"A large oak with the mistletoe growing on it was long pointed out as the tree referred to. A piece of the mistletoe cut by a Hay was believed to have magical virtues. The oak is gone and the estate is lost to the family,' as a local historian says." 1 The idea that the fate of a family, as distinct from the lives of its members, is bound up with a particular plant or tree, is no doubt comparatively modern. The older view probably was that the lives of all the Hays were in this particular mistletoe, just as in the Indian story the lives of all the ogres are in a lemon; to break a twig of the mistletoe would then have been to kill one of the Hays. Similarly in the island of Rum, whose bold mountains the voyager from Oban to Skye observes to seaward, it was thought that if one of the family of Lachlin shot a deer on the mountain of Finchra, he would die suddenly or contract a distemper which would soon prove fatal. Probably the life of the Lachlins was bound up with the deer on Finchra, as the life of the Hays was bound up with the mistletoe on Errol's oak, and the life of the Dalhousie family with the Edgewell Tree.

3

It is not a new opinion that the Golden Bough was the mistletoe. True, Virgil does not identify but only compares it with mistletoe. But this may be only a poetical device to cast a mystic glamour over the humble plant. Or, more probably, his description was based on a popular superstition that at certain times the mistletoe blazed out into a supernatural golden glory. The poet tells how two doves, guiding Aeneas to the gloomy vale in whose depth grew the Golden Bough, alighted upon a tree, "whence shone a flickering gleam of gold. As in the woods in winter cold the mistletoe-a plant not native to its tree is green with fresh leaves and twines its yellow berries about the boles; such seemed upon the shady oak the leafy gold, so rustled in the gentle breeze the golden leaf." + Here Virgil

definitely describes the Golden Bough as growing on an oak, and compares it with the mistletoe. The inference is almost inevitable that the Golden Bough was nothing but the mistletoe seen through the haze of poetry or of popular superstition.

Now grounds have been shown for believing that the priest of the Arician grove-the King of the Wood-personified the tree on which grew the Golden Bough.' Hence if that tree was the oak, the King of the Wood must have been a personification of the oak-spirit. It is, therefore, easy to understand why, before he could be slain, it was necessary to break the Golden Bough. As an oak-spirit, his life or death was in the mistletoe on the oak, and so long as the mistletoe remained intact, he, like Balder, could not die. To slay him, therefore, it was necessary to break the mistletoe, and probably, as in the case of Balder, to throw it at him. And to complete the parallel, it is only necessary to suppose that the King of the Wood was formerly burned, dead or alive, at the midsummer fire festival which, as we have seen, was annually celebrated in the Arician grove." The perpetual fire which burned in the grove, like the perpetual fire under the oak at Romove, was probably fed with the sacred oak-wood; and thus it would be in a great fire of oak that the King of the Wood formerly met his end. At a later time, as I have suggested, his annual tenure of office was lengthened or shortened, as the case might be, by the rule which allowed him to live so long as he could prove his divine right by the strong hand. But he only escaped the fire to fall by the sword.

Thus it seems that at a remote age in the heart of Italy, beside the sweet Lake of Nemi, the same fiery tragedy was annually enacted which Italian merchants and soldiers were afterwards to witness among their rude kindred, the Celts of Gaul, and which, if the Roman eagles had ever swooped on Norway, might have been found repeated with little difference among the barbarous Aryans of the North. The rite

1 Virgil (Aen. vi. 201 sqq.) places the Golden Bough in the neighbourhood of Lake Avernus. But this was probably a poetical liberty, adopted for the convenience of Aeneas's descent

to the infernal world. Italian tradition, as we learn from Servius, placed the Golden Bough in the grove at Nemi.

2 See above, vol. i. p. 5.

was probably an essential feature in the ancient Aryan worship of the oak.1

It only remains to ask, Why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough? The name was not simply a poet's fancy, nor even peculiarly Italian; for in Welsh also the mistletoe is known as "the tree of pure gold." The whitish-yellow of the mistletoe berries is hardly enough to account for the name. For Virgil says that the Bough was altogether golden, stem as well as leaves," and the same is implied in the Welsh name, "the tree of pure gold." A clue to the real meaning of the name is furnished by the mythical fern-seed or fern-bloom.

We saw that fern-seed is popularly supposed to bloom like gold or fire on Midsummer Eve. Thus in Bohemia it is said that "on St. John's Day fern-seed blooms with golden blossoms that gleam like fire."+ Now it is a property of this mythical fern-seed that whoever has it, or will ascend a mountain holding it in his hand on Midsummer Eve, will discover a vein of gold or will see the treasures of the earth shining with a bluish flame." In Russia they say that if you succeed in catching the wondrous bloom of the fern at midnight on Midsummer Eve, you have only to throw it up into the air, and it will fall like a star on the very spot where a treasure lies hidden." In Brittany treasure-seekers gather fern-seed at midnight on Midsummer Eve, and keep it till Palm Sunday of the following year; then they strew the seed on

1 A custom of annually burning a human representative of the corn-spirit has been noted among the Egyptians, Pawnees, and Khonds. See above, vol. ii. pp. 238 sq., 244, 254 sq. We have seen (above, p. 167 sqq.) that in Western Asia there are strong traces of a practice of annually burning a human god. The Druids appear to have eaten portions of the human victim (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxx. 13). Perhaps portions of the flesh of the King of the Wood were eaten by his worshippers as a sacrament. We have found traces of the use of sacramental bread at Nemi. See above, vol. ii.. P. 343 sq.

ground where they think a treasure is concealed.1 Tyrolese peasants imagine that hidden treasures can be seen glowing like flame on Midsummer Eve, and that fern-seed, gathered at this mystic season, with the usual precautions, will help to bring the buried gold to the surface." In the Swiss canton of Freiburg people used to watch beside a fern on St. John's night in the hope of winning a treasure, which the devil himself sometimes brought to them.3 In Bohemia they say that he who procures the golden bloom of the fern at this season has thereby the key to all hidden treasures ; and that if maidens will spread a cloth under the fast-fading bloom, red gold will drop into it." And in the Tyrol and Bohemia if you place fern-seed among money, the money will never decrease, however much of it you spend.5 Sometimes the fern-seed is supposed to bloom on bloom on Christmas night, and whoever catches it will become very rich. In Swabia you can, by taking the proper precautions, compel the devil himself to bring you a packet of fern-seed on Christmas night. But for four weeks previously, and during the whole of the Advent season, you must be very careful never to pray, never to go to church, and never to use holy water; you must busy yourself all day long with devilish

1 P. Sébillot, Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne, ii. 336; id., Coutumes populaires de la HauteBretagne, p. 217.

2 J. E. Waldfreund, "Volksgebräuche und Aberglauben in Tirol und dem Salzburger Gebirg," Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, iii. (1855), p. 339.

3 H. Runge, "Volksglaube in der Schweiz,' Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde, iv. (1859), P. 175.

4 Reinsberg Düringsfeld, Fest-Kalendar aus Bohmen, p. 311 sq. Compare Vernaleken, Mythen und Brauche des Volkes in Oesterreich, p. 309 sq.; Toppen, Aberglauben aus Masuren,” p. 72 sq. Even without the use of fernseed treasures are sometimes said to bloom or burn in the earth on Midsummer Eve; in Transylvania only children born on a Sunday can see them and fetch them up. See Halt

rich, Zur Volkskunde der Siebenbürger Sachsen, p. 287; Zingerle, Sitten, Branche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes, p. 159, §§ 1351, 1352; K. Bartsch, Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, ii. 285, S 1431; E. Monseur, Folklore Wallon, p. 6, § 1789.

Zingerle, op. cit. p. 103, § 882; id., in Zeitschrift für deutsche Mytho logie und Sittenkunde, i. (1853), p. 330; W. Müller, Beiträge zur Volkskunde der Deutschen in Mähren, p. 265. At l'ergine, in the Tyrol, it was thought that fern-seed gathered with the dew on St. John's night had the power of transforming metals (into gold?). See Ch. Schneller, Marchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol, p. 237, $ 23.

Zingerle, Sitten, Bräuche und Meinungen des Tiroler Volkes, p. 190 sq., § 1573.

thoughts, and cherish an ardent wish that the devil would help you to get money. Thus prepared you take your stand, between eleven and twelve on Christmas night, at the meeting of two roads, over both of which corpses have been carried to the churchyard. Here many people meet you, some of them dead and buried long ago, it may be your parents or grandparents, or old friends and acquaintances, and they stop and greet you, and ask, "What are you doing here?" And tiny little goblins hop and dance about and try to make you laugh. But if you smile or utter a single word, the devil will tear you to shreds and tatters on the spot. If, however, you stand glum and silent and solemn, there will come, after all the ghostly train has passed by, a man dressed as a hunter, and that is the devil. He will hand you a paper cornet full of fern-seed, which you must keep and carry about with you as long as you live. It will give you the power of doing as much work at your trade in a day as twenty or thirty ordinary men could do in the same time. So you will grow very rich. But few people have the courage to go through with the ordeal.' Styria they say that by gathering fern - seed on Christmas night you can force the devil to bring you a bag of money.2

In

Thus, on the principle of like by like, fern-seed is supposed to discover gold because it is itself golden; and for a similar reason it enriches its possessor with an unfailing supply of gold. But while the fern-seed is described as golden, it is equally described as glowing and fiery.3 Hence, when we consider that two great days for gathering the fabulous seed are Midsummer Eve and Christmas-that is, the two solstices (for Christmas is nothing but an old heathen celebration of the winter solstice)-we are led to regard the fiery aspect of the fern-seed as primary, and its golden aspect as secondary and derivative. Fern-seed, in