May-trees in Europe, especially England; May-garlands in England; May customs in France, Germany, and Greece; Whitsuntide customs in Russia; May-trees in Germany and Sweden; Midsummer trees and poles in Sweden; village May-poles in England and Germany; tree-spirit detached from tree and represented in human form, Esthonian tale; tree-spirit represented simultaneously in vegetable and human form; the Little May Rose; the _Walber_; Green George; double representation of tree-spirit by tree and man among the Oraons; double representation of harvest-goddess Gauri; W. Mannhardt’s conclusions; tree-spirit or vegetation-spirit represented by a person alone; leaf-clad mummers (Green George, Little Leaf Man, Jack-in-the-Green, etc.); leaf-clad mummers called Kings or Queens (King and Queen of May, Whitsuntide King, etc.); Whitsuntide Bridegroom and Bride; Midsummer Bridegroom and Bride; the Forsaken Bridegroom or Bride; St. Bride in Scotland and the Isle of Man; May Bride or Whitsuntide Bride. Chapter XI.—The Influence of the Sexes on Vegetation Pp. 97-119 The marriage of the King and Queen of May intended to promote the growth of vegetation by homoeopathic magic; intercourse of the sexes practised to make the crops grow and fruit-trees to bear fruit; parents of twins supposed to fertilise the bananas in Uganda; relics of similar customs in Europe; continence practised in order to make the crops grow; incest and illicit love supposed to blight the fruits of the earth by causing drought or excessive rain; traces of similar beliefs as to the blighting effect of adultery and incest among the ancient Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Irish; possible influence of such beliefs on the institution of the forbidden degrees of kinship; explanation of the seeming contradiction of the foregoing customs; indirect benefit to humanity of some of these superstitions. Chapter XII.—The Sacred Marriage Pp. 120-170 § 1. _Diana as a Goddess of Fertility_—Dramatic marriages of gods and goddesses as a charm to promote vegetation; Diana as a goddess of the woodlands; sanctity of holy groves in antiquity; the breaking of the Golden Bough a solemn rite, not a mere piece of bravado; Diana a goddess of the teeming life of nature, both animal and vegetable; deities of woodlands naturally the patrons of the beasts of the woods; the crowning of hunting dogs on Diana’s day a purification for their slaughter of the beasts of the wood; as goddess of the moon, especially the yellow harvest moon, Diana a goddess of crops and of childbirth; as a goddess of fertility Diana needed a male partner.