The Golden Bough - The Original Classic Edition. Frazer Sir

ants, as soon as they perceived him, was to take a young virgin, and, having adorned her, to lead her to a heathen temple that stood

       on the shore, with a window looking out to sea. There they left the damsel for the night, and when they came back in the morning

       they found her a maid no more, and dead. Every month they drew lots, and he upon whom the lot fell gave up his daughter to the

       78

       jinnee of the sea. The last of the maidens thus offered to the demon was rescued by a pious Berber, who by reciting the Koran suc-

       ceeded in driving the jinnee back into the sea.

       Ibn Batutah's narrative of the demon lover and his mortal brides closely resembles a well-known type of folk-tale, of which ver-

       sions have been found from Japan and Annam in the East to Senegambia, Scandinavia, and Scotland in the West. The story varies in details from people to people, but as commonly told it runs thus. A certain country is infested by a many-headed serpent, dragon, or

       other monster, which would destroy the whole people if a human victim, generally a virgin, were not delivered up to him periodically.

       Many victims have perished, and at last it has fallen to the lot of the king's own daughter to be sacrificed. She is exposed to the mon-

       ster, but the hero of the tale, generally a young man of humble birth, interposes in her behalf, slays the monster, and receives the

       hand of the princess as his reward. In many of the tales the monster, who is sometimes described as a serpent, inhabits the water of

       a sea, a lake, or a fountain. In other versions he is a serpent or dragon who takes possession of the springs of water, and only allows

       the water to flow or the people to make use of it on condition of receiving a human victim.

       It would probably be a mistake to dismiss all these tales as pure inventions of the story-teller. Rather we may suppose that they reflect a real custom of sacrificing girls or women to be the wives of waterspirits, who are very often conceived as great serpents or

       dragons.

       XIII. The Kings of Rome and Alba

       1. Numa and Egeria

       FROM THE FOREGOING survey of custom and legend we may infer that the sacred marriage of the powers both of vegeta-

       tion and of water has been celebrated by many peoples for the sake of promoting the fertility of the earth, on which the life of

       animals and men ultimately depends, and that in such rites the part of the divine bridegroom or bride is often sustained by a man or

       woman. The evidence may, therefore, lend some countenance to the conjecture that in the sacred grove at Nemi, where the powers

       of vegetation and of water manifested themselves in the fair forms of shady woods, tumbling cascades, and glassy lake, a marriage

       like that of our King and Queen of May was annually celebrated between the mortal King of the Wood and the immortal Queen of

       the Wood, Diana. In this connexion an important figure in the grove was the water-nymph Egeria, who was worshipped by pregnant

       women because she, like Diana, could grant them an easy delivery. From this it seems fairly safe to conclude that, like many other

       springs, the water of Egeria was credited with a power of facilitating conception as well as delivery. The votive offerings found on

       the spot, which clearly refer to the begetting of children, may possibly have been dedicated to Egeria rather than to Diana, or per-

       haps we should rather say that the water-nymph Egeria is only another form of the great nature-goddess Diana herself, the mistress

       of sounding rivers as well as of umbrageous woods, who had her home by the lake and her mirror in its calm waters, and whose

       Greek counterpart Artemis loved to haunt meres and springs. The identification of Egeria with Diana is confirmed by a statement

       of Plutarch that Egeria was one of the oak-nymphs whom the Romans believed to preside over every green oak-grove; for, while

       Diana was a goddess of the woodlands in general, she appears to have been intimately associated with oaks in particular, especially at

       her sacred grove of Nemi. Perhaps, then, Egeria was the fairy of a spring that flowed from the roots of a sacred oak. Such a spring

       is said to have gushed from the foot of the great oak at Dodona, and from its murmurous flow the priestess drew oracles. Among

       the Greeks a draught of water from certain sacred springs or wells was supposed to confer prophetic powers. This would explain the

       more than mortal wisdom with which, according to tradition, Egeria inspired her royal husband or lover Numa. When we remember

       how very often in early society the king is held responsible for the fall of rain and the fruitfulness of the earth, it seems hardly rash

       to conjecture that in the legend of the nuptials of Numa and Egeria we have a reminiscence of a sacred marriage which the old

       Roman kings regularly contracted with a goddess of vegetation and water for the purpose of enabling him to discharge his divine

       or magical functions. In such a rite the part of the goddess might be played either by an image or a woman, and if by a woman,

       probably by the Queen. If there is any truth in this conjecture, we may suppose that the King and Queen of Rome masqueraded as

       god and goddess at their marriage, exactly as the King and Queen of Egypt appear to have done. The legend of Numa and Egeria

       points to a sacred grove rather than to a house as the scene of the nuptial union, which, like the marriage of the King and Queen of

       May, or of the vine-god and the Queen of Athens, may have been annually celebrated as a charm to ensure the fertility not only of

       the earth but of man and beast. Now, according to some accounts, the scene of the marriage was no other than the sacred grove of

       Nemi, and on quite independent grounds we have been led to suppose that in that same grove the King of the Wood was wedded

       to Diana. The convergence of the two distinct lines of enquiry suggests that the legendary union of the Roman king with Egeria

       may have been a reflection or duplicate of the union of the King of the Wood with Egeria or her double Diana. This does not imply

       that the Roman kings ever served as Kings of the Wood in the Arician grove, but only that they may originally have been invested

       with a sacred character of the same general kind, and may have held office on similar terms. To be more explicit, it is possible that

       they reigned, not by right of birth, but in virtue of their supposed divinity as representatives or embodiments of a god, and that as

       such they mated with a goddess, and had to prove their fitness from time to time to discharge their divine functions by engaging in a

       severe bodily struggle, which may often have proved fatal to them, leaving the crown to their victorious adversary. Our knowledge of

       the Roman kingship is far too scanty to allow us to affirm any one of these propositions with confidence; but at least there are some

       79

       scattered hints or indications of a similarity in all these respects between the priests of Nemi and the kings of Rome, or perhaps rather between their remote predecessors in the dark ages which preceded the dawn of legend.

       2. The King as Jupiter

       IN THE FIRST place, then, it would seem that the Roman king personated no less a deity than Jupiter himself. For down to imperial times victorious generals celebrating a triumph, and magistrates presiding at the games in the Circus, wore the costume of Jupiter, which was borrowed for the occasion from his great temple on the Capitol; and it has been held with a high degree