The second tableau shows the Sacrifice, by which the Sun’s jealousy is to be appeased. The scene is a lonely plateau, on which the “Sacred Stones” are set. There are also three grim-looking poles, on which are hung what seem to be votive offerings of hides and horns. It is night, and past the witching hour. The sun has vanished and ere he rise again the rite of propitiation must be performed. The young girls are discovered going through the mazy evolutions of a ceremonial dance, the object of which is the choice by hazard of the destined victim. (Such is the origin, the authors would presumably have us believe, of the “he” of the traditional games of childhood all the world over.) Precisely how the lot falls is not very apparent, but presently one girl starts forward from the rest and seems, from the curious motionless attitude which she assumes, to fall into a cataleptic trance. Her companions gather round, and do her honour in a dance described, for no clear reason, as “heroic.” They presently depart, leaving her to her fate. While the Chosen Victim still stands transfixed in a posture of extreme ugliness and (one imagines) excessive discomfort, the [Illustration] elders of the tribe make their appearance, come to evoke the spirits of their ancestors and perform the final rites of this mystic bridal dedication to the Sun. They achieve this by partially covering themselves with black bearskins, the limp forelegs of which, waggling at their elbows, give them the appearance of immense grotesque penguins as they strut solemnly round the object of their scrutiny. After this lengthy peripatetic inspection is concluded, they seat themselves in groups, and the Chosen Victim suddenly breaks into a dance--if dance can be called a series of agonised movements not less ugly and contorted than the immobile posture in which she has been for so long rigidly stationed. It is quite impossible to describe this “dance,” which it is an uncomfortable experience to watch--not for any offence that it contains, but for a feeling of sympathy with the unfortunate dancer who has to indulge such misplaced agility. Suffice it to explain that it “expresses” the last ecstasy of the Victim--a transition from exaltation to frenzy, from frenzy to exhaustion. At the moment of expiry, the watching elders leap to their feet, and seizing the Victim in their hands, hold her rigid corpse at arms’ length above their heads. It is thus, we are told, that sacrifice is made to Iarilo, the flaming, the superb. The ribald will be inclined to retort that it is to be hoped Iarilo likes it.