Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/122

 114 frequent intercourse between them. Myra seems to have been the chief seaport of Phrygia.

We have thus succeeded in establishing some soHdarity between three cults mentioned in our Vita: those of Artemis, of the Mater Deorum, and of the Rosalia. On all three festivals a gay and profligate crowd, with floweradorned heads, whirls past in dance and pantomime to the sound of songs and flutes.

Concerning the dates of the festivities referred to, we cannot, unfortunately, come to such positive conclusions. The Artemision corresponds to the end of April or the beginning of May. The date of the festival itself was probably subject to change, and it took place sometimes at the beginning, sometimes at the end, of that month. The date of the Rosalia and of the feast of the Mater Deorum varied still more. We can only assert that both were spring festivals, and may have been celebrated about the beginning of May.

If we bear in mind that St. Nicolas' Day in the Eastern Church was the 9th of May as well as the 6th of December, we may find a new coincidence between Artemis and our saint. It is generally said that the 9th of May was honoured by the Church in remembrance of the removal of St. Nicolas' relics to Bary in the eleventh century, but the special circumstances of the origin of that feast are unknown, and, in .spite of all that has been said, the most plausible hypothesis is perhaps that it was a continuation of the local spring festival in Myra, that is, the Rosalia.

Artemis of Ephesos, sharing the character both of the Greek virgin goddess and of Aphrodite, is partly a sea and a river goddess, whence her epithet, Potamia. Temples in her honour were often built near springs and rivers. This