The Golden Bough

The Golden Bough Preface THE PRIMARY aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia. When I first set myself to solve the problem more than thirty years ago, I thought that the... More

The Golden Bough
Preface
THE PRIMARY aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated the succession to
the priesthood of Diana at Aricia.
When I first set myself to solve the problem more than thirty years
ago, I thought that the solution could be propounded very briefly, but I soon found that to render it
probable or even intelligible it was necessary to discuss certain more general questions, some of which
had hardly been broached before.
In successive editions the discussion of these and kindred topics has
occupied more and more space, the enquiry has branched out in more and more directions, until the
two volumes of the original work have expanded into twelve.
Meantime a wish has often been
expressed that the book should be issued in a more compendious form.
This abridgment is an attempt
to meet the wish and thereby to bring the work within the range of a wider circle of readers.
While the
bulk of the book has been greatly reduced, I have endeavoured to reta Less