bench of honour. In one part the bones and skull are carried out by the
oldest people to a place in the forest not far from the village. There
all the bones except the skull are buried. After that a young tree is
felled a few inches above the ground, its stump is cleft, and the skull
wedged into the cleft. When the grass grows over the spot the skull
disappears and there is an end of the Bear. Sometimes the Bear's flesh
is eaten in special vessels prepared for this festival and only used at
it. These vessels, which include bowls, platters, spoons, are
elaborately carved with figures of bears and other devices.

Through all varieties in detail the main intent is the same, and it is
identical with that of the rite of the holy Bull in Greece and the
maypole of our forefathers. Great is the sanctity of the Bear or the
Bull or the Tree; the Bear for a hunting people; the Bull for nomads,
later for agriculturists; the Tree for a forest folk. On the Bear and
the Bull and the Tree are focussed the desire of the whole people. Bear
and Bull and Tree are sacred, that is, set apart, because full of a
special life and strength intensely desired. They are led and carried
about from house to house that their sanctity may touch all, and avail
for all; the animal dies that he may be eaten; the Tree is torn to
pieces that all may have a fragment; and, above all, Bear and Bull and
Tree die only that they may live again.

* * * * *

We have seen (p. 71) that, out of the puppet or the May Queen, actually
_per_ceived year after year there arose a remembrance, a mental image,
an imagined Tree Spirit, or "Summer," or Death, a thing never actually
seen but _con_ceived. Just so with the Bull. Year by year in the various
villages of Greece was seen an actual holy Bull, and bit by bit from the