these names were given, the first date obviously would
signalize the actual disappearance of the cluster Virgo
in the Sun's rays--i. e. the Assumption of the Virgin into
the glory of the God--while the second date would signalize
the reappearance of the constellation or the Birth of the
Virgin. The Church of Notre Dame at Paris is supposed
to be on the original site of a Temple of Isis; and it is said
(but I have not been able to verify this myself) that one of
the side entrances--that, namely, on the left in entering
from the North (cloister) side--is figured with the signs of
the Zodiac EXCEPT that the sign Virgo is replaced by the
figure of the Madonna and Child.

So strange is the scripture of the sky! Innumerable
legends and customs connect the rebirth of the Sun with
a Virgin parturition. Dr. J. G. Frazer in his Part IV of
The Golden Bough[1] says: "If we may trust the evidence
of an obscure scholiast the Greeks [in the worship of
Mithras at Rome] used to celebrate the birth of the luminary
by a midnight service, coming out of the inner
shrines and crying, 'The Virgin has brought forth! The light
is waxing!' (.)" In
Elie Reclus' little book Primitive Folk[2] it is said of the
Esquimaux that "On the longest night of the year two
angakout (priests), of whom one is disguised as a WOMAN,
go from hut to hut extinguishing all the lights, rekindling
them from a vestal flame, and crying out, 'From the new sun
cometh a new light!' "

[1] Book II, ch. vi.