This last point supplies us with a possible clue both to the origin of the custom and the explanatory legend. One of the most frequent customs at harvest-time used to be, and still is in some places, for the harvesters to mock at, and even to use roughly, any stranger who appears on the field; frequently he is tied up with straw, even by the women binding the sheaves, and only released on promise of money, brandy, &c.; or he is ducked in water, or half-buried, or in pretence beheaded[734]. The stranger in such cases is explained as representing the spirit of the corn; the examples collected by Mannhardt and Mr. Frazer seem fairly conclusive on this point[735]. The wearing of the matron’s dress also seems to be a combination of the familiar practices of the winter Saturnalia with harvest customs, which in various forms is by no means uncommon[736], though I have not found a case of exchange of dress after harvest. Thus it would seem possible that we have here a relic of Italian harvest-custom; and this is confirmed by the statement of Tertullian that there was on this day a sacrifice to the harvest-god Consus[737], at his underground altar in the Circus Maximus, of which we shall have more to say under Aug. 21 (Consualia). It is worth noting here that just as the legend of the Rape of the Sabines was connected with the Consualia[738], so the analogous story of the demand of the Fidenates for Roman women is associated with the _Ancillarum Feriae_, and the day of the sacrifice to Consus. This not only serves to connect together the two days of Consus-worship, but suggests that harvest was a favourable opportunity for the practice of capturing wives in primitive Italy, when the women were out in the fields, and might be carried off by a sudden incursion. This day was also known as Nonae Caprotinae, because the women, presumably those who had been helping at the harvest, both bond and free[739], sacrificed to Juno Caprotina under a wild fig-tree (caprificus) in the Campus Martius[740]. Juno Caprotina was a Latin goddess, of great renown at Falerii[741], where the goat from which she took her name appears in the legend of her cult. The character of Juno as the representative of the female principle of human life[742] suits well enough with the prominence of women both in the customs and legends connected with the day; and the fig-tree with its milky juice, which was used, according to Macrobius, in the sacrifice to Juno instead of milk, has also its significance[743]. Varro adds that a rod (virga) was also cut from this tree[744], without telling us for what purpose it was used; and it has been ingeniously conjectured that it was with this that the handmaids beat each other as Plutarch describes, to produce fertility, just as at the Lupercalia the women were beaten with strips cut from the skins of the victims (amiculum Junonis). But this is mere conjecture, and Varro’s statement is too indefinite to be pressed[745].