At the feast of the Ascension in Transylvania, the image of Death is clothed gaudily in the dress of a girl: having wound throughout the village supported by two girls the image is stripped of its finery and flung into the river; the dress, however, is assumed by one of the girls and the procession returns singing a hymn. "Thus," says Miss Harrison, "it is clear that the girl is a sort of resuscitated Death." In other words, like the May Queen she symbolised the Virgin or Fairy Queen--Vera or Una, the Spirit, Sprout, or Spirit of the Universe, the Fair Ovary of Everything who is represented on the summit of the Christmas Tree: in Latin _virgo_ means not only a virgin but also a sprig or sprout. FOOTNOTES: [255] _Fairy Mythology_, p. 298. [256] Courtney, Miss, _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 129. [257] Hope, R. C., _Sacred Wells_. [258] _Demonology and Witchcraft_. [259] At the time of writing the Servians say they are putting their trust in "Bog and Britannia". [260] This is an official etymology. It is the one and only poetic idea admitted into Skeat's Dictionary. [261] _Cf._ Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 159. [262] Pliny relates Varro's description as follows: "King Porsenna was buried beneath the city of Clusium, in a place where he left a monument of himself in rectangular stone. Each side was 300 feet long and 50 feet high, and within the basement he made an inextricable labyrinth, into which if anyone ventured without a clue, there he must remain, for he never could find the way out again. Above this base stood five pyramids, one in the centre and four at the angles, each of them 75 feet in circumference at the base, and 150 feet high, tapering to the top so as to be covered by a cupola of bronze. From this there hung by chains a peal of bells, which, when agitated by the wind, sounded to a great distance. Above this cupola rose four other pyramids, each 100 feet high, and above these again, another story of five pyramids, which towered to a height so marvellous and improbable, that Varro hesitates to affirm their altitude." And in this he was wise, for he had already said more upon the subject than was credible. However, any one who has seen the tomb of Aruns, the son of Porsenna, near the gate of Albano, will be struck with the similarity of style, which, comparing small things with great, existed between the monuments of father and son. Those who have never been in Italy may like to know that this tomb of Aruns is said to have been built by Porsenna, for the young Prince who fell there in battle with the Latins, and with the Greeks from Cuma, and it is certainly the work of Etruscan masons. Five pyramids rise from a base of 55 sq.