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The gold branch. Study on magic and religion (The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion in the first edition, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion in the Second) is a essay written by the anthropologist James Frazer, initially published in 1890 and then repeatedly expanded until the final draft of 1915. In this voluminous book, the author deals with studies on primitive cultures, related to each other, thanks to the guiding thread of the evolutionary theory of history.

Content of the work
The title comes from a curious plot of two very different narratives between them, since one is mythological and taken from the episode of the Sibyl that advised Enea to procure a branch of gold, before descending into the Hades, to allow it to return from the Underworld; the other instead is a protohistoric affair and concerns the rite of the killing of the kings in the woods of Nemi. Frazer analyzes the origins of every use, costume, rite, considering religious and magical practices, superstitions, current and ancient myths around the world.

It is worth noting the presence of two versions of the work, a greater complete of rich notations, and a minor, synthesis of the previous and deprived of the annotations that, moreover, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica were often inaccurate and second hand.

The work can be divided into two main sections: the first one is entitled "Kings and Died Gods", and describes the various events of sacred kings, eliminated by traditional rite, especially in populations whose culture is still impregnated and influenced by customs and agricultural needs. The settings are mostly African and inherent in the classic world. Among the themes addressed by Frazer, there is a theory about the structures of magic, the cult of nature and the trees, the origin and diffusion of taboos, as well as the rediscovery of numerous classic characters, such as Osiris, Adonis, Demetra, Dionysus, linked to a deity of the earth, death and seasonal rebirth.

The second part of the volume, presents a greater number of folkloric themes, deepens the characteristics and sense of sacrificial rites, expiatory rites, the expulsion of evil and the scapegoat.

The author uses the method of extreme comparativism, which allows him to put on the same floor a medieval text, an Indian rite and a Scottish custom, obtained with second-hand information from travellers. So Frazer carries out a formidable analysis of separate elements, not overly curing cultural integration.

The book begins with some chapters dedicated to the magical-spiritual dimension. The author is not limited to describing some episodes, related to matter, collected in various parts of the world, but elaborates a model of explanation on the principles of magic, rectified by some fundamental laws, such as that of similarity, according to which the similar generates the similar, on which the omeo magic is based