Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

394 Water-carrying in connexion with marriage

world by peoples who, like the Greeks, esteemed it a great misfortune to die
unmarried.3

The examples quoted in support of this explanation prove beyond
all doubt that post mortem marriage is or has been a widely prevalent
custom.

But marriage with whom? O. Schrader, who more than once
attacked the problem1, summarised his contentions as follows2:

'It is only by comparing the Greek customs with those of other Aryan peoples
that we can discover the meaning of this custom. We then find that the placing
of the bridal \ovrpocp6pos on the grave of unmarried people represents the
symbolical preservation of a custom...still very wide-spread among the Slavonic
races...a ceremonial imitation-marriage was celebrated at the graves of unmariie
men and maidens, during which a bride or a bridegroom was there and then
assigned to the dead person* (* Remains of this custom are found also i
Germany; for in Hesse the coffins of single men who have died must
accompanied by "wreathed girls," who must wear mourning for four weeks, etc-
(cf. [C] Hessler \Hessische Landes- tend Volkskunde Marburg 1904 ii. 152]));
third and last stage of the custom under discussion is presented to us m
accounts of the Arabs regarding the oldest Slavonic and Russian condition
life. According to them, not only...was the wife of the dead married nian giv^n
to him as a companion in death, but the single man too was, after his dea >
married in regular fashion to a young girl, who also was therefore doornecl^
die (cf. Mas'udi, Les Prairies d'or, ed. Barbier de Meynard, Paris, 1861 1 ^
ii. p. 9, n. 7). One of these "death-weddings" is described in detail by the -
Ibn Fosslan (text and translation ed. by C. E. Frahn, St. Petersburg, l^23_I
now Miss H. L. Lorimer 'A Scandinavian Cremation-Ceremony' in ^n^'^otn
1934 viii. 58— 62, an article which includes a fresh and full translation made 1
the text of Ahmad bin Fudhlan by Miss C. Waddy]). But it follows from is°^eIlt
traces that the custom of the wife dying along with her husband was piev ^
also in Greece in prehistoric times (cf. Pausanias, ii. 21. 7), and in the stol^.sts
the Trojan maiden Polyxene, sacrificed at the grave of Achilles, there^
also on classical soil a case of the barbarian custom of "death-marriage

Thus, on Schrader's showing, the death of a bachelor or sPlflS.

once involved the provision and actual killing- of a human cons

e itself 11

a grim practice, which had indeed left lasting traces 01 n- .c
mythology, but in real life had long since decayed into a m'^aSe,
ceremony and thence into the mere symbolism of the marna^ereiit
Mr J. C. Lawson3 viewed the matter from a somewhat di e^t
stand-point. He too regarded the loutrophdros-xite as impb/in&

ok Sf'1^1'

1 First in his monograph Totenkochzeit Jena 1904 pp. 1—38, then in his °°stjy in h's
vergleichung und Urgesciiickte3 Jena rqo6, 1907 i. 219 f., ii. 335 n. 3>
Reallcxi- ii. 558—561 s.v. 'Totenhochzeit.' _ . l0oo >

- O. Schrader in J. Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Edinbuig

3 J. C. Lawson Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Creek Religion Cam
PP- 556. 56°-