This seals their relationship to
each other. Dancing and music go on till late at night. The
correspondence of these Sardinian pots of grain to the gardens of
Adonis seems complete, and the images formerly placed in them answer
to the images of Adonis which accompanied his gardens.
Customs of the same sort are observed at the same season in Sicily.
Pairs of boys and girls become gossips of St. John on St. John's Day
by drawing each a hair from his or her head and performing various
ceremonies over them. Thus they tie the hairs together and throw
them up in the air, or exchange them over a potsherd, which they
afterwards break in two, preserving each a fragment with pious care.
The tie formed in the latter way is supposed to last for life. In
some parts of Sicily the gossips of St. John present each other with
plates of sprouting corn, lentils, and canary seed, which have been
planted forty days before the festival. The one who receives the
plate pulls a stalk of the young plants, binds it with a ribbon, and
preserves it among his or her greatest treasures, restoring the
platter to the giver.
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