[479]. Iliad, xiv. 347 sqq. Hera was worshipped under the title of Flowery at Argos (Pausanias, ii. 22. 1; compare Etymol. Magn. s.v. Ἄνθεια, p. 108, line 48), and women called Flower-bearers served in her sanctuary (Pollux, iv. 78). A great festival of gathering flowers was celebrated by Peloponnesian women in spring (Hesychius, s.v. ἠροσάνθεια, compare Photius, Lexicon, s.v. Ἠροάνθια). The first of May is still a festival of flowers in Peloponnese. See Folk-lore, i. (1890) pp. 518 sqq.
[480]. J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed., i. 176; P. Herrmann, Nordische Mythologie (Leipsic, 1903), pp. 198 sqq., 217, 520, 529; E. H. Meyer, Mythologie der Germanen (Strasburg, 1903), pp. 366 sq. The procession of Frey and his wife in the waggon is doubtless the same with the procession of Nerthus in a waggon which Tacitus describes (Germania, 40). Nerthus seems to be no other than Freya, the wife of Frey. See the commentators on Tacitus, l.c., and especially K. Müllenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, iv. (Berlin, 1900) pp. 468 sq.
[481]. Gregory of Tours, De gloria confessorum, 77 (Migne’s Patrologia Latina, lxxi. col. 884). Compare Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Martini, 12: “Quia esset haec Gallorum rusticis consuetudo, simulacra daemonum candido tecta velamine misera per agros suos circumferre dementia.”
[482]. “Passio Sancti Symphoriani,” chs. 2 and 6 (Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, v. 1463, 1466).
[483]. These crazy wretches castrate men and mutilate women. Hence they are known as the Skoptsy (“mutilated”). See N. Tsakni, La Russie sectaire, pp. 74 sqq.
[484]. As to this feature in the ritual of Cybele, see Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Second Edition, pp. 219 sqq.
[485]. Max Buch, Die Wotjäken (Stuttgart, 1882), p. 137.
[486]. E. A. Gait, in Census of India, 1901, vol. vi. part i. p. 190.
[487]. P. J. de Arriaga, Extirpacion de la idolatria del Piru (Lima, 1621), p. 20.
[488]. Father Lacombe, in Missions Catholiques, ii. (1869) pp. 359 sq.