rites in many lands. We may, therefore, accept as probable an explanation of the Adonis worship which accords so well. with the facts of nature and with the analogy of similar rites in other lands, and which besides is countenanced by a considerable body of opinion amongst the ancients themselves.1 The character of Tammuz or Adonis as a corn-spirit comes out plainly in an account of his festival given by an Arabic writer of the tenth century. In describing the rites and sacrifices observed at the different seasons of the year by the heathen Syrians of Harran, he says:-" Tammuz (July). In the middle of this month is the festival of el-Bûgât, that is, of the weeping women, and this is the Tâ-uz festival, which is celebrated in honour of the god Tâ-uz. The women bewail him, because his lord slew him so cruelly, ground his bones in a mill, and then scattered them to the wind. The women (during this festival) eat nothing which has been ground in a mill, but limit their diet to steeped wheat, sweet vetches, dates, raisins, and the like." 2 Tâ-uz, who is no other than Tammuz, is here like Burns's John Barleycorn— "They wasted o'er a scorching flame The marrow of his bones; But a miller us'd him worst of all For he crush'd him between two stones." 3 But perhaps the best proof that Adonis was a deity of vegetation is furnished by the gardens of Adonis, as they 1 Schol. on Theocritus, iii. 48, ὁ ̓Αδωνις, ήγουν ὁ σῖτος ὁ σπειρόμενος, ἐξ μῆνας ἐν τῇ γῇ ποιεῖ ἀπὸ τῆς σπορᾶς καὶ ἓξ μῆνας ἔχει αὐτὸν ἡ ̓Αφροδίτη, τουτέστιν ἡ εὐκρασία τοῦ ἀέρος. καὶ ἐκτότε λαμβάνουσιν αὐτὸν οἱ ἄνθρωποι. Jerome on Ezech. c. viii. 14: "Eadem gentilitas hujuscemodi fabulas poetarum, quae habent turpitudinem, interpretatur subtiliter interfectionem et resurrectionem Adonidis planctu et gaudio prosequens : quorum alterum in seminibus, quae moriuntur in terra, alterum in segetibus, quibus mortua semina renascuntur, ostendi putat." Ammianus Marcellinus, xix. 1. 11: "in sollemnibus Adonidis sacris, quod simulacrum aliquod esse frugum adultarum religiones mysticae docent." Id., xxii. 9. 15: “amato Veneris, ut fabulae fingunt, apri dente ferali 2 D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, ii. 27; id., Ueber Tammuz und die Menschenverehrung bei den alten Babyloniern, p. 38. 3 The comparison is due to Felix Liebrecht (Zur Volkskunde, p. 259). were called. These were baskets or pots filled with earth, in which wheat, barley, lettuces, fennel, and various kinds of flowers were sown and tended for eight days, chiefly or exclusively by women. Fostered by the sun's heat, the plants shot up rapidly, but having no root withered as rapidly away, and at the end of eight days were carried out with the images of the dead Adonis, and flung with them into the sea or into springs. At Athens these ceremonies were observed at midsummer. For we know that the fleet which Athens fitted out against Syracuse, and by the destruction of which her power was permanently crippled, sailed at midsummer, and by an ominous coincidence the sombre rites of Adonis were being celebrated at the very time. As the troops marched down to the harbour to embark, the streets through which they passed were lined with coffins and corpse-like effigies, and the air was rent with the noise of women wailing for the dead Adonis. The circumstance cast a gloom over the sailing of the most splendid armament that Athens ever sent to sea.2 These gardens of Adonis are most naturally interpreted as representatives of Adonis or manifestations of his power; they represented him, true to his original nature, in vegetable form, while the images of him, with which they were carried out and cast into the water, represented him in his later human form. All these Adonis ceremonies, if I am right, were originally intended as charms to promote the growth and revival of vegetation; and the principle by which they were supposed to produce this effect was imitative or sympathetic magic. As I explained in the first chapter, primitive people suppose that by representing or mimicking 1 For the authorities see Raoul Rochette, Mémoire sur les jardins d'Adonis," Revue Archéologique, viii. (1851), pp. 97-123; W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 279, note 2, and p. 280, note 2. To the authorities cited by Mannhardt add Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. vi. 7. 3; id., De Causis Plant. i. 12. 2; Gregorius Cyprius, i. 7; Macarius, i. 63; Apostolius, i. 34; Diogenianus, i. 14; Plutarch, De sera num. vind. 17. Women only are mentioned as planting the gardens of Adonis by Plutarch, 1.c.; Julian, Convivium, p. 329 ed. Spanheim (p. 423 ed. Hertlein); Eustathius on Homer, Od. xi. 590. On the other hand, Apostolius and Diogenianus (ll.cc.) say φυτεύοντες ἢ φυτεύουσαι. The procession at the festival of Adonis is mentioned in an Attic description of 302 or 301 B.C. (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, No. 427). 2 Plutarch, Alcibiades, 18; id., Nicias, 13. The date of the sailing of the fleet is given by Thucydides, vi. 30, θέρους μεσοῦντος ἤδη. the effect which they desire to produce they actually help to produce it; thus by sprinkling water they make rain, by lighting a fire they make sunshine, and so on. Similarly, by mimicking the growth of crops they hope to ensure a good harvest. The rapid growth of the wheat and barley in the gardens of Adonis was intended to make the corn shoot up; and the throwing of the gardens and of the images into the water was a charm to secure a due supply of fertilising rain.' The same, I take it, was the object of throwing the effigies of Death and the Carnival into water in the corresponding ceremonies of modern Europe. We have seen that the custom of drenching with water a leafclad person, who undoubtedly personifies vegetation, is still resorted to in Europe for the express purpose of producing rain. Similarly the custom of throwing water on the last corn cut at harvest, or on the person who brings it home (a custom observed in Germany and France, and till quite lately in England and Scotland), is in some places practised with the avowed intent to procure rain for the next year's crops. Thus in Wallachia and amongst the Roumanians of Transylvania, when a girl is bringing home a crown made of the last ears of corn cut at harvest, all who meet her hasten to throw water on her, and two farm-servants are placed at the door for the purpose; for they believe that if this were not done, the crops next year would perish from drought.3 So amongst the Saxons of Transylvania, the person who wears the wreath made of the last corn cut (sometimes the reaper who cut the last corn also wears the wreath) is drenched with water to the skin; for the wetter he is the 1 In hot southern countries like Egypt and the Semitic regions of Western Asia, where vegetation depends chiefly or entirely upon irriga. tion, the purpose of the charm is doubtless to secure a plentiful flow of water in the streams. But as the ultimate object and the charms for securing it are the same in both cases, it has not been thought necessary always to point out the distinction. 2 See vol. i. p. 94 $99. SW. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 214; W. Schmidt, Das Jahr und seine Tage in Meinung und Brauch der 51. better will be next year's harvest, and the more grain there will be threshed out.1 In Northern Euboea, when the cornsheaves have been piled in a stack, the farmer's wife brings a pitcher of water and offers it to each of the labourers that he may wash his hands. Every man, after he has washed his hands, sprinkles water on the corn and on the threshingfloor, expressing at the same time a wish that the corn may last long. Lastly, the farmer's wife holds the pitcher slantingly and runs at full speed round the stack without spilling a drop, while she utters a wish that the stack may endure as long as the circle she has just described.2 At the spring ploughing in Prussia, when the ploughmen and sowers returned in the evening from their work in the fields, the farmer's wife and the servants used to splash water over them. The ploughmen and sowers retorted by seizing every one, throwing them into the pond, and ducking them under the water. The farmer's wife might claim exemption on payment of a forfeit; but every one else had to be ducked. By observing this custom they hoped to ensure a due supply of rain for the seed. Also after harvest in Prussia, the person who wore a wreath made of the last corn cut was drenched with water, while a prayer was uttered that "as the corn had sprung up and multiplied through the water, so it might spring up and multiply in the barn and granary." 4 At Schlanow, in Brandenburg, when the sowers return home from the first sowing they are drenched with water "in order that the corn may grow.' 115 In Anhalt on the same occasion the farmer is still often sprinkled with water by his family; and his men and horses and even the plough receive the same treatment. The object of the custom, as people at Arensdorf explained it, is "to wish fertility to the fields for the whole year."" 1 G. A. Heinrich, Agrarische Sitten und Gebräuche unter den Sachsen Siebenbürgens (Hermanstadt, 1880), p. 24; Wlislocki, Sitten und Brauch der Siebenbürger Sachsen (Hamburg, 1888), p. 32. 2 G. Drosinis, Land und Leute in Nord-Euboa (Leipsic, 1884), p. 53. 3 Matthäus Praetorius, Deliciae Prussicae, p. 55; W. Mannhardt, Baum kultus, p. 214 sq., note. Praetorius, op. cit. p. 60; W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 215, note. H. Prahn, "Glaube und Brauch in der Mark Brandenburg," Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde, i. (1891), p. 186. 6 O. Hartung, "Zur Volkskunde aus Anhalt," Zeitschrift des Vercins für Volkskunde, vii. (1897), p. 150. So in Hesse, when the ploughmen return with the plough from the field for the first time, the women and girls lie in wait for them and slyly drench them with water.1 Near Naaburg, in Bavaria, the man who first comes back from sowing or ploughing has a vessel of water thrown over him by some one in hiding. Before the Tusayan Indians of North America go out to plant their fields, the women sometimes pour water on them; the reason for doing so is that "as the water is poured on the men, SO may water fall on the planted fields."3 A Babylonian legend, preserved in a cuneiform inscription, relates how the goddess Ishtar (Astarte, Aphrodite) went down "to the land from which there is no returning, to the house of darkness, where dust lies on door and bolt," to fetch the water of life wherewith to restore to life the dead Tammuz, and it appears that the water was thrown over him at a great mourning ceremony, at which men and women stood round the funeral pyre of Tammuz lamenting.* This legend, as Mannhardt points out, is probably a mythical explanation of a Babylonian festival resembling the Syrian festival of Adonis. At the festival, which doubtless took place in the month Tammuz (June-July) and there 1 W. Kolbe, Hessische Volks-Sitten und Gebräuche, p. 51. 2 Bavaria, Landes- und Volkskunde des Königreichs Bayern, ii. 297. 3 J. Walter Fewkes, "The Tusayan New Fire Ceremony," Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, xxvi. (1895), p. 446. 4 F. Lenormant, "Il mito di AdoneTammuz nei documenti cuneiformi," Atti del IV. Congresso Internazionale degli Orientalisti (Florence, 1880), i. 157 sqq.; A. H. Sayce, Religion of the ancient Babylonians (Hibbert Lectures, 1887), p. 221 sqq.; W. Mannhardt, Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 275; A. Jeremias, Die Babylonisch-Assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode (Leipsic, 1887), p. 4 sqq.; id., in Roscher's Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythol., s.v. "Nergal," iii. 257 sqq.; Maspero, Histoire Ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique: les origines, pp. 693-696; M. Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 563 $99. 5 5 According to Jerome (on Ezechiel, viii. 14), Tammuz was June; but according to modern scholars the month corresponded rather to July, or to part of June and part of July. See Movers, Die Phoenizier, i. 210; F. Lenormant, op. cit. p. 144 sq.; Mannhardt, A.W.F. p. 275. My friend W. Robertson Smith informed me that owing to the variations of the local Syrian calendars the month Tammuz fell in different places at different times, from midsummer to autumn, or from June to September. It is mentioned in a letter of a king of Babylon to Amenophis IV., king of Egypt, which forms part of the celebrated correspondence found at Tell-elAmarna in Egypt some years ago. See M. J. Halevy, in Journal Asiatique, Sme Série, xvi. (1890), p. 311; The Tell El-Amarna Tablets in the British Museum (London, 1892), p. xxix. According to Mr. M. Jastrow, the annual |