The
attribution of weather-making powers to kings or priests is very common
in primitive society, and is indeed one of the principal levers by which
such personages raise themselves to a position of superiority above
their fellows. There is therefore no improbability in the supposition
that as a representative of Jupiter the priest of Diana enjoyed this
reputation, though positive evidence of it appears to be lacking.
Lastly, in the present edition I have shewn some grounds for thinking
that the Golden Bough itself, or in common parlance the mistletoe on the
oak, was supposed to have dropped from the sky upon the tree in a flash
of lightning and therefore to contain within itself the seed of
celestial fire, a sort of smouldering thunderbolt. This view of the
priest and of the bough which he guarded at the peril of his life has
the advantage of accounting for the importance which the sanctuary at
Nemi acquired and the treasure which it amassed through the offerings of
the faithful; for the shrine would seem to have been to ancient what
Loreto has been to modern Italy, a place of pilgrimage, where princes
and nobles as well as commoners poured wealth into the coffers of Diana
in her green recess among the Alban hills, just as in modern times kings
and queens vied with each other in enriching the black Virgin who from
her Holy House on the hillside at Loreto looks out on the blue Adriatic
and the purple Apennines.
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