therefore the Virgin Mary connected by linear succession and
descent with that remote Zodiacal cluster in the sky! Also
it may be mentioned that on the Arabian and Persian globes
of Abenezra and Abuazar a Virgin and Child are figured in
connection with the same constellation.[3]

[1] Carefully described and mapped by Dupuis, see op. cit.

[2] For the harvest-festival of Diana, the Virgin, and her
parallelism
with the Virgin Mary, see The Golden Bough, vol. i, 14 and ii,
121.

[3] See F. Nork, Der Mystagog (Leipzig, 1838).


A curious confirmation of the same astronomical connection
is afforded by the Roman Catholic Calendar. For if this be
consulted it will be found that the festival of the
Assumption of the Virgin is placed on the 15th August, while the
festival of the Birth of the Virgin is dated the 8th September. I
have already pointed out that the stars, , and g> of Virgo are almost exactly on the Ecliptic, or
Sun's path through the sky; and a brief reference to the
Zodiacal signs and the star-maps will show that the Sun
each year enters the sign of Virgo about the first-mentioned
date, and leaves it about the second date. At the present
day the Zodiacal signs (owing to precession) have shifted
some distance from the constellations of the same name.
But at the time when the Zodiac was constituted and