The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)

Again, the fructifying power of the tree is put forth at seed-time as well as at harvest. Among the Aryan tribes of Gilgit, on the north-western frontier of India, the sacred tree is the Chili, a species of cedar (Juniperus excelsa). At the beginning of wheat-sowing the people receive from the Raja's granary a quantity of wheat, which is placed in a skin mixed with sprigs of the sacred cedar. A large bonfire of the cedar wood is lighted, and the wheat which is to be sown is held over the smoke. The rest is ground and made into a large cake, which is baked on the same fire and given to the ploughman.[262 - Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, p. 103 sq.] Here the intention of fertilising the seed by means of the sacred cedar is unmistakable. In all these cases the power of fostering the growth of crops, and, in general, of cultivated plants, is ascribed to trees. The ascription is not unnatural. For the tree is the largest and most powerful member of the vegetable kingdom, and man is familiar with it before he takes to cultivating corn. Hence he naturally places the feebler and, to him, newer plant under the dominion of the older and more powerful.

Again, the tree-spirit makes the herds to multiply and blesses women with offspring. The sacred Chili or cedar of Gilgit was supposed to possess this virtue in addition to that of fertilising the corn. At the commencement of wheat-sowing three chosen unmarried youths, after undergoing daily washing and purification for three days, used to start for the mountain where the cedars grew, taking with them wine, oil, bread, and fruit of every kind. Having found a suitable tree they sprinkled the wine and oil on it, while they ate the bread and fruit as a sacrificial feast. Then they cut off the branch and brought it to the village, where, amid general rejoicing, it was placed on a large stone beside running water. “A goat was then sacrificed, its blood poured over the cedar branch, and a wild dance took place, in which weapons were brandished about, and the head of the slaughtered goat was borne aloft, after which it was set up as a mark for arrows and bullet-practice. Every good shot was rewarded with a gourd full of wine and some of the flesh of the goat. When the flesh was finished the bones were thrown into the stream and a general ablution took place, after which every man went to his house taking with him a spray of the cedar. On arrival at his house he found the door shut in his face, and on his knocking for admission, his wife asked, ‘What have you brought?’ To which he answered, ‘If you want children, I have brought them to you; if you want food, I have brought it; if you want cattle, I have brought them; whatever you want, I have it.’ The door was then opened and he entered with his cedar spray. The wife then took some of the leaves and pouring wine and water on them placed them on the fire, and the rest were sprinkled with flour and suspended from the ceiling. She then sprinkled flour on her husband's head and shoulders, and addressed him thus: ‘Ai Shiri Bagerthum, son of the fairies, you have come from far!’ Shiri Bagerthum, ‘the dreadful king,’ being the form of address to the cedar when praying for wants to be fulfilled. The next day the wife baked a number of cakes, and taking them with her, drove the family goats to the Chili stone. When they were collected round the stone, she began to pelt them with pebbles, invoking the Chili at the same time. According to the direction in which the goats ran off, omens were drawn as to the number and sex of the kids expected during the ensuing year. Walnuts and pomegranates were then placed on the Chili stone, the cakes were distributed and eaten, and the goats followed to pasture in whatever direction they showed a disposition to go. For five days afterwards this song was sung in all the houses: —

‘Dread Fairy King, I sacrifice before you,
How nobly do you stand! you have filled up my house,
You have brought me a wife when I had not one,
Instead of daughters you have given me sons.
You have shown me the ways of right,
You have given me many children.’ ”[263 - Biddulph, op. cit. p. 106 sq.]

Here the driving of the goats to the stone on which the cedar had been placed is clearly meant to impart to them the fertilising influence of the cedar. In Europe the May-tree (May-pole) is supposed to possess similar powers over both women and cattle. In some parts of Germany on the 1st of May the peasants set up May-trees at the doors of stables and byres, one May-tree for each horse and cow; this is thought to make the cows yield much milk.[264 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 161; E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Schwaben, p. 397.; A. Peter, Volksthümliches aus Österreichisch-Schlesien, ii. 286; Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 210.] Camden says of the Irish, “They fancy a green bough of a tree, fastened on May-day against the house, will produce plenty of milk that summer.”[265 - Quoted by Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 227, Bohn's ed.]

On the 2d of July some of the Wends used to set up an oak-tree in the middle of the village with an iron cock fastened to its top; then they danced round it, and drove the cattle round it to make them thrive.[266 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 174.]

Some of the Esthonians believe in a mischievous spirit called Metsik, who lives in the forest and has the weal of the cattle in his hands. Every year a new image of him is prepared. On an appointed day all the villagers assemble and make a straw man, dress him in clothes, and take him to the common pasture land of the village. Here the figure is fastened to a high tree, round which the people dance noisily. On almost every day of the year prayer and sacrifice are offered to him that he may protect the cattle. Sometimes the image of Metsik is made of a corn-sheaf and fastened to a tall tree in the wood. The people perform strange antics before it to induce Metsik to guard the corn and the cattle.[267 - Holzmayer, “Osiliana,” Verhandlungen der Estnischen Gesell. zu Dorpat, vii. 10 sq.; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 407 sq.]

The Circassians regard the pear-tree as the protector of cattle. So they cut down a young pear-tree in the forest, branch it, and carry it home, where it is adored as a divinity. Almost every house has one such pear-tree. In autumn, on the day of the festival, it is carried into the house with great ceremony to the sound of music and amid the joyous cries of all the inmates, who compliment it on its fortunate arrival. It is covered with candles, and a cheese is fastened to its top. Round about it they eat, drink, and sing. Then they bid it good-bye and take it back to the courtyard, where it remains for the rest of the year, set up against the wall, without receiving any mark of respect.[268 - Potocki, Voyage dans les steps d'Astrakhan et du Caucase (Paris, 1829), i. 309.]

The common European custom of placing a green bush on May Day before the house of a beloved maiden probably originated in the belief of the fertilising power of the tree-spirit.[269 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 163 sqq. To his authorities add, for Sardinia, R. Tennant, Sardinia and its Resources (Rome and London, 1885), p. 185 sq.] Amongst the Kara-Kirgiz barren women roll themselves on the ground under a solitary apple-tree, in order to obtain offspring.[270 - Radloff, Proben der Volkslitteratur der nördlichen Türkischen Stämme, v. 2.] Lastly, the power of granting to women an easy delivery at child-birth is ascribed to trees both in Sweden and Africa. In some districts of Sweden there was formerly a bårdträd or guardian-tree (lime, ash, or elm) in the neighbourhood of every farm. No one would pluck a single leaf of the sacred tree, any injury to which was punished by ill-luck or sickness. Pregnant women used to clasp the tree in their arms in order to ensure an easy delivery.[271 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 51 sq.] In some negro tribes of the Congo region pregnant women make themselves garments out of the bark of a certain sacred tree, because they believe that this tree delivers them from the dangers that attend child-bearing.[272 - Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels, xvi. 236 sq.] The story that Leto clasped a palm-tree and an olive-tree or two laurel-trees when she was about to give birth to Apollo and Artemis perhaps points to a similar Greek belief in the efficacy of certain trees to facilitate delivery.[273 - Bötticher, Der Baumkultus der Hellenen, p. 30 sq.]

From this review of the beneficent qualities commonly ascribed to tree-spirits, it is easy to understand why customs like the May-tree or May-pole have prevailed so widely and figured so prominently in the popular festivals of European peasants. In spring or early summer or even on Midsummer Day, it was and still is in many parts of Europe the custom to go out to the woods, cut down a tree and bring it into the village, where it is set up amid general rejoicings. Or the people cut branches in the woods, and fasten them on every house. The intention of these customs is to bring home to the village, and to each house, the blessings which the tree-spirit has in its power to bestow. Hence the custom in some places of planting a May-tree before every house, or of carrying the village May-tree from door to door, that every household may receive its share of the blessing. Out of the mass of evidence on this subject a few examples may be selected.

Sir Henry Piers, in his Description of Westmeath, writing in 1682 says: “On May-eve, every family sets up before their door a green bush, strewed over with yellow flowers, which the meadows yield plentifully. In countries where timber is plentiful, they erect tall slender trees, which stand high, and they continue almost the whole year; so as a stranger would go nigh to imagine that they were all signs of ale-sellers, and that all houses were ale-houses.”[274 - Quoted by Brand, Popular Antiquities, i. 246 (ed. Bohn).] In Northamptonshire a young tree ten or twelve feet high used to be planted before each house on May Day so as to appear growing.[275 - Dyer, British Popular Customs, p. 254.] “An antient custom, still retained by the Cornish, is that of decking their doors and porches on the 1st of May with green boughs of sycamore and hawthorn, and of planting trees, or rather stumps of trees, before their houses.”[276 - Borlase, cited by Brand, op. cit. i. 222.] In the north of England it was formerly the custom for young people to rise very early on the morning of the 1st of May, and go out with music into the woods, where they broke branches and adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. This done, they returned about sunrise and fastened the flower-decked branches over the doors and windows of their houses.[277 - Brand, op. cit. i. 212 sq.] At Abingdon in Berkshire young people formerly went about in groups on May morning, singing a carol of which the following are some of the verses —

“We've been rambling all the night;
And sometime of this day;
And now returning back again,
We bring a garland gay.

“A garland gay we bring you here;
And at your door we stand;
It is a sprout well budded out,
The work of our Lord's hand.”[278 - Dyer, Popular British Customs, p. 233.]

At the villages of Saffron Walden and Debden in Essex on the 1st of May little girls go about in parties from door to door singing a song almost identical with the above and carrying garlands; a doll dressed in white is usually placed in the middle of each garland.[279 - Chambers, Book of Days, i. 578; Dyer, op. cit. p. 237 sq.] At Seven Oaks on May Day the children carry boughs and garlands from house to house, begging for pence. The garlands consist of two hoops interlaced crosswise, and covered with blue and yellow flowers from the woods and hedges.[280 - Dyer, op. cit. p. 243.] In some villages of the Vosges Mountains on the first Sunday of May young girls go in bands from house to house, singing a song in praise of May, in which mention is made of the “bread and meal that come in May.” If money is given them, they fasten a green bough to the door; if it is refused, they wish the family many children and no bread to feed them.[281 - E. Cortet, Fêtes religieuses, p. 167 sqq.] In Mayenne (France), boys who bore the name of Maillotins used to go about from farm to farm on the 1st of May singing carols, for which they received money or a drink; they planted a small tree or a branch of a tree.[282 - Revue des Traditions populaires, ii. 200.]

On the Thursday before Whitsunday the Russian villagers “go out into the woods, sing songs, weave garlands, and cut down a young birch-tree, which they dress up in woman's clothes, or adorn with many-coloured shreds and ribbons. After that comes a feast, at the end of which they take the dressed-up birch-tree, carry it home to their village with joyful dance and song, and set it up in one of the houses, where it remains as an honoured guest till Whitsunday. On the two intervening days they pay visits to the house where their ‘guest’ is; but on the third day, Whitsunday, they take her to a stream and fling her into its waters,” throwing their garlands after her. “All over Russia every village and every town is turned, a little before Whitsunday, into a sort of garden. Everywhere along the streets the young birch-trees stand in rows, every house and every room is adorned with boughs, even the engines upon the railway are for the time decked with green leaves.”[283 - Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 234 sq.] In this Russian custom the dressing of the birch in woman's clothes shows how clearly the tree is conceived as personal; and the throwing it into a stream is most probably a rain-charm. In some villages of Altmark it was formerly the custom for serving-men, grooms, and cowherds to go from farm to farm at Whitsuntide distributing crowns made of birch-branches and flowers to the farmers; these crowns were hung up in the houses and left till the following year.[284 - A. Kuhn, Märkische Sagen und Märchen, p. 315.]

In the neighbourhood of Zabern in Alsace bands of people go about carrying May-trees. Amongst them is a man dressed in a white shirt, with his face blackened; in front of him is carried a large May-tree, but each member of the band also carries a smaller one. One of the company carries a huge basket in which he collects eggs, bacon, etc.[285 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 162.] In some parts of Sweden on the eve of May Day lads go about carrying each a bunch of fresh-gathered birch twigs, wholly or partially in leaf. With the village fiddler at their head they go from house to house singing May songs; the purport of which is a prayer for fine weather, a plentiful harvest, and worldly and spiritual blessings. One of them carries a basket in which he collects gifts of eggs and the like. If they are well received they stick a leafy twig in the roof over the cottage door.[286 - L. Lloyd, Peasant Life in Sweden, p. 235.]

But in Sweden midsummer is the season when these ceremonies are chiefly observed. On the Eve of St. John (23d June) the houses are thoroughly cleansed and garnished with green boughs and flowers. Young fir-trees are raised at the door-way and elsewhere about the homestead; and very often small umbrageous arbours are constructed in the garden. In Stockholm on this day a leaf-market is held at which thousands of May-poles (Maj Stănger) six inches to twelve feet high, decorated with leaves, flowers, slips of coloured paper, gilt egg-shells, strung on reeds, etc. are exposed for sale. Bonfires are lit on the hills and the people dance round them and jump over them. But the chief event of the day is setting up the May-pole. This consists of a straight and tall spruce-pine tree, stripped of its branches. “At times hoops and at others pieces of wood, placed crosswise, are attached to it at intervals; whilst at others it is provided with bows, representing so to say, a man with his arms akimbo. From top to bottom not only the ‘Maj Stăng’ (May-pole) itself, but the hoops, bows, etc. are ornamented with leaves, flowers, slips of various cloth, gilt egg-shells, etc.; and on the top of it is a large vane, or it may be a flag.” The raising of the May-pole, the decoration of which is done by the village maidens, is an affair of much ceremony; the people flock to it from all quarters and dance round it in a great ring.[287 - L. Lloyd, op. cit. p. 257 sqq.] In some parts of Bohemia also a May-pole or midsummer-tree is erected on St. John's Eve. The lads fetch a tall fir or pine from the wood and set it up on a height, where the girls deck it with nosegays, garlands, and red ribbons. Then they pile brushwood, dry wood, and other combustible materials about the tree, and, when darkness has fallen, set the whole on fire. While the fire was burning the lads used to climb up the tree and fetch down the garlands and ribbons which the girls had fastened to it; but as this led to accidents, the custom has been forbidden. Sometimes the young people fling burning besoms into the air, or run shouting down hill with them. When the tree is consumed, the young men and their sweethearts stand on opposite sides of the fire, and look at each other through garlands and through the fire, to see whether they will be true lovers and will wed. Then they throw the garlands thrice across the smouldering fire to each other. When the blaze has died down, the couples join hands and leap thrice across the glowing embers. The singed garlands are taken home, and kept carefully in the house throughout the year. Whenever a thunder-storm bursts, part of the garlands are burned on the hearth; and when the cattle are sick or are calving, they get a portion of the garlands to eat. The charred embers of the bonfire are stuck in the cornfields and meadows and on the roof of the house, to keep house and field from bad weather and injury.[288 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 308 sq.]

It is hardly necessary to illustrate the custom of setting up a village May-tree or May-pole on May Day. One point only – the renewal of the village May-tree – requires to be noticed. In England the village May-pole seems as a rule, at least in later times, to have been permanent, not renewed from year to year.[289 - Hone, Every-day Book, i. 547 sqq.; Chambers, Book of Days, i. 571.] Sometimes, however, it was renewed annually. Thus, Borlase says of the Cornish people: “From towns they make incursions, on May-eve, into the country, cut down a tall elm, bring it into the town with rejoicings, and having fitted a straight taper pole to the end of it, and painted it, erect it in the most public part, and upon holidays and festivals dress it with garlands of flowers or ensigns and streamers.”[290 - Quoted by Brand, op. cit. i. 237.] An annual renewal seems also to be implied in the description by Stubbs, a Puritanical writer, of the custom of drawing home the May-pole by twenty or forty yoke of oxen.[291 - Id., op. cit. i. 235.] In some parts of Germany and Austria the May-tree or Whitsuntide-tree is renewed annually, a fresh tree being felled and set up.[292 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 169 sq.note.]

We can hardly doubt that originally the practice everywhere was to set up a new May-tree every year. As the object of the custom was to bring in the fructifying spirit of vegetation, newly awakened in spring, the end would have been defeated if, instead of a living tree, green and sappy, an old withered one had been erected year after year or allowed to stand permanently. When, however, the meaning of the custom had been forgotten, and the May-tree was regarded simply as a centre for holiday merrymaking, people saw no reason for felling a fresh tree every year, and preferred to let the same tree stand permanently, only decking it with fresh flowers on May Day. But even when the May-pole had thus become a fixture, the need of giving it the appearance of being a green tree, not a dead pole, was sometimes felt. Thus at Weverham in Cheshire “are two May-poles, which are decorated on this day (May Day) with all due attention to the ancient solemnity; the sides are hung with garlands, and the top terminated by a birch or other tall slender tree with its leaves on; the bark being peeled, and the stem spliced to the pole, so as to give the appearance of one tree from the summit.”[293 - Hone, Every-day Book, ii. 597 sq.] Thus the renewal of the May-tree is like the renewal of the Harvest-May; each is intended to secure a fresh portion of the fertilising spirit of vegetation, and to preserve it throughout the year. But whereas the efficacy of the Harvest-May is restricted to promoting the growth of the crops, that of the May-tree or May-branch extends also, as we have seen, to women and cattle. Lastly, it is worth noting that the old May-tree is sometimes burned at the end of the year. Thus in the district of Prague young people break pieces off the public May-tree and place them behind the holy pictures in their rooms, where they remain till next May Day, and are then burned on the hearth.[294 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 217; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 566.] In Würtemberg the bushes which are set up on the houses on Palm Sunday are sometimes left there for a year and then burnt.[295 - Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben, ii. 74 sq.; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 566.] The eiresione (the Harvest-May of Greece) was perhaps burned at the end of the year.[296 - Aristophanes, Plutus, 1054; Mannhardt, A. W. F. p. 222 sq.]

So much for the tree-spirit conceived as incorporate or immanent in the tree. We have now to show that the tree-spirit is often conceived and represented as detached from the tree and clothed in human form, and even as embodied in living men or women. The evidence for this anthropomorphic representation of the tree-spirit is largely to be found in the popular customs of European peasantry.

There is an instructive class of cases in which the tree-spirit is represented simultaneously in vegetable form and in human form, which are set side by side as if for the express purpose of explaining each other. In these cases the human representative of the tree-spirit is sometimes a doll or puppet, sometimes a living person; but whether a puppet or a person, it is placed beside a tree or bough; so that together the person or puppet, and the tree or bough, form a sort of bilingual inscription, the one being, so to speak, a translation of the other. Here, therefore, there is no room left for doubt that the spirit of the tree is actually represented in human form. Thus in Bohemia, on the fourth Sunday in Lent, young people throw a puppet called Death into the water; then the girls go into the wood, cut down a young tree, and fasten to it a puppet dressed in white clothes to look like a woman; with this tree and puppet they go from house to house collecting gratuities and singing songs with the refrain —

“We carry Death out of the village,
We bring Summer into the village.”[297 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 86 sqq.; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 156.]

Here, as we shall see later on, the “Summer” is the spirit of vegetation returning or reviving in spring. In some places in this country children go about asking for pence with some small imitations of May-poles, and with a finely dressed doll which they call the Lady of the May.[298 - Chambers, Book of Days, i. 573.] In these cases the tree and the puppet are obviously regarded as equivalent.

At Thann, in Alsace, a girl called the Little May Rose, dressed in white, carries a small May-tree, which is gay with garlands and ribbons. Her companions collect gifts from door to door, singing a song —

“Little May Rose turn round three times,
Let us look at you round and round!
Rose of the May, come to the greenwood away,
We will be merry all.
So we go from the May to the roses.”

In the course of the song a wish is expressed that those who give nothing may lose their fowls by the marten, that their vine may bear no clusters, their tree no nuts, their field no corn; the produce of the year is supposed to depend on the gifts offered to these May singers.[299 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 312.] Here and in the cases mentioned above, where children go about with green boughs on May Day singing and collecting money, the meaning is that with the spirit of vegetation they bring plenty and good luck to the house, and they expect to be paid for the service. In Russian Lithuania, on the 1st of May, they used to set up a green tree before the village. Then the rustic swains chose the prettiest girl, crowned her, swathed her in birch branches and set her beside the May-tree, where they danced, sang, and shouted “O May! O May!”[300 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 313.] In Brie (Isle de France) a May-tree is set up in the midst of the village; its top is crowned with flowers; lower down it is twined with leaves and twigs, still lower with huge green branches. The girls dance round it, and at the same time a lad wrapt in leaves and called Father May is led about.[301 - Ib. p. 314.] In Bavaria, on the 2d of May, a Walber (?) tree is erected before a tavern, and a man dances round it, enveloped in straw from head to foot in such a way that the ears of corn unite above his head to form a crown. He is called the Walber, and used to be led in solemn procession through the streets, which were adorned with sprigs of birch.[302 - Bavaria, Landes-und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern, iii. 357; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 312 sq.] In Carinthia, on St. George's Day (24th April), the young people deck with flowers and garlands a tree which has been felled on the eve of the festival. The tree is then carried in procession, accompanied with music and joyful acclamations, the chief figure in the procession being the Green George, a young fellow clad from head to foot in green birch branches. At the close of the ceremonies the Green George, that is an effigy of him, is thrown into the water. It is the aim of the lad who acts Green George to step out of his leafy envelope and substitute the effigy so adroitly that no one shall perceive the change. In many places, however, the lad himself who plays the part of Green George is ducked in a river or pond, with the express intention of thus ensuring rain to make the fields and meadows green in summer. In some places the cattle are crowned and driven from their stalls to the accompaniment of a song —

“Green George we bring,
Green George we accompany,
May he feed our herds well,
If not, to the water with him.”[303 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 313 sq.]

Here we see that the same powers of making rain and fostering the cattle, which are ascribed to the tree-spirit regarded as incorporate in the tree, are also attributed to the tree-spirit represented by a living man.

An example of the double representation of the spirit of vegetation by a tree and a living man is reported from Bengal. The Oraons have a festival in spring while the sál trees are in blossom, because they think that at this time the marriage of earth is celebrated and the sál flowers are necessary for the ceremony. On an appointed day the villagers go with their priest to the Sarna, the sacred grove, a remnant of the old sál forest in which a goddess Sarna Burhi, or woman of the grove, is supposed to dwell. She is thought to have great influence on the rain; and the priest arriving with his party at the grove sacrifices to her five fowls, of which a morsel is given to each person present. Then they gather the sál flowers and return laden with them to the village. Next day the priest visits every house, carrying the flowers in a wide open basket. The women of each house bring out water to wash his feet as he approaches, and kneeling make him an obeisance. Then he dances with them and places some of the sál flowers over the door of the house and in the women's hair. No sooner is this done than the women empty their water-jugs over him, drenching him to the skin. A feast follows, and the young people, with sál flowers in their hair, dance all night on the village green.[304 - Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 261.] Here, the equivalence of the flower-bearing priest to the goddess of the flowering-tree comes out plainly. For she is supposed to influence the rain, and the drenching of the priest with water is, doubtless, like the ducking of the Green George in Bavaria, a rain-charm. Thus the priest, as if he were the tree goddess herself, goes from door to door dispensing rain and bestowing fruitfulness on each house, but especially on the women.

Without citing more examples to the same effect, we may sum up the result of the preceding paragraphs in the words of Mannhardt. “The customs quoted suffice to establish with certainty the conclusion that in these spring processions the spirit of vegetation is often represented both by the May-tree and in addition by a man dressed in green leaves or flowers or by a girl similarly adorned. It is the same spirit which animates the tree and is active in the inferior plants and which we have recognised in the May-tree and the Harvest-May. Quite consistently the spirit is also supposed to manifest his presence in the first flower of spring and reveals himself both in a girl representing a May-rose, and also, as giver of harvest, in the person of the Walber. The procession with this representative of the divinity was supposed to produce the same beneficial effects on the fowls, the fruit-trees, and the crops as the presence of the deity himself. In other words, the mummer was regarded not as an image but as an actual representative of the spirit of vegetation; hence the wish expressed by the attendants on the May-rose and the May-tree that those who refuse them gifts of eggs, bacon, etc. may have no share in the blessings which it is in the power of the itinerant spirit to bestow. We may conclude that these begging processions with May-trees or May-boughs from door to door (‘bringing the May or the summer’) had everywhere originally a serious and, so to speak, sacramental significance; people really believed that the god of growth was present unseen in the bough; by the procession he was brought to each house to bestow his blessing. The names May, Father May, May Lady, Queen of the May, by which the anthropomorphic spirit of vegetation is often denoted, show that the conception of the spirit of vegetation is blent with a personification of the season at which his powers are most strikingly manifested.”[305 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 315 sq.]

Thus far we have seen that the tree-spirit or the spirit of vegetation in general is represented either in vegetable form alone, as by a tree, bough, or flower; or in vegetable and human form simultaneously, as by a tree, bough, or flower in combination with a puppet or a living person. It remains to show that the representation of him by a tree, bough, or flower is sometimes entirely dropped, while the representation of him by a living person remains. In this case the representative character of the person is generally marked by dressing him or her in leaves or flowers; sometimes too it is indicated by the name he or she bears.

We saw that in Russia at Whitsuntide a birch-tree is dressed in woman's clothes and set up in the house. Clearly equivalent to this is the custom observed on Whit-Monday by Russian girls in the district of Pinsk. They choose the prettiest of their number, envelop her in a mass of foliage taken from the birch-trees and maples, and carry her about through the village. In a district of Little Russia they take round a “poplar,” represented by a girl wearing bright flowers in her hair.[306 - Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 234.] In the Département de l'Ain (France) on the 1st of May eight or ten boys unite, clothe one of their number in leaves, and go from house to house begging.[307 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 318.] At Whitsuntide in Holland poor women used to go about begging with a little girl called Whitsuntide Flower (Pinxterbloem, perhaps a kind of iris); she was decked with flowers and sat in a waggon. In North Brabant she wears the flowers from which she takes her name and a song is sung —

“Whitsuntide Flower

Turn yourself once round.”[308 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 318; Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,

ii. 657.]

In Ruhla (Thüringen) as soon as the trees begin to grow green in spring, the children assemble on a Sunday and go out into the woods, where they choose one of their playmates to be the Little Leaf Man. They break branches from the trees and twine them about the child till only his shoes peep out from the leafy mantle. Holes are made in it for him to see through, and two of the children lead the Little Leaf Man that he may not stumble or fall. Singing and dancing they take him from house to house, asking for gifts of food (eggs, cream, sausage, cakes). Lastly they sprinkle the Leaf Man with water and feast on the food they have collected.[309 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 320; Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen, p. 211.] In England the best-known example of these leaf-clad mummers is the Jack-in-the-Green, a chimney-sweeper who walks encased in a pyramidal-shaped framework of wicker-work, which is covered with holly and ivy, and surmounted by a crown of flowers and ribbons. Thus arrayed he dances on May Day at the head of a troop of chimney-sweeps, who collect pence.[310 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 322; Hone, Every-day Book, i. 583 sqq.; Dyer, British Popular Customs, p. 230 sq.] In some parts also of France a young fellow is encased in a wicker framework covered with leaves and is led about.[311 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 323.] In Frickthal (Aargau) a similar frame of basketwork is called the Whitsuntide Basket. As soon as the trees begin to bud, a spot is chosen in the wood, and here the village lads make the frame with all secrecy, lest others should forestall them. Leafy branches are twined round two hoops, one of which rests on the shoulders of the wearer, the other encircles his calves; holes are made for his eyes and mouth; and a large nosegay crowns the whole. In this guise he appears suddenly in the village at the hour of vespers, preceded by three boys blowing on horns made of willow bark. The great object of his supporters is to set up the Whitsuntide Basket beside the village well, and to keep it and him there, despite the efforts of the lads from neighbouring villages, who seek to carry off the Whitsuntide Basket and set it up at their own well.[312 - Ib.] In the neighbourhood of Ertingen (Würtemberg) a masker of the same sort, known as the Lazy Man (Latzmann), goes about the village on Midsummer Day; he is hidden under a great pyramidal or conical frame of wicker-work, ten or twelve feet high, which is completely covered with sprigs of fir. He has a bell which he rings as he goes, and he is attended by a suite of persons dressed up in character – a footman, a colonel, a butcher, an angel, the devil, the doctor, etc. They march in Indian file and halt before every house, where each of them speaks in character, except the Lazy Man, who says nothing. With what they get by begging from door to door they hold a feast.[313 - Birlinger, Volksthümliches aus Schwaben, ii. 114 sq.; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 325.]

In the class of cases of which the above are specimens it is obvious that the leaf-clad person who is led about is equivalent to the May-tree, May-bough, or May-doll, which is carried from house to house by children begging. Both are representatives of the beneficent spirit of vegetation, whose visit to the house is recompensed by a present of money or food.

Often the leaf-clad person who represents the spirit of vegetation is known as the king or the queen; thus, for example, he or she is called the May King, Whitsuntide King, Queen of May, and so on. These titles, as Mannhardt observes, imply that the spirit incorporate in vegetation is a ruler, whose creative power extends far and wide.[314 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 341 sq.]

In a village near Salzwedel a May-tree is set up at Whitsuntide and the boys race to it; he who reaches it first is king; a garland of flowers is put round his neck and in his hand he carries a May-bush, with which, as the procession moves along, he sweeps away the dew. At each house they sing a song, wishing the inmates good luck, referring to the “black cow in the stall milking white milk, black hen on the nest laying white eggs,” and begging a gift of eggs, bacon, etc.[315 - Kuhn und Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche, p. 380.] In some villages of Brunswick at Whitsuntide a May King is completely enveloped in a May-bush. In some parts of Thüringen also they have a May King at Whitsuntide, but he is got up rather differently. A frame of wood is made in which a man can stand; it is completely covered with birch boughs and is surmounted by a crown of birch and flowers, in which a bell is fastened. This frame is placed in the wood and the May King gets into it. The rest go out and look for him, and when they have found him they lead him back into the village to the magistrate, the clergyman, and others, who have to guess who is in the verdurous frame. If they guess wrong, the May King rings his bell by shaking his head, and a forfeit of beer or the like must be paid by the unsuccessful guesser.[316 - Kuhn und Schwartz, op. cit. p. 384; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 342.] In some parts of Bohemia on Whit-Monday the young fellows disguise themselves in tall caps of birch bark adorned with flowers. One of them is dressed as a king and dragged on a sledge to the village green, and if on the way they pass a pool the sledge is always overturned into it. Arrived at the green they gather round the king; the crier jumps on a stone or climbs up a tree and recites lampoons about each house and its inmates. Afterwards the disguises of bark are stripped off and they go about the village in holiday attire, carrying a May-tree and begging. Cakes, eggs, and corn are sometimes given them.[317 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 260 sq.; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 342 sq.] At Grossvargula, near Langensalza, in last century a Grass King used to be led about in procession at Whitsuntide. He was encased in a pyramid of poplar branches, the top of which was adorned with a royal crown of branches and flowers. He rode on horseback with the leafy pyramid over him, so that its lower end touched the ground, and an opening was left in it only for his face. Surrounded by a cavalcade of young fellows, he rode in procession to the town hall, the parsonage, etc., where they all got a drink of beer. Then under the seven lindens of the neighbouring Sommerberg, the Grass King was stripped of his green casing; the crown was handed to the Mayor, and the branches were stuck in the flax fields in order to make the flax grow tall.[318 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 347 sq.; Witzschel, Sagen, Sitten und Gebräuche aus Thüringen, p. 203.] In this last trait the fertilising influence ascribed to the representative of the tree-spirit comes out clearly. In the neighbourhood of Pilsen (Bohemia) a conical hut of green branches, without any door, is erected at Whitsuntide in the midst of the village. To this hut rides a troop of village lads with a king at their head. He wears a sword at his side and a sugar-loaf hat of rushes on his head. In his train are a judge, a crier, and a personage called the Frog-flayer or Hangman. This last is a sort of ragged merryandrew, wearing a rusty old sword and bestriding a sorry hack. On reaching the hut the crier dismounts and goes round it looking for a door. Finding none, he says, “Ah, this is perhaps an enchanted castle; the witches creep through the leaves and need no door.” At last he draws his sword and hews his way into the hut, where there is a chair, on which he seats himself and proceeds to criticise in rhyme the girls, farmers, and farm-servants of the neighbourhood. When this is over, the Frog-flayer steps forward and, after exhibiting a cage with frogs in it, sets up a gallows on which he hangs the frogs in a row.[319 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 253 sqq.] In the neighbourhood of Plas the ceremony differs in some points. The king and his soldiers are completely clad in bark, adorned with flowers and ribbons; they all carry swords and ride horses, which are gay with green branches and flowers. While the village dames and girls are being criticised at the arbour, a frog is secretly pinched and poked by the crier till it quacks. Sentence of death is passed on the frog by the king; the hangman beheads it and flings the bleeding body among the spectators. Lastly, the king is driven from the hut and pursued by the soldiers.[320 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 262; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 353 sq.] The pinching and beheading of the frog are doubtless, as Mannhardt observes,[321 - B. K. p. 355.] a rain-charm. We have seen[322 - Above, p. 18 (#x_4_i39).] that some Indians of the Orinoco beat frogs for the express purpose of producing rain, and that killing a frog is a German rain-charm.

Often the spirit of vegetation in spring is represented by a queen instead of a king. In the neighbourhood of Libchowic (Bohemia), on the fourth Sunday in Lent, girls dressed in white and wearing the first spring flowers, as violets and daisies, in their hair, lead about the village a girl who is called the Queen and is crowned with flowers. During the procession, which is conducted with great solemnity, none of the girls may stand still, but must keep whirling round continually and singing. In every house the Queen announces the arrival of spring and wishes the inmates good luck and blessings, for which she receives presents.[323 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 93; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 344.] In German Hungary the girls choose the prettiest girl to be their Whitsuntide Queen, fasten a towering wreath on her brow, and carry her singing through the streets. At every house they stop, sing old ballads, and receive presents.[324 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 343 sq.] In the south-east of Ireland on May Day the prettiest girl used to be chosen Queen of the district for twelve months. She was crowned with wild flowers; feasting, dancing, and rustic sports followed, and were closed by a grand procession in the evening. During her year of office she presided over rural gatherings of young people at dances and merrymakings. If she married before next May Day her authority was at an end, but her successor was not elected till that day came round.[325 - Dyer, British Popular Customs, p. 270 sq.] The May Queen is common in France[326 - Mannhardt, B. K. p. 344 sq.; Cortet, Fêtes religieuses, p. 160 sqq.; Monnier, Traditions populaires comparées, p. 282 sqq.; Bérenger-Féraud, Réminiscences populaires de la Provence, p. 1 sqq.] and familiar in England.

Again the spirit of vegetation is sometimes represented by a king and queen, a lord and lady, or a bridegroom and bride. Here again the parallelism holds between the anthropomorphic and the vegetable representation of the tree-spirit, for we have seen above that trees are sometimes married to each other.[327 - Above, p. 60 (#x_6_i4).] In a village near Königgrätz (Bohemia) on Whit-Monday the children play the king's game, at which a king and a queen march about under a canopy, the queen wearing a garland, and the youngest girl carrying two wreaths on a plate behind them. They are attended by boys and girls called groom's men and bridesmaids, and they go from house to house collecting gifts.[328 - Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Böhmen, p. 265 sq.; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 422.] Near Grenoble, in France, a king and queen are chosen on the 1st of May and are set on a throne for all to see.[329 - Monnier, Traditions populaires comparées, p. 304; Mannhardt, B. K. p. 423.] At Headington, near Oxford, children used to carry garlands from door to door on May Day. Each garland was carried by two girls, and they were followed by a lord and lady – a boy and girl linked together by a white handkerchief, of which each held an end, and dressed with ribbons, sashes, and flowers. At each door they sang a verse —