The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)Frazer, James George
Religion
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 11 of 12)
Frazer, James George
Magic; Mythology; Religion; Superstition
(M147) Near the little town of Dourgne, not far from Castres, in Southern
France, there is a mountain, and on the top of the mountain is a
tableland, where a number of large stones may be seen planted in the
ground about a cross and rising to a height of two to five feet above the
ground. Almost all of them are pierced with holes of different sizes. From
time immemorial people used to assemble at Dourgne and the neighbourhood
every year on the sixth of August, the festival of St. Estapin. The
palsied, the lame, the blind, the sick of all sorts, flocked thither to
seek and find a cure for their various infirmities. Very early in the
morning they set out from the villages where they had lodged or from the
meadows where for want of better accommodation they had been forced to
pass the night, and went on pilgrimage to the chapel of St. Estapin, which
stands in a gorge at the southern foot of the mountain. Having gone nine
times in procession round the chapel, they hobbled, limped, or crawled to
the tableland on the top of the mountain. There each of them chose a stone
with a hole of the requisite size and thrust his ailing member through the
hole. For there are holes to suit every complaint; some for the head, some
for the arm, some for the leg, and so on. Having performed this simple
ceremony they were cured; the lame walked, the blind saw, the palsied
recovered the use of their limbs, and so on. The chapel of the saint is
adorned with the crutches and other artificial aids, now wholly
superfluous, which the joyful pilgrims left behind them in token of their
gratitude and devotion.(515) About two miles from Gisors, in the French
department of Oise, there is a dolmen called Trie or Trie- Chateau,
consisting of three upright stones with a fourth and larger stone laid
horizontally on their tops. The stone which forms the back wall of the
dolmen is pierced about the middle by an irregularly shaped hole, through
which the people of the neighbourhood used from time immemorial to pass
their sickly children in the firm belief that the passage through the
stone would restore them to health.(516)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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