6 Quotes by James George Frazer

These hapless lovers were probably not always mere myths, and these legends which traced their spilt blood in the purple bloom of the violet, the scarlet stain of the anemone, or the crimson flush or the rose were no idle poetic emblem of youth and beauty fleeting as the Summer flowers.

Man sollte auch hinter den Ofen gehen und sich den Zahn nach rückwärts über den Kopf werfen mit den Worten: „Maus, gib mir deinen eisernen Zahn. Ich werde dir meinen Knochenzahn geben.“ Danach bleiben die übrigen Zähne gesund.

Das Stuhlbein, welches an Stelle des Tierbeines behandelt wird, gehört in keiner Weise zu dem Tiere, und das Verbinden dieses Gegenstandes ist nichts weiter als eine Nachahmung der Behandlung, welche eine rationellere Chirurgie dem wirklichen Patienten angedeihen lassen würde.

So in Scotland witches used to raise the wind by dipping a rag in water and beating it thrice on a stone, saying: “I knok this rag upone this stane To raise the wind in the divellis name, It sall not lye till I please againe.

For myth changes while custom remains constant; men continue to do what their did before them, though the reasons on which their fathers acted have been long forgotten. The history of religion is a long attempt to reconcile old custom with new reason, to find a sound theory for an absurd practice.

These hapless livers were probably not always mere myths, and these legends which traced their spilt blood in the purple bloom of the violet, the scarlet stain of the anemone, or the crimson flush or the rose were no idle poetic emblem of youth and beauty fleeting as the Summer flowers.