This story will bring to most readers' minds the old Scotch rhyme of

The Borrowing Days.

March borrowed from Aperill
Three days and they were ill.

The first began wi' wind and weet,
The next come in with snaw and sleet,
The third was sic a bitter freeze,

It froze the birds' claws to the trees.

A variant of this rhyme alludes to "three hoggs upon a hill." March for the purpose of "garring them dee," borrowed three days "from Aperill," and tried the "wind and weet" etc. However the sheep, one is glad to hear, survived the ordeal, for it is related that

When the three were past and gane,

The three silly hoggs came hirpling hame.1

1 The first version I had from the lips of an old Scotchman, and it differs slightly from the text of the Newcastle Leader, reproduced in St James's Gazette, April 2, 1901, whence comes the latter variant given above. For other versions see R. Inwards, Weather Lore, pp. 27 foll.

Several interesting details concerning this mysterious loan and the kindred superstition of the Faoilteach, or the first days of February, borrowed by that month from January, are to be found in The Book of Days, vol. 1. p. 448.

CHAPTER IV.

EASTERTIDE.

It is perhaps more than a coincidence, and at all events. quite appropriate, that the great Christian feast of the Resurrection-redemption and universal renovation-should fall at that time of year when Nature herself awakening hears The new-creating word, and starts to life,

In every heighten'd form, from pain and death

For ever free.1

This coincidence reveals itself in many curious customs connected with the festival, and enables us to interpret several popular practices which otherwise would be unintelligible. In fact, we most probably have here one of the numerous instances of old pagan observances surviving beneath the tolerant cloak of Christianity-the past peeping through the mask of the present. It is a thesis no longer in need of demonstration that the new religion, wherever it has penetrated, from the shores of Crete to those of Iceland, has everywhere displayed a far-seeing eagerness to enlist in its service what might assist its own propagation in existing belief and practice. Macedonia forms no exception to this general rule.

The heathen festival on which Easter was grafted in Greekspeaking countries most likely was the Lesser Eleusinia, the return of Persephone, which symbolised the resurrection of Nature and which the ancient Hellenes celebrated about this

1 Thomson's Seasons.

time of year. The modern Macedonians are, of course, utterly unconscious of any incongruity between the creed which they profess and the customs which they observe. To the peasant, Easter is simply a season of rejoicing. If he were pressed for the reason of his joy, he would probably be unable to give a clear answer, or, if he gave one, red eggs and roasted lambs would be found to play as important a part in his conception of the festival as the religious ceremonies which accompany and sanctify the proceedings. His view is vividly expressed in the children's rhymes which are often heard in Macedonia at this

season:

Πότε νἄρθ ̓ ἡ Πασχαλιά,
Μὲ τὰ κόκκινα τ' αὐγά,

Μὲ τ ̓ ἀρνοῦδι 'ς τὸν ταβά, etc.

“Oh, when will Easter come, bringing with her red eggs, a lamb in a tray, etc."

The Easter festivities are ushered in by a long period of strict abstinence known as the Great Forty-Day Fast (n Meyáλn Zapaκоoтn-Lent). The two Sundays before Lent are respectively called Meat-Sunday ('Аπокρеά) and Cheese-Sunday (Tupivn). The week between them answers to the Carnival of Western Christendom, and during it, in the big towns on the coast the usual merriment is heightened by masquerades καρναβάλια οι μασκαράδες), a custom which, as the name implies, has been borrowed from Italy and is not to be confused with similar observances prevalent in the interior of the country at other times of the year. It also corresponds with the Russian Máslyanitsa, or Butter-Week. Cheese-Sunday is made the occasion of many interesting observances. Before proceeding to a description of these, however, it may be well to note some points of resemblance between the new and the old celebrations.

The modern Western Carnival has been traced to the ancient Roman Saturnalia, and this parallelism has led folklorists to conjecture that Lent also may be the descendant "under a thin disguise, of a period of temperance which was annually observed, from superstitious motives, by Italian

Should this hypo

Meat-Week might

farmers long before the Christian era.”1 thesis be established, then the Eastern likewise be ascribed to the old Cronia, which was the Greek counterpart of the Saturnalia. The Eastern Lent might further be compared with the fast which preceded the celebration of the mysteries of Eleusis, in commemoration of Demeter's long abstinence from food during her search for her lost daughter. But precise identification is hardly possible owing to the slightness of the evidence at our command. What is absolutely certain is the fact that abstinence from food and from the gratification of all other appetites was and still is practised by various races at seed-time "for the purpose of thereby promoting the growth of the crops,"" a kind of charm, acting through the sympathetic connection which is supposed to exist between the sower and the seed.

Cheese-Sunday (Κυριακὴ τῆς Τυρινῆς).

The boys of each village rise early in the morning and, divided into several parties, go forth collecting bundles of firewood, which they pile up on the tops of the heights and hills in the neighbourhood. These preparations completed, they amuse themselves during the rest of the day by throwing stones with a sling, each shot accompanied with these mysterious words: "Whithersoever this arrow hies, may the flea follow in its track” (ὅπ ̓ πάῃ ἡ σαγίτα καὶ ὁ ψύλλος καταπόδι). In some districts of Macedonia these slings are replaced by actual cross-bows generally constructed of a fragment of a barrel-hoop, which is passed through a hole at the end of a stock. The missile,-a long nail as a rule-laid in the groove of the stock, is propelled by a string drawn tight across the bow and held fast by a catch, which is nailed to the stock, acting as a sort of trigger. At nightfall the bonfires built up in the morning are kindled, and the boys jump over them.

1 J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. III. p. 146.

2 Ib. vol. I. pp. 209 foll.

3 Α. Δ. Γουσίου, ‘Η κατὰ τὸ Παγγαιον χώρα, p. 41.

Identical customs are observed in several Slavonic countries. "In some parts of Russia," says Ralston, "the end or death of winter is celebrated on the last day of the Butter-Week, by the burning of the straw Mujik'-a heap of straw, to which each of the participators in the ceremony contributes his portion." In Bulgaria "during the whole week, the children amuse themselves by shooting with bows and arrows, a custom which...is supposed, by some imaginative writers, to have referred in olden times to the victory obtained by the sunbeams-the arrows of the far-darting Apollo-over the forces of cold and darkness."1

The custom of kindling bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent and of throwing missiles into the air prevails in many parts of Western Europe. In Swabia the arrows and stones are replaced by thin round pieces of wood. In all these cases of pagan survival the bonfires are built by boys on the crests of mountains and hills as in Macedonia. Whether the Greeks of this province have borrowed the pastime of stone and arrow shooting from their Slav neighbours or have inherited it from their own remote ancestors, it would be difficult to say. But in any case it is an interesting relic of bygone times. Apart from any symbolical or ritual significance which may or may not lurk in the practice, the use of the sling and the bow by the Macedonian boys at play is instructive as a conspicuous instance of a custom outliving in the form of a game the serious business of which it originally was only an imitation. Toy bows and slings are extremely popular among boys all over Europe at certain times of the year, and keeping up, as they do, the memory of a warlike art now extinct, are regarded by ethnologists as sportive survivals of ancient culture, if not of ancient cult. The bonfires and the flea will reappear in connection with the Midsummer festivities.

1 Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 210.

2 J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, vol. III. pp. 238 foll.

3 In ancient times the Kaunians in Asia Minor, who regarded themselves as being of Cretan origin, used to turn out armed, "hitting the air with their spears and saying that they were expelling the foreign gods." Hdt. 1. 172. 4 Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1. p. 73.