It is much to be regretted that I could not recover full and
more exact details of that celebration in which this great
scholar had probably embodied his mature knowledge concerning a
subject which has puzzled generations of students. But what
powers of careful observation could one expect from a group of
labourers and small farmers? Some of the things that reached my
ears I refused to believe--the mention of pig's blood for
instance, and especially the talk of certain grosser symbols,
which the choir boys, it was whispered, had carried about the
church in ceremonious procession. Village people have strange
imaginations; and to this event, growing more and more monstrous
as they talked it over, they must themselves have added this
grotesque detail. However, I have written to consult an Oxford
authority on this interesting point, and he has been kind enough
to explain at length that although at the _Haloa_, or winter
festival of the Corn-Goddess, and also at the _Chloeia_, or
festival in early spring, some symbolization of the reproductive
powers of Nature would be proper and appropriate, it would have
been quite out of place at the _Thalysia_, or autumn festival of
thanksgiving. I feel certain that a solecism of this nature--the
introduction into a particular rite of features not sanctioned
by the texts--would have seemed a shocking thing, even to the
unhinged mind of one who had always been so careful a scholar.




_Tu Quoque Fontium_