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be carried in their left hands at the same time.
    Judith asked Hannah : “Mistress, is it true that this Feast was instituted to remind the Israelites of their desert wanderings with Moses, when they lived in arbours, not in stone houses? It is hard to believe that the desert provided sufficient leafy trees for the purpose.”
    “You are right, daughter. The Feast was celebrated on this mountain centuries before the birth of Moses, but do not quote me as having said so, for I shall deny it.”
    “Since it seems that you know more than the priests, Mistress, will you tell me why the branches of the thyrsus are tied together in threes—willow, palm and myrtle—the palm in the middle, the myrtle on the right hand, the willow on the left ?”
    “Though I do not know more than the priests, at least I am free to tell you what I do know. This is the Festival of Fruits, the Festival of Eve’s Full Moon. Once when the moon shone full in Eden the Second Eve, our mother, plucked myrtle and smelt it, saying : ‘A tree fit for an arbour of love’, for she longed for Adam’s kisses. She plucked a palm leaf and plaited it into a fan, saying : ‘Here is a fan to warm up the fire’, for at that time Adam loved her only as a sister. This fan she hid. She also plucked a palm branch, with the leaf still in its knob, saying : ‘Here is a sceptre. I will give it to Adam, telling him : “Rule me, if you will, with this knobbed sceptre.” ’ Lastly she plucked willow—the willow that has red rind and lance-like foliage—saying : ‘Here are branches suitable for a cradle.’ For the new moon seemed like a cradle to her, and Eve longed for a child.”
    “Mistress, the quince boughs that I see—for what reason are they carried ?”
    “It is said that our mother Eve, by giving Adam quince to eat, forced him to love her as she required to be loved.”
    “But the star of the quince which childless women eat in the hope of quickening their wombs—”
    “It has no virtue,” Hannah interrupted. “I have eaten the thing with prayers every Feast for seven years.”
    “They say that the quinces of Corfu succeed where all others fail.”
    “Then they are wrong. Twice I have sent for Corfu quinces, once from the islet of Macris itself. It was money thrown away.”
    Judith clucked in commiseration.
    “I have tried everything,” sighed Hannah.
    They drove on in silence for a while.
    Judith began again : “I once heard a woman say—an old, old Jebusite woman—that it was the First Eve who planted the tree of the garden, and Adam who plucked the forbidden fruit, and the First Eve who expelled him for his fault.”
    Hannah flushed. “The old woman must have been drunken. You abuse my confidence. Let me never hear you repeat such dangerous tales again in my hearing.”
    Judith laughed silently, for she was herself a Jebusite. The Jebusites were the poor people of Jerusalem, descended from the original Canaanite inhabitants, whom because of their usefulness as slaves and menials the Jews forgave their many idolatrous superstitions. At this Feast they still secretly worshipped the Goddess Anatha, after whom the village of Bethany was named and whose sacred lioness had mothered the tribe of Judah ; and at the Passover, or Feast of Unleavened Bread, they still mourned for Tammuz, her murdered son, the God of the Barley Sheaf.
    Hannah’s sister welcomed them to her house, where they sang hymns, told tales and gossiped in the roof-top arbour until midnight. On the next day the Feast began. The sacrifices on this first day were a he-goat for a sin-offering, two rams, thirteen bullocks with gilded horns, and fourteen lambs. The goat was for the past year ; the rams for summer and winter ; the bullocks for the thirteen new moons ; the lambs for the first fourteen days of each month, when the moon is young. With each beast went a sacrifice of flour and oil, and salt to make the flames burn blue. Then followed the Night of the Women, when tall