The Golden Bough A Study in Comparative Religion By James George Frazer, M.A. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge In Two Volumes. Vol. I. New York and London MacMillan and Co. 1894 CONTENTS Dedication. Preface. Chapter I. The King Of The Wood. § 1.—The Arician Grove. § 2.—Primitive man and the supernatural. § 3.—Incarnate gods. § 4.—Tree-worship. § 5.—Tree-worship in antiquity. Chapter II. The Perils Of The Soul. § 1.—Royal and priestly taboos. § 2.—The nature of the soul. § 3.—Royal and priestly taboos (continued). Chapter III. Killing The God. § 1.—Killing the divine king. § 2.—Killing the tree-spirit. § 3.—Carrying out Death. § 4.—Adonis. § 5.—Attis. § 6.—Osiris. § 7.—Dionysus. § 8.—Demeter and Proserpine. § 9.—Lityerses. Footnotes [Cover Art] [Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.] [Frontispiece] DEDICATION. To My Friend WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH In Gratitude And Admiration PREFACE. For some time I have been preparing a general work on primitive superstition and religion. Among the problems which had attracted my attention was the hitherto unexplained rule of the Arician priesthood; and last spring it happened that in the course of my reading I came across some facts which, combined with others I had noted before, suggested an explanation of the rule in question. As the explanation, if correct, promised to throw light on some obscure features of primitive religion, I resolved to develop it fully, and, detaching it from my general work, to issue it as a separate study. This book is the result. Now that the theory, which necessarily presented itself to me at first in outline, has been worked out in detail, I cannot but feel that in some places I may have pushed it too far. If this should prove to have been the case, I will readily acknowledge and retract my error as soon as it is brought home to me. Meantime my essay may serve its purpose as a first attempt to solve a difficult problem, and to bring a variety of scattered facts into some sort of order and system.