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

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxiv. 11 sq.

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 94.

Rev. John Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folk-lore (London, 1901), p. 222.

Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits , v. (Cambridge, 1904) pp. 198 sq.

M. le baron Roger (ancien Gouverneur de la Colonie française du Sénégal), “Notice sur le Gouvernement, les Mœurs, et les Superstitions des Nègres du pays de Walo,” Bulletin de la Société de Géographie , viii. (Paris, 1827) pp. 357 sq.

Above, p. 77.

Compare The Times , 2nd April, 1901, p. 9: “The Tunis correspondent of the Temps reports that in the course of certain operations in the Belvedere Park in Tunis the workmen discovered a huge circle of enormous stumps of trees ranged round an immense square stone showing signs of artistic chisel work. In the neighbourhood were found a sort of bronze trough containing a gold sickle in perfect preservation, and a sarcophagus containing a skeleton. About the forehead of the skeleton was a gold band, having in the centre the image of the sun, accompanied by hieratic signs, which are provisionally interpreted as the monogram of Teutates. The discovery of such remains in North Africa has created a sensation.” As to the Celtic god Teutates and the human sacrifices offered to him, see Lucan, Pharsalia , i. 444 sq. :

Compare (Sir) John Rhys, Celtic Heathendom (London and Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 44 sqq. , 232. Branches of the sacred olive at Olympia, which were to form the victors' crowns, had to be cut with a golden sickle by a boy whose parents were both alive. See the Scholiast on Pindar, Olymp. iii. 60, p. 102, ed. Aug. Boeck (Leipsic, 1819). In Assyrian ritual it was laid down that, before felling a sacred tamarisk to make magical images out of the wood, the magician should pray to the sun-god Shamash and touch the tree with a golden axe. See C. Fossey, La Magie Assyrienne (Paris, 1902), pp. 132 sq. Some of the ancients thought that the root of the marsh-mallow, which was used in medicine, should be dug up with gold and then preserved from contact with the ground (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xx. 29). At the great horse-sacrifice in ancient India it was prescribed by ritual that the horse should be slain by a golden knife, because “gold is light” and “by means of the golden light the sacrificer also goes to the heavenly world.” See The Satapatha-Brâhmana , translated by Julius Eggeling, Part v. (Oxford, 1900) p. 303 ( Sacred Books of the East , vol. xliv.). It has been a rule of superstition both in ancient and modern times that certain plants, to which medical or magical virtues were attributed, should not be cut with iron. See the fragment of Sophocles's Root-cutters , quoted by Macrobius, Saturn . v. 19. 9 sq. ; Virgil, Aen. iv. 513 sq. ; Ovid, Metamorph. vii. 227; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxiv. 68, 103, 176; and above, p. 65 (as to purple loosestrife in Russia). On the objection to the use of iron in such cases compare F. Liebrecht, Des Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia (Hanover, 1856), pp. 102 sq. ; Taboo and the Perils of the Soul , pp. 225 sqq.

Étienne Aymonier, “Notes sur les Coutumes et Croyances Superstitieuses des Cambodgiens,” Cochinchine Française, Excursions et Reconnaissance No. 16 (Saigon, 1883), p. 136.

See above, vol. i. pp. 2 sqq.

Ernst Meier, “Über Pflanzen und Kräuter,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde , i. (Göttingen, 1853), pp. 443 sq. The sun enters the sign of Sagittarius about November 22nd.

J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie , 4iii. 533, referring to Dybeck, Runa , 1845, p. 80.

Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), p. 87.

Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvi. 250, “ Omnia sanantem appellantes suo vocabulo .” See above, p. 77.

J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie , 4ii. 1009: “ Sonst aber wird das welsche olhiach, bretagn. ollyiach, ir. uileiceach, gal. uileice, d. i. allheiland , von ol, uile universalis, als benennung des mistels angegeben .” My lamented friend, the late R. A. Neil of Pembroke College, Cambridge, pointed out to me that in N. M'Alpine's Gaelic Dictionary (Seventh Edition, Edinburgh and London, 1877, p. 432) the Gaelic word for mistletoe is given as an t' uil , which, Mr. Neil told me, means “all-healer.”

A. de Gubernatis, La Mythologie des Plantes (Paris, 1878-1882), ii. 73.

Rev. Hilderic Friend, Flowers and Flower Lore , Third Edition (London, 1886), p. 378. Compare A. Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks 2(Gütersloh, 1886), p. 206, referring to Keysler, Antiq. Sept. p. 308.

A. de Nore, Coutumes, Mythes et Traditions des Provinces de France (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 102 sq. The local name for mistletoe here is besq , which may be derived from the Latin viscum .

A. Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks 2(Gütersloh, 1886), p. 205; Walter K. Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore (London, 1863), p. 186.

“Einige Notizen aus einem alten Kräuterbuche,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde , iv. (Göttingen, 1859) pp. 41 sq.

Francis Pérot, “Prières, Invocations, Formules Sacrées, Incantations en Bourbonnais,” Revue des Traditions Populaires , xviii. (1903) p. 299.

County Folk-lore , v. Lincolnshire , collected by Mrs. Gutch and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 120.

Prof. P. J. Veth, “De Leer der Signatuur, iii. De Mistel en de Riembloem,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie , vii. (1894) p. 111. He names Ray in England (about 1700), Boerhaave in Holland (about 1720), and Van Swieten, a pupil of Boerhaave's (about 1745).

County Folk-lore , vol. v. Lincolnshire , collected by Mrs. Gutch and Mabel Peacock (London, 1908), p. 120.

Rev. Mr. Shaw, Minister of Elgin, quoted by Thomas Pennant in his “Tour in Scotland, 1769,” printed in J. Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels , iii. (London, 1809) p. 136; J. Brand, Popular Antiquities of Great Britain (London, 1882-1883), iii. 151.

Walter K. Kelly, Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore (London, 1863), p. 186.

On this point Prof. P. J. Veth (“De Leer der Signatuur,” Internationales Archiv für Ethnographie , vii. (1894) p. 112) quotes Cauvet, Eléments d'Histoire naturelle medicale , ii. 290: “ La famille des Loranthacées ne nous offre aucun intéret. ”