The golden bough : a study in comparative religion / by J.G. Frazer.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The golden bough : a study in comparative religion / by J.G. Frazer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    either at Midsummer or Christmas^—that is, at the summer and winter solstices—and, Hke fern-seed, it is supposed to possess the power of reveaHng treasures in the earth. On Midsummer Eve people in Sweden make divining-rods of mistletoe or of four different kinds of wood, one of which must be mistletoe. The treasure-seeker places the rod on the ground after sun- down, and when it rests directly over treasure, the rod begins to move as if it were alive.^ Now, if the mistletoe discovers gold, it must be in its character of the Golden Bough ; and if it is gathered at the sol- stices, must not the Golden Bough, like the golden fern- seed, be an emanation of the sun's fire ? • The question cannot be answered with a simple affirmative. We have seen that the primitive Aryans probably kindled the midsummer bonfires as sun-charms, that is, with the intention of supplying the sun with fresh fire. But as this fire was always elicited by the friction of oak wood,^ it must have appeared to the primitive Aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from the fire which resided in the sacred oak. In other words, the oak must have seemed to him the original storehouse or reservoir of the fire which was from time to time drawn out to feed the sun. But the life of the oak was conceived to be in the misdetoe ; therefore the misdetoe must have contained the seed or germ of the For gathering it at midsummer, Medallic History of Carausms, quoted see above, p. 289. The custom of hj BxT^nd, Fopdar AntiquidesJ. gathering it at Christmas still survives This last custom is of course now among ourselves. At York on the obselete. eve of Christmas' Day they carry mistletoe to the high altar of the . A'^^e'ius, Volkssagen wtd Volks- cathedral, and proclaim a public and ^^'^'^^'>'O']^^ Schwedens alterer wtdneuerei- universal liberty, pardon, and freedom 4i sq.; Grimm, Deutsche to all sorts of inferior and even wicked ^ythojogie,'^ iii. 289; L. Lloyd, Peasant people at the gates of the city, towards ^'-^^ Sweden, p. 266 sq. the four quarters of heaven. Stukeley, ^ Above, p. 293.