The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 1 of 2)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
In Barcelona on the day in question boys run about the streets, some with
saws, others with billets of wood, others again with cloths in which they
collect gratuities. They sing a song in which it is said that they are
looking for the oldest woman of the city for the purpose of sawing her in
two in honour of Mid-Lent; at last, pretending to have found her, they saw
something in two and burn it. A like custom is found amongst the South
Slavs. In Lent the Croats tell their children that at noon an old woman is
being sawn in two outside the gates; and in Carniola also the saying is
current that at Mid-Lent an old woman is taken out of the village and sawn
in two. The North Slavonian expression for keeping Mid-Lent is _bábu
rezati_, that is, “sawing the Old Wife.”(868)
In the preceding ceremonies the return of Spring, Summer, or Life, as a
sequel to the expulsion of Death, is only implied or at most announced. In
the following ceremonies it is plainly enacted. In some parts of Bohemia
the effigy of Death is buried at sunset; then the girls go out into the
wood and cut down a young tree with a green crown, hang a doll dressed as
a woman on it, deck the whole with green, red, and white ribbons, and
march in procession with their _Líto_ (Summer) into the village,
collecting gifts and singing—
“We carried Death out of the village,
We are carrying Summer into the village.”(869)
In many Silesian villages the figure of Death, after being treated with
respect, is stripped of its clothes and flung with curses into the water,
or torn in pieces in a field. Then a fir-tree adorned with ribbons,
coloured egg-shells, and motley bits of cloth, is carried through the
streets by boys who collect pennies and sing—
“We have carried Death out,
We are bringing the dear Summer back,
The Summer and the May
And all the flowers gay.”(870)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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