Note 171.2 — Chapter VI · THE SUPERNATURAL BIRTH IN PRACTICAL SUPERSTITIONS.

It was customary at Rome to offer goats at the Lupercal; and two youths underwent the pretence of a human offering, doubtless once anything but a sham. A sacrificial meal followed. The Luperci, then, girt with skins of some of the slain animals, cut other skins into strips, and armed with the strips ran up and down the Via Sacra, across the Forum and through the city, striking all whom they met. Women who desired to be made fruitful used, it is said, to place themselves naked in the way and receive the blows upon their palms.171.2 Dr. Ploss compares with this the procedure in Voigtland and other parts of Germany at the Easter festival, when the young fellows chase the girls out of their beds with green twigs.171.3 Similar is the object of the custom observed from India to the Atlantic Ocean of throwing grain and seeds of one sort or another over a bride, and apparently of the custom of flinging old shoes. The wandering Gipsies of Transylvania are said to throw old shoes and boots on a newly married pair when they enter their tent, expressly to enchance the fertility of the union. In Germany, pieces of cake are thrust against the bride’s body.171.4 About Chemnitz a table-cloth seems to acquire prolific virtue by serving at a first christening dinner; and it is sometimes cast over a barren wife.172.1 The Asturian ballad already cited in an earlier chapter ascribes to the borage the power to affect any woman treading on it as it affected the unfortunate princess Alexandra.172.2 Rolling beneath a solitary apple-tree seems an approved method of obtaining pregnancy among the Kara Kirghiz women.172.3