FOREST AND FIELD MYTHS. 



>65 



have, in many lands, given their sanction to what 

 is really an old heathenish custom, connected 

 with the ancient Baal or Moloch fires of Asia, the 

 Palilia fires of the old Romans, and the Not-feuer 

 or plague-staying Need-fire of our Teutonic and 

 Keltic ancestors. There seems to be good reason 

 for supposing that into these fires, in very ancient 

 times, human beings also were flung. In some 

 places the straw-man, or other figure represent- 

 ing a human being of ordinary size, was replaced 

 by a gigantic wicker-work form. Such a figure 

 as this, six yards high, made of osier-twigs, used 

 to be burned every July in the Rue des Ours at 

 Paris, after having been led in procession through 

 the whole city. This custom, which lasted till 

 1743, was popularly supposed to date back to the 

 burning of a blasphemous soldier on the same 

 spot in 1418. But that was a perversion of his- 

 tory. 1 Just as figures of the Guy Fawkes kind 

 are yearly burned in lands which never heard of 

 a Gunpowder Plot, so were similar figures to 

 u the Giant of the Rue des Ours " yearly given to 

 the flames in other places. Thus in Brie (Isle de 

 Prance), un mannequin d'osier is said to be burned 

 every 23d of June. Very interesting is it to com- 

 pare this osier-twig figure with that in which the 

 ancient Britons are said to have burned human 

 beings to death. According to the testimony of 

 Caesar, Strabo, and Diodorus, the Druids used to 

 construct huge figures of twigs, which they filled 

 with human beings, and then consumed with fire. 

 Thieves and murderers were preferred as sacri- 

 fices, but if there were not enough of them forth- 

 coming, innocent persons also had to suffer. Cae- 

 sar's gigantic figures, conlexta viminibus, seem 

 very like the osier-twig giant of the Rue des Ours 

 and his monstrous kin. And there appears to 

 be good reason for supposing that the human 

 sacrifices thus offered up by the Britons were in- 

 tended to accompany some such rites as those 

 with which the inhabitants of a great part of Eu- 

 rope still hail the advent of spring or midsum- 

 mer, or attempt to ward off pestilence from their 

 fields and homes. Within the last few years, at 

 least one Russian peasant has been known to sac- 

 rifice a poor relation in the hopes of staying an 

 epidemic. 



More pleasant than these sacrificial associa- 

 tions are the customs springing from the idea of 

 a bridal pair as a representative of the genius of 

 fertility. From it arose the custom of "May- 

 weddings," still prevalent in many parts of Eu- 



1 In technical language, an etiological explanation 

 of a custom based on an anthropomorphic form of a 

 Xature-myth. 



rope. There is an ancient and widely-spread 

 prejudice against marrying in May, but the wed- 

 dings in question are only fictitious and tempo- 

 rary alliances. In honor of the supposed union 

 of the imaginary male and female representatives 

 of the fertilizing powers of Nature, it was, and in 

 many parts of Germany still is, the custom for 

 village lads and lasses to be sportively betrothed 

 to each other at May-time for a year. The cere- 

 mony often takes place beside a bonfire lighted 

 for the purpose. The girls thus temporarily bound 

 are known as their lads' May-wives or Maifrauen. 

 So in England might similar couples be linked for 

 a year as Valentines, in Germany as Liebchen or 

 Vielliebchen, in France as Philippe and Philip- 

 pine. 1 



With all these spring and midsummer festi- 

 vals in honor of the awakening, after his winter 

 sleep; of the Genius of Vegetation, are closely 

 linked those which take place in the autumn, 

 when the harvest is gathered in. Nearly allied 

 to the Tree-spirits, according to primitive ideas, 

 were the Corn-spirits which haunted and protect- 

 ed the green or yellow fields. But by the popular 

 fancy they were often symbolized under the form 

 of wolves or of " buck-men," goat-legged creatures 

 similar to the classic Satyrs. When the wind 

 bows the long grass or waving grain, German 

 peasants still say, " the Grass-wolf" or " the 

 Corn-wolf is abroad ; " in many places the last 

 sheaf of rye is left afield as a shelter for the Rog- 

 genwolf or Rye-wolf during the winter's cold, and 

 in many a summer or autumn festive rite that be- 

 ing is represented by a rustic, who assumes a wolf- 

 like appearance. The Corn-spirit, however, was 

 often symbolized under a human form. " Corn- 

 mothers " pass over German fields when the grain 

 waves; a "Kirnbaby" is, or was, supposed to 

 dwell in the ears of English wheat ; and by Rus- 

 sian eyes Rye-spirits are often seen, tall as the 

 highest corn before harvest-time, short as the cut 

 stems afterward. Many a memory of the Corn- 

 spirit is still preserved in the ceremonies of the 

 harvest-home. All over Enrope honor is shown 

 to him in the reception of the last wain-load from 

 a field, in the last sheaf left out in his behalf amid 

 the deserted stubble. 



Thus far does Dr. Mannhardt carry his read- 

 ers in his first volume. His chief aim in it is to 

 show how there seem to have arisen, in the 

 minds of primitive men, a series of ideas respect- 



1 Valentine has nothing to do, etymologically, with 

 St. Valentine, but comes from Galantins, a Norman 

 word for a lover. Philippine is a corruption of Viellieb- 

 chen. 



