[471] Grimm, i. 57; Frazer, ii. 344; Grant Allen, 339; Jevons, 215; Dyer, 165; Ditchfield, 81.
[472] F. L. vi. 57; viii. 354; ix. 362; x. 111.
[473] F. L. vi. 1.
[474] Ditchfield, 116, 227; Suffolk F. L. 108; Dyer, Old English Social Life, 197. The boys are now said to be whipped in order that they may remember the boundaries; but the custom, which sometimes includes burying them, closely resembles the symbolical sacrifices of the harvest field (p. 158). Grant Allen, 270, suggests that the tears shed are a rain-charm. I hope he is joking.
[475] Brand, ii. 13; Suffolk F. L. 69, 71; Leicester F. L. 121. A ‘harvest-lord’ is probably meant by the ‘Rex Autumnalis’ mentioned in the Accounts of St. Michael’s, Bath (ed. Somerset Arch. Soc. 88), in 1487, 1490, and 1492. A corona was hired by him from the parish. Often the reaper who cuts the last sheaf (i.e. slays the divinity) becomes harvest-lord.
[476] Gomme, Village Community, 107; Dyer, 339; Northall, 202; Gloucester F. L. 33.
[477] Frazer, i. 216; E. Pabst, Die Volksfeste des Maigrafen (1865).
[478] Frazer, i. 219; Cortet, 160; Brand, i. 126; Dyer, 266; Ditchfield, 98.
[479] Tacitus, Germ. c. 43 ‘apud Nahanarvalos antiquae religionis lucus ostenditur. praesidet sacerdos muliebri ornatu.’
[480] Conc. of Trullo (692), c. 62 (Mansi, xi. 671) ‘Nullus vir deinceps muliebri veste induatur, vel mulier veste viro conveniente’; Conc. of Braga (of doubtful date), c. 80 (Mansi, ix. 844) ‘Si quis ballationes ante ecclesias sanctorum fecerit, seu quis faciem suam transformaverit in habitu muliebri et mulier in habitu viri emendatione pollicita tres annos poeniteat.’ The exchange of head-gear between men and women remains a familiar feature of the modern bank-holiday. Some Greek parallels are collected by Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 197. E. Crawley, The Mystic Rose (1902), viii. 371, suggests another explanation, which would connect the custom with the amorous side of the primitive festivals.