Tree

spirits presided over many rites, like those of our Whittide and May day; and the chief actors were often slain on such occasions—like the Arician priest—at the close of the carnivals, till, in milder times, substitutes were accepted for human victims. The King, the Bear, or the Fool, of carnivals was often slain, burned, or drowned, as images and fabats (or arks) now are, in India, at the close of fétes. Sometimes the Carnival King was only ducked in water: sometimes he was buried: but in the Hartz mountains his substitute is now a bottle of brandy buried, and dug up next year, when it is drunk because “he has come to life again” (see Indian Antiquary, January 1891). Such a victim was the King of the Grove: but even Death was personified and drowned on the ‘Dead Sunday” of Lent. In some cases Death is an old woman, made of billets of fire-wood, which are sawn on the “ old wife saw day”; and paper saws, and burning billets, commemorate her in Italian towns. [Pictures seen by the editor, in Italy, also represent this old woman standing to be sawn in two.—Ed.] The expulsion of Death is the bringing to life—the resuscitation of fertility—characteristic of spring and summer; and all these kings and queens of the seasons are welcomed as emblems of fertile forces. We see them in names and colors of the May, the Leaf Man, Green- George, the Gra King, the Whit-tide Bride, Jack in the Green, Dimitri, the Barley Queen, and their congeners; with May-poles, greeneries, and other vegetable emblems. [The old priest of Aricia thus dies, and the new one reigns in his stead.—Eb.] Till recent times the Finns had a “ golden king,” or woodland lord, named Tapio—an old man with a brown beard, and a high hat of fir cones, his coat being of tree mo , But the ancients did not allow their golden kings to grow old. They must be killed off, and _ transfer their vigour to a succe or. The kings of Calicut were required to cut their own throats after, reigning twelve years; and when a ruler in Unyoro is feeble, or ill, his own wives must kill him, so that his spirit may pa into a vigorous succe or, Inasmuch as the soul, or spirit, of the Rex Nemorensis at Aricia, was in the Golden Bough, his succe or must first pluck this before attempting his life. The pastoral or forest Aryans saw in the mistletoe the “ shining ” and “golden” spirit of the oak god—his sap or e ence. Hence they celebrated the mistletoe rites with dances, songs, ki ings, and other liberties. Even Hebrews had their holy oaks and terebinths, connected with the Elohim; and on such were hung garlands, charms, and ex-voto offerings, All deities have their sacred trees, plants, gardens, and groves. 161