Chapter XII.—The Sacred Marriage Pp. 120-170

§ 1. _Diana as a Goddess of Fertility_—Dramatic marriages of gods and goddesses as a charm to promote vegetation; Diana as a goddess of the woodlands; sanctity of holy groves in antiquity; the breaking of the Golden Bough a solemn rite, not a mere piece of bravado; Diana a goddess of the teeming life of nature, both animal and vegetable; deities of woodlands naturally the patrons of the beasts of the woods; the crowning of hunting dogs on Diana’s day a purification for their slaughter of the beasts of the wood; as goddess of the moon, especially the yellow harvest moon, Diana a goddess of crops and of childbirth; as a goddess of fertility Diana needed a male partner.

§ 2. _The Marriage of the Gods_—Marriages of the gods in Babylonia and Assyria; marriage of the god Ammon to the Queen of Egypt; Apollo and his prophetess at Patara; Artemis and the Essenes at Ephesus; marriage of Dionysus and the Queen at Athens; marriage of Zeus and Demeter at Eleusis; marriage of Zeus and Hera at Plataea; marriage of Zeus and Hera in other parts of Greece; the god Frey and his human wife in Sweden; similar rites in ancient Gaul; marriages of gods to images or living women among uncivilised peoples; custom of the Wotyaks; custom of the Peruvian Indians; marriage of a woman to the Sun among the Blackfoot Indians; marriage of girls to fishing-nets among the Hurons and Algonquins; marriage of the Sun-god and Earth-goddess among the Oraons; marriage of women to gods in India and Africa; marriage of women to water-gods and crocodiles; virgin sacrificed as a bride to the jinnee of the sea in the Maldive Islands.

§ 3. _Sacrifices to Water-spirits_—Stories of the Perseus and Andromeda type; water-spirits conceived as serpents or dragons; sacrifices of human beings to water-spirits; water-spirits as dispensers of fertility; water-spirits bestow offspring on women; love of river-spirits for women in Greek mythology; the Slaying of the Dragon at Furth in Bavaria; St. Romain and the Dragon at Rouen.