For the effigies so burned, as I have already
remarked, can hardly be separated from the effigies of Death which
are burned or otherwise destroyed in spring; and grounds have been
already given for regarding the so-called effigies of Death as
really representatives of the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation.
Are the other effigies, which are burned in the spring and midsummer
bonfires, susceptible of the same explanation? It would seem so. For
just as the fragments of the so-called Death are stuck in the fields
to make the crops grow, so the charred embers of the figure burned
in the spring bonfires are sometimes laid on the fields in the
belief that they will keep vermin from the crop. Again, the rule
that the last married bride must leap over the fire in which the
straw-man is burned on Shrove Tuesday, is probably intended to make
her fruitful. But, as we have seen, the power of blessing women with
offspring is a special attribute of tree-spirits; it is therefore a
fair presumption that the burning effigy over which the bride must
leap is a representative of the fertilising tree-spirit or spirit of
vegetation.
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