Note 15 — Chapter II

I read tat for táh according to a conjecture of Professor E. B. Cowell’s. He informs me on the authority of Dr. Rost that the only variants are sá for táḥ and yoshitá for yoshitaḥ. Dr. Rost would take evamkrite as the dative of evamkrit. If táh be retained it may be taken as a repetition “having thus prepared it, I say, the women give it.” Professor Cowell would translate (if táḥ be retained) “the women then do not need to receive anything to relieve their fatigue during the cold and hot weather.”

Professor E. B. Cowell has referred me to an article by Dr. Liebrecht in the Zeitschrift der Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.

He connects the custom with that of the Jewish women mentioned in Jeremiah VII. 18, “The women knead their dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven,” and he quotes a curious custom practised on Palm Sunday in the town of Saintes. Dulaure states that in his time the festival was called there La fête des Pinnes; the women and children carried in the procession a phallus made of bread, which they called a pinne, at the end of their palm branches; those pinnes were subsequently blessed by the priest, and carefully preserved by the women during the year. This article has been republished by the learned author in his “Zur Volkskunde” (Heilbronn, 1879) p. 436 and f f. under the title of “der aufgegessene Gott.” It contains many interesting parallels to the custom described in the text.