of the village thought it called for. And to the end resort may have been had to exceptional acts of cult in times of especial distress. But gradually the occasional ceremony became an annual one, held as soon as the corn was thick in the green blade and the critical days were at hand. So far, there has been no need to assume the existence of a calendar. How long the actual climatic conditions continued to determine the dates of the annual feasts can hardly be said. But when a calendar did make its appearance, the five feasts adapted themselves without much difficulty to it. The earliest calendar that can be inferred in central Europe was one, either of Oriental or possibly of Mediterranean _provenance_, which divided the year into six tides of threescore days each[376]. The beginnings of these tides almost certainly fell at about the middle of corresponding months of the Roman calendar[377]. The first would thus be marked by the beginning of winter feast in mid-November; two others by the beginning of summer feast and the harvest feast in mid-March and mid-August respectively. A little accommodation of the seasonal feasts of the farm would be required to adapt them to the remaining three. And here begins a process of dislocation of the original dates of customs, now becoming traditional rather than vital, which was afterwards extended by successive stages to a bewildering degree. By this time, with the greater permanence of agriculture, the system of autumn ploughing had perhaps been invented. The spring ploughing festival was therefore of less importance, and bore to be shifted back to mid-January instead of mid-February. Four of the six tides are now provided with initial feasts. These are mid-November, mid-January, mid-March, and mid-September. There are, however, still mid-May and mid-July, and only the high summer feast to divide between them. I am inclined to believe that a division is precisely what took place, and that the hitherto fluctuating date of the summer feast was determined in some localities to mid-May, in others to mid-July[378].