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

Chapter I. Dionysus. 19make them grow with the growth of the barley or the flax. 43 AnEsthonian mode of accomplishing the same object is to set thechild in the middle of a plot of ground where a sower is sowinghemp and to leave the little one there till the sowing is finished;after that they imagine that the child will shoot up in stature likethe hemp which has just been sown. 44With the foregoing evidence before us of a widespread custom Use of theof placing newborn children in winnowing-fans we clearly cannotargue that Dionysus must necessarily have been a god of the cornbecause Greek tradition and Greek art represent him as an infantcradled in a winnowing-fan. The argument would prove toomuch, for it would apply equally to all the infants that have beenso cradled in all parts of the world. We cannot even press theargument drawn from the surname “He of the Winnowing-fan”which was borne by Dionysus, since we have seen that similarnames are borne for similar reasons in India by persons whohave no claim whatever to be regarded as deities of the corn.Yet when all necessary deductions have been made on this score,the association of Dionysus with the winnowing-fan appears tobe too intimate to be explained away as a mere reminiscenceof a practice to which every Greek baby, whether human or [012]divine, had to submit. That practice would hardly accounteither for the use of the winnowing-fan in the mysteries or forthe appearance of the implement, filled with fruitage of variouskinds, on the monuments which set forth the ritual of Dionysus. 45winnowing-fanin the rites ofDionysus.43 W. Mannhardt, op. cit. p. 372, citing A. Wuttke, Der deutsche Volksaberglaube2 (Berlin, 1869), p. 339, § 543; L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube undSagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg (Oldenburg, 1867), i. 81.44 Boecler-Kreutzwald, Der Ehsten abergläubische Gebräuche (St.Petersburg, 1854), p. 61. This custom is also cited by Mannhardt (l.c.).45 Miss J. E. Harrison, “Mystica Vannus Iacchi,” Journal of Hellenic Studies,xxiii. (1903) pp. 296 sqq.; id., Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 2pp. 518 sqq.; L. R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, v. (Oxford, 1909) p.243.