Protinus arbutea[526] postes ter in ordine tangit Fronde, ter arbutea limina fronde notat: Spargit aquis aditus—et aquae medicamen habebant— Extaque de porca cruda bimenstre tenet[527]. Atque ita ‘noctis aves, extis puerilibus’ inquit ‘Parcite: pro parvo victima parva cadit. Cor pro corde, precor, pro fibris sumite fibras. Hanc animam vobis pro meliore damus.’ Sic ubi libavit, prosecta sub aethere ponit, Quique adsint sacris, respicere illa vetat[528]. Virgaque Ianalis de spina ponitur alba[529] Qua lumen thalamis parva fenestra dabat. Post illud nec aves cunas violasse feruntur, Et rediit puero qui fuit ante color. Having told his folk-tale and described his charms, Ovid returns to Carna, and asks why people eat bean-gruel on the Kalends of June, with the rich fat of pigs. The answer is that the cult of Carna is of ancient date, and that the healthy food of man in early times is retained in it[530]. Sus erat in pretio; caesa sue festa colebant. Terra fabas tantum duraque farra dabat. Quae duo mixta simul sextis quicunque Kalendis Ederit, huic laedi viscera posse negant. This was undoubtedly the real popular belief—that by eating this food on Carna’s day your digestion was secured for the year. Macrobius[531] makes the practice into a much more definite piece of ritual. ‘_Prayers_ are offered to this goddess,’ he says, ‘for the good preservation of liver, heart, and the other internal organs of our bodies. Her _sacrifices_ are bean-meal and lard, because this is the best food for the nourishment of the body.’ Ovid is here the genuine Italian, Macrobius the scholar and theologian: both may be right. Whatever, then, may be the meaning or etymology of the name Carna, we may at least be sure that the cult belongs to the age of ancient Latin agriculture[532], since it was in connexion with her name that the popular belief survived in Ovid’s time of the virtue of bean-eating on the Kalends of June.