XLIX] Studies in primitive Greek religion. 41 



as savage and barbaric peoples still display a particular readi- 

 ness to people with invisible spiritual beings every remark- 

 able spöt, the lonely dell, the gloom^^ cave, the desolate rock, 

 the deep forest, the roaring stream ^), so also did the primitive 

 G-reeks. When, for example, we read that certain Indians of 

 America consider places where from the foot of a huge tree 

 of luxariant foliage a spring gushes forth as especially sacred, 

 because at such a place the divinity of the tree and of the 

 spring, unite ^), we cannot fail to see here a striking parallel 

 to the venerable oak at Dodona with its rustling leaves and 

 its murmuring spring. Moreover, we understand the sacredness 

 of places such as the Delphi an valley with its holy trees 

 and springs, its famous chasm in the earth and its mysterious 

 snrrounding, being as it was situated at the foot of the sacred 

 mount Parnassus. 



A third famous religions centre, the Tempe valley in 

 Thessaly, is described much in this way by Aelian, in bis 

 Various History : The mountans there are of extraordinary height 

 and cleft asuuder as it were by providence. Ivy abounds 

 there creeping like luxuriant vines up the high trees and 

 growing with them. There is also plenty of smallage which 

 climing up the hill shades the rock. In this plain there the 

 various groves and coverts. It is full of little brooks and 

 springs of water cool and pleasant to the taste. Through the 

 middle the river Peneus runs gently and smoothly över shado- 

 wed by the thick branches of the adjoining trees ^), etc. . . . 

 Although here nature seems to have shown itself in its more 

 propitious and delightful aspects we can understand how such 

 a place came to be looked upon with religions awe and how 

 it was that here „all the neighbouring peoples met with one 

 another and offered sacrifices". 



The Greeks, like the Romans, however, displayed their 

 belief in invisible superhuman powers most clearly when they 

 put their foot on foreign ground. We kaow that it was 



') See my Origin of Worship, p. 14 sqq. 



'') Stoll, Die Ethnolog:ie der Indianerstämme von Guatemala, in Inter- 

 nationales Archiv filr Ethnographie, Leiden. 1888, Bd I, p. 43. 

 ^) Aelian. Var. hist. III, 1. 



