Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/33

 The Legends of Krishna, 23

by her favourite dog, Maera, hanged herself on a tree close by. Dionysus thereupon sent a grievous plague which could be stayed only by the offering to him of the Phallus. Then, in order to appease the ghost of Erigone, the Athenian maidens all began to hang themselves. This madness could be appeased only by the institution of the feast of the Aiora, in which maidens swing themselves on trees, a clear instance of a folktale invented to explain a piece of primitive ritual.^ By another story the rite seems to have been con- nected with the suicide of Phaedra.'"^ The Aiora has come down to modern times in the Greek islands. "On the Tuesday after Easter the maidens of Seriphos play their favourite game of the swing. They hang a rope from one wall to the other, put some clothes on it, and swing, singing and swinging one after another. Aware of this, the young men try to pass by, and are called upon for a toll of one penny each, a song, and a swing. The words they use are as follows : ' The gold is swung, the silver is swung, and swung, too, is my love with the golden hair.' To which the maiden replies : ' Who is it that swings me that I may gild him with my favour, that I may work him a fez all covered with pearls ? ' Then, having paid his penny, he is per- mitted to pass, and another comes and does likewise." ^

The origin of these rites is obscure. In some cases they seem to represent merely a fertility charm, as when in Madras the Reddi brings home his bride, a swing is hung from the house-beam, a wooden doll is hung in it, and swung by husband and wife, while the women sing songs, obviously a charm to make their union fertile.* In other cases it may be connected with the rule which prevents divine personages and those under taboo, as girls when

' Miss Harrison, loc. cif., Intro., xxxix. ; Frazer, Pausanias, ii., 461 ; Classical Review, iii., 378 scqq. - Pausanias, x., 29, 3. 3 Bent, Cyc lades, 5. ■* Bombay Gazetteer, xviii. (i), 405.