aly the Epiphany is associated with presents for
children, but the gift-bringers for little Spaniards are the Three Holy
Kings themselves. There is an old Spanish tradition that the Magi go
every year to Bethlehem to adore the infant Jesus, and on their way visit
children, leaving sweets and toys for them if they have behaved well. On
Epiphany Eve the youngsters go early to bed, put out their shoes on the
window-sill or balcony to be filled with presents by the Wise Men, and
provide a little straw for their horses.{27}

It is, or was, a custom in Madrid to look out for the Kings on Epiphany
Eve. Companies of men go out with bells and pots and pans, and make a
great noise. There is loud shouting, and torches cast a fantastic light
upon the scene. One of the men carries a large ladder, and mounts it to
see if the Kings are |344| coming. Here, perhaps, some devil-scaring
rite, resembling those described above, has been half-Christianized.{28}

In Provence, too, there was a custom of going to meet the Magi. In a
charming chapter of his Memoirs Mistral tells us how on Epiphany Eve all
the children of his countryside used to go out to meet the Kings, bearing
cakes for the Magi, dried figs for their pages, and handfuls of hay for
their horses. In the glory and colour of the sunset young Mistral thought
he saw the splendid train; but soon the gorgeous vision died away, and
the children stood gaping alone on the darkening highway--the Kings had
passed behind the mountain. After supper the little ones hurried to
church, and there in the Chapel of the Nativity beheld the Kings in
adoration before the Crib.{29}

At Trest not only did the young people carry baskets or dried fruit, but
there were three men dressed as Magi to receive the offerings and accept
compliments addressed to them by an orator. In return they presented him
with a purse full of counters, upon which he rushed off with the treasure
and was pursued by the others in a sort of dance.{30} Here again the
Magi are evidently mixed up with something that has no relation to
Christianity.

* * * * *

We noted in Chapter IV. the elaborate ceremonies connected in Greece with
the Blessing of the Waters at the Epiphany, and the custom of diving for
a cross. It would seem, as was pointed out, that the latter is an
ecclesiastically sanctioned form of a folk-ceremony. This is found in a
purer state in Macedonia, where, after Matins on the Epiphan