Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India_ (Westminster, 1896), ii. 115-121. I was formerly disposed to connect the custom with totemism, but of this there seems to be no sufficient evidence. Footnote 236: W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 51 _sq._ Footnote 237: Merolla, “Voyage to Congo,” in Pinkerton’s _Voyages and Travels_, xvi. 236 _sq._ Footnote 238: C. Bötticher, _Der Baumkultus der Hellenen_ (Berlin, 1856), pp. 30 _sq._ CHAPTER X RELICS OF TREE-WORSHIP IN MODERN EUROPE [Sidenote: May-trees in Europe.] From the foregoing review of the beneficent qualities commonly ascribed to tree-spirits, it is easy to understand why customs like the May-tree or May-pole have prevailed so widely and figured so prominently in the popular festivals of European peasants. In spring or early summer or even on Midsummer Day, it was and still is in many parts of Europe the custom to go out to the woods, cut down a tree and bring it into the village, where it is set up amid general rejoicings; or the people cut branches in the woods, and fasten them on every house. The intention of these customs is to bring home to the village, and to each house, the blessings which the tree-spirit has in its power to bestow. Hence the custom in some places of planting a May-tree before every house, or of carrying the village May-tree from door to door, that every household may receive its share of the blessing. Out of the mass of evidence on this subject a few examples may be selected.