and whose marriage or union magically
assisted growth and fertility, as in numerous examples of this ritual
marriage elsewhere.[928] It may be assumed that a considerable amount of
sexual licence also took place with the same magical purpose. Sacred
marriage and festival orgy were an appeal to the forces of nature to
complete their beneficial work, as well as a magical aid to them in that
work. Analogy leads to the supposition that the king of the May was
originally a priest-king, the incarnation of the spirit of vegetation.
He or his surrogate was slain, while his bodily force was unabated, in
order that it might be passed on undiminished to his successor. But the
persistent place given to the May queen rather than to the king suggests
the earlier prominence of women and of female spirits of fertility or of
a great Mother-goddess in such rites. It is also significant that in the
Perthshire ritual the man chosen was still called the _Beltane carlane_
or _cailleach_ ("old woman"). And if, as Professor Pearson maintains,
witch orgies are survivals of old sex-festivals, then the popular belief
in the activity of witches on Beltane eve, also shows that the festival
had once been mainly one in which women took part. Such orgies often
took place on hills which had been the sites of a cult in former
times.[929]

MIDSUMMER.

The ritual of the Midsummer festival did not materially differ from that
of Beltane, and as folk-survivals show, it was practised not only by the
Celts, but by many other European peoples. It was, in fact, a primitive
nature festival such as would readily be observed by all under similar
psychic conditions and in like surroundings. A bonfire was again the
central rite of this festival, the communal nature of which is seen in
the fact that all must contribute materials to it. In local survivals,
mayor and priest, representing the earlier local chief and priest, were
present, while a service in church preceded the procession to the scene
of the bonfire. Dancing sunwise round the fire to the accompaniment of
songs which probably took the place of hymns or tunes in honour of the
Sun-god, commonly occurred, and by imitating the sun's action, may have
been intended to make it more powerful. The livelier the dance the
better would be the harvest.[930] As the fire represented the sun, it
possessed the purifying and invigorating powers of the sun; hence
leaping through the fire preserved from disease, brought