The writer of the Golden Bough, Dr. Frazer, has most ably interpreted the inner meaning of the strange ritual in the grove of Diana Nemorensis near Aricia, with reference to primitive folk ideas about the deity who governs vegetation and human life. It seems possible to apply the main principle also to a part of the legend of Theseus. In some ways Theseus seems to be purely a mythological figure, to whom an historical place is assigned at the close of the Minoan supremacy, judging by the story of the ring. To him various myths after the type of the labours of Heracles have been attached, some purely invented to give him prominence, others based entirely on ritualistic elements. One of these—the myth of Sinis—has already been explained in the latter way by Dr. Farnell.