e" wise, pious, and honorable ancestors for ten generations
([=A]cvl. I. 5). Then comes the legal restriction, which some scholars
call 'primitive,' that the wife must not be too nearly related. The
girl has her own ordeal (not generally mentioned among ordeals!): The
wooer that thus selects his bride (this he does if one has not been
found already either by his parents or by his own inclination) makes
eight balls of earth and calls on the girl to choose one ('may she get
that to which she is born'). If she select a ball made from the earth
of a field that bears two crops, she (or her child) will be rich in
grain; if from the cow-stall, rich in cattle; if from the place of
sacrifice, godly; if from a pool that does not dry, gifted; if from
the gambler's court, devoted to gambling; if from cross-roads,
unfaithful; if from a barren field, poor in grain; if from the
burying-ground, destructful of her husband. There are several forms of
making a choice, but we confine ourselves to the marriage.[32] In
village-life the bridegroom is escorted to the girl's house by young
women who tease him. The bridegroom presents presents to the bride,
and receives a cow. The bridegroom takes the bride's hand, saying 'I
take thy hand for weal' (Rig Veda, X. 85. 36), and leads her to a
certain stone, on which she steps first with the right foot (toe).
Then three times they circumambulate the fire, keeping it to the
right, an old Aryan custom for many rites, as in the _deisel_ of the
Kelts; the bride herself offering grain in the fire, and the groom
repeating more Vedic verses. They then take together the seven solemn
steps (with verses),[33] and so they are married. The groom, if of
another village, now drives away with the bride, and has ready Vedic
verses for every stage of the journey. After sun-down the groom points
out the north star, and admonishes the bride to be no less constant
and faithful. Three or twelve days they remain chaste, some say one
night; others say, only if he be from another village. The new husband
must now see to the house-fire, which he keeps ever burning, the sign
of his being a householder.

THE FUNERAL CEREMONY.

Roth has an article in the Journal of the German Oriental Society
(VIII. 467) which is at once a description of one of the funeral hymns
oL the Rig Veda (X. 18) with the later ritual, and a criticism of the
bearing of the latter on the former.[34] He shows here that the
ritual, so far from having in