In this case the representative character of the person is
generally marked by dressing him or her in leaves or flowers;
sometimes, too, it is indicated by the name he or she bears.
Thus in some parts of Russia on St. George's Day (the twenty-third
of April) a youth is dressed out, like our Jack-in-the-Green, with
leaves and flowers. The Slovenes call him the Green George. Holding
a lighted torch in one hand and a pie in the other, he goes out to
the corn-fields, followed by girls singing appropriate songs. A
circle of brushwood is next lighted, in the middle of which is set
the pie. All who take part in the ceremony then sit down around the
fire and divide the pie among them. In this custom the Green George
dressed in leaves and flowers is plainly identical with the
similarly disguised Green George who is associated with a tree in
the Carinthian, Transylvanian, and Roumanian customs observed on the
same day. Again, we saw that in Russia at Whitsuntide a birch-tree
is dressed in woman's clothes and set up in the house. Clearly
equivalent to this is the custom observed on Whit-Monday by Russian
girls in the district of Pinsk.
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