[138] Wald und Feldkulte, 1875, vol. i, pp. 422 et seq.  He also mentions (p. 458) that St. Valentine’s Day (14th of February),—­or Ember Day, or the last day of February,—­when the pairing of birds was supposed to take place, was associated, especially in England, with love-making and the choice of a mate.  In Lorraine, it may be added, on the 1st of May, the young girls chose young men as their valentines, a custom known by this name to Rabelais.

[139] Rochholz, Drei gaugoettinnen, p, 37.

[140] Mannhardt, ibid., pp. 466 et seq.  Also J.G.  Frazer, Golden Bough, vol ii, Chapter IV.  For further facts and references, see K. Pearson (The Chances of Death, 1897, vol, ii, “Woman as Witch,” “Kindred Group-marriage,” and Appendix on “The ‘Mailehn’ and ‘Kiltgang,’”) who incidentally brings together some of the evidence concerning primitive sex-festivals in Europe.  Also, E. Hahn, Demeter und Baubo, 1896, pp. 38-40; and for some modern survivals, see Deniker, Races of Man, 1900, Chapter III.  On a lofty tumulus near the megalithic remains at Carnac, in Brittany, the custom still prevails of lighting a large bonfire at the time of the summer solstice; it is called Tan Heol, or Tan St. Jean.  In Ireland, the bonfires also take place on St. John’s Eve, and a correspondent, who has often witnessed them in County Waterford, writes that “women, with garments raised, jump through these fires, and conduct which, on ordinary occasions would be reprobated, is regarded as excusable and harmless.”  Outside Europe, the Berbers of Morocco still maintain this midsummer festival, and in the Rif they light bonfires; here the fires seem to be now regarded as mainly purificatory, but they are associated with eating ceremonies which are still regarded as multiplicative.  (Westermarck, “Midsummer Customs in Morocco,” Folk-Lore, March, 1905.)

[141] Mannhardt (op. cit., p. 469) quotes a description of an Ehstonian festival in the Island of Moon, when the girls dance in a circle round the fire, and one of them,—­to the envy of the rest, and the pride of her own family,—­is chosen by the young men, borne away so violently that her clothes are often torn, and thrown down by a youth, who places one leg over her body in a kind of symbolical coitus, and lies quietly by her side till morning.  The spring festivals of the young people of Ukrainia, in which, also, there is singing, dancing, and sleeping together, are described in “Folk-Lore de l’Ukrainie.”  Kryptadia, vol. v, pp. 2-6, and vol. viii, pp. 303 et seq.

[142] M. Kowalewsky, “Marriage Among the Early Slavs,” Folk-Lore, December, 1890.

[143] A. Tille, however (Yule and Christmas, 1899), while admitting that the general Aryan division of the year was dual, follows Tacitus in asserting that the Germanic division of the year (like the Egyptian) was tripartite:  winter, spring, and summer.