Page:Frazer (1890) The Golden Bough (IA goldenboughstudy01fraz).djvu/87

I the abode of mighty spirits which would resent the injury. The Curka Coles of India believe that the tops of trees are inhabited by spirits which are disturbed by the cutting down of the trees and will take vengeance. The Samogitians thought that if any one ventured to injure certain groves, or the birds or beasts in them, the spirits would make his hands or feet crooked.

Even where no mention is made of wood-spirits, we may generally assume that when a grove is sacred and inviolable, it is so because it is believed to be either inhabited or animated by sylvan deities. In Livonia there is a sacred grove in which, if any man fells a tree or breaks a branch, he will die within the year. The Wotjaks have sacred groves. A Russian who ventured to hew a tree in one of them fell sick and died next day. Sacrifices offered at cutting down trees are doubtless meant to appease the wood-spirits. In Gilgit it is usual to sprinkle goat’s blood on a tree of any kind before cutting it down. Before thinning a grove a Roman farmer had to sacrifice a pig to the god or goddess of the grove. The priestly college of the Arval Brothers at Rome had to make expiation when a rotten bough fell to the ground in the sacred grove, or when an old tree was blown down by a storm or dragged down by a weight of snow on its branches.

When a tree comes to be viewed, no longer as the body of the tree-spirit, but simply as its dwelling-place which it can quit at pleasure, an important advance VOL. I