As it is believed that fire may impregnate human beings, so conversely some people seem to imagine that it may be impregnated by them. Thus Mr. T. R. Glover, Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, writes to me (18th June 1906): “A curious and not very quotable instance of (I suppose) Sacred Marriage was brought to my notice by Mr. Brown of the Canadian Baptist Mission to the Telugus. He said that in Hindoo temples (in South India chiefly?) sometimes a scaffolding is erected over a fire. A man and a woman are got to copulate on it and allow the human seed to fall into the fire.” But perhaps this ceremony is only another way of conveying the fertilising virtue of the fire to the woman, in other words, of getting her with child. Footnote 761: Above, pp. 215, 221. Footnote 762: Suidas, Harpocration, and _Etymologicum Magnum_, _s.v._ Ἀμφιδρόμια; Hesychius, _s.v._ δρομάφιον ἧμαρ; Schol. on Plato, _Theaetetus_, p. 160 E. On this custom see S. Reinach, _Cultes, mythes, et religions_, i. (Paris, 1905) pp. 137-145. He suggests that the running of the naked men who carried the babies was intended, by means of sympathetic magic, to impart to the little ones in after-life the power of running fast. But this theory does not explain why the race took place round the hearth. Footnote 763: The custom has been practised with this intention in Scotland, China, New Britain, the Tenimber and Timorlaut Islands, and by the Ovambo of South Africa. See Pennant’s “Second Tour in Scotland,” Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, iii. 383; Miss C. F. Gordon Cumming, _In the Hebrides_, ed. 1883, p. 101; _China Review_, ix. (1880-1881) p. 303; R. Parkinson, _Im Bismarck-Archipel_, pp. 94 _sq._; J. G. F. Riedel, _De sluik- en kroesharige rassen tusschen Selebes en Papua_, p. 303; H. Schinz, _Deutsch-Südwest-Afrika_, p. 307. A similar custom was observed, probably for the same reason, in ancient Mexico and in Madagascar. See Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, translated by Cullen, i. 31; W. Ellis, _History of Madagascar_, i. 152. Compare my note, “The Youth of Achilles,” _Classical Review_, vii. (1893) pp. 293 _sq._ Footnote 764: Compare E. Samter, _Familienfeste der Griechen und Römer_ (Berlin, 1901), pp. 59-62. Footnote 765: W. R. S. Ralston, _The Songs of the Russian People_, pp. 120 _sq._ Ralston held that the Russian house-spirit Domovoy, who is supposed to live behind the stove, is the modern representative of an ancestral spirit. Compare _ibid._ pp. 84, 86, 119. Footnote 766: Evidence of this view will be adduced later on. See _The Golden Bough_, Second Edition, iii. 456. Footnote 767: See above, pp. 185 _sq._ Footnote 768: L. v. Schroeder, _Die Hochzeitsbräuche der Esten_ (Berlin, 1888), pp. 129 _sq._ Footnote 769: See above, p. 197. Footnote 770: