Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/60

50 have long ceased to preside actively over any such corresponding distribution of functions." Like limited monarchs, they reign, but do not govern. They are superseded by by the ever-increasing crowd of godlings whose influence is personal and special, as shown by Mr. Crooke in his instructive Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India. In this island the Celtic and pre-Celtic paganism remained unleavened by the old Roman religion. The gods whom the legions brought followed them when they withdrew. The names of Mithra and Serapis occur on numerous tablets, the worship of the one—that "Sol invictus" whose birthday at the winter solstice became the anniversary of the birth of Christ—had ranged as far west as South Wales and Northumberland, while the foundations of a temple to the other have been unearthed at York. The chief Celtic gods were, in virtue of common attributes as elemental nature-deities, identified with certain dii majores of the Roman pantheon, and the deæ matres equated with the gracious or malevolent spirits of the indigenous faith. But the old names were not displaced. Neither did the earlier Christian missionaries effect any organic change in popular beliefs, while, during the submergence of Christianity under waves of barbaric invasion, there was infused into the old religion kindred elements from oversea which gave it yet more vigorous life. The gist of these remarks is to show that all changes in popular belief have been and practically remain superficial; that the old animism still informs the higher creeds.

Of this I proceed to take four examples: (1) Exorcism; (2) Water-worship; (3) Orientation; (4) Divine Judgments.

1. Exorcism.—In the Services of Holy Week from the Sarum Missal issued by members of the Church of England forming the society of St. Osmund, the "Clerks" are directed to "venerate the Cross, with feet unshod," and to perform