266 See below, pp. 147 _sqq._, 221 _sq._, 223 _sq._ 267 See above, p. 43. M54 Games at harvest festivals in modern Europe. 268 A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_ (Leipsic, 1848), pp. 398, 399, 400. 269 P. Drechsler, _Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube in Schlesien_ (Leipsic, 1903-1906), ii. 70 _sq._ 270 A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_ (Berlin, 1843), pp. 341 _sq._ 271 See below, pp. 133 _sqq._ M55 Date of the Eleusinian games uncertain. 272 Scholiast on Pindar, _Olymp._ ix. 150, p. 228, ed. Aug. Boeckh. 273 The games are assigned to Metageitnion by P. Stengel (Pauly-Wissowa, _Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft_, v. 2. coll. 2331 _sq._) and to Boedromion by August Mommsen and W. Dittenberger. The last-mentioned scholar supposes that the games immediately followed the Mysteries, and August Mommsen formerly thought so too, but he afterwards changed his view and preferred to suppose that the games preceded the Mysteries. See Aug. Mommsen, _Heortologie_ (Leipsic, 1864), p. 263; _id._, _Feste der Stadt Athen im Altertum_ (Leipsic, 1898), pp. 182 _sqq._; Dittenberger, _Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum_,2 No. 587, note 171 (vol. ii. pp. 313 _sq._). The dating of the games in Metageitnion or in the early part of Boedromion depends on little more than a series of conjectures, particularly the conjectural restoration of an inscription and the conjectural dating of a certain sacrifice to Democracy. M56 Why should games intended to promote the annual growth of the crops be held only every second or fourth year? The Eleusinian Mysteries probably much older than the Eleusinian games. 274 A. de Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_ (London, 1884), pp. 354 _sq._, 367 _sqq._; R. Munro, _The Lake-dwellings of Europe_ (London, Paris, and Melbourne, 1890), pp. 497 _sqq._; O. Schrader, _Reallexikon der indogermanischen Altertumskunde_ (Strasburg, 1901), pp. 8 _sqq._; _id._, _Sprachvergleichung und Urgeschichte_ (Jena, 1906-1907), ii. 185 _sqq._; H. Hirt, _Die Indogermanen_ (Strasburg, 1905-1907), i. 254 _sqq._, 273 _sq._, 276 _sqq._, ii. 640 _sqq._; M. Much, _Die Heimat der Indogermanen_ (Jena and Berlin, 1904), pp. 221 _sqq._; T. E. Peet, _The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy and Sicily_ (Oxford, 1909), p. 362. M57 Quadriennial period of many of the great games of Greece. Old octennial period of the Pythian and probably of the Olympian games. The octennial cycle was instituted by the Greeks at a very early era for the purpose of harmonising solar and lunar time.