In Sardinia the gardens of Adonis are still planted in connection with the Great Midsummer festival which bears the name of St. John. At the end of May the girl makes a pot of' the bark of the cork-trees, fills it with earth, and sows a handful of wheat and barley in it. The pot being placed in the sun and often watered, the corn sprouts rapidly and has a good head by Midsummer Eve . . The pot is than called Erme or Nennere. On St. John's Day the young man and the girl, dressed in their best, accompanied by a long retinue and preceded by children gambolling and frolicking, move in procession to a church outside the village . .
Wine is mixed in a cup and passed round, each drinking as it passes.
As practised at Ozieri it has some special features . On each of the pots they used formerly to place a statuette or cloth doll dressed as a woman, or a Priapus-like figure made of paste . . The correspondence of these Sardinian pots of grain to the gardens of Adonis seems complete. . Customs of the same sort are observed at the same season in Sicily. Pairs of boys and girls become gossips .