The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, Volume 2

Front Cover
Macmillan, 1890 - Dying and rising gods - 816 pages

From inside the book

Contents

I
II
66
III
90
IV
148
V
156
VI
182
VII
218
VIII
222
IX
244
X
296
XI
326
XII
358

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Popular passages

Page 256 - They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake...
Page 308 - is far from here and hard to find, on the wide ocean. In that sea is an island, and on the island there grows a green oak, and beneath the oak is an iron chest, and in the chest is a small basket, and in the basket is a hare, and in the hare is a duck, and in the duck is an egg ; and he who finds the egg and breaks it, kills me at the same time.
Page 348 - Upon this occasion it is pretended that these poor creatures drink so much of that water of Lethe that they perfectly lose the remembrance of all former things, even of their parents, their treasure, and their language. When the doctors find that they have drank sufficiently of the wysoccan (so they call this mad potion) they gradually restore them to their senses again, by lessening the intoxication of their diet; but before they are perfectly well they bring them back into their towns, while they...
Page 202 - ... to effect a total clearance of all the ills that have been infesting a people. If any link were wanting to connect the two kinds of expulsion, it would be furnished by such a practice as that of sending the evils away in a litter or a boat. For here, on the one hand, the evils are invisible and intangible; and, on the other hand, there is a visible and tangible vehicle to convey them away.
Page 242 - In short, the girl is viewed as charged with a powerful force which, if not kept within bounds, may prove the destruction both of the girl herself and of all with whom she comes in contact. To repress this force within the limits necessary for the safety of all concerned is the object of the taboos in question.
Page 166 - Others seized burning brands or coals and flung them at the heads of the first persons they met. The only way of escaping from these persecutors was to guess what they had dreamed of. On one day of the festival the ceremony of driving away evil spirits from the village took place. Men clothed in the skins of wild beasts, their faces covered with hideous masks, and their hands with the shell of the tortoise, went from hut to hut making frightful noises ; in every hut they took the fuel from the fire...
Page 142 - ... for amusement. On St. Stephen's day a group of boys' go from door to door with a wren, suspended by the legs, in the centre of two hoops, crossing each other at right angles, decorated with evergreens and ribbons...
Page 240 - According to Pliny, the touch of a menstruous woman turned wine to vinegar, blighted crops, killed seedlings, blasted gardens, brought down the fruit from trees, dimmed mirrors, blunted razors, rusted iron and brass (especially at the waning of the moon), killed bees, or at least drove them from their hives, caused mares to miscarry, and so forth.
Page 256 - ... for each of the company must contribute something. The rites begin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground, by way of libation : on that every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine square knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed preserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the real destroyer of them : each person then turns his face to the fire, breaks off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulders, says, ' This I give to thee,...
Page 172 - Their nature appears to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children ; men and women become almost like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities.

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