Many of the old harvest customs have probably been lost through time. Some features of the old customs still remain, but the origins of how they started are forgotten by most people. However, research can uncover many interesting facts about the remnants of these customs.

The Old English word for cup is bune. Buan means to dwell, settle, or cultivate. In times past, the husband of the household would be the head of the family.

Finding out how these words might be related linguisticly is a deep and difficult undertaking, but toward the end of Riders to The Sea, there is a cup mentioned. It has been established that there is no living husband.

One linguist gives this opinion:

"Webster's gives the etymology of husband:
Etymology: Middle English husbonde, from Old English husbonda master of a house, from Old Norse husbOndi, from hus house + bOndi householder; akin to Old Norse bua to inhabit; akin to Old English buan to dwell."

The Saxon word for bun is boun. It was derived from the word for a sacred ox that was slaughtered and eaten. Even though meat and bread are entirely different, in olden times grain was considered to be slaughtered when it was cut from the chaff.

Easter, in pagan times, was a time to slaughter the sacred ox. In modern times, it is a time for hot cross buns in some parts of the world. The origin of this custom is pre-Christian:

"At the feast to Eastre, an ox was sacrificed and the image of his horns carved into ritual bread - which evolved into the twice-scored Easter biscuits we call 'hot cross buns.' In fact, the word 'bun' derives from the Saxon for 'sacred ox,' 'boun.'"  A cross bun kept from one Good Friday to the next was thought to bring luck, the buns were supposed to serve as a charm against shipwreck, and hanging a bun over the chimneypiece ensured that all bread baked there would be perfect. Another belief was that eating hot cross buns on Good Friday served to protect the home"

(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_did_hot_cross_buns_originate).

The word Easter is derived from the name of the Saxon goddess of the Spring Equinox, Eostre. She was thought to preside over a festival of uninhibited joy and sexuality.

Symmetry and balance between this world and the otherworld can be typified by the threshold of the cottage where Maurya lives in Riders to the Sea.

The idea of the threshold of the house being a special open portal is seen in the custom of the groom carrying the bride safely over it . The Roman god Janus was the god or guardian of doorways.

In Man, Myth & Magic, it says this about thresholds:

"Arnold van Gennep pointed out, in the Rites of Passage, that the key to much magical and religious reverence, not merely for the threshold which must not be profaned by treading on it, but for the whole doorway, is the idea of passing through a door or gate or portal of any kind as a transition from one realm or condition to another."

The door is the boundary between the foreign and domestic worlds, in the case of a person's dwelling and between the common and the sacred.

In older cultures, during the Wake, the dead body was often treated as if the person were alive. Sometimes the corpse was set up to a table in a chair, spoken to, and danced with the living before being buried. All these are expressions of culture show views that this present life is only one before another life in another dimension or realm.

Many of the pagan customs involved lighting fires and passing people and cattle through a bonfire. These fires were often lit during the nights when spirits were said to pass into this world. They provided light in the darkness, and so, were also seen as a protecting influence.

If you consider the extinguished life fires in Maurya's household, you can also see the need for a new fire to be lit on the hearth. This could furnish one interpretation of the bundle the two daughters are hiding in the loft.

These ancient customs, some seeming to be near duplications of passing children through the fire to Molech in spirit have been watered down through time. Instead of burning the children alive in the fires, the custom evolved of merely running through the fires. Still, at one time, human and animal sacrifice were offered.

In Celtic Myths it is told that "...one Irish tradition involved the triple killing of a king, by burning, wounding and drowning, at the feast of Samhain" (Green, 69).

There is a motif called the Thracian Rider God, a somewhat mysterious figure.

"There are a few deductions which can be made about the significance of this mysterious figure. First, it must be noted that the figures of a horse and rider frequently occur on classical Greek and Etruscan funerary monuments. Such representations had a mortuary significance - the deceased was departing from this world to the next."

Here the mystery of his identity becomes more puzzling...The name most frequently given is 'Heros' or 'Heron'. This could be the designation of a dead man..."Man, Myth & Magic, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown, Volume 19, 2610).

Since Maurya's sons are seen horseback riding together, a literal reading of the ghostly ride isn't likely. The legendary elements of the Wild Hunt, The Green Man and Herne the Hunter are typified by these riders. Their furious ride suggests the legendary wild hunt.  The brothers could be chasing after the goddess-bride, the prize of the original wild hunt. The following link informs us that:

"In the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark the Hunt was most often named after its leader, Odin. It was called Odensjakt (Odin's Hunt), Oskerei (Horrific or Thunderous Ride), the Gandreid (Ride of the Dead), and the Asgardreia (Ride of Asgard). This Norse version of the Hunt was often seen chasing a beautiful Otherworldly maiden perhaps a memory of grim night chases conducted by invading armies."

In France we find the Hunt under the name of "The Family of the Harlequin." Two theories persist on the origin of this name. One (by Guerber) states that another form of the name "Mesnee d' Hellequin" is a derivative of the name for the Norse Goddess/Giantess of death, Hel.

In Germany where many tales of the Hunt have survived and are still being re-enacted today, the Hunt is commonly associated with Odin and called Wotan's Hunt. Other names were Wotan's Army, the Wilde Hunt."

In the church of St. Mary's, Hasppisburg, England, a church dedicated to shipwrecked mariners, there is a font with "club-wielding wodehouses, traditional wild men" (Timpson, 64).

The top of the font resembles the canopy of a tree, while the base becomes cylindrical with the lowest segment containing the carvings of the wild men alternating with carved lions.

Wodehouses are wild men from the woods. They might be linked to the tales of Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men who lived and hid in Sherwood Forest.

Since one of Odin's names was Woden, could the wild men be the bodily houses containing Odin's battle fury, making themselves Woden's vessels? When in a battle rage, they might have fought like the Berserkers or "Bear Shirt" warriors.

Ancient fables of other cultures impart more meaning about the symbolic nature and relationship of horses to ancient people.  The Lost Language of Symbolism by Harold Bayley states:

"The one-eyed Arimaspians, everlastingly on the prowl for the treasured gold of the Hyperborean Griffins rode, it is said, on horses, an implication that they were men of intellect." (286).

The two eyes, as have been exemplified, typified, respectively, Knowledge and Love, and one may reasonably deduct from the very marked mention of horses, that the solitary eye possessed by the Arimaspians was the Eye of Intellect, and that the missing eye was the Eye of Love.

Any history of "one-eyed" people might cast light on the story of Odin. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

A colplete view is composed from literature, mythology and legend, and one sees a bigger picture. Synge, as an inhabitant of the modern world, returned to the past by way of his education on the Aran Islands. This ancient past, encompassing many different groups of people, was pieced together in ancient times. His friends at the Abbey Theater certainly shared an interest in the historical legends and literature of their country and in preserving that heritage.