The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, Volume 1 |
From inside the book
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... rites connected with trees and cultivated plants . By oral inquiry , and by printed questions scattered broadcast over Europe , as well as by ransacking the literature of folk - lore , he collected a mass of evidence , part of which he ...
... rites connected with trees and cultivated plants . By oral inquiry , and by printed questions scattered broadcast over Europe , as well as by ransacking the literature of folk - lore , he collected a mass of evidence , part of which he ...
Page 5
... rite assumed a milder form . Within the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of which no branch might be broken ... rites at every domestic hearth . Moreover , women whose prayers had been heard by the goddess brought lighted ...
... rite assumed a milder form . Within the sanctuary at Nemi grew a certain tree of which no branch might be broken ... rites at every domestic hearth . Moreover , women whose prayers had been heard by the goddess brought lighted ...
Page 7
... Rites ( Rex Sacrificulus or Rex Sacrorum ) , and his wife bore the title of Queen of the Sacred Rites . In republican Athens the second magistrate of the state was called the King , and his wife the Queen ; the functions of both were ...
... Rites ( Rex Sacrificulus or Rex Sacrorum ) , and his wife bore the title of Queen of the Sacred Rites . In republican Athens the second magistrate of the state was called the King , and his wife the Queen ; the functions of both were ...
Page 99
... rites bear internal marks of great antiquity , and this internal evidence is confirmed by the resemblance which the rites bear to those of rude peoples elsewhere . Therefore it is hardly rash to infer , from this consensus of popular ...
... rites bear internal marks of great antiquity , and this internal evidence is confirmed by the resemblance which the rites bear to those of rude peoples elsewhere . Therefore it is hardly rash to infer , from this consensus of popular ...
Page 103
... rites . It represented the marriage of the powers of vegetation in spring or midsummer , just as the same event is represented in modern Europe by a King and Queen or a Lord and Lady of the May . In the Boeotian , as in the Russian ...
... rites . It represented the marriage of the powers of vegetation in spring or midsummer , just as the same event is represented in modern Europe by a King and Queen or a Lord and Lady of the May . In the Boeotian , as in the Russian ...
Common terms and phrases
Adonis Africa Amongst ancient animal annually Athenaeus Attis Aulus Gellius Bastian Baumkultus believed blood body bough buried burned called carried celebrated ceremony CHAP clothes Corn-mother corn-spirit crops custom dance dead death deity Demeter Deutsche Dionysus divine dressed effigy Egyptian European festival field fire Flamen Dialis flowers Gebräuche girl gods Greek ground grove hair hand harvest harvest customs head human Indians Isis et Osiris Khond killed king Kostrubonko last corn last sheaf Lityerses maize Mannhardt May-tree midsummer myth Mythologie nature observed Old Woman Osiris Pausanias person Phrygia Plutarch priest Proserpine rain reapers religion represented resurrection rice rites sacred sacrifice sacrificed Sagen savage Shrove Tuesday slain sometimes song soul spirit of vegetation spring stranger straw supposed taboos temporary king Thammuz threshing throw Thüringen Tiele tree tree-spirit tribe U.S. Exploring Expedition victim village Virbius Voyages Whitsuntide women wood worship Zeus
Popular passages
Page 215 - The danger is a formidable one; for if the course of nature is dependent on the man-god's life, what catastrophes may not be expected from the gradual enfeeblement of his powers and their final extinction in death. There is only one way of averting these dangers. The man-god must be killed as soon as he shows symptoms that his powers are beginning to fail, and his soul must be transferred to a vigorous successor before it has been seriously impaired by the threatened decay.
Page 213 - ... predecessors we are indebted for much of what we thought most our own, and that their errors were not wilful extravagances or the ravings of insanity, but simply hypotheses, justifiable as such at the time when they were propounded, but which a fuller experience has proved to be inadequate. It is only by the successive testing of hypotheses and rejection of the false that truth is at last elicited. After all, what we call truth is only the hypothesis which is found to work best.
Page 3 - Accordingly if we can show that a barbarous custom, like that of the priesthood of Nemi, has existed elsewhere ; if we can detect the motives which led to its institution ; if we can prove that these motives have operated widely, perhaps universally, in human society, producing in varied circumstances a variety of institutions specifically different but generically alike...
Page 219 - Chitome were to die a natural death, the world would perish, and the earth, which he alone sustained by his power and merit, would immediately be annihilated. Accordingly when he fell ill and seemed likely to die, the man who was destined to be his successor entered the pontiff's house with a rope or a club and strangled or clubbed him to death.
Page 33 - ... prayer are the resource of the pious and enlightened portion of the community, while magic is the refuge of the superstitious and ignorant. But when, still later, the conception of the elemental forces as personal agents is giving way to the recognition of natural law ; then magic, based as it implicitly is on the idea of a necessary and invariable sequence of cause and effect, independent of personal will, reappears from the obscurity and discredit into which it had fallen, and by investigating...
Page 305 - In one of the chambers dedicated to Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philae the dead body of Osiris is represented with stalks of corn springing from it, and a priest is depicted watering the stalks from a pitcher which he holds in his hand.
Page 111 - There is such a holiness ascribed to all the parts of his body that he dares to cut off neither his hair, nor his beard, nor his nails. However, lest he should grow too dirty, they may clean him in the night when he is asleep; because they say that what is taken from his body at that time, hath been stolen from him, and that such a theft does not prejudice his holiness or dignity.
Page 341 - ... and much clamour of the reapers, into the field, where it stands fixed on a pole all day, and when the reaping is done, is brought home in like manner. This they call the Harvest Queen, and it represents the Roman Ceres.
Page 41 - Even an infant king must not be despised, (from an idea) that he is a (mere) mortal; for he is a great deity in human form.
Page 97 - The mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of oats and dress it up in women's apparel, put it in a large basket, and lay a wooden club by it, and this they call Briid's Bed : and then the mistress and servants cry three times, Briid is come, Briid is welcome.