Note 1418 — MENSIS FEBRUARIUS
Reading edition
Mannhardt is not lucid on this point; he was evidently in difficulties (pp. 97-99). He seems clear that the application of the blood produces an identity between victim and youths; but in similar cases it is not through death that victim, god, and priest become identical, but through the life-giving virtue of the blood. The blood-application must surely mean the acquisition of new life; but he makes it symbolic of death.