It is the old
fallacy that the effect resembles its cause: if you would make wet
weather, you must be wet; if you would make dry weather, you must be
dry.
In South-eastern Europe at the present day ceremonies are
observed for the purpose of making rain which not only rest on the
same general train of thought as the preceding, but even in their
details resemble the ceremonies practised with the same intention
by the Baronga of Delagoa Bay. Among the Greeks of Thessaly and
Macedonia, when a drought has lasted a long time, it is customary
to send a procession of children round to all the wells and springs
of the neighbourhood. At the head of the procession walks a girl
adorned with flowers, whom her companions drench with water at
every halting-place, while they sing an invocation, of which the
following is part:
"Perperia all fresh bedewed,
Freshen all the neighbourhood;
By the woods, on the highway,
As thou goest, to God now pray:
O my God, upon the plain,
Send thou us a still, small rain;
That the fields may fruitful be,
And vines in blossom we may see;
That the grain be full and sound,
And wealthy grow the folks around.
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