THE APPLE TREE WASSAIL. 59 



fused with the original inhabitants of the basin, the result of 

 which fusion can be seen in the strangely assorted collection 

 of gods and goddesses which make up the Hellenic and Latin 

 Pantheons. 



Now it is a well-known fact that, even when one race is 

 conquered by another, the ideas and institutions of the 

 conquered survive with strange persistence. Thus there will 

 be no cause for surprise if it be suggested that vegetation cults 

 have persisted from very early times, and through various 

 stages of civilisation, down to the modern world. It remains 

 for us now to endeavour to connect the known facts of the 

 Mediterranean area with the survivals which we find in our 

 own country. I would suggest as a basis for further 

 investigation a theory somewhat on these lines: 



Tradition and modern research alike lead us to believe that, 

 when the Mediterranean race was squeezed between the 

 mountains and the sea by the increasing pressure of the 

 northern invaders, an outlet of escape was found in the far 

 west, along the Spanish shores and into Gaul. The peculiar 

 religious observances of an agricultural people can be traced 

 along this route and into Britain. The traces of Neolithic 

 culture in this country show that we are dealing with a' people 

 whose physical features, as far as can be ascertained, resemble 

 those which Sergi has ascribed to the Mediterranean race; a 

 people whose religious observances, so far as any evidence 

 remains to us, were akin to those of primitive dwellers in the 

 Mediterranean basin, and whose belief in future life and survival 

 after death was connected with the under-world rather than 

 with a heaven in the sky. I would suggest then that, in 

 common with other survivals of tree-worship and vegetation 

 cult, the Apple Tree Wassail is a survival of that common 

 stock of religious experience possessed by those early inhab- 

 itants of Southern and Western Europe whom tradition has 

 called in various places by the names of Pelasgians, Ligurians 

 and Iberians. 



These people, whom we know to have contributed to later 

 Greek religion those elements dealing with the under-world, 



