The Golden Bough
![](/Images/godic/202502/15/The_Golden_Bough4019.jpg")
![J. M. W. Turner's painting of the Golden Bough incident in the Aeneid](/Images/godic/202502/15/Golden_bough4019.jpg")
![The Judgement of Paris - an Etruscan bronze-handled mirror of the fourth or third century BC that relates the often misunderstood myth as interpreted by Frazer, showing the three goddesses giving their apple or pomegranate to the new king, who must kill the old king - Campana Collection, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, Sully](/Images/godic/202502/15/Mirror_Judgement_of_Paris_Louvre_Bj17344019.jpg")
The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (retitled The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion in its second edition) is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941). It was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes. The work was aimed at a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855). The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought was substantial.