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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



lence. Across the magic circle thus traced, they 

 believe that the hostile spirit, the antagonist of 

 the genius of growth and fertility, will not be 

 able to pass. Should any male person be rash 

 enough to intrude upon the rites which are being 

 solemnized by the women, he is attacked and 

 subjected to nearly as severe treatment as Or- 

 pheus received at the hands of his countrywomen. 

 This strange kind of plough-driving used to be 

 known in many lands. Akin to it was the old 

 English custom of " ledyng of the ploughe aboute 

 the fire as for gode begynnyng of the yere, that 

 they shulde fare the better all the yere follow- 

 yng." Later on it was partially preserved in 

 the ceremonies still peculiar to "Plough-Mon- 

 day." Still nearer to it came the German cus- 

 tom described by Naogeorgus in his " Regnum 

 Papisticum," published in 1553. The lads used 

 to pull the lasses out of their houses on Ash- 

 Wednesday, and harness them to a plough, which 

 was then driven from street to street, and from 

 market-place to market-place. On the plough 

 sat a man who played and sang. Behind it went 

 another, who, with the gestures of a sower, 

 strewed sand and ashes behind him. Finally, 

 the plough was driven into a brook, and the 

 girls, after being ducked, were invited to a feast 

 and a dance. In Leipsic a similar rite was sol- 

 emnized on Shrove-Tuesday, when masked and 

 otherwise disguised youths used to compel every 

 girl they met to help in dragging the plough, by 

 way of a punishment for her not having become 

 married yet. In the year 1499, as a lad was 

 pressing a strong-minded young woman into this 

 compulsory plough-service, she stabbed him, and 

 excused herself before the magistrates on the 

 plea that what she had struck was not a man 

 but " a spectre." To this day the custom has sur- 

 vived, in a mitigated form, at Hollstadt, near 

 Neustadt, where a plough-festival is held once 

 every seven years, in February, one of the feat- 

 ures of which is a plough drawn by six of the 

 fairest maidens who can be found, all arrayed in 

 the local costume. 



But it is time to stop. Of course it would be 

 absurd to see, in every myth or fable with which 

 the heathen world has edified or amused itself, a 

 reference to vegetation spirits and their foes. 

 To do this would be merely to repeat, with a 

 slight variation, the error of those explorers 

 who, having gazed too earnestly at the glorious 

 sun, can see nothing but solar myths whatever 

 way they turn ; or who, blinded by the lightning's 

 flash and deafened by the thunder's roar, recog- 



nize a storm-myth in every creation of popular 

 fancy. Such unwise supporters of theories which 

 are sound enough in themselves, and which will 

 carry the investigator safely if he does not lay 

 unfair stress upon them, merely bring into discredit 

 what is really well worthy of credit. The solar 

 myth, for instance, has done right good service 

 while judiciously worked by such a scholar as Prof. 

 Max Muller. But some of his followers have made 

 it ridiculous by such imaginings as that of one of 

 their number, who suggests that the idea of Poly- 

 phemus being blinded by a heated stake may 

 have sprung into the mind of some seer, who 

 saw a fir-tree stand out in bold relief against the 

 setting sun. Such reasoners as these do infinite 

 harm to the cause which they support. For, dis- 

 cussing sound truths, they arrive at conclusions 

 which are "reductions to absurdity." And so 

 the ideas which, under Dr. Mannhart's generally 

 judicious guidance, have in these two most valu- 

 able volumes of his borne good fruit, worthy of 

 being carefully gathered and garnered, may, in 

 the forcing-house of some too eager and not suffi- 

 ciently experienced cultivator, bring forth noth 

 ing but a kind of mythological Dead Sea apples, 

 neither savory nor nutritious. To him, however, 

 the greatest credit is due. With admirable pa- 

 tience he has gathered from literary treasure, 

 houses, requiring for their ransacking th e aid of 

 very many linguistic keys, an immense mass of 

 rich material, and he has arranged and classified 

 and — no small merit — indexed it, in a manner 

 deserving of all praise. Never before have been 

 so clearly detailed the ideas with regard to the 

 field and forest, and their connection with the 

 unseen universe, possibly or probably entertained 

 by the primitive man and his prehistoric descend- 

 ants — commencing with the comparison of human 

 life with that of the plant-world, and the inclina- 

 tion on the man's part to attribute a soul like 

 unto his own to the sturdy oak, or the clinging 

 ivy, or the daisy's opening bud; the herb or tree 

 being sometimes looked upon as the temporary 

 home or husk of a human soul, torn by a violent 

 death from its fleshy mansion, or reduced to plant- 

 life by the action of a curse or spell, at others 

 being supposed to be the chosen habitation of 

 some kind of demon or haunting spirit, whose 

 good-will was to be propitiated, his ill-will depre- 

 cated by prayer and sacrifice — rising from these 

 conceptions about the individual grass, or shrub> 

 or tree, to views with regard to spirits collec- 

 tively haunting plains, and hills, and woods, wheth- 

 er in the shape of ravenous wolves, or hirsute 

 satyrs, or tricksy elves, or divinely beauteous 



