The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)

739

Edward M. Curr, The Australian Race (Melbourne and London, 1886-1887), i. 9, 18.

740

James Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part i. (Washington, 1900) p. 422, compare p. 435.

741

James Teit, The Thompson Indians of British Columbia, p. 346 (The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, April, 1900).

742

J. Teit, op. cit. p. 374.

743

The Shuswap Indians of British Columbia entertain a similar belief. It has been suggested that the fancy may be based on the observation that cold follows a thunder-storm. See G. M. Dawson, “Notes on the Shuswap people of British Columbia,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, ix. (1891) Section ii. p. 38.

744

R. Wuttke, Sächsische Volkskunde2 (Dresden, 1901), p. 369.

745

Henri A. Junod, The Life of a South African Tribe (Neuchatel, 1912-1913), ii. 291. The Thonga imagine that lightning is caused by a great bird, which sometimes buries itself in the ground to a depth of several feet. See H. A. Junod, op. cit. ii. 290 sq.

746

Dr. James A. Chisholm (of the Livingstonia Mission, Mwenzo, N.E. Rhodesia), “Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Winamwanga and Wiwa,” Journal of the African Society, No. 36 (July, 1910), p. 363.

747

S. Powers, Tribes of California (Washington, 1877), p. 287. The dread of lightning is prominent in some of the customs observed in Patiko, a district of the Uganda Protectorate. If a village has suffered from lightning, ropes made of twisted grass are strung from peak to peak of the houses to ward off further strokes. And if a person has been struck or badly shaken, “an elaborate cure is performed upon him. A red cock is taken, his tongue torn out, and his body dashed upon the house where the stroke fell. Then the scene changes to the bank of a small running stream, where the patient is made to kneel while the bird is sacrificed over the water. A raw egg is next given to the patient to swallow, and he is laid on his stomach and encouraged to vomit. The lightning is supposed to be vomited along with the egg, and all ill effects prevented.” See Rev. A. L. Kitching, On the Backwaters of the Nile (London, 1912), p. 263.

748

See The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 349 sqq.

749

W. Warde Fowler, “The Oak and the Thunder-god,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xvi. (1913) pp. 318 sq. My friend Mr. Warde Fowler had previously called my attention to the facts in a letter dated September 17th, 1912.

750

Dr. W. Schlich's Manual of Forestry, vol. iv. Forest Protection, by W. R. Fisher, Second Edition (London, 1907), pp. 662 sq. Mr. W. Warde Fowler was the first to call the attention of mythologists to this work.

751

Experiments on the conductivity of electricity in wood go to shew that starchy trees (oak, poplar, maples, ash, elm, sorbus) are good conductors, that oily trees (beech, walnut, birch, lime) are bad conductors, and that the conifers are intermediate, the Scotch pine in summer being as deficient in oil as the starchy trees, but rich in oil during winter. It was found that a single turn of Holz's electric machine sufficed to send the spark through oakwood, but that from twelve to twenty turns were required to send it through beech-wood. Five turns of the machine were needed to send the spark through poplar and willow wood. See Dr. W. Schlich, Manual of Forestry, vol. iv. Forest Protection, Second Edition (London, 1907), p. 664. In the tropics lightning is said to be especially attracted to coco-nut palms. See P. Amaury Talbot, In the Shadow of the Bush (London, 1913), p. 73.

752

As to the Greek belief and custom, see H. Usener, Kleine Schriften, iv. (Leipsic and Berlin, 1913), “Keraunos,” pp. 471 sqq.; The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 361. As to the Roman belief and custom, see Festus, svv. Fulguritum and Provorsum fulgur, pp. 92, 229, ed. C. O. Müller (Leipsic, 1839); H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, vol. ii. pars i. (Berlin, 1902) pp. 10 sq., Nos. 3048-3056; L. Preller, Römische Mythologie3 (Berlin, 1881-1883), i. 190-193; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer2 (Munich, 1912), pp. 121 sq. By a curious refinement the Romans referred lightning which fell by day to Jupiter, but lightning which fell by night to a god called Summanus (Festus, p. 229).

753

J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,4 iii. 64, citing a statement that lightning strikes twenty oaks for one beech. The statistics adduced by Mr. W. Warde Fowler seem to shew that this statement is no exaggeration but rather the contrary.

754

W. Warde Fowler, “The Oak and the Thunder-god,” Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, xvi. (1913) pp. 317-320.

755

The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 356 sqq.

756

The suggestion is Mr. W. Warde Fowler's (op cit. pp. 319 sq.).

757

Pliny, Natur. Hist. xvi. 249.

758

See above, p. 85.

759

J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie,4 i. 153. See above, p. 85.

760

This interpretation of Balder's death was anticipated by W. Schwartz (Der Ursprung der Mythologie, Berlin, 1860, p. 176), who cut the whole knot by dubbing Balder “the German thunder-and-lightning god” and mistletoe “the wonderful thunder-and-lightning flower.” But as this learned writer nursed a fatal passion for thunder and lightning, which he detected lurking in the most unlikely places, we need not wonder that he occasionally found it in places where there were some slight grounds for thinking that it really existed.

761

On the relation of the priest to Jupiter, and the equivalence of Jupiter and Juno to Janus (Dianus) and Diana, see The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, ii. 376 sqq.

762

“I quite agree how humiliating the slow progress of man is, but every one has his own pet horror, and this slow progress or even personal annihilation sinks in my mind into insignificance compared with the idea or rather I presume certainty of the sun some day cooling and we all freezing. To think of the progress of millions of years, with every continent swarming with good and enlightened men, all ending in this, and with probably no fresh start until this our planetary system has been again converted into red-hot gas. Sic transit gloria mundi, with a vengeance” (More Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by Francis Darwin, London, 1903, i. 260 sq.).

763

Since this passage was written the hope which it expresses has been to some extent strengthened by the discovery of radium, which appears to prolong indefinitely the prospect of the duration of the sun's heat, and with it the duration of life on its attendant planets. See (Sir) George Howard Darwin's Presidential Address to the British Association, Report of the 75th Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (South Africa, 1905), pp. 28 sq.; F. Soddy, The Interpretation of Radium, Third Edition (London, 1912), pp. 240 sqq.; E. Rutherford, Radio-active Substances and their Radiations (Cambridge, 1913), pp. 653-656. At the same time it should be borne in mind that even if the atomic disintegration and accompanying liberation of energy, which characterize radium and kindred elements, should prove to be common in different degrees to all the other elements and to form a vast and till lately unsuspected store of heat to the sun, this enormous reserve of fuel would only defer but could not avert that final catastrophe with which the solar system and indeed the whole universe is remorselessly threatened by the law of the dissipation of energy.

764

See above, vol. i. pp. 15 sq.

765

Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, Hymns and Incantations with Illustrative Notes on Words, Rites, and Customs, dying and obsolete: orally collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and translated into English (Edinburgh, 1900), ii. 312.

766

Above, vol. i. pp. 315 sqq.

767

The late Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., “Religion and Customs of the Uraons,” Memoirs of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. i. No. 9 (Calcutta, 1906), p. 141.

768

“Every clan (Familienstamm) has a definite thing which is forbidden to all the members of the clan, whether it be a particular kind of meat, or a certain fish, or as here the stalk of a gourd.”

769

“The place in Nguu, where the ghost is said to dwell.”

770

“In Ukami.”

771

C. Velten, Schilderungen der Suaheli (Göttingen, 1901), pp. 195-197.

772

Miss Alice Werner, The Natives of British Central Africa (London, 1906), p. 82. In a letter Miss Werner tells me that she learned these particulars at Blantyre in 1893, and that the chief lived in the neighbourhood of Mlanje.

773

Rev. Henry Rowley, Twenty Years in Central Africa (London, N.D.), pp. 36 sqq. For a reference to this and all the other works cited in this Note I am indebted to the kindness of Miss Alice Werner.

774

Rev. David Clement Scott, A Cyclopaedic Dictionary of the Mang'anja Language spoken in British Central Africa (Edinburgh, 1892), p. 315.

775

Edward Steere, Swahili Tales (London, 1870), pp. 441-453. The young man in the story is spoken of now as the nephew and now as the son of the man he murdered. Probably he was what we should call a nephew or brother's son of his victim; for under the classificatory system of relationship, which seems to prevail among the Bantu stock, to whom the Swahili belong, a man regularly calls his paternal uncle his father.

776

Above, vol. i. pp. 104 sq.

777

Virgil, Aen. vi. 205 sqq.: —

“Quale solet silvis brumali frigore viscumFronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbos,Et croceo fetu teretis circumdare truncos:Talis erat species auri frondentis opacaIlice,sic leni crepitabat bractea vento.”

778

W. Schlich, Manual of Forestry, vol. iv. Forest Protection, by W. R. Fisher, M.A., Second Edition (London, 1907), p. 412. French peasants about Coulommiers think that mistletoe springs from birds' dung. See H. Gaidoz, “Bulletin critique de la Mythologie Gauloise,” Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, ii. (1880) p. 76. The ancients were well aware that mistletoe is propagated from tree to tree by seeds which have been voided by birds. See Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, ii. 17. 5; Pliny, Naturalis Historia, xvi. 247. Pliny tells us that the birds which most commonly deposited the seeds were pigeons and thrushes. Can this have been the reason why Virgil (Aen. vi. 190 sqq.) represents Aeneas led to the Golden Bough by a pair of doves?

779

James Sowerby, English Botany, xxi. (London, 1805) p. 1470.

780

C. Fraas, Synopsis Plantarum Florae Classicae (Munich, 1845), p. 152.

781

H. O. Lenz, Botanik der alten Griechen und Römer (Gotha, 1859), p. 597, quoting Pollini.

782

J. Lindley and T. Moore, The Treasury of Botany, New Edition (London, 1874), ii. 1220. A good authority, however, observes that mistletoe is “frequently to be observed on the branches of old apple-trees, hawthorns, lime-trees, oaks, etc., where it grows parasitically.” See J. Sowerby, English Botany, xxi. (London, 1805) p. 1470.

783

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, x. 689, s. v. “Gloucester.”

784

H. Gaidoz, “Bulletin critique de la Mythologie Gauloise,” Revue de l'Histoire des Religions, ii. (1880) pp. 75 sq.

785

Angelo de Gubernatis, La Mythologie des Plantes (Paris, 1878-1882), ii. 216 sq. As to the many curious superstitions that have clustered round mandragora, see P. J. Veth, “De Mandragora,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, vii. (1894) pp. 199-205; C. B. Randolph, “The Mandragora of the Ancients in Folk-lore and Medicine,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. xl. No. 12 (January, 1905), pp. 487-537.

786

W. Schlich, Manual of Forestry, vol. iv. Forest Protection, Second Edition (London, 1907), pp. 415-417.

787

E. B. Stebbing, “The Loranthus Parasite of the Moru and Ban Oaks,” Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, New Series, v. (Calcutta, 1910) pp. 189-195. The Loranthus vestitus “is a small branching woody plant with dirty yellowish green leaves which are dark shining green above. It grows in great clumps and masses on the trees, resembling a giant mistletoe. The fruit is yellowish and fleshy, and is almost sessile on the stem, which it thickly studs” (ib., p. 192). The writer shews that the parasite is very destructive to oaks in India.

788

H. O. Lenz, Botanik der alten Griechen und Römer (Gotha, 1859), p. 598, notes 151 and 152.

789

C. Fraas, Synopsis Plantarum Florae Classicae (Munich, 1845), p. 152.

790

H. O. Lenz, Botanik der alten Griechen und Römer (Gotha, 1859), pp. 599 sq.

791

Theophrastus, Historia Plantarum, iii. 7. 5, iii. 16. 1, De Causis Plantarum, ii. 17; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 245-247. Compare Dioscorides, De materia medica, ii. 93 (103), vol. i. pp. 442 sq., ed. C. Sprengel (Leipsic, 1829-1830), who uses the form ixos instead of ixia. Both Dioscorides (l. c.) and Plutarch (Coriolanus, 3) affirm that mistletoe (ixos) grows on the oak (δρῦς); and Hesychius quotes from Sophocles's play Meleager the expression “mistletoe-bearing oaks” (ἰξοφόρους δρύας, Hesychius, s. v.).

792

Theophrastus, Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. Fr. Wimmer (Paris, 1866), pp. 537, 545, 546, s. vv. ἰξία, στελίς, ὑφέαρ.

793

F. Fraas, Synopsis Plantarum Florae Classicae (Munich, 1845), p. 152.

794

H. O. Lenz, Botanik der alten Griechen und Römer (Gotha, 1859), p. 597, notes 147 and 148.

795

Theophrastus, De Causis Plantarum, ii. 17. 2, ἐπεὶ τό γε τὴν μὲν ἀείφυλλον εἶναι τῶν ἰξιῶν (τὴν δὲ φυλλοβόλον) οὐθὲν ἄτοπον, κἂν ἡ μὲν (ἐν) ἀιφύλλοις ἡ δὲ ἐν φυλλοβόλοις ἐμβιῴη.

796

His letter is undated, but the postmark is April 28th, 1889. Sir Francis Darwin has since told me that his authority is Kerner von Marilaun, Pflanzenleben (1888), vol. i. pp. 195, 196. See Anton Kerner von Marilaun, The Natural History of Plants, translated and edited by F. W. Oliver (London, 1894-1895), i. 204 sqq. According to this writer “the mistletoe's favourite tree is certainly the Black Poplar (Populus nigra). It flourishes with astonishing luxuriance on the branches of that tree… Mistletoe has also been found by way of exception upon the oak and the maple, and upon old vines” (op. cit. i. 205).

797

Prof. P. J. Veth, “De leer der signatuur, III. De mistel en de riembloem,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie, vii. (1894) p. 105. The Dutch language has separate names for the two species: mistletoe is mistel, and Loranthus is riembloem.

798

His letter is dated 18th February, 1908.

799

But Sir Francis Darwin writes to me: – “I do not quite see why Loranthus should not put out leaves in winter as easily as Viscum, in both cases it would be due to unfolding leaf buds; the fact that Viscum has adult leaves at the time, while Loranthus has not, does not really affect the matter.” However, Mr. Paton tells us, as we have just seen, that in winter the Loranthus growing on the oaks of Mount Athos has no leaves, though its yellow berries are very conspicuous.