Again, the terms on which
in later times the King of Calicut held office are identical with
those attached to the office of King of the Wood, except that
whereas the former might be assailed by a candidate at any time, the
King of Calicut might only be attacked once every twelve years. But
as the leave granted to the King of Calicut to reign so long as he
could defend himself against all comers was a mitigation of the old
rule which set a fixed term to his life, so we may conjecture that
the similar permission granted to the King of the Wood was a
mitigation of an older custom of putting him to death at the end of
a definite period. In both cases the new rule gave to the god-man at
least a chance for his life, which under the old rule was denied
him; and people probably reconciled themselves to the change by
reflecting that so long as the god-man could maintain himself by the
sword against all assaults, there was no reason to apprehend that
the fatal decay had set in.
The conjecture that the King of the Wood was formerly put to death
at the expiry of a fixed term, without being allowed a chance for
his life, will be confirmed if evidence can be adduced of a custom
of periodically killing his counterparts, the human representatives
of the tree-spirit, in Northern Europe.
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