Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Labyrinth at Knossos 487

the civil wars there were many mazes in England, and that the
young people used on festivals to dance upon them, or, as the
term was, to tread them1. Stukeley in 1724 writes:

'The lovers of antiquity, especially of the inferior class, always speak of
'em with great pleasure, and as if there were somthing extraordinary in the
thing, tho' they cannot tell what.... what generally appears at present is no more
than a circular work made of banks of earth in the fashion of a maze or laby-
rinth, and the boys to this day divert themselves with running in it one after
another, which leads them by many windings quite thro' and back again2.'

A century later T. Wright observes:

'At the maze (called there mazles) at Comberton, in Cambridgeshire, it has
been a custom, from time immemorial, among the villagers, to hold a feast every
three years about the time of Easter3.'

This maze, which has recently been restored by the Rev. F. G. Walker,
was almost identical in type with one at Wing in Rutlandshire4.
When transformed into the play-ground of the village school, it

Fig- 352.

was in danger of extinction ; but I have repeatedly seen the school-
children in single file tread the nearly obliterated windings.
Antiquarians, monkish or otherwise, appear to have assumed the

1 J. Aubrey Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey v. 80, cp. Remaines of
Gentilisme and Judaisme 1686—87 (London 1881) p. 71.

2 W. Stukeley Itinerarium Curiosu?n London 1724 p. 91 ff.

3 T. Wright The History and Topography of the County of Essex London 1835
ii. 124 n. The Rev. F. G. Walker op. cit. p. 20 says of the Comberton Maze : ' It used,
in bygone days, to be recut every three years at Easter time, when the men who cut it
had a feast.'

4 E. Trollope loc. cit. p. 232.