tive study of folk-lore has placed
in our hands a key which ingenious theorists, proceeding with that
imperfect knowledge of antiquity which can be gathered from books, have
lacked, and for the want of which they have wandered in hopeless error.

In modern folk-belief the influence of the sun is less directly apparent.
The custom of saluting the rising orb, with which the day was once begun,
or of ascending high places where the benediction of the luminary could
be obtained, and the direct reverence to solar rays belonging to all
primitive life, survives only in the vague symbolism which, until very
lately, has caused churches to be built on hills. But a single essential
feature of sun-worship still survives, not only among ignorant and
isolated peasants, but in the households and among the matrons of
educated English-speaking folk. To this significant relic, so far as I
know, Mrs. Bergen has been the first to direct attention. That the sun
moves in a particular course must have been one of the first observations
which primitive man made in regard to the movements of celestial bodies.
His cardinal rule being to perform everything decently and in order, it
followed that the precedent set in heaven was to be imitated on earth. In
any operation for which success must be sought, progress must be
sun-wise; the reverse order could be suitable only for operations of
destructive magic, tending to undo natural sequences. Nevertheless, even
primitive man has a passion for originality, a desire to obtain
peculiarly intimate relations with nature, which may be to the advantage
of his own people; probably from this consideration certain American
tribes have reversed the ceremonial order, so far at least as to make
their processional movements in the opposite direction; but our modern
customs or household life show, among the ancestors of English folk, that
the sun-wise circuit entered not only into the religious life, but also
mingled with and directed the most ordinary actions. Little does the
modern housewife, who in beating the egg instinctively stirs her spoon in
one direction,--a form of movement usually recommended by no conscious
association of ideas,--imagine that in the method of her action she is
bearing testimony to the deepest ethical and ceremonial conceptions of
remote ancestors; yet there can be no doubt that such is the case. Here
also prevails the remarkable principle to which attention has already
been directed. The