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EXPULSION OF GODS. 773
Dlugosz, 1 and others after him, report that by order of king
Miecislaus all the idols in the land were broken up and burnt ;
in remembrance of which the people in some parts of Poland, once
a year, singing mournful songs, conduct in solemn procession
images of Marzana and Ziewonia, fixed on poles or drawn on
drags, to a marsh or river, and there drown them; 3
paying
them so to speak, their last homage. Dlugosz s
Marzana as harvest-goddess seems erroneous;
explanation of
FrencePs and
Schaffarik s death-goddess is more acceptable : I derive the
name from the Pol. marznac, Boh. mrznauti, Russ. merznut , to
freeze, and in opposition to her as winter-goddess I set the sum
mer-goddess Wiosna, Boh. Wesna. The Konigenhof MS. p. 72
has a remarkable declaration : i iedinu druzu nam imieV po puti
z Wesny po Moranu one wife (only) may we have on our way
from Wesna to Morana, from spring to winter, i.e. ever. Yet
the throwing or dipping of the divine image in a stream need not
have been done by the Christians in mere contempt, it may have
formed a part of the pagan rite itself ; for an antithesis between
summer and winter, and an exalting of the former, necessarily
of the latter. 3
implied a lowering
The day for carrying Death out was the quarta dominica quad-
ragesimae, i.e. Laetare Sunday or Midlent, on which very day
it also falls in Poland (w nieziele srodopostna), Bohemia, Silesia
and Lausitz. The Bohemians call it smrtedlna, samrtna nedele,
the Sorbs smerdnitsa, death Sunday ; coming three weeks before
Easter, it will almost always occur in March. Some have it a
week earlier, on Oculi Sunday, others (espec.
in Bohemia) a
week later, on Judica Sunday one Boh. ; song even brings in
Mag nowy/ new May. But in the Khine and Main country, as
1
Hist. Polon. lib. 2, ad a. 965. Matth. de Mechovia chron. Polon. u. 1, 22.
Mart. Cromer lib. 3, ad a. 965. Mart. Hanke de Silesior. nominibus, p. 122-3.
2 So the Kussian Vladimir, after his conversion, orders the image of Perun to
be tied to a horse s tail, beaten, and throicn into the Dnieper. Afterwards, when
the Novgorod Perun was in like manner thrown into the Volkhov, he set up, while
in the river, a loud lament over the people s ingratitude.
3 The Indian Kali, on the 7th day after the March new-moon, was solemnly
carried about, and then thrown into the Ganges on ; May 13 the Koman vestals
\>O?B puppets plaited of rushes to the Pons Sublicius, and dropt them in the Tiber,
Ov. Fast. 5, 620 :
Turn quoque priscorum virgo simulacra virorum
ruittere roboreo scirpea ponte solet.