x. 129, ascribes the fire customs of Europe to Aryans and the water

customs to the pre-Aryans. A. Bertrand, _Religion des Gaulois_, 68, considers human sacrifice characteristically pre-Aryan. There seems to me more hope of arriving at a knowledge of specific Mediterranean cults, before the Aryan intermixture, from a study of the stone amulets and cup-markings of the megaliths (Bertrand, _op. cit._ 42) or from such investigations into ‘Mycenaean’ antiquity as that of A. J. Evans, _Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult_ (1901). The speculations of Nietzsche, in _A Genealogy of Morals_ and elsewhere, as to the altruistic ‘slave’ morality of the pre-Aryan and the self-regarding morality of the conquering Aryan ‘blond beast’ are amusing or pitiful reading, according to one’s mood.

[357] Frazer, _G. B._ i. 9 ‘The fundamental principles on which it [savage magic] is based would seem to be reducible to two: first, that like produces like, or that an effect resembles its cause; and second, that things which have once been in contact, but have ceased to be so, continue to act upon each other as if the contact still persisted. From the first of these principles, the savage infers that he can produce any desired effect merely by imitating it; from the second he concludes that he can influence at pleasure and at any distance any person of whom, or any thing of which, he possesses a particle. Magic of the latter sort, resting as it does on the belief in a certain secret sympathy which unites indissolubly things that have once been connected with each other may appropriately be termed sympathetic in the strict sense of the term. Magic of the former kind, in which the supposed cause resembles or simulates the supposed effect, may conveniently be described as imitative or mimetic.’ Cf. Jevons, 31 ‘The savage makes the generalization that like produces like; and then he is provided with the means of bringing about anything he wishes, for to produce an effect he has only to imitate it. To cause a wind to blow, he flaps a blanket, as the sailor still whistles to bring a whistling gale.... If the vegetation requires rain, all that is needed is to dip a branch in water, and with it to sprinkle the ground. Or a spray of water squirted from the mouth will produce a mist sufficiently like the mist required to produce the desired effect; or black clouds of smoke will be followed by black clouds of rain.’ I do not feel that magic is altogether a happy term for this sort of savage science. In its ordinary sense (the ‘black art’), it certainly contains a large element of what Dr. Frazer distinguishes from magic as religion, ‘a propitiation or conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and of human life.’ True, these powers are not to whom the orthodox religion is directed, but the approach to them is religious in the sense of the above definition. Such magic is in fact an amalgam of charms, which are Dr. Frazer’s ‘magic,’ and spells, which are his ‘religion.’ But so are many more recognized cults.

[358] Some facts of European animal worship are dealt with in two important recent papers, one by S. Reinach in _Revue celtique_, xxi. 269, the other by N. W. Thomas, in _F. L._ xi. 227. The relation of such worship to the group of savage social institutions classed as totemism is a difficult and far from solved problem, which cannot be touched upon here.

[359] Gummere, 39; Caesar, _de B. G._ iv. 1. 7; vi. 22. 2; Tacitus, _Germ._ 26.

[360] Schräder-Jevons, 281, says that the Indo-Europeans begin their history ‘acquainted with the rudiments of agriculture,’ but ‘still possessed with nomadic tendencies.’ He adds that considerable progress must have been made before the dispersion of the European branches, and points out that agriculture would naturally develop when the migratory hordes from the steppes reached the great forests of central Europe. For this there would be two reasons, the greater fertility of the soil and the narrowed space for pasturage. On the other hand, V. Hehn, _Culturpflanzen und Haustiere_, and Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, i. 16, find the traces of agriculture amongst the undivided Indo-Europeans very slight; the word yáva-ζέα, which is common to the tongues, need mean nothing more than a wild cereal.

[361] Jevons, 240, 255; Pearson, ii. 42; O. T. Mason, _Woman’s Share in Primitive Culture_, 14.

[362] Burne-Jackson, 352, 362; Rhys, _C. F._ i. 312; _F. L._ v. 339; Dyer, 133; Ditchfield, 70; cf. ch. vi. One of the hills so visited is the artificial one of Silbury, and perhaps the custom points to the object with which this and the similar ‘mound’ at Marlborough were piled up.

[363] Frazer, ii. 261, deals very fully with the theriomorphic corn-spirits of folk belief.

[364] On these triads and others in which three male or three female figures appear, cf. Bertrand, 341; A. Maury, _Croyances et Légendes du Moyen Âge_ (1896), 6; _Matronen-Kultus_ in _Zeitschrift d. Vereins f. Volkskultur_, ii. 24. I have not yet seen L. L. Paine, _The Ethnic Trinities and their Relation to the Christian Trinity_ (1901).

[365] Mogk, iii. 333; Golther, 298; Grimm, iv. 1709; Kemble, i. 335; Rhys, _C. H._ 282; H. M. Chadwick, _Cult of Othin_ (1899).

[366] Mogk, iii. 366; Golther, 428.

[367] Mogk, iii. 374; Golther, 488; Tille, _Y. and C._ 144; Bede, _de temp. ratione_, c. 15 (_Opera_, ed. Giles, vi. 179) ‘Eostur-monath qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum, quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit; a cuius nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.’ There seems no reason for thinking with Golther and Tille, that Bede made a mistake. Charlemagne took the name _Ôstarmánoth_ for April, perhaps only out of compliment to the English, such as Alcuin, at his court.

[368] _A Charm for unfruitful or bewitched land_ (O. Cockayne, _Leechdoms of Early England_, R. S. i. 399); cf. Grimm, i. 253; Golther, 455; Kögel, i. 1. 39. The ceremony has taken on a Christian colouring, but retains many primitive features. Strips of turf are removed, and masses said over them. They are replaced after oil, honey, barm, milk of every kind of cattle, twigs of every tree, and holy water have been put on the spot. Seed is bought at a double price from almsmen and poured into a hole in the plough with salt and herbs. Various invocations are used, including one which calls on ‘Erce, Erce, Erce, Eorthan modor,’ and implores the Almighty to grant her fertility. Then the plough is driven, and a loaf, made of every kind of corn with milk and holy water, laid under the first furrow. Kögel considers _Erce_ to be derived from _ero_, ‘earth.’ Brooke, i. 217, states on the authority of Montanus that a version of the prayer preserved in a convent at Corvei begins ‘Eostar, Eostar, Eordhan modor.’ He adds: ‘nothing seems to follow from this clerical error.’ But why an error? The equation Erce-Eostre is consistent with the fundamental identity of the light-goddess and the earth-goddess.

[369] Tacitus, _Ann._ i. 51; Mogk, iii. 373; Golther, 458; cf. ch. xii.

[370] Gomme, _Village Community_, 157; B. C. A. Windle, _Life in Early Britain_, 200; F. W. Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, 142, 337, 346.

[371] I have followed in many points the views on Teutonic chronology of Tille, _Deutsches Weihnacht_ (1893) and _Yule and Christmas_ (1899), which are accepted in the main by O. Schräder, _Reallexicon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_, s.vv. Jahr, Jahreszeiten, and partly correct those of Weinhold, _Ueber die deutsche Jahrtheilung_ (1862), and Grotefend, _Die Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters_ (1891).

[372] In Scandinavia the winter naturally began earlier and ended later. Throughout, Scandinavian seasons diverged from those of Germany and the British Isles. In particular the high summer feast and the consequent tripartition of the year do not seem to have established themselves (_C. P. B._ i. 430). Further south the period of stall-feeding was extended when a better supply of fodder made it possible (Tille, _Y. and C._ 56, 62; Burne-Jackson, 380).

[373] Cf. ch. xi, where the winter feasts are discussed in more detail.

[374] Grimm, ii. 675, 693, 762, notes the heralds of summer.

[375] Jahn, 34; Mogk, iii. 387; Golther, 572; Schräder-Jevons, 303. The Germans still knew three seasons only when they came into contact with the Romans; cf. Tacitus, _Germ._ 26 ‘annum quoque ipsum non in totidem digerunt species: hiems et ver et aestas intellectum ac vocabula habent, autumni perinde nomen ac bona ignorantur.’ I do not agree with Tille, _Y. and C._ 6, that the tripartition of the year, in this pre-calendar form, was ‘of foreign extraction.’ Schräder shows that it is common to the Aryan languages. The Keltic seasons, in particular, seem to be closely parallel to the Teutonic. Of the three great Keltic feasts described by Rhys, _C. H._ 409, 513, 676; _C. F._