… Long before the northern invaders met with the vine on the shores of the Mediterranean their forefathers had married the tree-god to the tree-goddess in the vast oak forests of Central and Northern Europe. There, the priest of Diana, who bore the title of the King of the Wood, prowled around a sacred oak tree, guarding it with a sword, until another candidate for the priesthood came along and succeeded in killing him.įrazier analyzes every aspect of this drama in the most minute detail in an attempt to reconstruct the what and why of this ritual. The premise of the book is to understand a certain ritual that once took place in the grove and sanctuary of Diana Nemorensis on the lake of Nemi. But it turns out that the book covers only a few myths, although it does include some that I haven’t seen much of before. I had been expecting a comprehensive review of at least a large segment of mythology. However, I was somewhat disappointed on other levels. On one level, the book was very informative. And having read it, I am particularly glad that I did not attempt the full 12-volume original. Finding this abridged version (a single volume of 927 pages) seemed like a good way to read it without having to slog through a lot of what might prove to be tedious scholarly commentary. I have been wanting to read this book ever since seeing the many volumes of the unabridged version in the library in college.
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