(2) The rite was of a dramatic rather than a sacrificial character[453], and belongs to a class of which we have numerous examples both from Greek, Teutonic, and Slavonic peoples. In Greece, or rather in Egypt, we have the cult of Adonis, in which a puppet is immersed in the water amid wailings and lamentations. In Greece proper semi-dramatic rites are found at Chaeronea and Athens[454], though somewhat different in character to those of the Argei and Adonis. Tacitus describes the immersion in water of the image of the German goddess Nerthus[455]. But most significant are the many examples, of which Mannhardt formed an ample collection, in which puppets are found, made as a rule of straw, carried along in procession and thrown into a river or water of some kind, often from a bridge[456]. Sometimes the place of these puppets is taken by a sheaf, a small tree, or a man or boy dressed up in foliage or fastened in the sheaf[457]: but in almost all cases the object is ducked in water or at least sprinkled with it, though now and then it is burnt or buried. The best known example is that of the Bavarian ‘Wasservogel,’ which is either a boy or a puppet, as the custom may be in different places; he or it was decorated, carried round the fields at Whitsuntide[458], and thrown from the bridge into the stream. So constant and inconvenient was this kind of custom in the Middle Ages that a law of 1351, still extant, forbade the ducking of people at Erfurt in the water at Easter and Whitsuntide[459]. In many of these cases the _simulacrum_ may have been substituted for a human being[460]; but I find none where the notion of sacrifice survived, or where there was any trace of a popular belief that the object was a substitute for an actual victim. What these curious customs, according to Dr. Mannhardt, do really represent, is the departure of winter and the arrival of the fruitful season, or possibly the exhaustion of the vernal Power of vegetation after its work is done[461]. Two features in these old customs may strike us as interesting in connexion with the Argei—(1) The fact that the central object is often either actually _an old man_, or is at least called ‘the old one.’ A Whitsuntide custom at Halle shows us, for example, a straw puppet called _Der alte_[462]. (2) The constant occurrence of white objects in these customs; the puppet is called ‘the white man with the white hair, the snow-white husband,’ or is dressed in a white shirt[463]. In these expressions it is perhaps not impossible that we may find a clue to the long-lost meaning of the word Argei. Can it be that the Roman puppets were originally called ‘the white ones,’ i. e. old ones, from a root _arg_ = ‘white’[464]; and that from a natural mistake as to the meaning of the word there arose not only the story about the Greek victims but also the common belief about sexagenarii being thrown over the bridge? * * * * *