at the Spring festival. Two champions were dressed up, one in foliage and flowers, the other in straw and moss, and the conflict of course ended in the victory of Balder, or Summer. This custom prevailed all over Norseland, in Germany, and in this country. In the myth, the victory over Thok is vague; but it seems to be implicated with Odin's victory over Vafthrudner by means of a riddle which led to the giant forfeiting his head. In the Easter play St. George says:
"I followed a fair lady to a giant's gate,
Confined in dungeons deep to meet her fate;
There I resolved, with true knight errantry,
To burst the door and set the prisoner free,
When a giant almost struck me dead.
But by my valour, I struck off his head."
I merely note this at present because, whether by accident or no, it contains allusions which appear to bear upon the Balder myth.
I note next these words spoken by Slasher in his defiance of St. George:
"How canst thou break my head?
My head is made of iron.
And my body's made of steel,
My hands and feet of knuckle-bone—
I challenge to make thee feel."
The allusion may be to armour. But if the allusions in the former passage spoken by St. George were proved to be derived from the myth, we should scarcely hesitate to identify Slasher with the champion of Winter, interpreting the iron and steel and knuckle-bone as descriptive of the frost-bound earth. We should then have in St. George and Slasher the renamed representatives of the two champions. Summer and Winter, whose contest was a principal feature in the Spring festival.
The next point to be noted is that the episode of the St. George and Slasher contest individualises itself in the
