[361] Jevons, 240, 255; Pearson, ii. 42; O. T. Mason, Woman’s Share in Primitive Culture, 14.
[362] Burne-Jackson, 352, 362; Rhys, C. F. i. 312; F. L. v. 339; Dyer, 133; Ditchfield, 70; cf. ch. vi. One of the hills so visited is the artificial one of Silbury, and perhaps the custom points to the object with which this and the similar ‘mound’ at Marlborough were piled up.
[363] Frazer, ii. 261, deals very fully with the theriomorphic corn-spirits of folk belief.
[364] On these triads and others in which three male or three female figures appear, cf. Bertrand, 341; A. Maury, Croyances et Légendes du Moyen Âge (1896), 6; Matronen-Kultus in Zeitschrift d. Vereins f. Volkskultur, ii. 24. I have not yet seen L. L. Paine, The Ethnic Trinities and their Relation to the Christian Trinity (1901).
[365] Mogk, iii. 333; Golther, 298; Grimm, iv. 1709; Kemble, i. 335; Rhys, C. H. 282; H. M. Chadwick, Cult of Othin (1899).
[366] Mogk, iii. 366; Golther, 428.
[367] Mogk, iii. 374; Golther, 488; Tille, Y. and C. 144; Bede, de temp. ratione, c. 15 (Opera, ed. Giles, vi. 179) ‘Eostur-monath qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum, quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit; a cuius nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.’ There seems no reason for thinking with Golther and Tille, that Bede made a mistake. Charlemagne took the name Ôstarmánoth for April, perhaps only out of compliment to the English, such as Alcuin, at his court.
[368] A Charm for unfruitful or bewitched land (O. Cockayne, Leechdoms of Early England, R. S. i. 399); cf. Grimm, i. 253; Golther, 455; Kögel, i. 1. 39. The ceremony has taken on a Christian colouring, but retains many primitive features. Strips of turf are removed, and masses said over them. They are replaced after oil, honey, barm, milk of every kind of cattle, twigs of every tree, and holy water have been put on the spot. Seed is bought at a double price from almsmen and poured into a hole in the plough with salt and herbs. Various invocations are used, including one which calls on ‘Erce, Erce, Erce, Eorthan modor,’ and implores the Almighty to grant her fertility. Then the plough is driven, and a loaf, made of every kind of corn with milk and holy water, laid under the first furrow. Kögel considers Erce to be derived from ero, ‘earth.’ Brooke, i. 217, states on the authority of Montanus that a version of the prayer preserved in a convent at Corvei begins ‘Eostar, Eostar, Eordhan modor.’ He adds: ‘nothing seems to follow from this clerical error.’ But why an error? The equation Erce-Eostre is consistent with the fundamental identity of the light-goddess and the earth-goddess.
[369] Tacitus, Ann. i. 51; Mogk, iii. 373; Golther, 458; cf. ch. xii.
[370] Gomme, Village Community, 157; B. C. A. Windle, Life in Early Britain, 200; F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, 142, 337, 346.