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

It is not a new opinion that the Golden Bough was the mistletoe.[691 - See James Sowerby, English Botany, xxi. (London, 1805), p. 1470: “The Misseltoe is celebrated in story as the sacred plant of the Druids, and the Golden Bough of Virgil, which was Aeneas's passport to the infernal regions.” Again, the author of the Lexicon Mythologicum concludes, “cum Jonghio nostro,” that the Golden Bough “was nothing but the mistletoe glorified by poetical license.” See Edda Rhythmica seu Antiquior, vulgo Saemundina dicta, iii. (Copenhagen, 1828) p. 513 note. C. L. Rochholz expresses the same opinion (Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, Berlin, 1867, i. 9). The subject is discussed at length by E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro, Aeneis Buch VI. (Leipsic, 1903) pp. 161-171, who, however, does not even mention the general or popular view (publica opinio) current in the time of Servius, that the Golden Bough was the branch which a candidate for the priesthood of Diana had to pluck in the sacred grove of Nemi. I confess I have more respect for the general opinion of antiquity than to dismiss it thus cavalierly without a hearing.] True, Virgil does not identify but only compares it with mistletoe. But this may be only a poetical device to cast a mystic glamour over the humble plant. Or, more probably, his description was based on a popular superstition that at certain times the mistletoe blazed out into a supernatural golden glory. The poet tells how two doves, guiding Aeneas to the gloomy vale in whose depth grew the Golden Bough, alighted upon a tree, “whence shone a flickering gleam of gold. As in the woods in winter cold the mistletoe – a plant not native to its tree – is green with fresh leaves and twines its yellow berries about the boles; such seemed upon the shady holm-oak the leafy gold, so rustled in the gentle breeze the golden leaf.”[692 - Virgil, Aen. vi. 203 sqq., compare 136 sqq. See Note IV. “The Mistletoe and the Golden Bough” at the end of this volume.] Here Virgil definitely describes the Golden Bough as growing on a holm-oak, and compares it with the mistletoe. The inference is almost inevitable that the Golden Bough was nothing but the mistletoe seen through the haze of poetry or of popular superstition.

If the Golden Bough was the mistletoe, the King of the Wood at Nemi may have personated an oak spirit and perished in an oak fire.

Now grounds have been shewn for believing that the priest of the Arician grove – the King of the Wood – personified the tree on which grew the Golden Bough.[693 - The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 40 sqq., ii. 378 sqq. Virgil (Aen. vi. 201 sqq.) places the Golden Bough in the neighbourhood of Lake Avernus. But this was probably a poetical liberty, adopted for the convenience of Aeneas's descent to the infernal world. Italian tradition, as we learn from Servius (on Virgil, Aen. vi. 136), placed the Golden Bough in the grove at Nemi.] Hence if that tree was the oak, the King of the Wood must have been a personification of the oak-spirit. It is, therefore, easy to understand why, before he could be slain, it was necessary to break the Golden Bough. As an oak-spirit, his life or death was in the mistletoe on the oak, and so long as the mistletoe remained intact, he, like Balder, could not die. To slay him, therefore, it was necessary to break the mistletoe, and probably, as in the case of Balder, to throw it at him. And to complete the parallel, it is only necessary to suppose that the King of the Wood was formerly burned, dead or alive, at the midsummer fire festival which, as we have seen, was annually celebrated in the Arician grove.[694 - The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 12.] The perpetual fire which burned in the grove, like the perpetual fire which burned in the temple of Vesta at Rome and under the oak at Romove,[695 - The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 186, 366 note 2.] was probably fed with the sacred oak-wood; and thus it would be in a great fire of oak that the King of the Wood formerly met his end. At a later time, as I have suggested, his annual tenure of office was lengthened or shortened, as the case might be, by the rule which allowed him to live so long as he could prove his divine right by the strong hand. But he only escaped the fire to fall by the sword.

A similar tragedy may have been enacted over the human representative of Balder in Norway.

Thus it seems that at a remote age in the heart of Italy, beside the sweet Lake of Nemi, the same fiery tragedy was annually enacted which Italian merchants and soldiers were afterwards to witness among their rude kindred, the Celts of Gaul, and which, if the Roman eagles had ever swooped on Norway, might have been found repeated with little difference among the barbarous Aryans of the North. The rite was probably an essential feature in the ancient Aryan worship of the oak.[696 - A custom of annually burning or otherwise sacrificing a human representative of the corn-spirit has been noted among the Egyptians, Pawnees, and Khonds. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, i. 238 sq., 245 sqq., 259 sq. We have seen that in Western Asia there are strong traces of a practice of annually burning a human god. See Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 84 sqq., 98 sq., 137 sq., 139 sqq., 155 sq. The Druids appear to have eaten portions of the human victim (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 13). Perhaps portions of the flesh of the King of the Wood were eaten by his worshippers as a sacrament. We have found traces of the use of sacramental bread at Nemi. See Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, ii. 94 sqq.]

The name of the Golden Bough may have been applied to the mistletoe on account of the golden tinge which the plant assumes in withering.

It only remains to ask, Why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough?[697 - It has been said that in Welsh a name for mistletoe is “the tree of pure gold” (pren puraur). See J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,

ii. 1009, referring to Davies. But my friend Sir John Rhys tells me that the statement is devoid of foundation.] The whitish-yellow of the mistletoe berries is hardly enough to account for the name, for Virgil says that the bough was altogether golden, stem as well as leaves.[698 - Virgil, Aen. vi. 137 sq.: —“Latet arbore opacaAureus et foliis et lento vimine ramus.”] Perhaps the name may be derived from the rich golden yellow which a bough of mistletoe assumes when it has been cut and kept for some months; the bright tint is not confined to the leaves, but spreads to the stalks as well, so that the whole branch appears to be indeed a Golden Bough. Breton peasants hang up great bunches of mistletoe in front of their cottages, and in the month of June these bunches are conspicuous for the bright golden tinge of their foliage.[699 - This suggestion as to the origin of the name has been made to me by two correspondents independently. Miss Florence Grove, writing to me from 10 Milton Chambers, Cheyne Walk, London, on May 13th, 1901, tells me that she regularly hangs up a bough of mistletoe every year and allows it to remain till it is replaced by the new branch next year, and from her observation “the mistletoe is actually a golden bough when kept a sufficiently long time.” She was kind enough to send me some twigs of her old bough, which fully bore out her description. Again, Mrs. A. Stuart writes to me from Crear Cottage, Morningside Drive, Edinburgh, on June 26th, 1901: “As to why the mistletoe might be called the Golden Bough, my sister Miss Haig wishes me to tell you that last June, when she was in Brittany, she saw great bunches of mistletoe hung up in front of the houses in the villages. The leaves were bright golden. You should hang up a branch next Christmas and keep it till June!” The great hollow oak of Saint-Denis-des-Puits, in the French province of Perche, is called “the gilded or golden oak” (Chêne-Doré) “in memory of the Druidical tradition of the mistletoe cut with a golden sickle.” See Felix Chapiseau, Le Folk-lore de la Beauce et du Perche (Paris, 1902), i. 97. Perhaps the name may be derived from bunches of withered mistletoe shining like gold in the sunshine among the branches.] In some parts of Brittany, especially about Morbihan, branches of mistletoe are hung over the doors of stables and byres to protect the horses and cattle,[700 - H. Gaidoz, “Bulletin critique de la Mythologie Gauloise,” Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, ii. (Paris, 1880) p. 76.] probably against witchcraft.

The yellow hue of withered mistletoe may partly explain why the plant is thought to disclose yellow gold in the earth. Similarly fern-seed is thought to bloom like gold or fire and to reveal buried treasures on Midsummer Eve. Sometimes fern-seed is thought to bloom on Christmas night. The wicked weaver of Rotenburg.

The yellow colour of the withered bough may partly explain why the mistletoe has been sometimes supposed to possess the property of disclosing treasures in the earth;[701 - See below, pp. 291 (#x_21_i32)sq.] for on the principles of homoeopathic magic there is a natural affinity between a yellow bough and yellow gold. This suggestion is confirmed by the analogy of the marvellous properties popularly ascribed to the mythical fern-seed or fern-bloom. We saw that fern-seed is popularly supposed to bloom like gold or fire on Midsummer Eve.[702 - See above, pp. 65 (#x_5_i33)sq.] Thus in Bohemia it is said that “on St. John's Day fern-seed blooms with golden blossoms that gleam like fire.”[703 - J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren (Prague and Leipsic, 1864), p. 97, § 673.] Now it is a property of this mythical fern-seed that whoever has it, or will ascend a mountain holding it in his hand on Midsummer Eve, will discover a vein of gold or will see the treasures of the earth shining with a bluish flame.[704 - J. V. Grohmann, op. cit. p. 97, § 676; A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube

(Berlin, 1869), p. 94, § 123; I. V. Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes

(Innsbruck, 1871), p. 158, § 1350.] In Russia they say that if you succeed in catching the wondrous bloom of the fern at midnight on Midsummer Eve, you have only to throw it up into the air, and it will fall like a star on the very spot where a treasure lies hidden.[705 - C. Russwurm, “Aberglaube in Russland,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, iv. (1859), pp. 152 sq.; Angelo de Gubernatis, Mythologie des Plantes (Paris, 1878-1882), ii. 146.] In Brittany treasure-seekers gather fern-seed at midnight on Midsummer Eve, and keep it till Palm Sunday of the following year; then they strew the seed on ground where they think a treasure is concealed.[706 - P. Sébillot, Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne (Paris, 1882), ii. 336; id., Coutumes populaires de la Haute-Bretagne (Paris, 1886), p. 217.] Tyrolese peasants imagine that hidden treasures can be seen glowing like flame on Midsummer Eve, and that fern-seed, gathered at this mystic season, with the usual precautions, will help to bring the buried gold to the surface.[707 - J. E. Waldfreund, “Volksgebräuche und Aberglauben in Tirol und dem Salzburger Gebirg,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, iii. (1855), p. 339.] In the Swiss canton of Freiburg people used to watch beside a fern on St. John's night in the hope of winning a treasure, which the devil himself sometimes brought to them.[708 - H. Runge, “Volksglaube in der Schweiz,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, iv. (1859), p. 175.] In Bohemia they say that he who procures the golden bloom of the fern at this season has thereby the key to all hidden treasures; and that if maidens will spread a cloth under the fast-fading bloom, red gold will drop into it.[709 - O. Frh. von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen (Prague, n. d.), pp. 311 sq. Compare Theodor Vernaleken, Mythen und Bräuche des Volkes in Oesterreich (Vienna, 1859), pp. 309 sq.; M. Töppen, Aberglauben aus Masuren

(Danzig, 1867), pp. 72 sq. Even without the use of fern-seed treasures are sometimes said to bloom or burn in the earth, or to reveal their presence by a bluish flame, on Midsummer Eve; in Transylvania only children born on a Sunday can see them and fetch them up. See J. Haltrich, Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger Sachsen (Vienna, 1885), p. 287; I. V. Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes

(Innsbruck, 1871), p. 159, §§ 1351, 1352; K. Bartsch, Sagen, Märchen und Gebrauche aus Mecklenburg (Vienna, 1879-1880), ii. 285, § 1431; E. Monseur, Folklore Wallon (Brussels, n. d.), p. 6, § 1789; K. Haupt, Sagenbuch der Lausitz (Leipsic, 1862-1863), i. 231 sq., No. 275; A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube

(Berlin, 1869), p. 76, § 92; F. J. Wiedemann, Aus dem inneren und äusseren Leben der Ehsten (St. Petersburg, 1876), p. 363.] And in the Tyrol and Bohemia if you place fern-seed among money, the money will never decrease, however much of it you spend.[710 - I. V. Zingerle, op. cit. p. 103, § 882; id., in Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, i. (1853), p. 330; W. Müller, Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren (Vienna and Olmütz, 1893), p. 265. At Pergine, in the Tyrol, it was thought that fern-seed gathered with the dew on St. John's night had the power of transforming metals (into gold?). See Ch. Schneller, Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol (Innsbruck, 1867), p. 237, § 23.] Sometimes the fern-seed is supposed to bloom on Christmas night, and whoever catches it will become very rich.[711 - I. V. Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes,

pp. 190 sq., § 1573.] In Styria they say that by gathering fern-seed on Christmas night you can force the devil to bring you a bag of money.[712 - A. Schlossar, “Volksmeinung und Volksaberglaube aus der deutschen Steiermark,” Germania, N.R., xxiv. (1891) p. 387.] In Swabia likewise you can, by taking the proper precautions, compel Satan himself to fetch you a packet of fern-seed on Christmas night. But for four weeks previously, and during the whole of the Advent season, you must be very careful never to pray, never to go to church, and never to use holy water; you must busy yourself all day long with devilish thoughts, and cherish an ardent wish that the devil would help you to get money. Thus prepared you take your stand, between eleven and twelve on Christmas night, at the meeting of two roads, over both of which corpses have been carried to the churchyard. Here many people meet you, some of them dead and buried long ago, it may be your parents or grandparents, or old friends and acquaintances, and they stop and greet you, and ask, “What are you doing here?” And tiny little goblins hop and dance about and try to make you laugh. But if you smile or utter a single word, the devil will tear you to shreds and tatters on the spot. If, however, you stand glum and silent and solemn, there will come, after all the ghostly train has passed by, a man dressed as a hunter, and that is the devil. He will hand you a paper cornet full of fern-seed, which you must keep and carry about with you as long as you live. It will give you the power of doing as much work at your trade in a day as twenty or thirty ordinary men could do in the same time. So you will grow very rich. But few people have the courage to go through with the ordeal. The people of Rotenburg tell of a weaver of their town, who lived some two hundred and fifty years ago and performed prodigies of weaving by a simple application of fern-seed which he had been so fortunate as to obtain, no doubt from the devil, though that is not expressly alleged by tradition. Rich in the possession of this treasure, the lazy rascal worked only on Saturdays and spent all the rest of the week playing and drinking; yet in one day he wove far more cloth than any other skilled weaver who sat at his loom from morning to night every day of the week. Naturally he kept his own counsel, and nobody might ever have known how he did it, if it had not been for what, humanly speaking, you might call an accident, though for my part I cannot but regard it as the manifest finger of Providence. One day – it was the octave of a festival – the fellow had woven a web no less than a hundred ells long, and his mistress resolved to deliver it to her customer the same evening. So she put the cloth in a basket and away she trudged with it. Her way led her past a church, and as she passed the sacred edifice, she heard the tinkle of the holy bell which announced the elevation of the Host. Being a good woman she put her basket down, knelt beside it, and there, with the shadows gathering round her, committed herself to the care of God and his good angels and received, along with the kneeling congregation in the lighted church, the evening benediction, which kept her and them from all the perils and dangers of the night. Then rising refreshed she took up her basket. But what was her astonishment on looking into it to find the whole web reduced to a heap of yarn! The blessed words of the priest at the altar had undone the cursed spell of the Enemy of Mankind.[713 - Ernst Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben (Stuttgart, 1852), pp. 242-244.]

The golden or fiery fern-seed appears to be an emanation of the sun's fire.

Thus, on the principle of like by like, fern-seed is supposed to discover gold because it is itself golden; and for a similar reason it enriches its possessor with an unfailing supply of gold. But while the fern-seed is described as golden, it is equally described as glowing and fiery.[714 - J. V. Grohmann, Aberglauben und Gebräuche aus Böhmen und Mähren, p. 97, § 675; W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, Second Edition (London, 1872), p. 98; C. Russwurm, “Aberglaube in Russland,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, iv. (1859) p. 152.] Hence, when we consider that two great days for gathering the fabulous seed are Midsummer Eve and Christmas – that is, the two solstices (for Christmas is nothing but an old heathen celebration of the winter solstice) – we are led to regard the fiery aspect of the fern-seed as primary, and its golden aspect as secondary and derivative. Fern-seed, in fact, would seem to be an emanation of the sun's fire at the two turning-points of its course, the summer and winter solstices. This view is confirmed by a German story in which a hunter is said to have procured fern-seed by shooting at the sun on Midsummer Day at noon; three drops of blood fell down, which he caught in a white cloth, and these blood-drops were the fern-seed.[715 - L. Bechstein, Deutsches Sagenbuch (Leipsic, 1853), p. 430, No. 500; id., Thüringer Sagenbuch (Leipsic, 1885), ii. pp. 17 sq., No. 161.] Here the blood is clearly the blood of the sun, from which the fern-seed is thus directly derived. Thus it may be taken as probable that fern-seed is golden, because it is believed to be an emanation of the sun's golden fire.

Like fern-seed the mistletoe is gathered at the solstices (Midsummer and Christmas) and is supposed to reveal treasures in the earth; perhaps, therefore, it too is deemed an emanation of the sun's golden fire. The bloom of the oak on Midsummer Eve.

Now, like fern-seed, the mistletoe is gathered either at Midsummer or Christmas[716 - For gathering it at midsummer, see above, pp. 86 (#x_6_i25)sq. The custom of gathering it at Christmas still commonly survives in England. At York “on the eve of Christmas-day they carry mistletoe to the high altar of the cathedral, and proclaim a public and universal liberty, pardon and freedom to all sorts of inferior and even wicked people at the gates of the city, toward the four quarters of heaven.” See W. Stukeley, The Medallic History of Marcus Aurelius Valerius Carausius, Emperor in Britain (London, 1757-1759), ii. 164; J. Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (London, 1882-1883), i. 525. This last custom, which is now doubtless obsolete, may have been a relic of an annual period of license like the Saturnalia. The traditional privilege accorded to men of kissing any woman found under mistletoe is probably another relic of the same sort. See Washington Irving, Sketch-Book, “Christmas Eve,” p. 147 (Bohn's edition); Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), p. 88.]– that is, at the summer and winter solstices – and, like fern-seed, it is supposed to possess the power of revealing treasures in the earth. On Midsummer Eve people in Sweden make divining-rods of mistletoe, or of four different kinds of wood one of which must be mistletoe. The treasure-seeker places the rod on the ground after sun-down, and when it rests directly over treasure, the rod begins to move as if it were alive.[717 - A. A. Afzelius, Volkssagen und Volkslieder aus Schwedens älterer und neuerer Zeit (Leipsic, 1842), i. 41 sq.; J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,

iii. 289; L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden (London, 1870), pp. 266 sq. See above, p. 69. In the Tyrol they say that if mistletoe grows on a hazel-tree, there must be a treasure under the tree. See J. N. Ritter von Alpenburg, Mythen und Sagen Tirols (Zurich, 1857), p. 398. In East Prussia a similar belief is held in regard to mistletoe that grows on a thorn. See C. Lemke, Volksthümliches in Ostpreussen (Mohrungen, 1884-1887), ii. 283. We have seen that the divining-rod which reveals treasures is commonly cut from a hazel (above, pp. 67 (#x_5_i35)sq.).] Now, if the mistletoe discovers gold, it must be in its character of the Golden Bough; and if it is gathered at the solstices, must not the Golden Bough, like the golden fern-seed, be an emanation of the sun's fire? The question cannot be answered with a simple affirmative. We have seen that the old Aryans perhaps kindled the solstitial and other ceremonial fires in part as sun-charms, that is, with the intention of supplying the sun with fresh fire; and as these fires were usually made by the friction or combustion of oak-wood,[718 - Above, pp. 90-92 (#x_6_i33).] it may have appeared to the ancient Aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from the fire which resided in the sacred oak. In other words, the oak may have seemed to him the original storehouse or reservoir of the fire which was from time to time drawn out to feed the sun. But if the life of the oak was conceived to be in the mistletoe, the mistletoe must on that view have contained the seed or germ of the fire which was elicited by friction from the wood of the oak. Thus, instead of saying that the mistletoe was an emanation of the sun's fire, it might be more correct to say that the sun's fire was regarded as an emanation of the mistletoe. No wonder, then, that the mistletoe shone with a golden splendour, and was called the Golden Bough. Probably, however, like fern-seed, it was thought to assume its golden aspect only at those stated times, especially midsummer, when fire was drawn from the oak to light up the sun.[719 - Fern-seed is supposed to bloom at Easter as well as at Midsummer and Christmas (W. R. S. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, pp. 98 sq.); and Easter, as we have seen, is one of the times when fires are ceremonially kindled, perhaps to recruit the fire of the sun.] At Pulverbatch, in Shropshire, it was believed within living memory that the oak-tree blooms on Midsummer Eve and the blossom withers before daylight. A maiden who wishes to know her lot in marriage should spread a white cloth under the tree at night, and in the morning she will find a little dust, which is all that remains of the flower. She should place the pinch of dust under her pillow, and then her future husband will appear to her in her dreams.[720 - Miss C. S. Burne and Miss G. F. Jackson, Shropshire Folk-lore (London, 1883), p. 242.] This fleeting bloom of the oak, if I am right, was probably the mistletoe in its character of the Golden Bough. The conjecture is confirmed by the observation that in Wales a real sprig of mistletoe gathered on Midsummer Eve is similarly placed under the pillow to induce prophetic dreams;[721 - Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), p. 88.] and further the mode of catching the imaginary bloom of the oak in a white cloth is exactly that which was employed by the Druids to catch the real mistletoe when it dropped from the bough of the oak, severed by the golden sickle.[722 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 251.] As Shropshire borders on Wales, the belief that the oak blooms on Midsummer Eve may be Welsh in its immediate origin, though probably the belief is a fragment of the primitive Aryan creed. In some parts of Italy, as we saw,[723 - Above, pp. 82 (#x_6_i17)sq.] peasants still go out on Midsummer morning to search the oak-trees for the “oil of St. John,” which, like the mistletoe, heals all wounds, and is, perhaps, the mistletoe itself in its glorified aspect. Thus it is easy to understand how a title like the Golden Bough, so little descriptive of its usual appearance on the tree, should have been applied to the seemingly insignificant parasite. Further, we can perhaps see why in antiquity mistletoe was believed to possess the remarkable property of extinguishing fire,[724 - Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 94: “Calx aqua accenditur et Thracius lapis, idem oleo restinguitur, ignis autem aceto maxime et visco et ovo.”] and why in Sweden it is still kept in houses as a safeguard against conflagration.[725 - See above, p. 85 (#x_6_i23).] Its fiery nature marks it out, on homoeopathic principles, as the best possible cure or preventive of injury by fire.

Aeneas and the Golden Bough. Orpheus and the willow.

These considerations may partially explain why Virgil makes Aeneas carry a glorified bough of mistletoe with him on his descent into the gloomy subterranean world. The poet describes how at the very gates of hell there stretched a vast and gloomy wood, and how the hero, following the flight of two doves that lured him on, wandered into the depths of the immemorial forest till he saw afar off through the shadows of the trees the flickering light of the Golden Bough illuminating the matted boughs overhead.[726 - Virgil, Aen. vi. 179-209.] If the mistletoe, as a yellow withered bough in the sad autumn woods, was conceived to contain the seed of fire, what better companion could a forlorn wanderer in the nether shades take with him than a bough that would be a lamp to his feet as well as a rod and staff to his hands? Armed with it he might boldly confront the dreadful spectres that would cross his path on his adventurous journey. Hence when Aeneas, emerging from the forest, comes to the banks of Styx, winding slow with sluggish stream through the infernal marsh, and the surly ferryman refuses him passage in his boat, he has but to draw the Golden Bough from his bosom and hold it up, and straightway the blusterer quails at the sight and meekly receives the hero into his crazy bark, which sinks deep in the water under the unusual weight of the living man.[727 - Virgil, Aen. vi. 384-416.] Even in recent times, as we have seen, mistletoe has been deemed a protection against witches and trolls,[728 - Above, pp. 86 (#x_6_i25), 282 (#x_21_i8).] and the ancients may well have credited it with the same magical virtue. And if the parasite can, as some of our peasants believe, open all locks,[729 - Above, p. 85 (#x_6_i23).] why should it not have served as an “open Sesame” in the hands of Aeneas to unlock the gates of death? There is some reason to suppose that when Orpheus in like manner descended alive to hell to rescue the soul of his dead wife Eurydice from the shades, he carried with him a willow bough to serve as a passport on his journey to and from the land of the dead; for in the great frescoes representing the nether world, with which the master hand of Polygnotus adorned the walls of a loggia at Delphi, Orpheus was depicted sitting pensively under a willow, holding his lyre, now silent and useless, in his left hand, while with his right he grasped the drooping boughs of the tree.[730 - Pausanias, x. 30. 6.] If the willow in the picture had indeed the significance which an ingenious scholar has attributed to it,[731 - J. Six, “Die Eriphyle des Polygnot,” Mittheilungen des kaiserlich deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Athenische Abtheilung, xix. (1894) pp. 338 sq. Compare my commentary on Pausanias, vol. v. p. 385.] the painter meant to represent the dead musician dreaming wistfully of the time when the willow had carried him safe back across the Stygian ferry to that bright world of love and music which he was now to see no more. Again, on an ancient sarcophagus, which exhibits in sculptured relief the parting of Adonis from Aphrodite, the hapless youth, reclining in the lap of his leman, holds a branch, which has been taken to signify that he, too, by the help of the mystic bough, might yet be brought back from the gates of death to life and love.[732 - The sarcophagus is in the Lateran Museum at Rome. See W. Helbig, Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen Klassischer Altertümer in Rom

(Leipsic, 1899), ii. 468.]

Trees thought by the savage to be the seat of fire because he elicits it by friction from their wood.

Now, too, we can conjecture why Virbius at Nemi came to be confounded with the sun.[733 - See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 19 sqq.] If Virbius was, as I have tried to shew, a tree-spirit, he must have been the spirit of the oak on which grew the Golden Bough; for tradition represented him as the first of the Kings of the Wood. As an oak-spirit he must have been supposed periodically to rekindle the sun's fire, and might therefore easily be confounded with the sun itself. Similarly we can explain why Balder, an oak-spirit, was described as “so fair of face and so shining that a light went forth from him,”[734 - Die Edda, übersetzt von K. Simrock

(Stuttgart, 1882), p. 264.] and why he should have been so often taken to be the sun. And in general we may say that in primitive society, when the only known way of making fire is by the friction of wood, the savage must necessarily conceive of fire as a property stored away, like sap or juice, in trees, from which he has laboriously to extract it. The Senal Indians of California “profess to believe that the whole world was once a globe of fire, whence that element passed up into the trees, and now comes out whenever two pieces of wood are rubbed together.”[735 - S. Powers, Tribes of California (Washington, 1877), p. 171.] Similarly the Maidu Indians of California hold that “the earth was primarily a globe of molten matter, and from that the principle of fire ascended through the roots into the trunk and branches of trees, whence the Indians can extract it by means of their drill.”[736 - S. Powers, Tribes of California, p. 287.] In Namoluk, one of the Caroline Islands, they say that the art of making fire was taught men by the gods. Olofaet, the cunning master of flames, gave fire to the bird mwi and bade him carry it to earth in his bill. So the bird flew from tree to tree and stored away the slumbering force of the fire in the wood, from which men can elicit it by friction.[737 - Max Girschner, “Die Karolineninsel Namöluk und ihre Bewohner,” Baessler-Archiv, ii. (1912) p. 141.] In the ancient Vedic hymns of India the fire-god Agni “is spoken of as born in wood, as the embryo of plants, or as distributed in plants. He is also said to have entered into all plants or to strive after them. When he is called the embryo of trees or of trees as well as plants, there may be a side-glance at the fire produced in forests by the friction of the boughs of trees.”[738 - A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strasburg, 1897), pp. 91 sq., referring to Rigveda, vi. 3. 3, x. 79. 7, ii. 1. 14, iii. 1. 13, x. 1. 2, viii. 43. 9, i. 70. 4, ii. 1. 1. Compare H. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Berlin, 1894), pp. 120 sq.] In some Australian languages the words for wood and fire are said to be the same.[739 - Edward M. Curr, The Australian Race (Melbourne and London, 1886-1887), i. 9, 18.]

Trees that have been struck by lightning are deemed by the savage to be charged with a double portion of fire.

A tree which has been struck by lightning is naturally regarded by the savage as charged with a double or triple portion of fire; for has he not seen the mighty flash enter into the trunk with his own eyes? Hence perhaps we may explain some of the many superstitious beliefs concerning trees that have been struck by lightning. Thus in the opinion of the Cherokee Indians “mysterious properties attach to the wood of a tree which has been struck by lightning, especially when the tree itself still lives, and such wood enters largely into the secret compounds of the conjurers. An ordinary person of the laity will not touch it, for fear of having cracks come upon his hands and feet, nor is it burned for fuel, for fear that lye made from the ashes will cause consumption. In preparing ballplayers for the contest, the medicine-man sometimes burns splinters of it to coal, which he gives to the players to paint themselves with, in order that they may be able to strike their opponents with all the force of a thunderbolt. Bark or wood from a tree struck by lightning, but still green, is beaten up and put into the water in which seeds are soaked before planting, to insure a good crop, but, on the other hand, any lightning-struck wood thrown into the field will cause the crop to wither, and it is believed to have a bad effect even to go into the field immediately after having been near such a tree.”[740 - James Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part i. (Washington, 1900) p. 422, compare p. 435.] Apparently the Cherokees imagine that when wood struck by lightning is soaked in water the fierce heat of the slumbering fire in its veins is tempered to a genial warmth, which promotes the growth of the crops; but that when the force of the fire has not been thus diluted it blasts the growing corn. When the Thompson Indians of British Columbia wished to set fire to the houses of their enemies, they shot at them arrows which were either made from a tree that had been struck by lightning or had splinters of such wood attached to them.[741 - James Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, p. 346 (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, April, 1900).] They seem to have thought that wood struck by lightning was so charged with fire that it would ignite whatever it struck, the mere concussion sufficing to explode it like gunpowder. Yet curiously enough these Indians supposed that if they burned the wood of trees that had been struck by lightning, the weather would immediately turn cold.[742 - J. Teit, op. cit. p. 374.] Perhaps they conceived such trees as reservoirs of heat, and imagined that by using them up they would exhaust the supply and thus lower the temperature of the atmosphere.[743 - The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia entertain a similar belief. It has been suggested that the fancy may be based on the observation that cold follows a thunder-storm. See G. M. Dawson, “Notes on the Shuswap people of British Columbia,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, ix. (1891) Section ii. p. 38.] Wendish peasants of Saxony similarly refuse to burn in their stoves the wood of trees that have been struck by lightning; but the reason they give for their refusal is different. They say that with such fuel the house would be burnt down.[744 - R. Wuttke, Sächsische Volkskunde

(Dresden, 1901), p. 369.] No doubt they think that the electric flash, inherent in the wood, would send such a roaring flame up the chimney that nothing could stand before it. In like manner the Thonga of South Africa will not use such wood as fuel nor warm themselves at a fire which has been kindled with it; but what danger they apprehend from the wood we are not told.[745 - Henri A. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe (Neuchatel, 1912-1913), ii. 291. The Thonga imagine that lightning is caused by a great bird, which sometimes buries itself in the ground to a depth of several feet. See H. A. Junod, op. cit. ii. 290 sq.] On the contrary, when lightning sets fire to a tree, the Winamwanga of Northern Rhodesia put out all the fires in the village and plaster the fireplaces afresh, while the head men convey the lightning-kindled fire to the chief, who prays over it. The chief then sends out the new fire to all his villages, and the villagers reward his messengers for the boon. This shews that they look upon fire kindled by lightning with reverence, and the reverence is intelligible, for they speak of thunder and lightning as God himself coming down to earth.[746 - Dr. James A. Chisholm (of the Livingstonia Mission, Mwenzo, N.E. Rhodesia), “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Winamwanga and Wiwa,” Journal of the African Society, No. 36 (July, 1910), p. 363.] Similarly the Maidu Indians of California believe that a Great Man created the world and all its inhabitants, and that lightning is nothing but the Great Man himself descending swiftly out of heaven and rending the trees with his flaming arm.[747 - S. Powers, Tribes of California (Washington, 1877), p. 287. The dread of lightning is prominent in some of the customs observed in Patiko, a district of the Uganda Protectorate. If a village has suffered from lightning, ropes made of twisted grass are strung from peak to peak of the houses to ward off further strokes. And if a person has been struck or badly shaken, “an elaborate cure is performed upon him. A red cock is taken, his tongue torn out, and his body dashed upon the house where the stroke fell. Then the scene changes to the bank of a small running stream, where the patient is made to kneel while the bird is sacrificed over the water. A raw egg is next given to the patient to swallow, and he is laid on his stomach and encouraged to vomit. The lightning is supposed to be vomited along with the egg, and all ill effects prevented.” See Rev. A. L. Kitching, On the Backwaters of the Nile (London, 1912), p. 263.]

Theory that the sanctity of the oak and the relation of the tree to the sky-god were suggested by the frequency with which oaks are struck by lightning.

It is a plausible theory that the reverence which the ancient peoples of Europe paid to the oak, and the connexion which they traced between the tree and their sky-god,[748 - See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 349 sqq.] were derived from the much greater frequency with which the oak appears to be struck by lightning than any other tree of our European forests. Some remarkable statistics have been adduced in support of this view by Mr. W. Warde Fowler.[749 - W. Warde Fowler, “The Oak and the Thunder-god,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xvi. (1913) pp. 318 sq. My friend Mr. Warde Fowler had previously called my attention to the facts in a letter dated September 17th, 1912.] Observations, annually made in the forests of Lippe-Detmold for seventeen years, yielded the result that while the woods were mainly stocked with beech and only to a small extent with oak and Scotch pine, yet far more oaks and Scotch pines were struck by lightning than beeches, the number of stricken Scotch pines exceeding the number of stricken beeches in the proportion of thirty-seven to one, and the number of stricken oaks exceeding the number of stricken beeches in the proportion of no less than sixty to one. Similar results have been obtained from observations made in French and Bavarian forests.[750 - Dr. W. Schlich's Manual of Forestry, vol. iv. Forest Protection, by W. R. Fisher, Second Edition (London, 1907), pp. 662 sq. Mr. W. Warde Fowler was the first to call the attention of mythologists to this work.] In short, it would seem from statistics compiled by scientific observers, who have no mythological theories to maintain, that the oak suffers from the stroke of lightning far oftener than any other forest tree in Europe. However we may explain it, whether by the easier passage of electricity through oakwood than through any other timber,[751 - Experiments on the conductivity of electricity in wood go to shew that starchy trees (oak, poplar, maples, ash, elm, sorbus) are good conductors, that oily trees (beech, walnut, birch, lime) are bad conductors, and that the conifers are intermediate, the Scotch pine in summer being as deficient in oil as the starchy trees, but rich in oil during winter. It was found that a single turn of Holz's electric machine sufficed to send the spark through oakwood, but that from twelve to twenty turns were required to send it through beech-wood. Five turns of the machine were needed to send the spark through poplar and willow wood. See Dr. W. Schlich, Manual of Forestry, vol. iv. Forest Protection, Second Edition (London, 1907), p. 664. In the tropics lightning is said to be especially attracted to coco-nut palms. See P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1913), p. 73.] or in some other way, the fact itself may well have attracted the notice of our rude forefathers, who dwelt in the vast forests which then covered a large part of Europe; and they might naturally account for it in their simple religious way by supposing that the great sky-god, whom they worshipped and whose awful voice they heard in the roll of thunder, loved the oak above all the trees of the wood and often descended into it from the murky cloud in a flash of lightning, leaving a token of his presence or of his passage in the riven and blackened trunk and the blasted foliage. Such trees would thenceforth be encircled by a nimbus of glory as the visible seats of the thundering sky-god. Certain it is that, like some savages, both Greeks and Romans identified their great god of the sky and of the oak with the lightning flash which struck the ground; and they regularly enclosed such a stricken spot and treated it thereafter as sacred.[752 - As to the Greek belief and custom, see H. Usener, Kleine Schriften, iv. (Leipsic and Berlin, 1913), “Keraunos,” pp. 471 sqq.; The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 361. As to the Roman belief and custom, see Festus, svv.Fulguritum and Provorsum fulgur, pp. 92, 229, ed. C. O. Müller (Leipsic, 1839); H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, vol. ii. pars i. (Berlin, 1902) pp. 10 sq., Nos. 3048-3056; L. Preller, Römische Mythologie

(Berlin, 1881-1883), i. 190-193; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer

(Munich, 1912), pp. 121 sq. By a curious refinement the Romans referred lightning which fell by day to Jupiter, but lightning which fell by night to a god called Summanus (Festus, p. 229).] It is not rash to suppose that the ancestors of the Celts and Germans in the forests of Central Europe paid a like respect for like reasons to a blasted oak.

This explanation of the Aryan worship of the oak is preferable to the one formerly adopted by the author.

This explanation of the Aryan reverence for the oak and of the association of the tree with the great god of the thunder and the sky, was suggested or implied long ago by Jacob Grimm,[753 - J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,

iii. 64, citing a statement that lightning strikes twenty oaks for one beech. The statistics adduced by Mr. W. Warde Fowler seem to shew that this statement is no exaggeration but rather the contrary.] and has been of late powerfully reinforced by Mr. W. Warde Fowler.[754 - W. Warde Fowler, “The Oak and the Thunder-god,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xvi. (1913) pp. 317-320.] It appears to be simpler and more probable than the explanation which I formerly adopted, namely, that the oak was worshipped primarily for the many benefits which our rude forefathers derived from the tree, particularly for the fire which they drew by friction from its wood; and that the connexion of the oak with the sky was an after-thought based on the belief that the flash of lightning was nothing but the spark which the sky-god up aloft elicited by rubbing two pieces of oak wood against each other, just as his savage worshipper kindled fire in the forest on earth.[755 - The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 356 sqq.] On that theory the god of the thunder and the sky was derived from the original god of the oak; on the present theory, which I now prefer, the god of the sky and the thunder was the great original deity of our Aryan ancestors, and his association with the oak was merely an inference based on the frequency with which the oak was seen to be struck by lightning. If the Aryans, as some think, roamed the wide steppes of Russia or Central Asia with their flocks and herds before they plunged into the gloom of the European forests, they may have worshipped the god of the blue or cloudy firmament and the flashing thunderbolt long before they thought of associating him with the blasted oaks in their new home.[756 - The suggestion is Mr. W. Warde Fowler's (op cit. pp. 319 sq.).]

The sacredness of mistletoe was perhaps due to a belief that the plant fell on the tree in a flash of lightning.

Perhaps the new theory has the further advantage of throwing light on the special sanctity ascribed to mistletoe which grows on an oak. The mere rarity of such a growth on an oak hardly suffices to explain the extent and the persistence of the superstition. A hint of its real origin is possibly furnished by the statement of Pliny that the Druids worshipped the plant because they believed it to have fallen from heaven and to be a token that the tree on which it grew was chosen by the god himself.[757 - Pliny, Natur. Hist. xvi. 249.] Can they have thought that the mistletoe dropped on the oak in a flash of lightning? The conjecture is confirmed by the name thunder-besom which is applied to mistletoe in the Swiss canton of Aargau,[758 - See above, p. 85 (#x_6_i23).] for the epithet clearly implies a close connexion between the parasite and the thunder; indeed “thunder-besom” is a popular name in Germany for any bushy nest-like excrescence growing on a branch, because such a parasitic growth is actually believed by the ignorant to be a product of lightning.[759 - J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,

i. 153. See above, p. 85 (#x_6_i23).] If there is any truth in this conjecture, the real reason why the Druids worshipped a mistletoe-bearing oak above all other trees of the forest was a belief that every such oak had not only been struck by lightning but bore among its branches a visible emanation of the celestial fire; so that in cutting the mistletoe with mystic rites they were securing for themselves all the magical properties of a thunderbolt. If that was so, we must apparently conclude that the mistletoe was deemed an emanation of the lightning rather than, as I have thus far argued, of the midsummer sun. Perhaps, indeed, we might combine the two seemingly divergent views by supposing that in the old Aryan creed the mistletoe descended from the sun on Midsummer Day in a flash of lightning. But such a combination is artificial and unsupported, so far as I know, by any positive evidence. Whether on mythical principles the two interpretations can really be reconciled with each other or not, I will not presume to say; but even should they prove to be discrepant, the inconsistency need not have prevented our rude forefathers from embracing both of them at the same time with an equal fervour of conviction; for like the great majority of mankind the savage is above being hidebound by the trammels of a pedantic logic. In attempting to track his devious thought through the jungle of crass ignorance and blind fear, we must always remember that we are treading enchanted ground, and must beware of taking for solid realities the cloudy shapes that cross our path or hover and gibber at us through the gloom. We can never completely replace ourselves at the standpoint of primitive man, see things with his eyes, and feel our hearts beat with the emotions that stirred his. All our theories concerning him and his ways must therefore fall far short of certainty; the utmost we can aspire to in such matters is a reasonable degree of probability.

Hence the stroke of mistletoe that killed Balder may have been a stroke of lightning.

To conclude these enquiries we may say that if Balder was indeed, as I have conjectured, a personification of a mistletoe-bearing oak, his death by a blow of the mistletoe might on the new theory be explained as a death by a stroke of lightning. So long as the mistletoe, in which the flame of the lightning smouldered, was suffered to remain among the boughs, so long no harm could befall the good and kindly god of the oak, who kept his life stowed away for safety between earth and heaven in the mysterious parasite; but when once that seat of his life, or of his death, was torn from the branch and hurled at the trunk, the tree fell – the god died – smitten by a thunderbolt.[760 - This interpretation of Balder's death was anticipated by W. Schwartz (Der Ursprung der Mythologie, Berlin, 1860, p. 176), who cut the whole knot by dubbing Balder “the German thunder-and-lightning god” and mistletoe “the wonderful thunder-and-lightning flower.” But as this learned writer nursed a fatal passion for thunder and lightning, which he detected lurking in the most unlikely places, we need not wonder that he occasionally found it in places where there were some slight grounds for thinking that it really existed.]

The King of the Wood and the Golden Bough.

And what we have said of Balder in the oak forests of Scandinavia may perhaps, with all due diffidence in a question so obscure and uncertain, be applied to the priest of Diana, the King of the Wood, at Aricia in the oak forests of Italy. He may have personated in flesh and blood the great Italian god of the sky, Jupiter,[761 - On the relation of the priest to Jupiter, and the equivalence of Jupiter and Juno to Janus (Dianus) and Diana, see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 376 sqq.] who had kindly come down from heaven in the lightning flash to dwell among men in the mistletoe – the thunder-besom – the Golden Bough – growing on the sacred oak beside the still waters of the lake of Nemi. If that was so, we need not wonder that the priest guarded with drawn sword the mystic bough which contained the god's life and his own. The goddess whom he served and married was herself, if I am right, no other than the Queen of Heaven, the true wife of the sky-god. For she, too, loved the solitude of the woods and the lonely hills, and sailing overhead on clear nights in the likeness of the silver moon she looked down with pleasure on her own fair image reflected on the calm, the burnished surface of the lake, Diana's Mirror.

Chapter XIII. Farewell to Nemi

Looking back at the end of the journey.

We are at the end of our enquiry, but as often happens in the search after truth, if we have answered one question, we have raised many more; if we have followed one track home, we have had to pass by others that opened off it and led, or seemed to lead, to far other goals than the sacred grove at Nemi. Some of these paths we have followed a little way; others, if fortune should be kind, the writer and the reader may one day pursue together. For the present we have journeyed far enough together, and it is time to part. Yet before we do so, we may well ask ourselves whether there is not some more general conclusion, some lesson, if possible, of hope and encouragement, to be drawn from the melancholy record of human error and folly which has engaged our attention in these volumes.

The movement of human thought in the past from magic to religion.

If then we consider, on the one hand, the essential similarity of man's chief wants everywhere and at all times, and on the other hand, the wide difference between the means he has adopted to satisfy them in different ages, we shall perhaps be disposed to conclude that the movement of the higher thought, so far as we can trace it, has on the whole been from magic through religion to science. In magic man depends on his own strength to meet the difficulties and dangers that beset him on every side. He believes in a certain established order of nature on which he can surely count, and which he can manipulate for his own ends. When he discovers his mistake, when he recognizes sadly that both the order of nature which he had assumed and the control which he had believed himself to exercise over it were purely imaginary, he ceases to rely on his own intelligence and his own unaided efforts, and throws himself humbly on the mercy of certain great invisible beings behind the veil of nature, to whom he now ascribes all those far-reaching powers which he once arrogated to himself. Thus in the acuter minds magic is gradually superseded by religion, which explains the succession of natural phenomena as regulated by the will, the passion, or the caprice of spiritual beings like man in kind, though vastly superior to him in power.

The movement of thought from religion to science.