When the winter was over, then, just as the sun set the dog star would be rising in the east, and this would show that the spring was at hand. Then the peasants prepared to till the earth and sow the seed and lead the oxen out to pasture, and celebrated with joyful mirth the glad advent of the spring, corresponding to our Easter, when the sun had run through three constellations of the zodiac. Then came the summer heat, and with many a mystic rite they celebrated Midsummer’s Day. In autumn, after three more signs of the zodiac have been traversed by the sun, the sun again rises exactly in the east and sets in the west, and the days and nights are equal. This is the autumnal equinox, and was once celebrated by the feast which we now know as Michaelmas Day, and the goose is the remnant of the ancient festival. [Illustration: FIG. 2.] And the great winter feast of the ancients is now known to us as Christmas, and chosen to celebrate the birth of our Lord; for when Christianity came into the world and the heathens were converted, the old feast days were deliberately changed into Christian festivals. To us, therefore, the whole heavens, and the fixed stars with them, appear to turn from east to west, or from left to right, as we look towards the south, as shown by the big arrow. But the moon and sun, though apparently placed in the heavens, move backwards among the fixed stars, as shown by the small arrows. The sun moves at such a rate that he goes round the circle of the heavens in a year of three hundred and sixty-five days. The moon goes round the circle in twenty-eight and a half days, or a lunar month. Of course, in reality the sun is at rest, and it is the earth that moves round the sun and spins on its axis as it moves. But it will presently be shown that the appearance to a person on the earth is the same whether the earth goes round the sun or the sun round the earth. From the works of Greek writers we know a good deal about the ideas of the world that were entertained by the ancients. The most early notions were, of course, connected with the worship of the gods. The sun was considered as a huge light carried in a chariot, driven by Apollo, with four spirited steeds. It descended to the ocean when the day declined, and then the horses were unyoked by the nymphs of the ocean and led round to the east, so as to be ready for the journey of the following day. The Egyptians figured the sun as placed in a boat which sailed over the heavens. At night the sun god descended into the infernal regions, carrying with him the souls of those who had died during the day. There they passed through different regions of hell, with portals guarded by hideous monsters. Those who had well learned the ritual of the dead knew the words of power wherewith to appease the demons. Those unprovided with the watchwords were subjected to terrible dangers. Then the soul appeared before Minos, and was weighed and dealt with according to its deserts.