ve magic pure and
simple, without any admixture of the ideas of purification or expiation.

(M226) In modern Greece and Italy the custom of swinging as a festal rite,
whatever its origin may be, is still observed in some places. At the small
village of Koukoura in Elis an English traveller observed peasants
swinging from a tree in honour of St. George, whose festival it was.(756)
On the Tuesday after Easter the maidens of Seriphos play their favourite
game of the swing. They hang a rope from one wall to another of the steep,
narrow, filthy street, and putting some clothes on it swing one after the
other, singing as they swing. Young men who try to pass are called upon to
pay toll in the shape of a penny, a song, and a swing. The words which the
youth sings are generally these: "The gold is swung, the silver is swung,
and swung too is my love with the golden hair"; to which the girl replies,
"Who is it that swings me that I may gild him with my favour, that I may
work him a fez all covered with pearls?"(757) In the Greek island of
Karpathos the villagers assemble at a given place on each of the four
Sundays before Easter, a swing is erected, and the women swing one after
the other, singing death wails such as they chant round the mimic tombs in
church on the night of Good Friday.(758) On Christmas Day peasant girls in
some villages of Calabria fasten ropes to iron rings in the ceiling and
swing on them, while they sing certain songs prescribed by custom for the
occasion. The practice is regarded not merely as an amusement but also as
an act of devotion.(759) "It is a custom in Cadiz, when Christmas comes,
to fasten swings in the courtyards of houses, and even in the houses
themselves when there is no room for them outside. In the evenings lads
and lasses assemble round the swings and pass the time happily in swinging
amid joyous songs and cries. The swings are taken down when Carnival is
come."(760) The observance of the custom at Christmas, that is, at the
winter solstice, suggests that in Calabria and Spain, as 