidings were received with such incredulity by an old woman that the creator in a huff changed his tune and said very curtly, “Ye shall die.”[696 - R. Schomburgk, op. cit. ii. 320.]

Savage notion that men would have been immortal, if only they could have cast their skins like serpents and crabs.

In Annam they say that Ngoc hoang sent a messenger from heaven to inform men that when they reached old age they should change their skins and live for ever, but that when serpents grew old, they must die. Unfortunately for the human race the message was perverted in the transmission, so that men do not change their skins and are therefore mortal, whereas serpents do cast their old skins and accordingly live for ever.[697 - A. Landes, “Contes et Légendes Annamites,” Cochinchine française, Excursions et Reconnaissances, No. 25 (Saigon, 1886), pp. 108 sq.] According to the natives of Nias the personage who was charged by the creator with the duty of putting the last touches to man broke his fast on bananas instead of on river-crabs, as he should have done; for had he only eaten river-crabs, men would have changed their skins like crabs, and like crabs would have never died. But the serpents, wiser in their generation than men, ate the crabs, and that is why they too are immortal.[698 - H. Sundermann, “Die Insel Nias und die Mission daselbst,” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, xi. (1884) p. 451; id., Die Insel Nias und die Mission daselbst (Barmen, 1905), p. 68; E. Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Nias (Milan, 1890), p. 295; A. Fehr, Der Niasser im Leben und Sterben (Barmen, 1901), p. 8.] Stories of the same sort are current among the Melanesians. Thus the natives of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain account for the origin of death by a tale very like that told in Annam. The Good Spirit, they say, loved men and wished to make them immortal, but he hated serpents and wished to kill them. So he despatched his brother to mankind with this cheering message: “Go to men and take them the secret of immortality. Tell them to cast their skin every year. So will they be protected from death, for their life will be constantly renewed. But tell the serpents that they must henceforth die.” Through the carelessness or treachery of the messenger this message was reversed; so that now, as we all know, men die and serpents live for ever by annually casting their skins.[699 - P. Kleintitschen, Die Küstenbewohner der Gazellehalbinsel (Hiltrup bei Münster, preface dated Christmas, 1906), p. 334.] Again, if we can trust the traditions of the Banks' Islanders and New Hebrideans, there was a time when men did really cast their skins and renew their youth. The melancholy change to mortality was brought about by an old woman, who most unfortunately resumed her old cast-off skin to please an infant, which squalled at seeing her in her new integument.[700 - R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), pp. 260, 265; W. Gray, “Some Notes on the Tannese,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, vii. (1894) p. 232. The same story of the origin of death has been recorded in the Shortlands Islands and among the Kai of German New Guinea. See C. Ribbe, Zwei Jahre unter den Kannibalen der Salomo-Inseln (Dresden-Blasowitz, 1903), p. 148; Ch. Keysser, “Aus dem Leben der Kaileute,” in R. Neuhauss's Deutsch Neu-Guinea, iii. (Berlin, 1911) pp. 161 sq. It is also told with some variations by the natives of the Admiralty Islands. See Josef Meier, “Mythen und Sagen der Admiralitätsinsulaner,” Anthropos, iii. (1908) p. 193.] The Gallas of East Africa say that God sent a certain bird (holawaka, “the sheep of God”) to tell men that they would not die, but that when they grew old they would slough their skins and so renew their youth. But the bird foolishly or maliciously delivered the message to serpents instead of to men, and that is why ever since men have been mortal and serpents immortal. For that evil deed God punished the bird with a painful malady from which it suffers to this day, and it sits on the tops of trees and moans and wails perpetually.[701 - Miss A. Werner, “Two Galla Legends,” Man, xiii. (1913) pp. 90 sq.]

Hence the Mexicans apparently thought that they could renew their own skins by putting on those of other people.

Thus it appears that some peoples have not only observed the curious transformations which certain animals undergo, but have imagined that by means of such transformations the animals periodically renew their youth and live for ever. From such observations and fancies it is an easy step to the conclusion that man might similarly take a fresh lease of life and renew the lease indefinitely, if only he could contrive like the animals to get a new skin. This desirable object the Mexicans apparently sought to accomplish by flaying men and wearing their bleeding skins like garments thrown over their own. By so doing persons who suffered from cutaneous diseases hoped to acquire a new and healthy skin; and by so doing the priests attempted not merely to revive the gods whom they had just slain in the persons of their human representatives, but also to restore to their wasting and decaying frames all the vigour and energy of youth.

General conclusion: the custom of putting human beings to death in the character of gods has prevailed in many parts of the world.

The rites described in the preceding pages suffice to prove that human sacrifices of the sort I suppose to have prevailed at Aricia[702 - The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 40 sqq., ii. 376 sqq.] were, as a matter of fact, systematically offered on a large scale by a people whose level of culture was probably not inferior, if indeed it was not distinctly superior, to that occupied by the Italian races at the early period to which the origin of the Arician priesthood must be referred. The positive and indubitable evidence of the prevalence of such sacrifices in one part of the world may reasonably be allowed to strengthen the probability of their prevalence in places for which the evidence is less full and trustworthy. Taken all together, the facts which we have passed in review seem to shew that the custom of killing men whom their worshippers regard as divine has prevailed in many parts of the world. But to clinch the argument, it is clearly desirable to prove that the custom of putting to death a human representative of a god was known and practised in ancient Italy elsewhere than in the Arician Grove. This proof I now propose to adduce.

Chapter VIII. The Saturnalia and Kindred Festivals

§ 1. The Roman Saturnalia

Annual periods of license. The Roman Saturnalia.

In an earlier part of this book we saw that many peoples have been used to observe an annual period of license, when the customary restraints of law and morality are thrown aside, when the whole population give themselves up to extravagant mirth and jollity, and when the darker passions find a vent which would never be allowed them in the more staid and sober course of ordinary life. Such outbursts of the pent-up forces of human nature, too often degenerating into wild orgies of lust and crime, occur most commonly at the end of the year, and are frequently associated, as I have had occasion to point out, with one or other of the agricultural seasons, especially with the time of sowing or of harvest. Now, of all these periods of license the one which is best known and which in modern languages has given its name to the rest, is the Saturnalia. This famous festival fell in December, the last month of the Roman year, and was popularly supposed to commemorate the merry reign of Saturn, the god of sowing and of husbandry, who lived on earth long ago as a righteous and beneficent king of Italy, drew the rude and scattered dwellers on the mountains together, taught them to till the ground, gave them laws, and ruled in peace. His reign was the fabled Golden Age: the earth brought forth abundantly: no sound of war or discord troubled the happy world: no baleful love of lucre worked like poison in the blood of the industrious and contented peasantry. Slavery and private property were alike unknown: all men had all things in common. At last the good god, the kindly king, vanished suddenly; but his memory was cherished to distant ages, shrines were reared in his honour, and many hills and high places in Italy bore his name.[703 - Virgil, Georg. ii. 536-540, Aen. viii. 319-327, with the comments of Servius; Tibullus, i. 3. 35-48; Ovid, Fasti, i. 233 sqq.; Lucian, Saturnalia, 7; Macrobius, Saturn. i. 7. 21-26; Justin, xliii. 1. 3-5; Aurelius Victor, Origo gentis Romanae, 3; Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Antiquit. Rom. i. 34. On Saturn and the Saturnalia see especially L. Preller, Römische Mythologie,

ii. 10 sqq. Compare J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, iii.

(Leipsic, 1885) pp. 586 sqq.; W. Warde Fowler, The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic (London, 1899), pp. 268-273; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer

(Munich, 1912), pp. 204 sqq.; id., in W. H. Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, iv. 427 sqq. A good account of the Saturnalia, based on the texts of the classical writers, is given by Dezobry (Rome au siècle d'Auguste,

iii. 143 sqq.). The name Saturn seems to be etymologically akin to satus and satio, “a sowing” or “planting.” Compare Varro, De lingua Latina, v. 64, “Ab satu est dictus Saturnus”; Festus, s. v. “Opima spolia,” p. 186 ed. C. O. Müller: “ipse [Saturnus] agrorum cultor habetur, nominatus a satu, tenensque falcem effingitur, quae est insigne agricolae.” Compare Tertullian, Ad Nationes, ii. 12; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, iv. 9; Augustine, De civitate Dei, vii. 2, 3, 13, 15, 18, 19. The god's name appears in the form Saeturnus inscribed on an ancient bowl (H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, vol. ii. pars i. p. 2, No. 2966).] Yet the bright tradition of his reign was crossed by a dark shadow: his altars are said to have been stained with the blood of human victims, for whom a more merciful age afterwards substituted effigies.[704 - Dionysius Halicarnasensis, Ant. Rom. i. 38; Macrobius, Saturn. i. 7. 31; Lactantius, Divin. Inst. i. 21; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, ii. 68.] Of this gloomy side of the god's religion there is little or no trace in the descriptions which ancient writers have left us of the Saturnalia. Feasting and revelry and all the mad pursuit of pleasure are the features that seem to have especially marked this carnival of antiquity, as it went on for seven days in the streets and public squares and houses of ancient Rome from the seventeenth to the twenty-third of December.[705 - For the general dissipation of the Saturnalia see Seneca, Epist. 18; for the seven days of the popular festival see Martial, xiv. 72. 2; Macrobius, Sat. i. 10. 2; Lucian, Saturnalia, 21.]

The license granted to slaves at the Saturnalia. The mock King of the Saturnalia.

But no feature of the festival is more remarkable, nothing in it seems to have struck the ancients themselves more than the license granted to slaves at this time. The distinction between the free and the servile classes was temporarily abolished. The slave might rail at his master, intoxicate himself like his betters, sit down at table with them, and not even a word of reproof would be administered to him for conduct which at any other season might have been punished with stripes, imprisonment, or death.[706 - Horace, Sat. ii. 7. 4 sq.; Macrobius, Saturn. i. 7. 26; Justin, xliii. 1. 4; Plutarch, Sulla, 18; Lucian, Saturnalia, 5, 7; Porphyry, De antro nympharum, 23.] Nay, more, masters actually changed places with their slaves and waited on them at table; and not till the serf had done eating and drinking was the board cleared and dinner set for his master.[707 - Macrobius, Saturn. i. 12. 7, i. 24. 23; Solinus, i. 35; Joannes Lydus, De mensibus, iii. 15; Athenaeus, xiv. 44, p. 639 b; Dio Cassius, lx. 19.] So far was this inversion of ranks carried, that each household became for a time a mimic republic in which the high offices of state were discharged by the slaves, who gave their orders and laid down the law as if they were indeed invested with all the dignity of the consulship, the praetorship, and the bench.[708 - Seneca, Epist. 47. 14. Compare Porphyry, De abstinentia, ii. 23.] Like the pale reflection of power thus accorded to bondsmen at the Saturnalia was the mock kingship for which freemen cast lots at the same season. The person on whom the lot fell enjoyed the title of king, and issued commands of a playful and ludicrous nature to his temporary subjects. One of them he might order to mix the wine, another to drink, another to sing, another to dance, another to speak in his own dispraise, another to carry a flute-girl on his back round the house.[709 - Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 15; Arrian, Epicteti Dissert. i. 25. 8; Lucian, Saturnalia, 4.]

Personation of Saturn at the Saturnalia by a soldier who afterwards suffered death. The sarcophagus of St. Dasius, the martyr on whom the lot fell to play the part of Saturn.

Now, when we remember that the liberty allowed to slaves at this festive season was supposed to be an imitation of the state of society in Saturn's time, and that in general the Saturnalia passed for nothing more or less than a temporary revival or restoration of the reign of that merry monarch, we are tempted to surmise that the mock king who presided over the revels may have originally represented Saturn himself. The conjecture is strongly confirmed, if not established, by a very curious and interesting account of the way in which the Saturnalia was celebrated by the Roman soldiers stationed on the Danube in the reign of Maximian and Diocletian. The account is preserved in a narrative of the martyrdom of St. Dasius, which was unearthed from a Greek manuscript in the Paris library, and published by Professor Franz Cumont of Ghent. Two briefer descriptions of the event and of the custom are contained in manuscripts at Milan and Berlin; one of them had already seen the light in an obscure volume printed at Urbino in 1727, but its importance for the history of the Roman religion, both ancient and modern, appears to have been overlooked until Professor Cumont drew the attention of scholars to all three narratives by publishing them together some years ago.[710 - “Les Actes de S. Dasius,” Analecta Bollandiana, xvi. (1897) pp. 5-16. I have to thank Prof. Cumont for courteously sending me a copy of this important paper. The bearing of the new evidence on the Saturnalia has been further discussed by Messrs. Parmentier and Cumont (“Le roi des Saturnales,” Revue de Philologie, xxi. (1897) pp. 143-153).] According to these narratives, which have all the appearance of being authentic, and of which the longest is probably based on official documents, the Roman soldiers at Durostorum in Lower Moesia celebrated the Saturnalia year by year in the following manner. Thirty days before the festival they chose by lot from amongst themselves a young and handsome man, who was then clothed in royal attire to resemble Saturn. Thus arrayed and attended by a multitude of soldiers he went about in public with full license to indulge his passions and to taste of every pleasure, however base and shameful. But if his reign was merry, it was short and ended tragically; for when the thirty days were up and the festival of Saturn had come, he cut his own throat on the altar of the god whom he personated.[711 - The phrase of the Paris MS. is ambiguous (τοῖς ἀνωνύμοις καὶ μυσαροῖς εἰδώλοις προσεκόμιζεν ἑαυτὸν σπονδήν, ἀναιρούμενος ὑπὸ μαχαίρας); but the other two versions say plainly that the mock king perished by his own hand (μέλλοντα ἑαυτὸν ἐπισφάξαι τῷ βωμῷ τοῦ Κρόνου, Berlin MS.; ἑαυτὸν ἐπισφάξαι αὐτοχείρως τῷ Κρόνῳ, Milan MS.).] In the year 303 a. d. the lot fell upon the Christian soldier Dasius, but he refused to play the part of the heathen god and soil his last days by debauchery. The threats and arguments of his commanding officer Bassus failed to shake his constancy, and accordingly he was beheaded, as the Christian martyrologist records with minute accuracy, at Durostorum by the soldier John on Friday the twentieth day of November, being the twenty-fourth day of the moon, at the fourth hour.

Since this narrative was published by Professor Cumont, its historical character, which had been doubted or denied, has received strong confirmation from an interesting discovery. In the crypt of the cathedral which crowns the promontory of Ancona there is preserved, among other remarkable antiquities, a white marble sarcophagus bearing a Greek inscription, in characters of the age of Justinian, to the following effect: “Here lies the holy martyr Dasius, brought from Durostorum.” The sarcophagus was transferred to the crypt of the cathedral in 1848 from the church of San Pellegrino, under the high altar of which, as we learn from a Latin inscription let into the masonry, the martyr's bones still repose with those of two other saints. How long the sarcophagus was deposited in the church of San Pellegrino, we do not know; but it is recorded to have been there in the year 1650. We may suppose that the saint's relics were transferred for safety to Ancona at some time in the troubled centuries which followed his martyrdom, when Moesia was occupied and ravaged by successive hordes of barbarian invaders.[712 - Franz Cumont, “Le tombeau de S. Dasius de Durostorum,” Analecta Bollandiana, xxvii. (Brussels, 1908) pp. 369-372. The inscription on the sarcophagus runs thus: Ἐνταῦθα κατακεῖται ὁ ἅγιος μάρτυς Δάσιος ἐνεχθεὶς ἀπὸ Δωροστόλου. The inscription on the altar runs thus: “Vetere diruta nobiliorem FF. Karmelitani excalciati aram extruxerunt subter qua sanctorum martyrum Peregrini Flaviani Dasii corpora et infantium ab Herode necatorum ossa minus decenter antiquitus recondita honorificentius et populo spectanda reponi curaverunt die virgini et matri Theresiae sacro anno MDCCCIV.”] At all events it appears certain from the independent and mutually confirmatory evidence of the martyrology and the monuments that Dasius was no mythical saint, but a real man, who suffered death for his faith at Durostorum in one of the early centuries of the Christian era. Finding the narrative of the nameless martyrologist thus established as to the principal fact recorded, namely, the martyrdom of St. Dasius, we may reasonably accept his testimony as to the manner and cause of the martyrdom, all the more because his narrative is precise, circumstantial, and entirely free from the miraculous element. Accordingly I conclude that the account which he gives of the celebration of the Saturnalia among the Roman soldiers is trustworthy.

The mock King of the Saturnalia may have been the degenerate successor of a series of temporary kings who personated Saturn at the Saturnalia and were put to death in the character of the god.

This account sets in a new and lurid light the office of the King of the Saturnalia, the ancient Lord of Misrule, who presided over the winter revels at Rome in the time of Horace and of Tacitus. It seems to prove that his business had not always been that of a mere harlequin or merry-andrew whose only care was that the revelry should run high and the fun grow fast and furious, while the fire blazed and crackled on the hearth, while the streets swarmed with festive crowds, and through the clear frosty air, far away to the north, Soracte shewed his coronal of snow. When we compare this comic monarch of the gay, the civilized metropolis with his grim counterpart of the rude camp on the Danube, and when we remember the long array of similar figures, ludicrous yet tragic, who in other ages and in other lands, wearing mock crowns and wrapped in sceptred palls, have played their little pranks for a few brief hours or days, then passed before their time to a violent death, we can hardly doubt that in the King of the Saturnalia at Rome, as he is depicted by classical writers, we see only a feeble emasculated copy of that original, whose strong features have been fortunately preserved for us by the obscure author of the Martyrdom of St. Dasius. In other words, the martyrologist's account of the Saturnalia agrees so closely with the accounts of similar rites elsewhere, which could not possibly have been known to him, that the substantial accuracy of his description may be regarded as established; and further, since the custom of putting a mock king to death as a representative of a god cannot have grown out of a practice of appointing him to preside over a holiday revel, whereas the reverse may very well have happened, we are justified in assuming that in an earlier and more barbarous age it was the universal practice in ancient Italy, wherever the worship of Saturn prevailed, to choose a man who played the part and enjoyed all the traditionary privileges of Saturn for a season, and then died, whether by his own or another's hand, whether by the knife or the fire or on the gallows-tree, in the character of the good god who gave his life for the world. In Rome itself and other great towns the growth of civilization had probably mitigated this cruel custom long before the Augustan age, and transformed it into the innocent shape it wears in the writings of the few classical writers who bestow a passing notice on the holiday King of the Saturnalia. But in remoter districts the older and sterner practice may long have survived; and even if after the unification of Italy the barbarous usage was suppressed by the Roman government, the memory of it would be handed down by the peasants and would tend from time to time, as still happens with the lowest forms of superstition among ourselves, to lead to a recrudescence of the practice, especially among the rude soldiery on the outskirts of the empire over whom the once iron hand of Rome was beginning to relax its grasp.[713 - The opinion that at Rome a man used to be sacrificed at the Saturnalia cannot be regarded as in itself improbable, when we remember that down apparently to the establishment of Christianity a human victim was slaughtered every year at Rome in honour of Latian Jupiter. See Tertullian, Apologeticus, 9, Contra Gnosticos Scorpiace, 7; Minucius Felix, Octavius, 22 and 30; Lactantius, Divin. Instit. i. 21; Porphyry, De abstinentia, ii. 56. We may conjecture that at first the sacrifice took place on the top of the Alban Mountain, and was offered to Saturn, to whom, as we have seen, high places were sacred.]

The modern Carnival perhaps the equivalent of the ancient Saturnalia.

The resemblance between the Saturnalia of ancient and the Carnival of modern Italy has often been remarked; but in the light of all the facts that have come before us, we may well ask whether the resemblance does not amount to identity. We have seen that in Italy, Spain, and France, that is, in the countries where the influence of Rome has been deepest and most lasting, a conspicuous feature of the Carnival is a burlesque figure personifying the festive season, which after a short career of glory and dissipation is publicly shot, burnt, or otherwise destroyed, to the feigned grief or genuine delight of the populace.[714 - The Dying God, pp. 220 sqq.] If the view here suggested of the Carnival is correct, this grotesque personage is no other than a direct successor of the old King of the Saturnalia, the master of the revels, the real man who personated Saturn and, when the revels were over, suffered a real death in his assumed character. The King of the Bean on Twelfth Night and the mediaeval Bishop of Fools, Abbot of Unreason, or Lord of Misrule are figures of the same sort and may perhaps have had a similar origin. We will consider them in the following section.

§ 2. The King of the Bean and the Festival of Fools

The King of the Bean on Twelfth Night. Crosses made by the King of the Bean to protect the house against demons and witchcraft.

The custom of electing by lot a King and often also a Queen of the Bean on Twelfth Night (Epiphany, the sixth of January) or on the eve of that festival used to prevail in France, Belgium, Germany, and England, and it is still kept up in some parts of France. It may be traced back to the first half of the sixteenth century at least, and no doubt dates from a very much more remote antiquity. At the French court the Kings themselves did not disdain to countenance the mock royalty, and Louis XIV. even supported with courtly grace the shadowy dignity in his own person. Every family as a rule elected its own King. On the eve of the festival a great cake was baked with a bean in it; the cake was divided in portions, one for each member of the family, together with one for God, one for the Virgin, and sometimes one also for the poor. The person who obtained the portion containing the bean was proclaimed King of the Bean. Where a Queen of the Bean was elected as well as a King, a second bean was sometimes baked in the cake for the Queen. Thus at Blankenheim, near Neuerburg, in the Eifel, a black and a white bean were baked in the cake; he who drew the piece with the black bean was King, and she who drew the white bean was Queen. In Franche-Comté, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, they used to put as many white haricot beans in a hat as there were persons present, and two coloured beans were added; the beans were drawn at haphazard from the hat by a child, and they who got the coloured beans were King and Queen. In England and perhaps elsewhere the practice was to put a bean in the cake for the King and a pea for the Queen. But in some places only the King was elected by lot, and after his election he chose his Queen for himself. Sometimes a coin was substituted for the bean in the cake; but though this usage was followed in southern Germany as early as the first half of the sixteenth century, it is probably an innovation on the older custom of employing a bean as the lot. In France the distribution of the pieces of the cake among the persons present was made in accordance with the directions of a child, the youngest boy present, who was placed under or on the table and addressed by the name of “Phoebe” or “Tébé”; he answered in Latin “Domine.” The master of the house, holding a piece of the cake in his hand, asked the child to whom he should give it, and the child named any person he pleased. Sometimes the first slice of cake was regularly assigned to “the good God” and set aside for the poor. In the name “Phoebe” or “Tébé,” by which the child was addressed, learned antiquaries have detected a reference to the oracle of Apollo; but more probably the name is a simple corruption of the Latin or French word for bean (Latin faba, French fève). Immediately on his election the King of the Bean was enthroned, saluted by all, and thrice lifted up, while he made crosses with chalk on the beams and rafters of the ceiling. Great virtue was attributed to these white crosses. They were supposed to protect the house for the whole year against

    “all injuryes and harmes

Of cursed devils, sprites, and bugges, of conjurings and charmes.”

Then feasting and revelry began and were kept up merrily without respect of persons. Every time the King or Queen drank, the whole company was expected to cry, “The King drinks!” or “The Queen drinks!” Any person who failed to join in the cry was punished by having his face blackened with soot or a burned cork or smeared with the lees of wine. In some parts of the Ardennes the custom was to fasten great horns of paper in the hair of the delinquent and to put a huge pair of spectacles on his nose; and he had to wear these badges of infamy till the end of the festival.[715 - Joannes Boemus, Mores, Leges, et Ritus Omnium Gentium (Lyons, 1541), p. 122; The Popish Kingdome or reigne of Antichrist, written in Latin verse by Thomas Naogeorgus and Englyshed by Barnabe Googe, 1570, edited by R. C. Hope (London, 1880), pp. 45 sq.; E. Pasquier, Recherches de la France (Paris, 1633), pp. 375 sq.; R. Herrick, “Twelfth Night, or King and Queene,” The Works of Robert Herrick (Edinburgh, 1823), ii. 171 sq.; J. Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (London, 1883), i. 21 sqq.; T. F. Thiselton Dyer, British Popular Customs (London, 1876), pp. 24-28; R. Chambers, The Book of Days (London and Edinburgh, 1886), i. 61 sqq.; Desgranges, “Usages du Canton de Bonneval,” Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires de France, i. (Paris, 1817) pp. 233-236; L. Beaulieu, Archéologie de la Lorraine (Paris, 1840-1843), i. 255 sq.; Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Calendrier Belge (Brussels, 1861-1862), i. 23 sqq.; id., Das festliche Jahr (Leipsic, 1863), pp. 20-23; E. Cortet, Essai sur les Fêtes religieuses (Paris, 1867), pp. 29-50; J. H. Schmitz, Sitten und Sagen, Lieder, Sprüchwörter und Räthsel des Eifler Volkes (Trèves, 1856-1858), i. 6; Laisnel de la Salle, Croyances et Légendes du Centre de la France (Paris, 1875), i. 19-29; J. Lecœur, Esquisses du Bocage Normand (Condé-sur-Noireau, 1883-1887), ii. 125; L. Bonnemère, “Le Jour des Rois en Normandie,” Revue des Traditions populaires, ii. (1887) pp. 55 sq.; P. Sébillot, “La Fête des Rois,” Revue des Traditions populaires, iii. (1888) pp. 7-12; A. Meyrac, Traditions, Coutumes, Légendes et Contes des Ardennes (Charleville, 1890), pp. 74 sq.; J. L. M. Noguès, Les Mœurs d'autrefois en Saintonge et en Aunis (Saintes, 1891), pp. 49 sqq.; L. F. Sauvé, Le Folk-lore des Hautes-Vosges (Paris, 1889), pp. 16 sq.; Ch. Beauquier, Les Mois en Franche-Comté (Paris, 1900), pp. 16 sq.; F. Chapiseau, Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche (Paris, 1902), i. 312-315; Anatole France, “Le roy boit,” Annales Politiques et Littéraires, 5 Janvier, 1902, pp. 4 sq.; La Bresse Louhannaise, Janvier, 1906, pp. 42-46. The custom of making white crosses on the ceiling is reported for Germany and Switzerland, but apparently not for France. It is mentioned in the earliest of the works cited above, namely that of Joannes Boemus, whose description applies especially to Franconia (Franken).] The custom of electing a King and Queen of the Bean on Twelfth Day is still kept up all over the north of France. A miniature porcelain figure of a child is sometimes substituted for the bean in the cake. If the lot, whether bean or doll, falls to a boy he becomes King and chooses his Queen; if it falls to a girl she becomes Queen and chooses her King.[716 - This I learn from my friend M. Léon Chouville of Rouen and Cambridge. The custom is also kept up in Bresse (La Bresse Louhannaise, Janvier, 1906, pp. 44-46).]

Serious significance of the King of the Bean and Twelfth Night. Divination on Twelfth Night.

So far, apart from the crosses chalked up to ban hobgoblins, witches, and bugs, the King and Queen of the Bean might seem to be merely playful personages appointed at a season of festivity to lead the revels. However, a more serious significance was sometimes attached to the office and to the ceremonies of Twelfth Day in general. Thus in Lorraine the height of the hemp crop in the coming year was prognosticated from the height of the King and Queen; if the King was the taller of the two, it was supposed that the male hemp would be higher than the female, but that the contrary would happen if the Queen were taller than the King.[717 - L. Beaulieu, Archéologie de la Lorraine (Paris, 1840-1843), i. 256 note 1; E. Cortet, Essai stir les Fêtes religieuses (Paris, 1867), p. 43.] Again, in the Vosges Mountains, on the borders of Franche-Comté, it is customary on Twelfth Day for people to dance on the roofs in order to make the hemp grow tall.[718 - L. F. Sauvé, op. cit. pp. 17 sq.] Further, in many places the beans used in the cake were carried to the church to be blessed by the clergy, and people drew omens from the cake as to the good or ill that would befall them throughout the year. Moreover, certain forms of divination were resorted to on Twelfth Night for the purpose of ascertaining in which month of the year wheat would be dearest.[719 - Anatole France, “Le roy boit,” Annales Politiques et Littéraires, 5 Janvier, 1902, p. 5. In some parts of France divination was practised for this purpose on Christmas Day. Twelve grains of wheat, each representing a month of the year, were placed, one after the other, on a hot fire-shovel; if the grain bounced up from the shovel, wheat would be dear in the corresponding month, but it would be cheap if the grain remained still. See J. B. Thiers, Traité des Superstitions (Paris, 1679), p. 268. See further P. Sébillot, Le Folk-lore de France, iii. (Paris, 1906) pp. 510 sq.]