ABSTRACT
Kirk does have a point, o f course, but that does not mean the end o f the myth and ritual investigation. I f ‘myth and ritual do not correspond in details o f content but in structure and atmosphere’,2 it is worthwhile investigating whether there are indeed any examples at all o f a myth and rite operating pari passu as ‘symbolic processes for dealing with the same type o f situation in the same affective m ode’ (Cl. Kluckhohn). W . Burkert has done so in recent years with regard to Greece, in his analysis o f myth and ritual com plexes, specifically the Arrhephoria festival and the myth of
the Lemnian wom en. Although even Kirk has been convinced by Burkert’s arguments that in these complexes myths and rites indeed are more or less parallel representations o f a certain affective atmosphere surrounding the turn of the year, it cannot be denied that in both complexes strong aetiological components are present, too; if the myth does not explain details of the ritual, it does, at any rate, translate them into words and images.
