For it must not be forgotten that the mother and the daughter were in origin and symbolism one. The idea of life’s ebb and flow, of nature’s sleeping and waking, is expressed in them severally as well as conjointly. It would be impossible to analyse the complete myth and, even if a purely physical interpretation were sought, to express in physiological terms the two persons and the parts which they play: for certain ideas find duplicate expression. Either Demeter’s retirement to some dark cave or the descent of Persephone to the underworld might have represented alone and unaided the temporary abeyance of earth’s productive powers. Yet it was with good reason that the myth expanded as it were spontaneously until the spirit of life, that pervades not only the cornfield but all that is animal and human too, was pourtrayed in double form; not because the mere physical fact of the decay and the revival of vegetation needed larger symbolism for its due expression, but because in the tie of mother and daughter and all that it connotes was fitly represented that by which the life-spirit works among the higher orders of created things, that which goes before life’s manifestations and outlasts its vanishings, the spirit of love.
Of all such ideas as these the modern peasant, needless to say, is wholly innocent. He has learnt from his ancestors of a woman beautiful, reverend, deathless, who dwells within a mountain of his land, and who by her dealings with mankind has proved her real and divine puissance. Her name is no more uttered, perchance because it is too holy for men of impure lips; they speak only of ‘the Mistress.’ She is a real person, not the personification of any natural force. The tiller of the land foresees his yearly gain from cornfield and vineyard; the shepherd on the mountain-side expects the yearly increase of his flock; but by neither is any principle inferred therefrom, much less is such a principle personified; the blessing which rests on field and fold is the work of a living goddess’ hands. Flesh and blood she is, even as they themselves, but immortal and very mighty, nobler than many of whom the priests preach, stronger to help the good and to punish the wicked. Simple people they are, who still believe such things, and ignorant; yet less truly ignorant than some half-educated pedants of the towns who vaunt their learning in chattering of ‘Ceres’ rather than of ‘Demeter’ and, misled by Roman versifiers who at least had an excuse in the exigencies of metre, misinterpret the name as a mere synonym for corn. Happily however the influence of the schools--for it is amongst the schoolmasters that the worst offenders in this respect are to be found--is not yet all-reaching, and in the remoter villages tradition is still untainted. There without fear of ridicule men may still confess their faith in the great compassionate goddess.