The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

12 The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12)Use of thewinnowing-fanto cradle infants.The winnowingfansometimesintended to avertevil spirits fromchildren.[006]where at his festival a bright light shone forth at night as a tokenof an abundant harvest vouchsafed by the deity; but if the cropswere to fail that year, the mystic light was not seen, darknessbrooded over the sanctuary as at other times. 24 Moreover, amongthe emblems of Dionysus was the winnowing-fan, that is thelarge open shovel-shaped basket, which down to modern timeshas been used by farmers to separate the grain from the chaff bytossing the corn in the air. This simple agricultural instrumentfigured in the mystic rites of Dionysus; indeed the god is traditionallysaid to have been placed at birth in a winnowing-fan asin a cradle: in art he is represented as an infant so cradled; andfrom these traditions and representations he derived the epithetof Liknites, that is, “He of the Winnowing-fan.” 25At first sight this symbolism might be explained very simplyand naturally by supposing that the divine infant cradled inthe winnowing-fan was identified with the corn which it is thefunction of the instrument to winnow and sift. Yet against thisidentification it may be urged with reason that the use of awinnowing-fan as a cradle was not peculiar to Dionysus; it wasa regular practice with the ancient Greeks to place their infantsin winnowing-fans as an omen of wealth and fertility for thefuture life of the children. 26 Customs of the same sort have24 [Aristotle,] Mirab. Auscult. 122 (p. 842 A{FNS, ed. Im. Bekker, Berlinedition).25 Servius on Virgil, Georg. i. 166; Plutarch, Isis et Osiris, 35. The literaryand monumental evidence as to the winnowing-fan in the myth and ritual ofDionysus has been collected and admirably interpreted by Miss J. E. Harrison inher article “Mystica Vannus Iacchi,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, xxiii. (1903)pp. 292-324. Compare her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion 2(Cambridge, 1908), pp. 517 sqq. I must refer the reader to these works forfull details on the subject. In the passage of Servius referred to the reading issomewhat uncertain; in his critical edition G. Thilo reads λικμητὴν and λικμὸςinstead of the usual λικνιτὴν and λικνόν. But the variation does not affect themeaning.26 Ἐν γὰρ λείκνοις τὸ παλαιὸν κατεκοίμιζον τὰ Βρέφη πλοῦτον καὶ καρπούςοἰωνιζόμενοι, Scholiast on Callimachus, i. 48 (Callimachea, edidit O.