132 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



manor of Habyrdon, and never yoked to the plough 

 nor baited at the stake. When a married woman 

 wished for offspring he was "led in procession through 

 the principal streets of the town to the principal gate 

 of the monastery, attended by all the monks singing, 

 and a shouting crowd ; the woman walking by him and 

 stroking his milk-white sides and pendant dewlaps- 

 The bull being then dismissed, the woman entered the 

 church and paid her vows at the altar of Saint 

 Edmund, kissing the stone and entreating with tears 

 the blessing of a child." The rite is obviously one of 

 that large class taken over by the Church from local 

 paganism, often as in this instance for very material 

 reasons. The bull was kept and provided for the 

 purpose under covenants with the monastery by the 

 tenant of the manor. More than one of the leases 

 were extant in the seventeenth century. One of them, 

 perhaps the last that was granted, is dated in 1533. 

 They contemplate a mulier generosa as the most likely 

 suppliant. Few others could afford such a ceremony 

 as is described above, or " make the oblations of the 

 said white bull." 1 Contact here takes place both with 

 the sacred stone and the sacred animal. In the pre- 

 ceding pages we have found animal substances eaten for 

 the purpose of obtaining offspring ; we have found amu- 

 lets made of animal substances and ritual contact with 

 portions of sacred animals employed for the same intent. 

 An ancient Aryan marriage custom still practised by the 

 Hindus is to make the bride sit down on a bull's hide. 

 This is also found among the Esthonians and the 



1 County F. L. Suffolk, 124; Gent. Mag. Lib. Topography, xi. 

 208, both quoting Corolla Varia y by the Rev. W. Hawkins (1634), 

 and leases by the monastery of the manor referred to. 



