Similarity between the fire-customs of the Herero and the ancient Latins; rites performed by the Vestals for the fertility of the earth and the fecundity of cattle; the Vestals as embodiments of Vesta, a mother-goddess of fertility; the domestic fire as a fecundating agent in marriage ritual; newborn children and the domestic fire; reasons for ascribing a procreative virtue to fire; fire kindled by friction by human representatives of the Fire-father and Fire-mother; fire kindled by friction by boy and girl or by man and woman; human fire-makers sometimes married, sometimes unmarried; holy fire and virgins of St. Brigit in Ireland; the oaks of Erin; virgin priestesses of fire in ancient Peru and Mexico; the Agnihotris or fire-priests of the Brahmans; kinds of wood employed for fire-sticks in India and ancient Greece.
Chapter XVII.—The Origin of Perpetual Fires Pp. [253-265]
Custom of perpetual fires probably originated in motives of convenience; races reported to be ignorant of the means of making fire; fire probably used by men before they knew how to kindle it; savages carry fire with them as a matter of convenience; Prometheus the fire-bringer; perpetual fires maintained by chiefs and kings; fire extinguished at king’s death.
Chapter XVIII.—The Succession to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium Pp. [266-323]
The sacred functions of Latin kings in general probably the same as those of the Roman kings; question of the rule of succession to the Latin kingship; list of Alban kings; list of Roman kings; Latin kingship apparently transmitted in female line to foreign husbands of princesses; miraculous births of kings explained on this hypothesis; marriage of princesses to men of inferior rank in Africa; traces of female descent of kingship in Greece; and in Scandinavia; reminiscence of such descent in popular tales; female descent of kingship among the Picts, the Lydians, the Danes, and the Saxons; traces of female kinship or mother-kin among the Aryans, the Picts, and the Etruscans; mother-kin may survive in royal families after it has been superseded by father-kin among commoners; the Roman kings plebeians, not patricians; the first consuls at Rome heirs to the throne according to mother-kin; attempt of Tarquin to change the line of succession from the female to the male line; the hereditary principle compatible with the elective principle in succession to the throne; combination of the hereditary with the elective principle in succession to the kingship in Africa and Assam; similar combination perhaps in force at Rome; personal qualities required in kings and chiefs; succession to the throne determined by a race; custom of racing for a bride; contests for a bride other than a race; the Flight of the King (Regifugium) at Rome perhaps a relic of a contest for the kingdom and the hand of a princess; confirmation of this theory from the practice of killing a human representative of Saturn at the Saturnalia; violent ends of Roman kings; death of Romulus on the Nonae Caprotinae (7th July), an old licentious festival like the Saturnalia for the fertilisation of the fig; violent deaths of other Roman kings; succession to Latin kingship perhaps decided by single combat; African parallels; Greek and Italian kings may have personated Cronus and Saturn before they personated Zeus and Jupiter.
Chapter XIX.—St. George and the Parilia Pp. [324-348]
The early Italians a pastoral as well as agricultural people; the shepherds’ festival of the Parilia on 21st April; intention of the festival to ensure the welfare of the flocks and herds and to guard them against witches and wolves; festival of the same kind still held in Eastern Europe on 23rd April, St. George’s Day; precautions taken by the Esthonians against witches and wolves on St. George’s Day, when they drive out the cattle to pasture for the first time; St. George’s Day a pastoral festival in Russia; among the Ruthenians, among the Huzuls of the Carpathians; St. George as the patron of horses in Silesia and Bavaria; St. George’s Day among the Saxons and Roumanians of Transylvania; St. George’s Day a herdsman’s festival among the Walachians, Bulgarians, and South Slavs; precautions taken against witches and wolves whenever the cattle are driven out to pasture for the first time, as in Prussia and Sweden; these parallels illustrate some features of the Parilia; St. George as a personification of trees or vegetation in general; St. George as patron of childbirth and love; St. George seems to have displaced an old Aryan god of the spring, such as the Lithuanian Pergrubiusk.
Chapter XX.—The Worship of the Oak Pp. [349-375]
§ 1. The Diffusion of the Oak in Europe—Jupiter the god of the oak, the sky, and thunder; of these attributes the oak is probably primary and the sky and thunder secondary; Europe covered with oak forests in prehistoric times; remains of oaks found in peat-bogs; ancient lake dwellings built on oaken piles; evidence of classical writers as to oak forests in antiquity; oak-woods in modern Europe.
§ 2. The Aryan God of the Oak and the Thunder—Aryan worship of the oak and of the god of the oak; Zeus as the god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain in ancient Greece; Jupiter as the god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain in ancient Italy; Celtic worship of the oak; Donar and Thor the Teutonic gods of the oak and thunder; Perun the god of the oak and thunder among the Slavs; Perkunas the god of the oak and thunder among the Lithuanians; Taara the god of the oak and thunder among the Esthonians; Parjanya, the old Indian god of thunder, rain, and fertility; gods of thunder and rain in America, Africa, and the Caucasus; traces of the worship of the oak in modern Europe; in the great European god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain, the original element seems to have been the oak.