The Golden Bough

Sir James George Frazer published The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion in 1890. It is the anthropologist’s magnum opus and, in some editions, exceeds one thousand pages. The title is taken from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid, where the hero, Aeneas, uses a golden bough (or golden twig) to gain admission into Hades, the underworld. Though elements of the text have been debunked, Frazer’s general thesis, that world cultures have moved from believing in magic to religion to science, has stood the test of time, and the work continues to influence modern literature and art.

The themes of The Golden Bough include humanity’s relationship to mortality, common narratives across cultures and times, and the gradual progression from superstitious to scientific thinking.

The work is divided into four books. Book one, “The King of the Wood,” looks at mysticism, spirituality, and notions of divine powers in various human cultures. The second book, “Killing the God,” looks at myths and ancient stories where gods were murdered, tortured, or enslaved; this book is nearly twice the length of any of the other four. Book three, “The Scapegoat,” delves into stories where Gods were sacrificed, willingly and unwillingly, for the good of their people. “The Golden Bough” is the fourth and final book. It looks at concepts of the afterlife and the possibility of moving between this world and the next.



The text opens with Frazer's discussion of a famous painting, by the English painter William Turner, of Aeneas’s golden bough. According to legend, Aeneas entered the underworld near lake Nemi (called Diana’s Mirror by the ancients) in present-day Italy. Frazer describes the rich and deadly history of this place and its relationship to Diana, the Roman Goddess of nature and the moon.

Frazer explains that each high priest, known as the “King of the Wood,” achieved their position by murdering the previous priest-king. Frazer wants to know why and how this practice was established, and why priests were called “kings” in ancient times. Such traditions were practiced before the Romans conquered the area and applied their codified laws to the region. Frazer takes this curious ritual and compares it to mythical practices in other cultures from around the world.

As he searches through myths using old diaries and letters at Cambridge University, Frazer discovers a pattern of self-sacrifice. In cultures across time and space, it became necessary, for the collective well-being of the community, for a respected leader to be killed. This pattern of sacrifice persisted for a long time in the Middle East and northern Europe.



Frazer unpacks the relationship between politicians and people, demi-gods and full gods, and magic and religion, noting that these last two often overlap, but the former tends to be more institutionalized.

In his attempt to ascertain the reason behind the Priest of Nemi’s death, Frazer also considers Nordic and Mediterranean myths. He notes that many early people believed that an article of one’s clothing or physical body could never be severed from the individual. Thus, as seen in voodoo, when one bruises a person’s stray hair or clipped nails, they are in fact harming that individual. Frazer notes that in several cultures, people who claimed the ability to harm, control, or help others through voodoo ascended in social rank. These early voodoo practitioners became revered healers (shamans) and then priests. They also became pharaohs who claimed immortality or kings who taught their people to think of them as divine beings.

The more he investigates these myths, however, Frazer realizes that only a minority of people actually killed their rulers. The life-death of a ruler was actually more a symbol of his or her rule on earth, and the leader’s willingness to sacrifice their life in order to help their people.



As civilization grew, so did the range of phenomena that the shamans-magicians-priests said they could control. This included agriculture, the weather, marriages, and personal meetings with the Gods.

Frazer looks into myths that surround many religious ceremonies. Frazer is particularly fascinated by Gods who appear first in one religion and then in another, under a new name, with several details changed. Examples include Adonis, a gorgeous boy who, in some accounts, is a noble boy, while in others he’s a demi-god and the son of Aphrodite; Osiris, who is the Egyptian version of the Greek god Zeus; and the Roman goddess Diana, who is called Artemis in Greece.

In the last chapter, Frazer discusses what it means for a people to believe in magic, religion, or science. According to Frazer, the order imposed by magic is established arbitrarily, whereas with science, one’s knowledge of how the world operates comes from demonstrable observations and sustained thought. However, while science is the clearest and most robust form of thought, it’s quite possibly that another, future system of thought may supplant or improve it.



Frazer does hold some reservations about science’s ability to protect the human race in moments of apocalypse, such as when the sun fails. But people should not despair, he writes, as this has been the natural course of events since the very beginning.