Footnote 457: Our Jack-in-the-Green is probably a survival of this kind of rite. Footnote 458: Nearly all these customs occur either at Whitsuntide or harvest. Mannhardt conjectured that the Argei-rite was originally a harvest custom (_A. W. F._ 269); quite needlessly, I think. Footnote 459: _Baumkultus_, 331. Footnote 460: Mannhardt allows this, _Baumkultus_, 336 note. Footnote 461: _Baumkultus_, 358 foll. His theory is expressed in judicious and by no means dogmatic language. It may be that he runs his Vegetation-spirit somewhat too hard—and no mythologist is free from the error of seeing his own discovery exemplified wherever he turns. But the spirit of vegetation had been found at Rome long before Mannhardt’s time (see e. g. Preller’s account of Mars and the deities related to him). Footnote 462: _Baumkultus_, 359, 420; _Korndämonen_, 24. Footnote 463: _Baumkultus_, 349 foll., 365, 414. Footnote 464: Cp. the root _cas-_, which (according to Corssen, _Aussprache_, i. 652 note), appears both in _canus_ and _cascus_, and also in the Oscan _casnar_ = ‘an old man.’ The word _casnar_ is used by Varro (ap. Nonium, 86) for _sexagenarius_, or possibly _argeus_: ‘Vix ecfatus erat cum more maiorum carnales (= casnales) arripiunt et de ponte deturbant.’ Cf. Varro, _L. L._ 7. 73; Mommsen, _Unteritalische Dialekten_, p. 268. The root _arg_ may perhaps have meant _holy_ as well as old or white, like the Welsh _gwen_ (Rhys, _Celtic Mythology_, 527 note). Footnote 465: _Baumkultus_, 214-16, 355, &c. On p. 356 is a valuable note giving examples from America, India, &c. For a remarkable case from ancient Egypt, of which the object is not rain, but inundation, see Tylor, _Prim. Cult._ ii. 368. See also Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_ (E. T.), p. 593 foll. Footnote 466: _Quaest. Rom._ 86. This work is undoubtedly drawn chiefly from Varro’s writings, but largely through the medium of those of Juba the king of Mauretania, who wrote in Greek (Barth de Jubae Ὁμοιότησιν in Plutarcho expressis: Göttingen, 1876). Footnote 467: Parallels in _Baumkultus_, pp. 170, 178, 211, 409. These are examples of May-trees and other objects, sometimes decked out as human beings, which are hung up in the homestead for a certain time—e. g. in Austria from May-day to St. John Baptist’s day, a period closely corresponding both in length and season to that at Rome, from March 15 to May 15. In the church of Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, it is hung on the rood-screen from May 1 onwards. Footnote 468: Ovid, _Fasti_, 5. 627; Dionys. 1. 38. Footnote 469: See Macrob. 1. 7. 28. In Dionysius’ version, however, of the line it is Ἅιδης to whom the sacrifice is offered. Footnote 470: Festus, 334. Footnote 471: _Topogr._ ii. 285. Footnote 472: _Lex._ s. v. Mercurius, p. 2804. Footnote 473: Aust, _de Aedibus sacris_, p. 5. Footnote 474: