farmer’s wife might claim exemption on payment of a forfeit; but every one else had to be ducked. By observing this custom they hoped to ensure a due supply of rain for the seed.[1] Also after harvest in Prussia, the person who wore a wreath made of the last corn cut was drenched with water, while a prayer was uttered that “as the corn had sprung up and multiplied through the water, so it might spring up and multiply in the barn and granary.”[2] In a Babylonian legend, the goddess Istar (Astarte, Aphrodite) descends to Hades to fetch the water of life with which to restore to life the dead Thammuz, and it appears that the water was thrown over him at a great mourning ceremony, at which men and women stood round the funeral pyre of Thammuz lamenting.[3] This legend, as Mannhardt points out, is probably a mythical explanation of a Babylonian festival resembling the Syrian festival of Adonis. At this festival, which doubtless took place in the month Thammuz (June-July)[4] and therefore about midsummer, the dead Thammuz was probably represented in effigy, water was poured over him, and he came to life again. This Babylonian legend is, therefore, of importance, since it confirms the view that the purpose for which the images and gardens of Adonis were thrown into the water was to effect the resurrection of the god, that
- ↑ Matthaus Praetorius, Deliciae Prussicae, 55; W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 214 sq. note.
- ↑ Praetorius, op. cit., 60; W. Mannhardt, Baumkultus, p. 215, note.
- ↑ A. H. Sayce, Religion of the ancient Babylonians (Hibbert Lectures, 1887), p. 221 sqq.; W.Mannhardt, Antike Wald-und Feldkulte, p. 275.
- ↑ According to Jerome (on Ezechiel, viii. 14), Thammuz was June; but according to modern scholars the month corresponded rather to July, or to part of June and part of July. Movers, Die Phoenizier, i. 210; Mannhardt, A.W.F. p. 275. My friend, Prof. W. Robertson Smith, informs me that owing to the variations of the local Syrian calendars the month Thammuz fell in different places at different times, from mid-summer to autumn, or from June to September.
