ter. The Slavonic year began in March,
at which time there was formerly, it is believed, a great festival, not
only in Slavonic but also in Teutonic countries. In Northern Germany there
were Easter bonfires always associated with mountains or hills. The Celtic
bonfires were held at the beginning of May, while the Teutonic May-day, or
_Walpurgisnacht_, is a very ancient sacred festival, associated with
erotic ceremonial, and regarded by Grimm as having a common origin with
the Roman _floralia_ and the Greek _dionysia_. Thus, in Europe, Grimm
concludes: "there are four different ways of welcoming summer. In Sweden
and Gothland a battle of winter and summer, a triumphal entry of the
latter. In Schonen, Denmark, Lower Saxony, and England, simply May-riding,
or fetching of the May-wagon. On the Rhine merely a battle of winter and
summer, without immersion, without the pomp of an entry. In Franconia,
Thuringia, Meissen, Silesia, and Bohemia only the carrying out of wintry
death; no battle, no formal introduction of summer. Of these festivals the
first and second fall in May, the third and fourth in March. In the first
two, the whole population take part with unabated enthusiasm; in the last
two only the lower poorer class.... Everything goes to prove that the
approach of summer was to our forefathers a holy tide, welcomed by
sacrifice, feast, and dance, and largely governing and brightening the
people's life."[144] The early spring festival of March, the festival of
Ostara, the goddess of spring, has become identified with the Christian
festival of Resurrection (just as the summer solstice festival has been
placed beneath the patronage of St. John the Baptist); but there has been
only an amalgamation of closely-allied rites, for the Christian festival
also may be traced back to a similar origin. Among the early Arabians the
great _ragab_ feast, identified by Ewald and Robertson Smith with the
Jewish _paschal_ feast, fell in the spring or early summer, when the
camels and other domestic animals brought forth their young and the
shepherds offered their sacrifices.[145] Babylonia, the supreme early
centre of religious and cosmological culture, presents a more decisive
example of the sex festival. The festival of Tammuz is precisely analogous
to the European festival of St. John's Day. Tammuz was the solar god of
spring vegetation, and closely associated with Ishtar, also an
agricultural deity of fertility. The Tammuz festival was,