up his vines by the roots.[1] This seems to be the outline of a legend like that of Lityerses; but neither ancient writers nor modern folk-custom enable us to fill in the details.[2] But, further, the Linus song was probably sung also by Phoenician reapers, for Herodotus compares it to the Maneros song, which, as we have seen, was a lament raised by Egyptian reapers over the cut corn. Further, Linus was identified with Adonis, and Adonis has some claims to be regarded as especially a corn-deity.[3] Thus the Linus lament, as sung at harvest, would be identical with the Adonis lament; each would be the lamentation raised by reapers over the dead corn-spirit. But whereas Adonis, like Attis, grew into a stately figure of mythology, adored and mourned in splendid cities far beyond the limits of his Phoenician home, Linus appears to have remained a simple ditty sung by reapers and vintagers among the corn-sheaves and the vines. The analogy of Lityerses and of folk-custom, both European and savage, suggests that in Phoenicia the slain corn-spirit—the dead Adonis—may formerly have been represented by a human victim; and this suggestion is possibly supported by the Harrân legend that Thammuz (Adonis) was slain by his cruel lord, who ground his bones in a mill and scattered them to the wind.[4] For in Mexico, as we have seen, the human victim at harvest was crushed between two stones; and both in India and Africa the ashes of the victim were scattered over the fields.[5] But the Harrân legend may be only a mythical way of expressing the
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III
LINUS AND ADONIS
399
