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

J. Brand, op. cit. i. 499.

765

J. Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (London, 1883), i. 497 sqq. As to the Lords of Misrule in colleges and the Inns of Court see further E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, i. 407 sqq.

766

Sir Richard Steele, in The Spectator, Friday, 14th December 1711.

767

E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, i. 405-407.

768

L. J. B. Bérenger-Feraud, Superstitions et Survivances, iv. (Paris, 1896) pp. 4 sq., quoting Jacob, Mœurs et Coutumes du Moyen-Age. Compare E. Cortet, Essai sur les Fêtes religieuses (Paris, 1867), pp. 50 sqq. In some places the festival was held on the octave of Epiphany. See E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i. 323.

769

E. Cortet, op. cit. p. 51; Papon, Histoire Générale de la Provence, iii. p. 212, quoted by L. J. B. Bérenger-Feraud, op. cit. iv. 9 sq.; E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i. 293 sq., quoting a circular letter which was addressed by the Faculty of Theology at Paris to the bishops and chapters of France on March 12th, 1445. Many details as to the mode of celebrating the Festival of Fools in different parts of France are on record. See A. de Nore, Coutumes, Mythes, et Traditions des Provinces de France (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 293-295; E. Cortet, op. cit. pp. 52 sqq.; L. J. B. Bérenger-Feraud, op. cit. iv. 5 sqq.; G. Bilfinger, Untersuchungen über die Zeitrechnung der alten Germanen, ii. Das germanische Julfest (Stuttgart, 1901), pp. 72 sq.; and especially E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, i. 274 sqq.

770

E. Cortet, Essai sur les Fêtes religieuses (Paris, 1867), pp. 53-56; L. J. B. Bérenger-Feraud, Superstitions et Survivances, iv. 28-41; E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i. 330-334. While the Festival of Fools appears to have been most popular in France, it is known to have been celebrated also in Germany, Bohemia, and England. See E. K. Chambers, op. cit. i. 318 sqq. In his youth the Bohemian reformer John Huss took part in these mummeries. The revellers wore masks. “A clerk, grotesquely vested, was dubbed ‘bishop,’ set on an ass with his face to the tail, and led to mass in the church. He was regaled on a platter of broth and a bowl of beer, and Huss recalls the unseemly revel which took place. Torches were borne instead of candles, and the clergy turned their garments inside out and danced” (E. K. Chambers, op. cit. i. 320 sq.).

771

E. Cortet, Essai sur les Fêtes religieuses, p. 58; E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i. 317 sq., 336 sqq. Compare L. J. B. Bérenger-Feraud, Superstitions et Survivances, iv. 25-28. From the evidence collected by the latter writer it appears that in some places the election of the Boy Bishop took place on other days than Childermas. At Alençon the election took place on the sixth of December; at Vienne, in Dauphiné, on the fifteenth, and at Soissons on St. Thomas's Day (the twenty-first of December).

772

This I learn from my wife, who as a girl was educated in the convent.

773

J. Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (London, 1883), i. 421-431; E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage (Oxford, 1903), i. 352 sqq.; (Mrs.) Ella Mary Leather, The Folk-lore of Herefordshire (Hereford and London, 1912), pp. 138 sq.; County Folk-lore, II. North Riding of Yorkshire, York and the Ainsty, edited by Mrs. Gutch (London, 1901), pp. 352 sq.

774

J. Brand, op. cit. i. 426.

775

As to the Aztec year see above, p. 287 (#x_22_i16) note 1.

776

B. de Sahagun, Histoire Générale des Choses de la Nouvelle Espagne, traduite par D. Jourdanet et R. Simeon (Paris, 1880), pp. 77, 283; E. Seler, “The Mexican Chronology,” in Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin No. 28 (Washington, 1904), p. 16 (where some extracts from the Aztec text of Sahagun are quoted and translated); J. de Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies (Hakluyt Society, London, 1880), ii. 392.

777

Diego de Landa, Relation des Choses de Yucatan (Paris, 1864), pp. 204 sq., 276 sq.

778

Geminus, Elementa Astronomiae, viii. 18, p. 106, ed. C. Manitius (Leipsic, 1898).

779

G. Foucart, in Dr. J. Hastings's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, iii. (1910) p. 93. Professor Ed. Meyer adduces astronomical and other grounds for thinking that the ancient Egyptian calendar, as we know it, began on the 19th of July, 4241 b. c., which accordingly he calls “the oldest sure date in the history of the world.” See Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums

, i. 2. (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1909), pp. 101 sq., § 197; and against this view C. F. Lehmann-Haupt, in the English Historical Review, April 1913, p. 348.

780

Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 12. Compare Diodorus Siculus, i. 13. 4 sq. As to Keb and Nut, the parents of Osiris, Isis, and the rest, see A. Erman, Die ägyptische Religion (Berlin, 1905), p. 29. The Egyptian deities Keb, Nut, and Thoth are called by Plutarch by the Greek names of Cronus, Rhea, and Hermes. On account of these Greek names the myth was long thought to be of comparatively recent date; “but the Leyden Papyrus (i. 346) has shown that the legend existed in its essential features in the time of the Thebans, and the Texts of the Pyramids have carried it back to the very beginnings of Egyptian mythology” (G. Foucart, l. c.). As five days are the seventy-second, not the seventieth, part of three hundred and sixty days, it was proposed by Wyttenbach to read τὸ ἑβδομηκοστὸν δεύτερον instead of τὸ ἑβδομηκοστὸν in Plutarch's text. See D. Wyttenbachius, Animadversiones in Plutarchi Moralia (Leipsic, 1820-1834), iii. 143 sq.

781

H. Zimmer, Altindisches Leben (Berlin, 1879), pp. 365-370. Compare The Hymns of the Rigveda, translated by R. T. H. Griffith (Benares, 1889-1892), Book i. Hymn 164, stanza 48 (vol. i. p. 293), Book iii. Hymn 55, stanza 18 (vol. ii. pp. 76 sq.).

782

J. A. MacCulloch, in Dr. J. Hastings's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, iii. (Edinburgh, 1910) pp. 78 sqq. Compare S. de Ricci, “Le calendrier Gaulois de Coligny,” Revue Celtique, xix. (1898) pp. 213-223; id., “Le calendrier Celtique de Coligny,” Revue Celtique, xxi. (1900) pp. 10-27; id., “Un passage remarquable du calendrier de Coligny,” Revue Celtique, xxiv. (1903) pp. 313-316; J. Loth, “L'année Celtique,” Revue Celtique, xxv. (1904) pp. 113-162; Sir John Rhys, “The Coligny Calendar”, Proceedings of the British Academy, 1909-1910, pp. 207 sqq. As the calendar stands, the number of days in the ordinary year is 355, not 354, seven of the months having thirty days and five of them twenty-nine days. But the month Equos has attached to it the sign ANM, which is attached to all the months of twenty-nine days but to none of the months of thirty days except Equos, all of which, except Equos, are marked with the sign MAT. Hence, following a suggestion of M. S. de Ricci (Revue Celtique, xxi. 25), I suppose that the month Equos had regularly twenty-nine days instead of thirty, and that the attribution of thirty days to it is an error of the scribe or mason who engraved the calendar.

In the Coligny calendar the summer solstice seems to be marked by the word trinouxtion affixed to the seventeenth day of the first month (Samonios, nearly equivalent to our June). As interpreted by Sir John Rhys (op. cit. p. 217), the word means “a period of three nights of equal length.” If he is right, it follows that the Celts who constructed the calendar had observed the summer solstice.

783

J. A. MacCulloch, in Dr. J. Hastings's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, iii. 79. Compare Sir J. Rhys, “The Coligny Calendar,” Proceedings of the British Academy, 1909-1910, pp. 292 sq.

784

We know from Livy (xxii. i. 19 sq.) that the Saturnalia was celebrated in December as early as the year 217 b. c.; and in his learned discussion of the proper date of the festival the antiquary Macrobius gives no hint that it ever fell at any other time than in December (Saturnal. i. 10). It would be a mistake to infer from Livy's account of the Saturnalia in the year 217 b. c. that he supposed the festival to have been first instituted in that year; for elsewhere (ii. 21. 1) he tells us that it was established at the time when the temple of Saturn was dedicated, namely in the year 497 b. c. Macrobius (Saturn. i. 8. 1) refers the institution of the Saturnalia to King Tullus Hostilius. More probably the festival was of immemorial antiquity.

785

Macrobius, Sat. i. 12. 7; Solinus, i. 35, p. 13 ed. Th. Mommsen (Berlin, 1864); Joannes Lydus, De Mensibus, iii. 15. On the other hand, we know that the ceremony of renewing the laurels, which originally took place on the first of March, was long afterwards transferred to the first of January. See Ovid, Fasti, iii. 135 sqq., and Macrobius, Saturn. i. 12. 6, compared with Geoponica, xi. 2. 6, where the note of the commentator Niclas may be consulted. This transference is strictly analogous to the change which I conjecture to have been made in the date of celebrating the Saturnalia.

786

Palladius, De re rustica, books iii. and iv. passim.

787

The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, i. 137-139.

788