Indeed, when we consider the cold and cloudy
climate of Europe during a great part of the year, we shall find it
natural that sun-charms should have played a much more prominent
part among the superstitious practices of European peoples than
among those of savages who live nearer the equator and who
consequently are apt to get in the course of nature more sunshine
than they want. This view of the festivals may be supported by
various arguments drawn partly from their dates, partly from the
nature of the rites, and partly from the influence which they are
believed to exert upon the weather and on vegetation.
First, in regard to the dates of the festivals it can be no mere
accident that two of the most important and widely spread of the
festivals are timed to coincide more or less exactly with the summer
and winter solstices, that is, with the two turning-points in the
sun's apparent course in the sky when he reaches respectively his
highest and his lowest elevation at noon. Indeed with respect to the
midwinter celebration of Christmas we are not left to conjecture; we
know from the express testimony of the ancients that it was
instituted by the church to supersede an old heathen festival of the
birth of the sun, which was apparently conceived to be born again on
the shortest day of the year, after which his light and heat were
seen to grow till they attained their full maturity at midsummer.
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