Ebook wait

Again,
they bear individual or proper names, such as Demeter, Persephone,
Dionysus; and their individual characters and histories are fixed by
current myths and the representations of art.
4. The rites are magical rather than propitiatory. In other words,
the desired objects are attained, not by propitiating the favour of
divine beings through sacrifice, prayer, and praise, but by
ceremonies which, as I have already explained, are believed to
influence the course of nature directly through a physical sympathy
or resemblance between the rite and the effect which it is the
intention of the rite to produce.
Judged by these tests, the spring and harvest customs of our
European peasantry deserve to rank as primitive. For no special
class of persons and no special places are set exclusively apart for
their performance; they may be performed by any one, master or man,
mistress or maid, boy or girl; they are practised, not in temples or
churches, but in the woods and meadows, beside brooks, in barns, on
harvest fields and cottage floors.


Pages:
1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 1147 1148 1149 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158