FOREST AND FIELD MYTHS. 



567 



tine traditions, which exercised for centuries so 

 great an influence on early Russian thought and 

 art. 



Not only did similar ideas produce a similar 

 mythological population in the woods and fields 

 of Northern and Southern Europe, but they led 

 also to very similar festivals and religious rites. 

 Thus a ceremony is familiar to the west of Ger- 

 many and the greater part of France, of bringing 

 home on the last harvest-wain a gayly-decorated 

 tree or bough, which is received with all respect 

 by the master, and planted on or near the house, 

 to remain there till the next harvest brings its 

 successor. And some rite of this sort seems to 

 have prevailed all over the north of Europe. So 

 in the autumnal harvest thanksgiving-feast at 

 Athens, it was customary to carry in sacred pro- 

 cessioD an olive-branch wrapped in wool, called 

 Eiresione, to the temple of Apollo, and there to 

 leave it ; and, in addition to this, a similar bough 

 was solemnly placed beside the house-door of 

 every Athenian who was engaged in agriculture 

 or fruit-culture, there to remain until replaced 

 by a similar successor twelve months later. 1 The 

 ceremonies with which this Athenian counterpart, 

 as Dr. Mannhardt considers it, of the Teutonic 

 Erntemai, was attended to its destination, were 

 singularly like those which still survive in North- 

 ern Europe as part of the rustic harvest-home 

 rite. In Athens, many of them were supposed to 

 refer to the mythical expedition of Theseus to 

 Crete; but it was a common practice in olden 

 time to combine the harvest thanksgiving with 

 religious rites in commemoration of some histori- 

 cal or traditional deliverance. Another interest- 

 ing parallel is supplied by the spring-tide rites, 

 celebrated at Rome every March, and certain 

 spring and summer festivals common to the Teu- 

 tons and Slavs. To this day, in Germany and 

 Russia, as has already been stated, it is customa- 

 ry, either in the early spring or at midsummer, 

 to carry out in procession, to a spot where water 

 flows, some type of the winter which has passed 

 away, or the spring which has reappeared, or the 

 genius of growth and vegetation, dead or slum- 

 bering, or brisk and full of life, and there solemn- 

 ly to lave in the stream, or to fling into it from a 

 bridge, the living Jack-in-the-Green, or the pup- 

 pet made of straw or leafy boughs ; or else (at the 

 midsummer festivals) to pass them through fire, 

 and next day immerse them in running water. At 

 Rome, in olden times, there existed twenty-four 



1 According to Liddell and Scott, the Eires=iOne 

 {eiros = wool) was a wool-bound wreath, adorned with 

 fruits. 



chapels, called Argei or Argeorum Sacraria, sol- 

 emnly visited by the faithful on the 16th and 17fh 

 of March. And under the name of Argei were 

 known the twenty-four puppets, fashioned in hu- 

 man shape out of straw or rushes, and clothed 

 and gayly decked, which, on the 13th of May, were 

 carried in procession to the Pons Sublicius, and 

 from it were flung into the Tiber by the Vestal 

 Virgins. An old tradition declared that, original- 

 ly, human victims were thus flung into the stream 

 as an offering to Saturnus (Kronos) and Dispater 

 (Hades) ; but that, as time passed by, and man- 

 ners became milder, in place of the men more than 

 sixty years old, who used to be chosen for the 

 purpose, were substituted types in the shape of 

 Scirpei Quirites, puppets made of straw or reeds. 

 The sacrifice was supposed to be of an expiatory 

 nature, likely to keep off misfortune and pesti- 

 lence from the city. It is possible, says Dr. Mann- 

 hardt, that at an early period the twenty four Ar- 

 gei or puppets may have been carried in March to 

 the chapels which bore the same name, and left 

 there till the time came for their being carried 

 away to the bridge, and thence flung into the river. 

 At all events, the puppets were no doubt closely 

 connected with the chapels, as they seem to be 

 also with the figures formed of or robed in foli- 

 age, which were, and still are, flung into northern 

 streams. In the same way interesting parallels 

 are supplied by Teutonic and Slavonic spring and 

 summer festivals to the ancient rites commemo- 

 rating the death of Adonis or Tammuz. In those 

 ancient Asiatic customs, Dr. Mannhardt sees an 

 embodiment of a prehistoric myth referring to 

 the temporary death of the spring-tide vegetation. 

 The spring itself, or the plant-life it vivifies, was 

 personified as a comely youth, beloved by the 

 goddess of fertility, and united with her during 

 the spring. In the summer heats he leaves her 

 and disappears, but lives on in the unseen world 

 of the dead. He is represented by a figure which 

 is supposed to be dead, and which is mourned 

 over, and laved with or flung into water. At 

 length comes the spring, and with it returns the 

 godlike youth, who is received with joyous rites, 

 his reunion with his divine spouse being typified 

 by temporary unions entered into by their wor- 

 shipers. So in the north of Europe, the genius 

 of vegetation is still personified under the shape of 

 a living Laubmctnn, or a Jack-in-the-Green, or a 

 Pere-Mai, and other figures of the same kind, or 

 under the form of a leafy puppet, or a gayly-decked 

 tree. And this is received in spring with a joy- 

 ous greeting. But at midsummer the Russian 

 peasant, with wailing cries such as attend a corpse, 



