THE CROUCH OAK. 



itself from their unnatural parents. Traces 

 of these customs survive all the world over, 

 while the practice itself is closely bound up 

 with the worship of Terminus and other 

 boundary spirits. In later and milder days, 

 however, though the habit of beating the 

 bounds survived, the incidents that accom- 

 panied it were considerably mitigated. The 

 ceremony at first was essentially an exorcism, 

 or driving of evil spirits beyond the village 

 limits ; and the boys seem to have been 

 slaughtered as boundary guardians, in order 

 that their ghosts might protect and maintain 

 the local frontier. They were also scourged 

 before being put to death, after a common 

 superstition, so that their tears might act 

 as a sympathetic rain-charm. But in later 

 Christian days it began to be felt that to 

 read the Gospels under the sacred oak of 

 the boundary would sufficiently drive away 

 all evil influences ; and though the boys 

 were still beaten at each terminus as a 

 rain-charm, the meaning of the incident was 

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