3. The Flaminica Dialis had on this day to lay aside her usual bridal dress, and to appear in mourning[445]. The same rule was laid down for her during the ‘moving’ of the _ancilia_ in March, and during the Vestalia up to the completion of the purification of the temple of Vesta. It is not easy to see what the meaning of this rule may have been. On the other two occasions there is nothing to lead us to suppose that it was some such terrible rite as human sacrifice which caused the change of costume; we need not therefore suppose that it was so on May 15. But if all three occasions are times of purification and the averting of evil influences: if they each mark the conclusion of an old season, and the necessity of great care in entering on a new one, we can better understand it. This was the case, as we saw, when in March the Salii were pervading the city, and it was so also at the Vestalia, which was preparatory to the ingathering of the crops. Some such critical moment, I think, the day we are discussing must also have been. Some light may be thrown on this aspect of the question by practices which have been collected by Dr. Mannhardt from Northern Europe[446], some of which still survive. I will give a single instance from Russia. At Murom on June 29 a figure of straw, dressed in female clothing, is laid on a bier and carried to the edge of a lake or river; it is eventually torn up and thrown into the river, while the spectators hide their faces and behave as though they bewailed the death of Kostroma. In another district on the same day an old man carried out of the town a puppet representing the spring, and was followed by the _women_ singing mournful songs and expressing by their gestures grief and despair. 4. _The Puppets and their immersion in the Tiber._—There are two possible explanations of this curious practice.