J. Train, _Historical and Statistical Account of the Isle of Man_ (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1845), ii. 116.
See below, pp. 240 _sqq._ Brigit is the true original form of the name, which has been corrupted into Breed, Bride, and Bridget. See Douglas Hyde, _A Literary History of Ireland_ (London, 1899), p. 53, note 2.
A. Kuhn, _Märkische Sagen und Märchen_, pp. 318 _sqq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, p. 437.
R. Andree, _Braunschweiger Volkskunde_ (Brunswick, 1896), p. 248.
D. Monnier, _Traditions populaires comparées_, pp. 283 _sq._; E. Cortet, _Fêtes religieuses_, pp. 162 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, pp. 439 _sq._
CHAPTER XI THE INFLUENCE OF THE SEXES ON VEGETATION
[Sidenote: The marriage of the King and Queen of May intended to promote the growth of vegetation by homoeopathic magic.] From the preceding examination of the spring and summer festivals of Europe we may infer that our rude forefathers personified the powers of vegetation as male and female, and attempted, on the principle of homoeopathic or imitative magic, to quicken the growth of trees and plants by representing the marriage of the sylvan deities in the persons of a King and Queen of May, a Whitsun Bridegroom and Bride, and so forth. Such representations were accordingly no mere symbolic or allegorical dramas, pastoral plays designed to amuse or instruct a rustic audience. They were charms intended to make the woods to grow green, the fresh grass to sprout, the corn to shoot, and the flowers to blow. And it was natural to suppose that the more closely the mock marriage of the leaf-clad or flower-decked mummers aped the real marriage of the woodland sprites, the more effective would be the charm. Accordingly we may assume with a high degree of probability that the profligacy which notoriously attended these ceremonies[351] was at one time not an accidental excess but an essential part of the rites, and that in the opinion of those who performed them the marriage of trees and plants could not be fertile without the real union of the human sexes. At the present day it might perhaps be vain to look in civilised Europe for customs of this sort observed for the explicit purpose of promoting the growth of vegetation. But ruder races in other parts of the world have consciously employed the intercourse of the sexes as a means to ensure the fruitfulness of the earth; and some rites which are still, or were till lately, kept up in Europe can be reasonably explained only as stunted relics of a similar practice. The following facts will make this plain.