Balder the Beautiful, Volume I. By James George Frazer

We have travelled far since we turned our backs on Nemi and set forth in quest of thesecret of the Golden Bough. With the present volume we enter on the last stage of ourlong journey. The reader who has had the patience to follow the enquiry thus far mayremember that at the outset two questions were proposed for answer: Why had thepriest of Aricia to slay his predecessor? And why, before doing so, had he to pluck theGolden Bough?1 Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The priest ofAricia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human divinities on whose life thewelfare of the community and even the course of nature in general are believed to beintimately dependent. It does not appear that the subjects or worshippers of such aspiritual potentate form to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship inwhich they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and fluctuating, andwe should err if we attempted to define the relationship with logical precision. All that thepeople know, or rather imagine, is that somehow they themselves, their cattle, and theircrops are mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is well orill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds thrive or languish withdisease, and the fields yield an abundant or a scanty harvest. The worst evil which theycan conceive of is the natural death of their ruler, whether he succumb to sickness orold age, for in the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrousconsequences on themselves and their possessions; fatal epidemics would sweepaway man and beast, the earth would refuse her increase, nay the very frame of natureitself might be dissolved. To guard against these catastrophes it is necessary to put theking to death while he is still in the full bloom of his divine manhood, in order that hissacred life, transmitted in unabated force to his successor, may renew its youth, andthus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous incarnations mayremain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security that men and animals shall inlike manner renew their youth by a perpetual succession of generations, and thatseedtime and harvest, and summer and winter, and rain and sunshine shall never fail.That, if my conjecture is right, was why the priest of Aricia, the King of the Wood atNemi, had regularly to perish by the sword of his successor.

We have travelled far since we turned our backs on Nemi and set forth in quest of thesecret of the Golden Bough. With the present volume we enter on the last stage of ourlong journey. The reader who has had the patience to follow the enquiry thus far mayremember that at the outset two questions were proposed for answer: Why had thepriest of Aricia to slay his predecessor? And why, before doing so, had he to pluck theGolden Bough?1 Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The priest ofAricia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human divinities on whose life thewelfare of the community and even the course of nature in general are believed to beintimately dependent. It does not appear that the subjects or worshippers of such aspiritual potentate form to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship inwhich they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and fluctuating, andwe should err if we attempted to define the relationship with logical precision. All that thepeople know, or rather imagine, is that somehow they themselves, their cattle, and theircrops are mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is well orill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds thrive or languish withdisease, and the fields yield an abundant or a scanty harvest. The worst evil which theycan conceive of is the natural death of their ruler, whether he succumb to sickness orold age, for in the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrousconsequences on themselves and their possessions; fatal epidemics would sweepaway man and beast, the earth would refuse her increase, nay the very frame of natureitself might be dissolved. To guard against these catastrophes it is necessary to put theking to death while he is still in the full bloom of his divine manhood, in order that hissacred life, transmitted in unabated force to his successor, may renew its youth, andthus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous incarnations mayremain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security that men and animals shall inlike manner renew their youth by a perpetual succession of generations, and thatseedtime and harvest, and summer and winter, and rain and sunshine shall never fail.That, if my conjecture is right, was why the priest of Aricia, the King of the Wood atNemi, had regularly to perish by the sword of his successor.

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