150 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



wood, it is closely allied to the fire generator. That 

 gamahalo, glossed vir, sponsus, should take its origin, 

 like hiwo, sponsus, in the notion of the primitive 

 mill will not seem so far-fetched, if it be remembered 

 in the first place how widespread is the simile, and in 

 the second place how persistently tradition associates the 

 mill and its occupants with sexual license. In this 

 respect we may note the Latin contero and moo, the 

 French moudre, the German mahlen, the Greek /JLV\\O> 

 (with yLtuXXa?, a wanton woman, /ziAXo?, the vagina, and 

 yuiAAo?, a cake given at the Thesmophoria and probably, 

 like the corresponding cakes at the German sex-festivals, 

 of a phallic character), etc. 



If we turn for a moment to folklore, we find in 

 Verena, the patron saint of millers, 1 a goddess of fertility 

 worshipped in the neighbourhood of Coblenz and Zur- 

 zach. She was a goddess of the usual Anai'tis, Isis, 

 Walpurga, or Demeter type ; to her women offer votive 

 tablets for pregnancy and for easy labour. The mill is, 

 indeed, the scene of most mediae val erotic adventures ; 

 and whether it be Chaucer or Goethe, or whether it be 

 in Wurtemberg, Bavaria, or Scandinavia, the miller's wife 

 is ever the type of wanton, the woman who deceives her 

 husband, and is free to all comers. The names of many 

 mills in Germany still appear to be reminiscences of 

 their old female occupants, and the mill in mediaeval times 

 is the birthplace of all famous illegitimate children from 

 Pilate to Karl the Great. The mill-wheel grinds all 

 things out, love and license, and the sacks carry not 

 only wheat, but lovers into the mill. Thus finely : 



1 See Rochholz, Drei Gaugottinnen, s. 115. 



