of plants.  Even Bacon[17] held that observations of the moon with a view to planting and sowing and the grafting of trees were “not altogether frivolous.”  It cannot too often be remembered that primitive man has but little, if any, interest in sun and moon and heavenly bodies for their inherent beauty or wonder; he cares for them, he holds them sacred, he performs rites in relation to them mainly when he notes that they bring the seasons, and he cares for the seasons mainly because they bring him food.  A season is to him as a Hora was at first to the Greeks, the fruits of a season, what our farmers would call “a good year.”

* * * * *

The sun, then, had no ritual till it was seen that he led in the seasons; but long before that was known, it was seen that the seasons were annual, that they went round in a ring; and because that annual ring was long in revolving, great was man’s hope and fear in the winter, great his relief and joy in the spring.  It was literally a matter of death and life, and it was as death and life that he sometimes represented it, as we have seen in the figures of Adonis and Osiris.

Adonis and Osiris have their modern parallels, who leave us in no doubt as to the meaning of their figures.  Thus on the 1st of March in Thueringen a ceremony is performed called “Driving out the Death.”  The young people make up a figure of straw, dress it in old clothes, carry it out and throw it into the river.  Then they come back, tell the good news to the village, and are given eggs and food as a reward.  In Bohemia the children carry out a straw puppet and burn it.  While they are burning it they sing—­

    “Now carry we Death out of the village,
    The new Summer into the village,
    Welcome, dear Summer,
    Green little corn.”

In other parts of Bohemia the song varies; it is not Summer that comes back but Life.

    “We have carried away Death,
    And brought back Life.”

In both these cases it is interesting to note that though Death is dramatically carried out, the coming back of Life is only announced, not enacted.

Often, and it would seem quite naturally, the puppet representing Death or Winter is reviled and roughly handled, or pelted with stones, and treated in some way as a sort of scapegoat.  But in not a few cases, and these are of special interest, it seems to be the seat of a sort of magical potency which can be and is transferred to the figure of Summer or Life, thus causing, as it were, a sort of Resurrection.  In Lusatia the women only carry out the Death.  They are dressed in black themselves as mourners, but the puppet of straw which they dress up as the Death wears a white shirt.  They carry it to the village boundary, followed by boys throwing stones, and there tear it to pieces.  Then they cut down a tree and dress it in the white shirt of the Death and carry it home singing.