tree, it was customary
to place young pines, divested of bark and branches, outside the houses
at Christmastide.{32} An English parallel which does not suggest any
borrowing from Germany, was formerly to be found at Brough in
Westmoreland on Twelfth Night. A holly-tree with torches attached to its
branches was carried through the town in procession. It was finally
thrown among the populace, who divided into two parties, one of which
endeavoured to take the tree to one inn, and the other, to a rival
hostelry.{33} We have here pretty plainly a struggle of two
factions--perhaps of two quarters of a town that were once separate
villages--for the possession of a sacred object.[103]

We may find parallels, lastly, in two remote corners of Europe. In the
island of Chios--here we are on Greek ground--tenants are wont to offer
to their landlords on Christmas morning a _rhamna_, a pole with wreaths
of myrtle, olive, and orange leaves bound around it; "to these are fixed
any flowers that may be found--geraniums, anemones, and the like, and, by
way of further decoration, oranges, lemons, and strips of gold and
coloured paper."[104]{34} Secondly, among the Circassians in the early
half of the nineteenth century, a young pear-tree used to be carried into
each house at an autumn festival, to the sound of music and joyous cries.
It was covered with candles, and a cheese was fastened to its top. Round
about it they ate, drank, and sang. Afterwards it was |271| removed to
the courtyard, where it remained for the rest of the year.{36}

Though there is no recorded instance of the use of a tree at Christmas in
Germany before the seventeenth century, the _Weihnachtsbaum_ may well be
a descendant of some sacred tree carried about or set up at the
beginning-of-winter festival. All things considered, it seems to belong
to a class of primitive sacraments of which the example most familiar to
English peoples is the May-pole. This is, of course, an early summer
institution, but in France and Germany a Harvest May is also known--a
large branch or a whole tree, which is decked with ears of corn, brought
home on the last waggon from the harvest field, and fastened to the roof
of farmhouse or barn, where it remains for a year.{37} Mannhardt has
shown that such sacraments embody the tree-spirit conceived as the spirit
of vegetation in general, and are believed to convey its life-giving,
fructifying influences. Probably the idea of contact with the spi