Victorian comparative religion
This volume returns to the central mystery of The Golden Bough—the priest-kingship of Nemi and the ritual of the King of the Wood. Frazer synthesizes his accumulated evidence to explain why the priest of Diana at Nemi could only assume office by slaying his predecessor. The work analyzes Roman religion, the sacred grove, the golden bough itself, and proposes that the King of the Wood embodied a vegetation deity who must be ritually killed to ensure nature's renewal and transfer vitality to a stronger successor.
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