supposed to ride the air at night. Medieval chroniclers, writing in
bastard Latin, and following the example of classical authors, when
they had to find a name for this demon-goddess, chose, of course,
_Diana_ the heathen huntress, the moon-goddess, and the ruler of
the night. In the same way, when they threw Odin's name into a Latin
shape, he, the god of wit and will, as well as power and victory,
became Mercury. As for Herodias--not the mother, but the daughter who
danced--she must have made a deep impression on the mind of the early
Middle Age, for she was supposed to have been cursed after the
beheading of John the Baptist, and to have gone on dancing for ever.
When heathendom fell, she became confounded with the ancient
Goddesses, and thus we find her, sometimes among the crew of the
Wild Huntsman, sometimes, as we see in the passages below, in
company with, or in the place of _Diana, Holda, Satia_, and
_Abundia_, at the head of a bevy of women, who met at certain
places to celebrate unholy rites and mysteries. As for _Holda,
Satia_, and _Abundia_, 'the kind', 'the satisfying', and 'the
abundant', they are plainly names of good rather than evil powers;
they are ancient epithets drawn from the bounty of the 'Good Lady',
and attest the feeling of respect which still clung to them in the
popular mind. As was the case whenever Christianity was brought in,
the country folk, always averse to change, as compared with the more
lively and intelligent dwellers in towns, still remained more or less
heathen, [17] and to this day they preserve unconsciously many
superstitions which can be traced up in lineal descent to their old
belief. In many ways does the old divinity peep out under the new
superstition--the long train, the midnight feast, 'the good lady' who
presides, the bounty and abundance which her votaries fancied would
follow in her footsteps, all belong to the ancient Goddess. Most
curious of all is the way in which all these traditions from