sides are hung with garlands, and the top terminated by a birch or other tall slender tree with its leaves on; the bark being peeled, and the stem spliced to the pole, so as to give the appearance of one tree from the summit.”[278] Thus the renewal of the May-tree is like the renewal of the Harvest-May;[279] each is intended to secure a fresh portion of the fertilising spirit of vegetation, and to preserve it throughout the year. But whereas the efficacy of the Harvest-May is restricted to promoting the growth of the crops, that of the May-tree or May-branch extends also, as we have seen, to women and cattle. Lastly, [Sidenote: The May-tree burnt at the end of the year.] it is worth noting that the old May-tree is sometimes burned at the end of the year. Thus in the district of Prague young people break pieces of the public May-tree and place them behind the holy pictures in their rooms, where they remain till next May Day, and are then burned on the hearth.[280] In Würtemberg the bushes which are set up on the houses on Palm Sunday are sometimes left there for a year and then burnt.[281] The _eiresione_ (the Harvest-May of Greece) was perhaps burnt at the end of the year.[282] * * * * * [Sidenote: Tree-spirit detached from the tree and represented in human form.] So much for the tree-spirit conceived as incorporate or immanent in the tree. We have now to shew that the tree-spirit is often conceived and represented as detached from the tree and clothed in human form, and even as embodied in living men or women. The evidence for this anthropomorphic representation of the tree-spirit is largely to be found in the popular customs of European peasantry. These will be described presently, but before examining them we may notice an Esthonian folk-tale which illustrates the same train of thought very clearly. Once upon a time, so runs [Sidenote: Esthonian story of a tree-elf.] the tale, a young peasant was busy raking the hay in a meadow, when on the rim of the horizon a heavy thunder-cloud loomed black and angry, warning him to make haste with his work before the storm should break. He finished in time, and was wending his way homeward, when under a tree he espied a stranger fast asleep. “He will be drenched to the skin,” thought the good-natured young fellow to himself, “if I allow him to sleep on.” So he stepped up to the sleeper and shaking him forcibly roused him from his slumber. The stranger started up, and at sight of the thunder-cloud, which now darkened the sky, he blenched, fumbled in his pockets, and finding nothing in them wherewith to reward the friendly swain, he said, “This time I am your debtor. But the time will come when I shall be able to repay your kindness. Remember what I tell you. You will enlist. You will be parted from your friends for years, and one day a feeling of homesickness will come over you in a foreign land. Then look up, and you will see a crooked birch-tree a few steps