Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/461

 The Chevauchde de St. Michel. 427

But I think it is certain that the original festival was essen- tially a religious one, and this explains why the Church, in the person of the abbots of Mont St. Michel, took it under its especial patronage. And it is possible that it was under their auspices that the mounted officials were introduced, possibly as substitutes for the priestly leaders of an earlier day. Thus, in process of time they insensibly transformed what was probably an orgiastic festival, marching in all the bravery of priestly magnificence to the shrines of ancient deities, into a formal procession held under the aegis of Church and State, for the purpose of ridding the King's highway of local obstructions.

Edith F. Carey.