Chapter 28. The Killing of the Tree-Spirit.
Section 1. The Whitsuntide Mummers.
IT remains to ask what light the custom of killing the divine king or
priest sheds upon the special subject to our enquiry. In an earlier
part of this work we saw reason to suppose that the King of the
Wood at Nemi was regarded as an incarnation of a tree-spirit or of
the spirit of vegetation, and that as such he would be endowed, in
the belief of his worshippers, with a magical power of making the
trees to bear fruit, the crops to grow, and so on. His life must
therefore have been held very precious by his worshippers, and
was probably hedged in by a system of elaborate precautions or
taboos like those by which, in so many places, the life of the
man-god has been guarded against the malignant influence of
demons and sorcerers. But we have seen that the very value
attached to the life of the man-god necessitates his violent death
as the only means of preserving it from the inevitable decay of age.
The same reasoning would apply to the King of the Wood; he, too,
had to be killed in order that the divine spirit, incarnate in him,
might be transferred in its integrity to his successor. The rule that he
held office till a stronger should slay him might be supposed to
secure both the preservation of his divine life in full vigour and its
transference to a suitable successor as soon as that vigour began
to be impaired. For so long as he could maintain his position by the
strong hand, it might be inferred that his natural force was not
abated; whereas his defeat and death at the hands of another
proved that his strength was beginning to fail and that it was time
his divine life should be lodged in a less dilapidated tabernacle.
This explanation of the rule that the King of the Wood had to be
slain by his successor at least renders that rule perfectly
intelligible. It is strongly supported by the theory and practice of the
Shilluk, who put their divine king to death at the first signs of failing
health, lest his decrepitude should entail a corresponding failure of
vital energy on the corn, the cattle, and men. Moreover, it is
countenanced by the analogy of the Chitomé, upon whose life the
existence of the world was supposed to hang, and who was
therefore slain by his successor as soon as he showed signs of
breaking up. Again, the terms on which in later times the King of
Calicut held office are identical with those attached to the office of
King of the Wood, except that whereas the former might be assailed
by a candidate at any time, the King of Calicut might only be
attacked once every twelve years. But as the leave granted to the
King of Calicut to reign so long as he could defend himself against
all comers was a mitigation of the old rule which set a fixed term to
his life, so we may conjecture that the similar permission granted to
the King of the Wood was a mitigation of an older custom of putting
him to death at the end of a definite period. In both cases the new
rule gave to the god-man at least a chance for his life, which
under the old rule was denied him; and people probably reconciled
themselves to the change by reflecting that so long as the
god-man could maintain himself by the sword against all assaults,
there was no reason to apprehend that the fatal decay had set
in. 1
The conjecture that the King of the Wood was formerly put to
death at the expiry of a fixed term, without being allowed a chance
for his life, will be confirmed if evidence can be adduced of a
custom of periodically killing his counterparts, the human
representatives of the tree-spirit, in Northern Europe. Now in point
of fact such a custom has left unmistakable traces of itself in the
rural festivals of the peasantry. To take examples. 2
At Niederpöring, in Lower Bavaria, the Whitsuntide representative
of the tree-spirit-the Pfingstl as he was called-was clad from top to
toe in leaves and flowers. On his head he wore a high pointed cap,
the ends of which rested on his shoulders, only two holes being left
in it for his eyes. The cap was covered with water-flowers and
surmounted with a nosegay of peonies. The sleeves of his coat
were also made of water-plants, and the rest of his body was
enveloped in alder and hazel leaves. On each side of him marched
a boy holding up one of the Pfingstl's arms. These two boys carried
drawn swords, and so did most of the others who formed the
procession. They stopped at every house where they hoped to
receive a present; and the people, in hiding, soused the leaf-clad
boy with water. All rejoiced when he was well drenched. Finally he
waded into the brook up to his middle; whereupon one of the boys,
standing on the bridge, pretended to cut off his head. At
Wurmlingen, in Swabia, a score of young fellows dress themselves
on Whit-Monday in white shirts and white trousers, with red
scarves round their waists and swords hanging from the scarves.
They ride on horseback into the wood, led by two trumpeters
blowing their trumpets. In the wood they cut down leafy oak
branches, in which they envelop from head to foot him who was the
last of their number to ride out of the village. His legs, however, are
encased separately, so that he may be able to mount his horse
again. Further, they give him a long artificial neck, with an artificial
head and a false face on the top of it. Then a May-tree is cut,
generally an aspen or beech about ten feet high; and being decked
with coloured handkerchiefs and ribbons it is entrusted to a special
"May-bearer." The cavalcade then returns with music and song to
the village. Amongst the personages who figure in the procession
are a Moorish king with a sooty face and a crown on his head, a
Dr. Iron-Beard, a corporal, and an executioner. They halt on the
village green, and each of the characters makes a speech in
rhyme. The executioner announces that the leaf-clad man has
been condemned to death, and cuts off his false head. Then the
riders race to the May-tree, which has been set up a little way off.
The first man who succeeds in wrenching it from the ground as he
gallops past keeps it with all its decorations. The ceremony is
observed every second or third year. 3
In Saxony and Thüringen there is a Whitsuntide ceremony called
"chasing the Wild Man out of the bush," or "fetching the Wild Man
out of the wood." A young fellow is enveloped in leaves or moss
and called the Wild Man. He hides in the wood and the other lads
of the village go out to seek him. They find him, lead him captive
out of the wood, and fire at him with blank muskets. He falls like
dead to the ground, but a lad dressed as a doctor bleeds him, and
he comes to life again. At this they rejoice, and, binding him fast on
a waggon, take him to the village, where they tell all the people
how they have caught the Wild Man. At every house they receive
a gift. In the Erzgebirge the following custom was annually
observed at Shrovetide about the beginning of the seventeenth
century. Two men disguised as Wild Men, the one in brushwood
and moss, the other in straw, were led about the streets, and at last
taken to the market-place, where they were chased up and down,
shot and stabbed. Before falling they reeled about with strange
gestures and spirted blood on the people from bladders which they
carried. When they were down, the huntsmen placed them on
boards and carried them to the ale-house, the miners marching
beside them and winding blasts on their mining tools as if they had
taken a noble head of game. A very similar Shrovetide custom is
still observed near Schluckenau in Bohemia. A man dressed up as
a Wild Man is chased through several streets till he comes to a
narrow lane across which a cord is stretched. He stumbles over the
cord and, falling to the ground, is overtaken and caught by his
pursuers. The executioner runs up and stabs with his sword a
bladder filled with blood which the Wild Man wears round his body;
so the Wild Man dies, while a stream of blood reddens the ground.
Next day a straw-man, made up to look like the Wild Man, is
placed on a litter, and, accompanied by a great crowd, is taken to
a pool into which it is thrown by the executioner. The ceremony is
called "burying the Carnival." 4
In Semic (Bohemia) the custom of beheading the King is observed
on Whit-Monday. A troop of young people disguise themselves;
each is girt with a girdle of bark and carries a wooden sword and a
trumpet of willow-bark. The King wears a robe of tree-bark
adorned with flowers, on his head is a crown of bark decked with
flowers and branches, his feet are wound about with ferns, a mask
hides his face, and for a sceptre he has a hawthorn switch in his
hand. A lad leads him through the village by a rope fastened to his
foot, while the rest dance about, blow their trumpets, and whistle. In
every farmhouse the King is chased round the room, and one of the
troop, amid much noise and outcry, strikes with his sword a blow
on the King's robe of bark till it rings again. Then a gratuity is
demanded. The ceremony of decapitation, which is here somewhat
slurred over, is carried out with a greater semblance of reality in
other parts of Bohemia. Thus in some villages of the Königgrätz
district on Whit-Monday the girls assemble under one lime-tree
and the young men under another, all dressed in their best and
tricked out with ribbons. The young men twine a garland for the
Queen, and the girls another for the King. When they have chosen
the King and Queen they all go in procession two and two, to the
ale-house, from the balcony of which the crier proclaims the
names of the King and Queen. Both are then invested with the
insignia of their office and are crowned with the garlands, while the
music plays up. Then some one gets on a bench and accuses the
King of various offences, such as ill-treating the cattle. The King
appeals to witnesses and a trial ensues, at the close of which the
judge, who carries a white wand as his badge of office,
pronounces a verdict of "Guilty," or "Not guilty." If the verdict is
"Guilty," the judge breaks his wand, the King kneels on a white
cloth, all heads are bared, and a soldier sets three or four hats,
one above the other, on his Majesty's head. The judge then
pronounces the word "Guilty" thrice in a loud voice, and orders the
crier to behead the King. The crier obeys by striking off the King's
hats with the wooden sword. 5
But perhaps, for our purpose, the most instructive of these mimic
executions is the following Bohemian one. In some places of the
Pilsen district (Bohemia) on Whit-Monday the King is dressed in
bark, ornamented with flowers and ribbons; he wears a crown of gilt
paper and rides a horse, which is also decked with flowers.
Attended by a judge, an executioner, and other characters, and
followed by a train of soldiers, all mounted, he rides to the village
square, where a hut or arbour of green boughs has been erected
under the May-trees, which are firs, freshly cut, peeled to the top,
and dressed with flowers and ribbons. After the dames and maidens
of the village have been criticised and a frog beheaded, the
cavalcade rides to a place previously determined upon, in a
straight, broad street. Here they draw up in two lines and the King
takes to flight. He is given a short start and rides off at full speed,
pursued by the whole troop. If they fail to catch him he remains
King for another year, and his companions must pay his score at
the ale-house in the evening. But if they overtake and catch him
he is scourged with hazel rods or beaten with the wooden swords
and compelled to dismount. Then the executioner asks, "Shall I
behead this King?" The answer is given, "Behead him"; the
executioner brandishes his axe, and with the words, "One, two,
three, let the King headless be!" he strikes off the King's crown.
Amid the loud cries of the bystanders the King sinks to the ground;
then he is laid on a bier and carried to the nearest farmhouse. 6
In most of the personages who are thus slain in mimicry it is
impossible not to recognise representatives of the tree-spirit or
spirit of vegetation, as he is supposed to manifest himself in spring.
The bark, leaves, and flowers in which the actors are dressed, and
the season of the year at which they appear, show that they belong
to the same class as the Grass King, King of the May,
Jack-in-the-Green, and other representatives of the vernal spirit
of vegetation which we examined in an earlier part of this work. As
if to remove any possible doubt on this head, we find that in two
cases these slain men are brought into direct connexion with
May-trees, which are the impersonal, as the May King, Grass
King, and so forth, are the personal representatives of the
tree-spirit. The drenching of the Pfingstl with water and his wading
up to the middle into the brook are, therefore, no doubt rain-charms
like those which have been already described. 7
But if these personages represent, as they certainly do, the spirit
of vegetation in spring, the question arises, Why kill them? What is
the object of slaying the spirit of vegetation at any time and above
all in spring, when his services are most wanted? The only
probable answer to this question seems to be given in the
explanation already proposed of the custom of killing the divine
king or priest. The divine life, incarnate in a material and mortal
body, is liable to be tainted and corrupted by the weakness of the
frail medium in which it is for a time enshrined; and if it is to be
saved from the increasing enfeeblement which it must necessarily
share with its human incarnation as he advances in years, it must
be detached from him before, or at least as soon as, he exhibits
signs of decay, in order to be transferred to a vigorous successor.
This is done by killing the old representative of the god and
conveying the divine spirit from him to a new incarnation. The
killing of the god, that is, of his human incarnation, is therefore
merely a necessary step to his revival or resurrection in a better
form. Far from being an extinction of the divine spirit, it is only the
beginning of a purer and stronger manifestation of it. If this
explanation holds good of the custom of killing divine kings and
priests in general, it is still more obviously applicable to the custom
of annually killing the representative of the tree-spirit or spirit of
vegetation in spring. For the decay of plant life in winter is readily
interpreted by primitive man as an enfeeblement of the spirit of
vegetation; the spirit has, he thinks, grown old and weak and must
therefore be renovated by being slain and brought to life in a
younger and fresher form. Thus the killing of the representative of
the tree-spirit in spring is regarded as a means to promote and
quicken the growth of vegetation. For the killing of the tree-spirit is
associated always (we must suppose) implicitly, and sometimes
explicitly also, with a revival or resurrection of him in a more
youthful and vigorous form. So in the Saxon and Thüringen custom,
after the Wild Man has been shot he is brought to life again by a
doctor; and in the Wurmlingen ceremony there figures a Dr.
Iron-Beard, who probably once played a similar part; certainly in
another spring ceremony, which will be described presently, Dr.
Iron-Beard pretends to restore a dead man to life. But of this revival
or resurrection of the god we shall have more to say anon. 8
The points of similarity between these North European personages
and the subject of our enquiry-the King of the Wood or priest of
Nemi-are sufficiently striking. In these northern maskers we see
kings, whose dress of bark and leaves along with the hut of green
boughs and the fir-trees, under which they hold their court,
proclaim them unmistakably as, like their Italian counterpart, Kings
of the Wood. Like him they die a violent death, but like him they
may escape from it for a time by their bodily strength and agility; for
in several of these northern customs the flight and pursuit of the
king is a prominent part of the ceremony, and in one case at least if
the king can outrun his pursuers he retains his life and his office for
another year. In this last case the king in fact holds office on
condition of running for his life once a year, just as the King of
Calicut in later times held office on condition of defending his life
against all comers once every twelve years, and just as the priest
of Nemi held office on condition of defending himself against any
assault at any time. In every one of these instances the life of the
god-man is prolonged on condition of his showing, in a severe
physical contest of fight or flight, that his bodily strength is not
decayed, and that, therefore, the violent death, which sooner or
later is inevitable, may for the present be postponed. With regard to
flight it is noticeable that flight figured conspicuously both in the
legend and in the practice of the King of the Wood. He had to be a
runaway slave in memory of the flight of Orestes, the traditional
founder of the worship; hence the Kings of the Wood are described
by an ancient writer as "both strong of hand and fleet of foot."
Perhaps if we knew the ritual of the Arician grove fully we might
find that the king was allowed a chance for his life by flight, like his
Bohemian brother. I have already conjectured that the annual flight
of the priestly king at Rome (regifugium) was at first a flight of the
same kind; in other words, that he was originally one of those
divine kings who are either put to death after a fixed period or
allowed to prove by the strong hand or the fleet foot that their
divinity is vigorous and unimpaired. One more point of resemblance
may be noted between the Italian King of the Wood and his
northern counterparts. In Saxony and Thüringen the representative
of the tree-spirit, after being killed, is brought to life again by a
doctor. This is exactly what legend affirmed to have happened to
the first King of the Wood at Nemi, Hippolytus or Virbius, who after
he had been killed by his horses was restored to life by the
physician Aesculapius. Such a legend tallies well with the theory
that the slaying of the King of the Wood was only a step to his
revival or resurrection in his successor. 9
Section 2. Burying the Carnival.
THUS far I have offered an explanation of the rule which required
that the priest of Nemi should be slain by his successor. The
explanation claims to be no more than probable; our scanty
knowledge of the custom and of its history forbids it to be more. But
its probability will be augmented in proportion to the extent to which
the motives and modes of thought which it assumes can be proved
to have operated in primitive society. Hitherto the god with whose
death and resurrection we have been chiefly concerned has been
the tree-god. But if I can show that the custom of killing the god
and the belief in his resurrection originated, or at least existed, in
the hunting and pastoral stage of society, when the slain god was
an animal, and that it survived into the agricultural stage, when the
slain god was the corn or a human being representing the corn, the
probability of my explanation will have been considerably
increased. This I shall attempt to do in the sequel, and in the
course of the discussion I hope to clear up some obscurities which
still remain, and to answer some objections which may have
suggested themselves to the reader. 1
We start from the point at which we left off-the spring customs of
European peasantry. Besides the ceremonies already described
there are two kindred sets of observances in which the simulated
death of a divine or supernatural being is a conspicuous feature. In
one of them the being whose death is dramatically represented is a
personification of the Carnival; in the other it is Death himself. The
former ceremony falls naturally at the end of the Carnival, either on
the last day of that merry season, namely Shrove Tuesday, or on
the first day of Lent, namely Ash Wednesday. The date of the other
ceremony-the Carrying or Driving out of Death, as it is commonly
called-is not so uniformly fixed. Generally it is the fourth Sunday in
Lent, which hence goes by the name of Dead Sunday; but in some
places the celebration falls a week earlier, in others, as among the
Czechs of Bohemia, a week later, while in certain German villages
of Moravia it is held on the first Sunday after Easter. Perhaps, as
has been suggested, the date may originally have been variable,
depending on the appearance of the first swallow or some other
herald of the spring. Some writers regard the ceremony as Slavonic
in its origin. Grimm thought it was a festival of the New Year with
the old Slavs, who began their year in March. We shall first take
examples, of the mimic death of the Carnival, which always falls
before the other in the calendar. 2
At Frosinone, in Latium, about half-way between Rome and
Naples, the dull monotony of life in a provincial Italian town is
agreeably broken on the last day of the Carnival by the ancient
festival known as the Radica. About four o'clock in the afternoon
the town band, playing lively tunes and followed by a great crowd,
proceeds to the Piazza del Plebiscito, where is the Sub-Prefecture
as well as the rest of the Government buildings. Here, in the middle
of the square, the eyes of the expectant multitude are greeted by
the sight of an immense car decked with many-coloured festoons
and drawn by four horses. Mounted on the car is a huge chair, on
which sits enthroned the majestic figure of the Carnival, a man of
stucco about nine feet high with a rubicund and smiling
countenance. Enormous boots, a tin helmet like those which grace
the heads of officers of the Italian marine, and a coat of many
colours embellished with strange devices, adorn the outward man
of this stately personage. His left hand rests on the arm of the chair,
while with his right he gracefully salutes the crowd, being moved to
this act of civility by a string which is pulled by a man who
modestly shrinks from publicity under the mercy-seat. And now the
crowd, surging excitedly round the car, gives vent to its feelings in
wild cries of joy, gentle and simple being mixed up together and all
dancing furiously the Saltarello. A special feature of the festival is
that every one must carry in his hand what is called a radica (
"root"), by which is meant a huge leaf of the aloe or rather the
agave. Any one who ventured into the crowd without such a leaf
would be unceremoniously hustled out of it, unless indeed he bore
as a substitute a large cabbage at the end of a long stick or a
bunch of grass curiously plaited. When the multitude, after a short
turn, has escorted the slow-moving car to the gate of the
Sub-Prefecture, they halt, and the car, jolting over the uneven
ground, rumbles into the courtyard. A hush now falls on the crowd,
their subdued voices sounding, according to the description of one
who has heard them, like the murmur of a troubled sea. All eyes are
turned anxiously to the door from which the Sub-Prefect himself
and the other representatives of the majesty of the law are
expected to issue and pay their homage to the hero of the hour. A
few moments of suspense and then a storm of cheers and
hand-clapping salutes the appearance of the dignitaries, as they
file out and, descending the staircase, take their place in the
procession. The hymn of the Carnival is now thundered out, after
which, amid a deafening roar, aloe leaves and cabbages are
whirled aloft and descend impartially on the heads of the just and
the unjust, who lend fresh zest to the proceedings by engaging in a
free fight. When these preliminaries have been concluded to the
satisfaction of all concerned, the procession gets under weigh. The
rear is brought up by a cart laden with barrels of wine and
policemen, the latter engaged in the congenial task of serving out
wine to all who ask for it, while a most internecine struggle,
accompanied by a copious discharge of yells, blows, and
blasphemy, goes on among the surging crowd at the cart's tail in
their anxiety not to miss the glorious opportunity of intoxicating
themselves at the public expense. Finally, after the procession has
paraded the principal streets in this majestic manner, the effigy of
Carnival is taken to the middle of a public square, stripped of his
finery, laid on a pile of wood, and burnt amid the cries of the
multitude, who thundering out once more the song of the Carnival
fling their so-called "roots" on the pyre and give themselves up
without restraint to the pleasures of the dance. 3
In the Abruzzi a pasteboard figure of the Carnival is carried by
four grave-diggers with pipes in their mouths and bottles of wine
slung at their shoulder-belts. In front walks the wife of the Carnival,
dressed in mourning and dissolved in tears. From time to time the
company halts, and while the wife addresses the sympathising
public, the grave-diggers refresh the inner man with a pull at the
bottle. In the open square the mimic corpse is laid on a pyre, and to
the roll of drums, the shrill screams of the women, and the gruffer
cries of the men a light is set to it. While the figure burns, chestnuts
are thrown about among the crowd. Sometimes the Carnival is
represented by a straw-man at the top of a pole which is borne
through the town by a troop of mummers in the course of the
afternoon. When evening comes on, four of the mummers hold out a
quilt or sheet by the corners, and the figure of the Carnival is made
to tumble into it. The procession is then resumed, the performers
weeping crocodile tears and emphasising the poignancy of their
grief by the help of saucepans and dinner bells. Sometimes, again,
in the Abruzzi the dead Carnival is personified by a living man who
lies in a coffin, attended by another who acts the priest and
dispenses holy water in great profusion from a bathing tub. 4
At Lerida, in Catalonia, the funeral of the Carnival was witnessed
by an English traveller in 1877. On the last Sunday of the Carnival
a grand procession of infantry, cavalry, and maskers of many sorts,
some on horseback and some in carriages, escorted the grand car
of His Grace Pau Pi, as the effigy was called, in triumph through
the principal streets. For three days the revelry ran high, and then
at midnight on the last day of the Carnival the same procession
again wound through the streets, but under a different aspect and
for a different end. The triumphal car was exchanged for a hearse,
in which reposed the effigy of his dead Grace: a troop of maskers,
who in the first procession had played the part of Students of Folly
with many a merry quip and jest, now, robed as priests and
bishops, paced slowly along holding aloft huge lighted tapers and
singing a dirge. All the mummers wore crape, and all the horsemen
carried blazing flambeaux. Down the high street, between the lofty,
many-storeyed and balconied houses, where every window, every
balcony, every housetop was crammed with a dense mass of
spectators, all dressed and masked in fantastic gorgeousness, the
procession took its melancholy way. Over the scene flashed and
played the shifting cross-lights and shadows from the moving
torches: red and blue Bengal lights flared up and died out again;
and above the trampling of the horses and the measured tread of
the marching multitude rose the voices of the priests chanting the
requiem, while the military bands struck in with the solemn roll of
the muffled drums. On reaching the principal square the procession
halted, a burlesque funeral oration was pronounced over the
defunct Pau Pi, and the lights were extinguished. Immediately the
devil and his angels darted from the crowd, seized the body and
fled away with it, hotly pursued by the whole multitude, yelling,
screaming, and cheering. Naturally the fiends were overtaken and
dispersed; and the sham corpse, rescued from their clutches, was
laid in a grave that had been made ready for its reception. Thus the
Carnival of 1877 at Lerida died and was buried. 5
A ceremony of the same sort is observed in Provence on Ash
Wednesday. An effigy called Caramantran, whimsically attired, is
drawn in a chariot or borne on a litter, accompanied by the
populace in grotesque costumes, who carry gourds full of wine and
drain them with all the marks, real or affected, of intoxication. At the
head of the procession are some men disguised as judges and
barristers, and a tall gaunt personage who masquerades as Lent;
behind them follow young people mounted on miserable hacks and
attired as mourners who pretend to bewail the fate that is in store for
Caramantran. In the principal square the procession halts, the
tribunal is constituted, and Caramantran placed at the bar. After a
formal trial he is sentenced to death amid the groans of the mob: the
barrister who defended him embraces his client for the last time: the
officers of justice do their duty: the condemned is set with his back
to a wall and hurried into eternity under a shower of stones. The
sea or a river receives his mangled remains. Throughout nearly the
whole of the Ardennes it was and still is customary on Ash
Wednesday to burn an effigy which is supposed to represent the
Carnival, while appropriate verses are sung round about the
blazing figure. Very often an attempt is made to fashion the effigy in
the likeness of the husband who is reputed to be least faithful to his
wife of any in the village. As might perhaps have been anticipated,
the distinction of being selected for portraiture under these painful
circumstances has a slight tendency to breed domestic jars,
especially when the portrait is burnt in front of the house of the gay
deceiver whom it represents, while a powerful chorus of
caterwauls, groans, and other melodious sounds bears public
testimony to the opinion which his friends and neighbours entertain
of his private virtues. In some villages of the Ardennes a young
man of flesh and blood, dressed up in hay and straw, used to act
the part of Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), as the personification of
the Carnival is often called in France after the last day of the
period which he personates. He was brought before a mock
tribunal, and being condemned to death was placed with his back
to a wall, like a soldier at a military execution, and fired at with
blank cartridges. At Vrigne-aux-Bois one of these harmless
buffoons, named Thierry, was accidentally killed by a wad that had
been left in a musket of the firing-party. When poor Shrove
Tuesday dropped under the fire, the applause was loud and long,
he did it so naturally; but when he did not get up again, they ran to
him and found him a corpse. Since then there have been no more
of these mock executions in the Ardennes. 6
In Normandy on the evening of Ash Wednesday it used to be the
custom to hold a celebration called the Burial of Shrove Tuesday.
A squalid effigy scantily clothed in rags, a battered old hat crushed
down on his dirty face, his great round paunch stuffed with straw,
represented the disreputable old rake who, after a long course of
dissipation, was now about to suffer for his sins. Hoisted on the
shoulders of a sturdy fellow, who pretended to stagger under the
burden, this popular personification of the Carnival promenaded the
streets for the last time in a manner the reverse of triumphal.
Preceded by a drummer and accompanied by a jeering rabble,
among whom the urchins and all the tag-rag and bobtail of the
town mustered in great force, the figure was carried about by the
flickering light of torches to the discordant din of shovels and tongs,
pots and pans, horns and kettles, mingled with hootings, groans,
and hisses. From time to time the procession halted, and a
champion of morality accused the broken-down old sinner of all
the excesses he had committed and for which he was now about to
be burned alive. The culprit, having nothing to urge in his own
defence, was thrown on a heap of straw, a torch was put to it, and
a great blaze shot up, to the delight of the children who frisked
round it screaming out some old popular verses about the death of
the Carnival. Sometimes the effigy was rolled down the slope of a
hill before being burnt. At Saint-Lô the ragged effigy of Shrove
Tuesday was followed by his widow, a big burly lout dressed as a
woman with a crape veil, who emitted sounds of lamentation and
woe in a stentorian voice. After being carried about the streets on a
litter attended by a crowd of maskers, the figure was thrown into the
River Vire. The final scene has been graphically described by
Madame Octave Feuillet as she witnessed it in her childhood some
sixty years ago. "My parents invited friends to see, from the top of
the tower of Jeanne Couillard, the funeral procession passing. It
was there that, quaffing lemonade-the only refreshment allowed
because of the fast-we witnessed at nightfall a spectacle of which I
shall always preserve a lively recollection. At our feet flowed the
Vire under its old stone bridge. On the middle of the bridge lay the
figure of Shrove Tuesday on a litter of leaves, surrounded by
scores of maskers dancing, singing, and carrying torches. Some of
them in their motley costumes ran along the parapet like fiends. The
rest, worn out with their revels, sat on the posts and dozed. Soon
the dancing stopped, and some of the troop, seizing a torch, set fire
to the effigy, after which they flung it into the river with redoubled
shouts and clamour. The man of straw, soaked with resin, floated
away burning down the stream of the Vire, lighting up with its
funeral fires the woods on the bank and the battlements of the old
castle in which Louis XI. and Francis I. had slept. When the last
glimmer of the blazing phantom had vanished, like a falling star, at
the end of the valley, every one withdrew, crowd and maskers
alike, and we quitted the ramparts with our guests." 7
In the neighbourhood of Tübingen on Shrove Tuesday a
straw-man, called the Shrovetide Bear, is made up; he is dressed
in a pair of old trousers, and a fresh black-pudding or two squirts
filled with blood are inserted in his neck. After a formal
condemnation he is beheaded, laid in a coffin, and on Ash
Wednesday is buried in the churchyard. This is called "Burying the
Carnival." Amongst some of the Saxons of Transylvania the
Carnival is hanged. Thus at Braller on Ash Wednesday or Shrove
Tuesday two white and two chestnut horses draw a sledge on
which is placed a straw-man swathed in a white cloth; beside him
is a cart-wheel which is kept turning round. Two lads disguised as
old men follow the sledge lamenting. The rest of the village lads,
mounted on horseback and decked with ribbons, accompany the
procession, which is headed by two girls crowned with evergreen
and drawn in a waggon or sledge. A trial is held under a tree, at
which lads disguised as soldiers pronounce sentence of death. The
two old men try to rescue the straw-man and to fly with him, but to
no purpose; he is caught by the two girls and handed over to the
executioner, who hangs him on a tree. In vain the old men try to
climb up the tree and take him down; they always tumble down,
and at last in despair they throw themselves on the ground and
weep and howl for the hanged man. An official then makes a
speech in which he declares that the Carnival was condemned to
death because he had done them harm, by wearing out their shoes
and making them tired and sleepy. At the "Burial of Carnival" in
Lechrain, a man dressed as a woman in black clothes is carried on
a litter or bier by four men; he is lamented over by men disguised
as women in black clothes, then thrown down before the village
dung-heap, drenched with water, buried in the dung-heap, and
covered with straw. On the evening of Shrove Tuesday the
Esthonians make a straw figure called metsik or "wood-spirit"; one
year it is dressed with a man's coat and hat, next year with a hood
and a petticoat. This figure is stuck on a long pole, carried across
the boundary of the village with loud cries of joy, and fastened to
the top of a tree in the wood. The ceremony is believed to be a
protection against all kinds of misfortune. 8
Sometimes at these Shrovetide or Lenten ceremonies the
resurrection of the pretended dead person is enacted. Thus, in
some parts of Swabia on Shrove Tuesday Dr. Iron-Beard professes
to bleed a sick man, who thereupon falls as dead to the ground; but
the doctor at last restores him to life by blowing air into him through
a tube. In the Harz Mountains, when Carnival is over, a man is laid
on a baking-trough and carried with dirges to the grave; but in the
grave a glass of brandy is buried instead of the man. A speech is
delivered and then the people return to the village-green or
meeting-place, where they smoke the long clay pipes which are
distributed at funerals. On the morning of Shrove Tuesday in the
following year the brandy is dug up and the festival begins by
every one tasting the spirit which, as the phrase goes, has come to
life again. 9
Section 3. Carrying out Death.
THE CEREMONY of "Carrying out Death" presents much the same
features as "Burying the Carnival"; except that the carrying out of
Death is generally followed by a ceremony, or at least
accompanied by a profession, of bringing in Summer, Spring, or
Life. Thus in Middle Franken, a province of Bavaria, on the fourth
Sunday in Lent, the village urchins used to make a straw effigy of
Death, which they carried about with burlesque pomp through the
streets, and afterwards burned with loud cries beyond the bounds.
The Frankish custom is thus described by a writer of the sixteenth
century: "At Mid-Lent, the season when the church bids us
rejoice, the young people of my native country make a straw image
of Death, and fastening it to a pole carry it with shouts to the
neighbouring villages. By some they are kindly received, and after
being refreshed with milk, peas, and dried pears, the usual food of
that season, are sent home again. Others, however, treat them with
anything but hospitality; for, looking on them as harbingers of
misfortune, to wit of death, they drive them from their boundaries
with weapons and insults." In the villages near Erlangen, when the
fourth Sunday in Lent came around, the peasant girls used to dress
themselves in all their finery with flowers in their hair. Thus attired
they repaired to the neighbouring town, carrying puppets which
were adorned with leaves and covered with white cloths. These
they took from house to house in pairs, stopping at every door
where they expected to receive something, and singing a few lines
in which they announced that it was Mid-Lent and that they were
about to throw Death into the water. When they had collected some
trifling gratuities they went to the river Regnitz and flung the
puppets representing Death into the stream. This was done to
ensure a fruitful and prosperous year; further, it was considered a
safeguard against pestilence and sudden death. At Nuremberg girls
of seven to eighteen years of age go through the streets bearing a
little open coffin, in which is a doll hidden under a shroud. Others
carry a beech branch, with an apple fastened to it for a head, in an
open box. They sing, "We carry Death into the water, it is well," or
"We carry Death into the water, carry him in and out again." In
some parts of Bavaria down to 1780 it was believed that a fatal
epidemic would ensue if the custom of "Carrying out Death" were
not observed. 1
In some villages of Thüringen, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, the
children used to carry a puppet of birchen twigs through the
village, and then threw it into a pool, while they sang, "We carry
the old Death out behind the herdman's old house; we have got
Summer, and Kroden's (?) power is destroyed." At Debschwitz or
Dobschwitz, near Gera, the ceremony of "Driving out Death" is or
was annually observed on the first of March. The young people
make up a figure of straw or the like materials, dress it in old
clothes, which they have begged from houses in the village, and
carry it out and throw it into the river. On returning to the village
they break the good news to the people, and receive eggs and
other victuals as a reward. The ceremony is or was supposed to
purify the village and to protect the inhabitants from sickness and
plague. In other villages of Thüringen, in which the population was
originally Slavonic, the carrying out of the puppet is accompanied
with the singing of a song, which begins, "Now we carry Death out
of the village and Spring into the village." At the end of the
seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century the custom
was observed in Thüringen as follows. The boys and girls made an
effigy of straw or the like materials, but the shape of the figure
varied from year to year. In one year it would represent an old man,
in the next an old woman, in the third a young man, and in the
fourth a maiden, and the dress of the figure varied with the
character it personated. There used to be a sharp contest as to
where the effigy was to be made, for the people thought that the
house from which it was carried forth would not be visited with
death that year. Having been made, the puppet was fastened to a
pole and carried by a girl if it represented an old man, but by a boy
if it represented an old woman. Thus it was borne in procession, the
young people holding sticks in their hands and singing that they
were driving out Death. When they came to water they threw the
effigy into it and ran hastily back, fearing that it might jump on their
shoulders and wring their necks. They also took care not to touch
it, lest it should dry them up. On their return they beat the cattle
with the sticks, believing that this would make the animals fat or
fruitful. Afterwards they visited the house or houses from which they
had carried the image of Death; where they received a dole of
half-boiled peas. The custom of "Carrying out Death" was
practised also in Saxony. At Leipsic the bastards and public
women used to make a straw effigy of Death every year at
Mid-Lent. This they carried through all the streets with songs and
showed it to the young married women. Finally they threw it into the
river Parthe. By this ceremony they professed to make the young
wives fruitful, to purify the city, and to protect the inhabitants for
that year from plague and other epidemics. 2
Ceremonies of the same sort are observed at Mid-Lent in Silesia.
Thus in many places the grown girls with the help of the young men
dress up a straw figure with women's clothes and carry it out of the
village towards the setting sun. At the boundary they strip it of its
clothes, tear it in pieces, and scatter the fragments about the fields.
This is called "Burying Death." As they carry the image out, they
sing that they are about to bury Death under an oak, that he may
depart from the people. Sometimes the song runs that they are
bearing Death over hill and dale to return no more. In the Polish
neighbourhood of Gross-Strehlitz the puppet is called Goik. It is
carried on horseback and thrown into the nearest water. The
people think that the ceremony protects them from sickness of
every sort in the coming year. In the districts of Wohlau and Guhrau
the image of Death used to be thrown over the boundary of the next
village. But as the neighbours feared to receive the ill-omened
figure, they were on the look-out to repel it, and hard knocks were
often exchanged between the two parties. In some Polish parts of
Upper Silesia the effigy, representing an old woman, goes by the
name of Marzana, the goddess of death. It is made in the house
where the last death occurred, and is carried on a pole to the
boundary of the village, where it is thrown into a pond or burnt. At
Polkwitz the custom of "Carrying out Death" fell into abeyance; but
an outbreak of fatal sickness which followed the intermission of the
ceremony induced the people to resume it. 3
In Bohemia the children go out with a straw-man, representing
Death, to the end of the village, where they burn it, singing-
"Now carry we Death out of the village,
The new Summer into the village,
Welcome, dear Summer,
Green little corn." 4
At Tabor in Bohemia the figure of Death is carried out of the town
and flung from a high rock into the water, while they sing-
"Death swims on the water,
Summer will soon be here,
We carried Death away for you
We brought the Summer.
And do thou, O holy Marketa,
Give us a good year
For wheat and for rye." 5
In other parts of Bohemia they carry Death to the end of the
village, singing-
"We carry Death out of the village,
And the New Year into the village.
Dear Spring, we bid you welcome,
Green grass, we bid you welcome." 6
Behind the village they erect a pyre, on which they burn the
straw figure, reviling and scoffing at it the while. Then they return,
singing-
"We have carried away Death,
And brought Life back.
He has taken up his quarters in the village,
Therefore sing joyous songs." 7
In some German villages of Moravia, as in Jassnitz and
Seitendorf, the young folk assemble on the third Sunday in Lent
and fashion a straw-man, who is generally adorned with a fur cap
and a pair of old leathern hose, if such are to be had. The effigy is
then hoisted on a pole and carried by the lads and lasses out into
the open fields. On the way they sing a song, in which it is said
that they are carrying Death away and bringing dear Summer into
the house, and with Summer the May and the flowers. On reaching
an appointed place they dance in a circle round the effigy with
loud shouts and screams, then suddenly rush at it and tear it to
pieces with their hands. Lastly, the pieces are thrown together in a
heap, the pole is broken, and fire is set to the whole. While it burns
the troop dances merrily round it, rejoicing at the victory won by
Spring; and when the fire has nearly died out they go to the
householders to beg for a present of eggs wherewith to hold a
feast, taking care to give as a reason for the request that they have
carried Death out and away. 8
The preceding evidence shows that the effigy of Death is often
regarded with fear and treated with marks of hatred and
abhorrence. Thus the anxiety of the villagers to transfer the figure
from their own to their neighbours' land, and the reluctance of the
latter to receive the ominous guest, are proof enough of the dread
which it inspires. Further, in Lusatia and Silesia the puppet is
sometimes made to look in at the window of a house, and it is
believed that some one in the house will die within the year unless
his life is redeemed by the payment of money. Again, after throwing
the effigy away, the bearers sometimes run home lest Death should
follow them, and if one of them falls in running, it is believed that he
will die within the year. At Chrudim, in Bohemia, the figure of Death
is made out of a cross, with a head and mask stuck at the top, and
a shirt stretched out on it. On the fifth Sunday in Lent the boys take
this effigy to the nearest brook or pool, and standing in a line throw
it into the water. Then they all plunge in after it; but as soon as it is
caught no one more may enter the water. The boy who did not
enter the water or entered it last will die within the year, and he is
obliged to carry the Death back to the village. The effigy is then
burned. On the other hand, it is believed that no one will die within
the year in the house out of which the figure of Death has been
carried; and the village out of which Death has been driven is
sometimes supposed to be protected against sickness and plague.
In some villages of Austrian Silesia on the Saturday before Dead
Sunday an effigy is made of old clothes, hay, and straw, for the
purpose of driving Death out of the village. On Sunday the people,
armed with sticks and straps, assemble before the house where the
figure is lodged. Four lads then draw the effigy by cords through
the village amid exultant shouts, while all the others beat it with
their sticks and straps. On reaching a field which belongs to a
neighbouring village they lay down the figure, cudgel it soundly,
and scatter the fragments over the field. The people believe that the
village from which Death has been thus carried out will be safe
from any infectious disease for the whole year. 9
Section 4. Bringing in Summer.
IN THE PRECEDING ceremonies the return of Spring, Summer, or
Life, as a sequel to the expulsion of Death, is only implied or at
most announced. In the following ceremonies it is plainly enacted.
Thus in some parts of Bohemia the effigy of Death is drowned by
being thrown into the water at sunset; then the girls go out into the
wood and cut down a young tree with a green crown, hang a doll
dressed as a woman on it, deck the whole with green, red, and
white ribbons, and march in procession with their Líto (Summer) into
the village, collecting gifts and singing-
"Death swims in the water,
Spring comes to visit us,
With eggs that are red,
With yellow pancakes.
We carried Death out of the village,
We are carrying Summer into the village." 1
In many Silesian villages the figure of Death, after being treated
with respect, is stript of its clothes and flung with curses into the
water, or torn to pieces in a field. Then the young folk repair to a
wood, cut down a small fir-tree, peel the trunk, and deck it with
festoons of evergreens, paper roses, painted egg-shells, motley
bits of cloth, and so forth. The tree thus adorned is called Summer
or May. Boys carry it from house to house singing appropriate
songs and begging for presents. Among their songs is the following:
"We have carried Death out,
We are bringing the dear Summer back,
The Summer and the May
And all the flowers gay." 2
Sometimes they also bring back from the wood a prettily adorned
figure, which goes by the name of Summer, May, or the Bride; in
the Polish districts it is called Dziewanna, the goddess of spring. 3
At Eisenach on the fourth Sunday in Lent young people used to
fasten a straw-man, representing Death, to a wheel, which they
trundled to the top of a hill. Then setting fire to the figure they
allowed it and the wheel to roll down the slope. Next day they cut a
tall fir-tree, tricked it out with ribbons, and set it up in the plain. The
men then climbed the tree to fetch down the ribbons. In Upper
Lusatia the figure of Death, made of straw and rags, is dressed in a
veil furnished by the last bride and a shirt provided by the house in
which the last death took place. Thus arrayed the figure is stuck on
the end of a long pole and carried at full speed by the tallest and
strongest girl, while the rest pelt the effigy with sticks and stones.
Whoever hits it will be sure to live through the year. In this way
Death is carried out of the village and thrown into the water or over
the boundary of the next village. On their way home each one
breaks a green branch and carries it gaily with him till he reaches
the village, when he throws it away. Sometimes the young people
of the next village, upon whose land the figure has been thrown,
run after them and hurl it back, not wishing to have Death among
them. Hence the two parties occasionally come to blows. 4
In these cases Death is represented by the puppet which is
thrown away, Summer or Life by the branches or trees which are
brought back. But sometimes a new potency of life seems to be
attributed to the image of Death itself, and by a kind of resurrection
it becomes the instrument of the general revival. Thus in some parts
of Lusatia women alone are concerned in carrying out Death, and
suffer no male to meddle with it. Attired in mourning, which they
wear the whole day, they make a puppet of straw, clothe it in a
white shirt, and give it a broom in one hand and a scythe in the
other. Singing songs and pursued by urchins throwing stones, they
carry the puppet to the village boundary, where they tear it in
pieces. Then they cut down a fine tree, hang the shirt on it, and
carry it home singing. On the Feast of Ascension the Saxons of
Braller, a village of Transylvania, not far from Hermannstadt,
observe the ceremony of "Carrying out Death" in the following
manner. After morning service all the school-girls repair to the
house of one of their number, and there dress up the Death. This is
done by tying a threshed-out sheaf of corn into a rough semblance
of a head and body, while the arms are simulated by a broomstick
thrust through it horizontally. The figure is dressed in the holiday
attire of a young peasant woman, with a red hood, silver brooches,
and a profusion of ribbons at the arms and breast. The girls bustle
at their work, for soon the bells will be ringing to vespers, and the
Death must be ready in time to be placed at the open window, that
all the people may see it on their way to church. When vespers are
over, the longed-for moment has come for the first procession with
the Death to begin; it is a privilege that belongs to the school-girls
alone. Two of the older girls seize the figure by the arms and walk
in front: all the rest follow two and two. Boys may take no part in the
procession, but they troop after it gazing with open-mouthed
admiration at the "beautiful Death." So the procession goes through
all the streets of the village, the girls singing the old hymn that
begins-
"Gott mein Vater, deine Liebe
Reicht so weit der Himmel ist,"
to a tune that differs from the ordinary one. When the procession
has wound its way through every street, the girls go to another
house, and having shut the door against the eager prying crowd of
boys who follow at their heels, they strip the Death and pass the
naked truss of straw out of the window to the boys, who pounce on
it, run out of the village with it without singing, and fling the
dilapidated effigy into the neighbouring brook. This done, the
second scene of the little drama begins. While the boys were
carrying away the Death out of the village, the girls remained in the
house, and one of them is now dressed in all the finery which had
been worn by the effigy. Thus arrayed she is led in procession
through all the streets to the singing of the same hymn as before.
When the procession is over they all betake themselves to the
house of the girl who played the leading part. Here a feast awaits
them from which also the boys are excluded. It is a popular belief
that the children may safely begin to eat gooseberries and other
fruit after the day on which Death has thus been carried out; for
Death, which up to that time lurked especially in gooseberries, is
now destroyed. Further, they may now bathe with impunity out of
doors. Very similar is the ceremony which, down to recent years,
was observed in some of the German villages of Moravia. Boys and
girls met on the afternoon of the first Sunday after Easter, and
together fashioned a puppet of straw to represent Death. Decked
with bright-coloured ribbons and cloths, and fastened to the top of
a long pole, the effigy was then borne with singing and clamour to
the nearest height, where it was stript of its gay attire and thrown or
rolled down the slope. One of the girls was next dressed in the
gauds taken from the effigy of Death, and with her at its head the
procession moved back to the village. In some villages the practice
is to bury the effigy in the place that has the most evil reputation of
all the country-side: others throw it into running water. 5
In the Lusatian ceremony described above, the tree which is
brought home after the destruction of the figure of Death is plainly
equivalent to the trees or branches which, in the preceding
customs, were brought back as representatives of Summer or Life,
after Death had been thrown away or destroyed. But the
transference of the shirt worn by the effigy of Death to the tree
clearly indicates that the tree is a kind of revivification, in a new
form, of the destroyed effigy. This comes out also in the
Transylvanian and Moravian customs: the dressing of a girl in the
clothes worn by the Death, and the leading her about the village to
the same song which had been sung when the Death was being
carried about, show that she is intended to be a kind of
resuscitation of the being whose effigy has just been destroyed.
These examples therefore suggest that the Death whose demolition
is represented in these ceremonies cannot be regarded as the
purely destructive agent which we understand by Death. If the tree
which is brought back as an embodiment of the reviving vegetation
of spring is clothed in the shirt worn by the Death which has just
been destroyed, the object certainly cannot be to check and
counteract the revival of vegetation: it can only be to foster and
promote it. Therefore the being which has just been destroyed-the
so-called Death-must be supposed to be endowed with a vivifying
and quickening influence, which it can communicate to the
vegetable and even the animal world. This ascription of a
life-giving virtue to the figure of Death is put beyond a doubt by
the custom, observed in some places, of taking pieces of the straw
effigy of Death and placing them in the fields to make the crops
grow, or in the manger to make the cattle thrive. Thus in
Spachendorf, a village of Austrian Silesia, the figure of Death,
made of straw, brushwood, and rags, is carried with wild songs to
an open place outside the village and there burned, and while it is
burning a general struggle takes place for the pieces, which are
pulled out of the flames with bare hands. Each one who secures a
fragment of the effigy ties it to a branch of the largest tree in his
garden, or buries it in his field, in the belief that this causes the
crops to grow better. In the Troppau district of Austrian Silesia the
straw figure which the boys make on the fourth Sunday in Lent is
dressed by the girls in woman's clothes and hung with ribbons,
necklace, and garlands. Attached to a long pole it is carried out of
the village, followed by a troop of young people of both sexes, who
alternately frolic, lament, and sing songs. Arrived at its
destination-a field outside the village-the figure is stripped of its
clothes and ornaments; then the crowd rushes at it and tears it to
bits, scuffling for the fragments. Every one tries to get a wisp of the
straw of which the effigy was made, because such a wisp, placed
in the manger, is believed to make the cattle thrive. Or the straw is
put in the hens' nest, it being supposed that this prevents the hens
from carrying away their eggs, and makes them brood much better.
The same attribution of a fertilising power to the figure of Death
appears in the belief that if the bearers of the figure, after throwing it
away, beat cattle with their sticks, this will render the beasts fat or
prolific. Perhaps the sticks had been previously used to beat the
Death, and so had acquired the fertilising power ascribed to the
effigy. We have seen, too, that at Leipsic a straw effigy of Death
was shown to young wives to make them fruitful. 6
It seems hardly possible to separate from the May-trees the trees
or branches which are brought into the village after the destruction
of the Death. The bearers who bring them in profess to be bringing
in the Summer, therefore the trees obviously represent the Summer;
indeed in Silesia they are commonly called the Summer or the
May, and the doll which is sometimes attached to the Summer-tree
is a duplicate representative of the Summer, just as the May is
sometimes represented at the same time by a May-tree and a May
Lady. Further, the Summer-trees are adorned like May-trees with
ribbons and so on; like May-trees, when large, they are planted in
the ground and climbed up; and like May-trees, when small, they
are carried from door to door by boys or girls singing songs and
collecting money. And as if to demonstrate the identity of the two
sets of customs the bearers of the Summer-tree sometimes
announce that they are bringing in the Summer and the May. The
customs, therefore, of bringing in the May and bringing in the
Summer are essentially the same; and the Summer-tree is merely
another form of the May-tree, the only distinction (besides that of
name) being in the time at which they are respectively brought in;
for while the May-tree is usually fetched in on the first of May or at
Whitsuntide, the Summer-tree is fetched in on the fourth Sunday in
Lent. Therefore, if the May-tree is an embodiment of the tree-spirit
or spirit of vegetation, the Summer-tree must likewise be an
embodiment of the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation. But we have
seen that the Summer-tree is in some cases a revivification of the
effigy of Death. It follows, therefore, that in these cases the effigy
called Death must be an embodiment of the tree-spirit or spirit of
vegetation. This inference is confirmed, first, by the vivifying and
fertilising influence which the fragments of the effigy of Death are
believed to exercise both on vegetable and on animal life; for this
influence, as we saw in an earlier part of this work, is supposed to
be a special attribute of the tree-spirit. It is confirmed, secondly, by
observing that the effigy of Death is sometimes decked with leaves
or made of twigs, branches, hemp, or a threshed-out sheaf of corn;
and that sometimes it is hung on a little tree and so carried about
by girls collecting money, just as is done with the May-tree and
the May Lady, and with the Summer-tree and the doll attached to
it. In short we are driven to regard the expulsion of Death and the
bringing in of Summer as, in some cases at least, merely another
form of that death and revival of the spirit of vegetation in spring
which we saw enacted in the killing and resurrection of the Wild
Man. The burial and resurrection of the Carnival is probably
another way of expressing the same idea. The interment of the
representative of the Carnival under a dung-heap is natural, if he
is supposed to possess a quickening and fertilising influence like
that ascribed to the effigy of Death. The Esthonians, indeed, who
carry the straw figure out of the village in the usual way on Shrove
Tuesday, do not call it the Carnival, but the Wood-spirit (Metsik),
and they clearly indicate the identity of the effigy with the
wood-spirit by fixing it to the top of a tree in the wood, where it
remains for a year, and is besought almost daily with prayers and
offerings to protect the herds; for like a true wood-spirit the Metsik
is a patron of cattle. Sometimes the Metsik is made of sheaves of
corn. 7
Thus we may fairly conjecture that the names Carnival, Death,
and Summer are comparatively late and inadequate expressions for
the beings personified or embodied in the customs with which we
have been dealing. The very abstractness of the names bespeaks
a modern origin; for the personification of times and seasons like
the Carnival and Summer, or of an abstract notion like death, is not
primitive. But the ceremonies themselves bear the stamp of a
dateless antiquity; therefore we can hardly help supposing that in
their origin the ideas which they embodied were of a more simple
and concrete order. The notion of a tree, perhaps of a particular
kind of tree (for some savages have no word for tree in general), or
even of an individual tree, is sufficiently concrete to supply a basis
from which by a gradual process of generalisation the wider idea of
a spirit of vegetation might be reached. But this general idea of
vegetation would readily be confounded with the season in which it
manifests itself; hence the substitution of Spring, Summer, or May
for the tree-spirit or spirit of vegetation would be easy and natural.
Again, the concrete notion of the dying tree or dying vegetation
would by a similar process of generalisation glide into a notion of
death in general; so that the practice of carrying out the dying or
dead vegetation in spring, as a preliminary to its revival, would in
time widen out into an attempt to banish Death in general from the
village or district. The view that in these spring ceremonies Death
meant originally the dying or dead vegetation of winter has the high
support of W. Mannhardt; and he confirms it by the analogy of the
name Death as applied to the spirit of the ripe corn. Commonly the
spirit of the ripe corn is conceived, not as dead, but as old, and
hence it goes by the name of the Old Man or the Old Woman. But
in some places the last sheaf cut at harvest, which is generally
believed to be the seat of the corn spirit, is called "the Dead One":
children are warned against entering the corn-fields because
Death sits in the corn; and, in a game played by Saxon children in
Transylvania at the maize harvest, Death is represented by a child
completely covered with maize leaves. 8
Section 5. Battle of Summer and Winter.
SOMETIMES in the popular customs of the peasantry the contrast
between the dormant powers of vegetation in winter and their
awakening vitality in spring takes the form of a dramatic contest
between actors who play the parts respectively of Winter and
Summer. Thus in the towns of Sweden on May Day two troops of
young men on horseback used to meet as if for mortal combat. One
of them was led by a representative of Winter clad in furs, who
threw snowballs and ice in order to prolong the cold weather. The
other troop was commanded by a representative of Summer
covered with fresh leaves and flowers. In the sham fight which
followed the party of Summer came off victorious, and the
ceremony ended with a feast. Again, in the region of the middle
Rhine, a representative of Summer clad in ivy combats a
representative of Winter clad in straw or moss and finally gains a
victory over him. The vanquished foe is thrown to the ground and
stripped of his casing of straw, which is torn to pieces and
scattered about, while the youthful comrades of the two champions
sing a song to commemorate the defeat of Winter by Summer.
Afterwards they carry about a summer garland or branch and
collect gifts of eggs and bacon from house to house. Sometimes the
champion who acts the part of Summer is dressed in leaves and
flowers and wears a chaplet of flowers on his head. In the
Palatinate this mimic conflict takes place on the fourth Sunday in
Lent. All over Bavaria the same drama used to be acted on the
same day, and it was still kept up in some places down to the
middle of the nineteenth century or later. While Summer appeared
clad all in green, decked with fluttering ribbons, and carrying a
branch in blossom or a little tree hung with apples and pears,
Winter was muffled up in cap and mantle of fur and bore in his hand
a snow-shovel or a flail. Accompanied by their respective retinues
dressed in corresponding attire, they went through all the streets of
the village, halting before the houses and singing staves of old
songs, for which they received presents of bread, eggs, and fruit.
Finally, after a short struggle, Winter was beaten by Summer and
ducked in the village well or driven out of the village with shouts
and laughter into the forest. 1
At Goepfritz in Lower Austria, two men personating Summer and
Winter used to go from house to house on Shrove Tuesday, and
were everywhere welcomed by the children with great delight. The
representative of Summer was clad in white and bore a sickle; his
comrade, who played the part of Winter, had a fur-cap on his
head, his arms and legs were swathed in straw, and he carried a
flail. In every house they sang verses alternately. At Drömling in
Brunswick, down to the present time, the contest between Summer
and Winter is acted every year at Whitsuntide by a troop of boys
and a troop of girls. The boys rush singing, shouting, and ringing
bells from house to house to drive Winter away; after them come the
girls singing softly and led by a May Bride, all in bright dresses
and decked with flowers and garlands to represent the genial
advent of spring. Formerly the part of Winter was played by a
straw-man which the boys carried with them; now it is acted by a
real man in disguise. 2
Among the Central Esquimaux of North America the contest
between representatives of summer and winter, which in Europe
has long degenerated into a mere dramatic performance, is still kept
up as a magical ceremony of which the avowed intention is to
influence the weather. In autumn, when storms announce the
approach of the dismal Arctic winter, the Esquimaux divide
themselves into two parties called respectively the ptarmigans and
the ducks, the ptarmigans comprising all persons born in winter,
and the ducks all persons born in summer. A long rope of sealskin
is then stretched out, and each party laying hold of one end of it
seeks by tugging with might and main to drag the other party over
to its side. If the ptarmigans get the worst of it, then summer has
won the game and fine weather may be expected to prevail through
the winter. 3
Section 6. Death and Resurrection of Kostrubonko.
I RUSSIA funeral ceremonies like those of "Burying the Carnival"
and "Carrying out Death" are celebrated under the names, not of
Death or the Carnival, but of certain mythic figures, Kostrubonko,
Kostroma, Kupalo, Lada, and Yarilo. These Russian ceremonies
are observed both in spring and at midsummer. Thus "in Little
Russia it used to be the custom at Eastertide to celebrate the
funeral of a being called Kostrubonko, the deity of the spring. A
circle was formed of singers who moved slowly around a girl who
lay on the ground as if dead, and as they went they sang:
`Dead, dead is our Kostrubonko!
Dead, dead is our dear one!'
until the girl suddenly sprang up, on which the chorus joyfully
exclaimed:
`Come to life, come to life has our Kostrubonko!
Come to life, come to life has our dear one!'"
On the Eve of St. John (Midsummer Eve) a figure of Kupalo is
made of straw and "is dressed in woman's clothes, with a necklace
and a floral crown. Then a tree is felled, and, after being decked
with ribbons, is set up on some chosen spot. Near this tree, to
which they give the name of Marena [Winter or Death], the straw
figure is placed, together with a table, on which stand spirits and
viands. Afterwards a bonfire is lit, and the young men and maidens
jump over it in couples, carrying the figure with them. On the next
day they strip the tree and the figure of their ornaments, and throw
them both into a stream." On St. Peter's Day, the twenty-ninth of
June, or on the following Sunday, "the Funeral of Kostroma" or of
Lada or of Yarilo is celebrated in Russia. In the Governments of
Penza and Simbirsk the funeral used to be represented as follows.
A bonfire was kindled on the twenty-eighth of June, and on the
next day the maidens chose one of their number to play the part of
Kostroma. Her companions saluted her with deep obeisances,
placed her on a board, and carried her to the bank of a stream.
There they bathed her in the water, while the oldest girl made a
basket of lime-tree bark and beat it like a drum. Then they returned
to the village and ended the day with processions, games, and
dances. In the Murom district Kostroma was represented by a straw
figure dressed in woman's clothes and flowers. This was laid in a
trough and carried with songs to the bank of a lake or river. Here
the crowd divided into two sides, of which the one attacked and the
other defended the figure. At last the assailants gained the day,
stripped the figure of its dress and ornaments, tore it in pieces, trod
the straw of which it was made under foot, and flung it into the
stream; while the defenders of the figure hid their faces in their
hands and pretended to bewail the death of Kostroma. In the district
of Kostroma the burial of Yarilo was celebrated on the twenty-ninth
or thirtieth of June. The people chose an old man and gave him a
small coffin containing a Priapus-like figure representing Yarilo.
This he carried out of the town, followed by women chanting dirges
and expressing by their gestures grief and despair. In the open
fields a grave was dug, and into it the figure was lowered amid
weeping and wailing, after which games and dances were begun,
"calling to mind the funeral games celebrated in old times by the
pagan Slavonians." In Little Russia the figure of Yarilo was laid in a
coffin and carried through the streets after sunset surrounded by
drunken women, who kept repeating mournfully, "He is dead! he is
dead!" The men lifted and shook the figure as if they were trying to
recall the dead man to life. Then they said to the women, "Women,
weep not. I know what is sweeter than honey." But the women
continued to lament and chant, as they do at funerals. "Of what
was he guilty? He was so good. He will arise no more. O how shall
we part from thee? What is life without thee? Arise, if only for a
brief hour. But he rises not, he not." At last the Yarilo was buried in
a grave. 1
Section 7. Death and Revival of Vegetation.
THESE Russian customs are plainly of the same nature as those
which in Austria and Germany are known as "Carrying out Death."
Therefore if the interpretation here adopted of the latter is right, the
Russian Kostrubonko, Yarilo, and the rest must also have been
originally embodiments of the spirit of vegetation, and their death
must have been regarded as a necessary preliminary to their
revival. The revival as a sequel to the death is enacted in the first
of the ceremonies described, the death and resurrection of
Kostrubonko. The reason why in some of these Russian ceremonies
the death of the spirit of vegetation is celebrated at midsummer may
be that the decline of summer is dated from Midsummer Day, after
which the days begin to shorten, and the sun sets out on his
downward journey:
"To the darksome hollows
Where the frosts of winter lie."
Such a turning-point of the year, when vegetation might be thought
to share the incipient though still almost imperceptible decay of
summer, might very well be chosen by primitive man as a fit
moment for resorting to those magic rites by which he hopes to stay
the decline, or at least to ensure the revival, of plant life. 1
But while the death of vegetation appears to have been
represented in all, and its revival in some, of these spring and
midsummer ceremonies, there are features in some of them which
can hardly be explained on this hypothesis alone. The solemn
funeral, the lamentations, and the mourning attire, which often
characterise these rites, are indeed appropriate at the death of the
beneficent spirit of vegetation. But what shall we say of the glee
with which the effigy is often carried out, of the sticks and stones
with which it is assailed, and the taunts and curses which are
hurled at it? What shall we say of the dread of the effigy evinced
by the haste with which the bearers scamper home as soon as they
have thrown it away, and by the belief that some one must soon die
in any house into which it has looked? This dread might perhaps
be explained by a belief that there is a certain infectiousness in the
dead spirit of vegetation which renders its approach dangerous. But
this explanation, besides being rather strained, does not cover the
rejoicings which often attend the carrying out of Death. We must
therefore recognise two distinct and seemingly opposite features in
these ceremonies: on the one hand, sorrow for the death, and
affection and respect for the dead; on the other hand, fear and
hatred of the dead, and rejoicings at his death. How the former of
these features is to be explained I have attempted to show: how the
latter came to be so closely associated with the former is a question
which I shall try to answer in the sequel. 2
Section 8. Analogous Rites in India.
IN THE KANAGRA district of India there is a custom observed by
young girls in spring which closely resembles some of the
European spring ceremonies just described. It is called the Ralî Ka
melâ, or fair of Ralî, the Ralî being a small painted earthen image of
Siva or Pârvatî. The custom is in vogue all over the Kanagra
district, and its celebration, which is entirely confined to young
girls, lasts through most of Chet (March-April) up to the Sankrânt of
Baisâkh (April). On a morning in March all the young girls of the
village take small baskets of dôb grass and flowers to an appointed
place, where they throw them in a heap. Round this heap they
stand in a circle and sing. This goes on every day for ten days, till
the heap of grass and flowers has reached a fair height. Then they
cut in the jungle two branches, each with three prongs at one end,
and place them, prongs downwards, over the heap of flowers, so
as to make two tripods or pyramids. On the single uppermost points
of these branches they get an image-maker to construct two clay
images, one to represent Siva, and the other Pârvatî. The girls then
divide themselves into two parties, one for Siva and one for
Pârvatî, and marry the images in the usual way, leaving out no part
of the ceremony. After the marriage they have a feast, the cost of
which is defrayed by contributions solicited from their parents. Then
at the next Sankrânt (Baisâkh) they all go together to the river-side,
throw the images into a deep pool, and weep over the place, as
though they were performing funeral obsequies. The boys of the
neighbourhood often tease them by diving after the images,
bringing them up, and waving them about while the girls are crying
over them. The object of the fair is said to be to secure a good
husband. 1
That in this Indian ceremony the deities Siva and Pârvatî are
conceived as spirits of vegetation seems to be proved by the
placing of their images on branches over a heap of grass and
flowers. Here, as often in European folk-custom, the divinities of
vegetation are represented in duplicate, by plants and by puppets.
The marriage of these Indian deities in spring corresponds to the
European ceremonies in which the marriage of the vernal spirits of
vegetation is represented by the King and Queen of May, the May
Bride, Bridegroom of the May, and so forth. The throwing of the
images into the water, and the mourning for them, are the
equivalents of the European customs of throwing the dead spirit of
vegetation under the name of Death, Yarilo, Kostroma, and the rest,
into the water and lamenting over it. Again, in India, as often in
Europe, the rite is performed exclusively by females. The notion
that the ceremony helps to procure husbands for the girls can be
explained by the quickening and fertilising influence which the
spirit of vegetation is believed to exert upon the life of man as well
as of plants. 2
Section 9. The Magic Spring.
THE GENERAL explanation which we have been led to adopt of
these and many similar ceremonies is that they are, or were in their
origin, magical rites intended to ensure the revival of nature in
spring. The means by which they were supposed to effect this end
were imitation and sympathy. Led astray by his ignorance of the
true causes of things, primitive man believed that in order to
produce the great phenomena of nature on which his life depended
he had only to imitate them, and that immediately by a secret
sympathy or mystic influence the little drama which he acted in
forest glade or mountain dell, on desert plain or wind-swept shore,
would be taken up and repeated by mightier actors on a vaster
stage. He fancied that by masquerading in leaves and flowers he
helped the bare earth to clothe herself with verdure, and that by
playing the death and burial of winter he drove that gloomy season
away, and made smooth the path for the footsteps of returning
spring. If we find it hard to throw ourselves even in fancy into a
mental condition in which such things seem possible, we can more
easily picture to ourselves the anxiety which the savage, when he
first began to lift his thoughts above the satisfaction of his merely
animal wants, and to meditate on the causes of things, may have
felt as to the continued operation of what we now call the laws of
nature. To us, familiar as we are with the conception of the
uniformity and regularity with which the great cosmic phenomena
succeed each other, there seems little ground for apprehension that
the causes which produce these effects will cease to operate, at
least within the near future. But this confidence in the stability of
nature is bred only by the experience which comes of wide
observation and long tradition; and the savage, with his narrow
sphere of observation and his short-lived tradition, lacks the very
elements of that experience which alone could set his mind at rest
in face of the ever-changing and often menacing aspects of
nature. No wonder, therefore, that he is thrown into a panic by an
eclipse, and thinks that the sun or the moon would surely perish, if
he did not raise a clamour and shoot his puny shafts into the air to
defend the luminaries from the monster who threatens to devour
them. No wonder he is terrified when in the darkness of night a
streak of sky is suddenly illumined by the flash of a meteor, or the
whole expanse of the celestial arch glows with the fitful light of the
Northern Streamers. Even phenomena which recur at fixed and
uniform intervals may be viewed by him with apprehension, before
he has come to recognise the orderliness of their recurrence. The
speed or slowness of his recognition of such periodic or cyclic
changes in nature will depend largely on the length of the
particular cycle. The cycle, for example, of day and night is
everywhere, except in the polar regions, so short and hence so
frequent that men probably soon ceased to discompose themselves
seriously as to the chance of its failing to recur, though the ancient
Egyptians, as we have seen, daily wrought enchantments to bring
back to the east in the morning the fiery orb which had sunk at
evening in the crimson west. But it was far otherwise with the
annual cycle of the seasons. To any man a year is a considerable
period, seeing that the number of our years is but few at the best.
To the primitive savage, with his short memory and imperfect means
of marking the flight of time, a year may well have been so long that
he failed to recognise it as a cycle at all, and watched the
changing aspects of earth and heaven with a perpetual wonder,
alternately delighted and alarmed, elated and cast down, according
as the vicissitudes of light and heat, of plant and animal life,
ministered to his comfort or threatened his existence. In autumn
when the withered leaves were whirled about the forest by the
nipping blast, and he looked up at the bare boughs, could he feel
sure that they would ever be green again? As day by day the sun
sank lower and lower in the sky, could he be certain that the
luminary would ever retrace his heavenly road? Even the waning
moon, whose pale sickle rose thinner and thinner every night over
the rim of the eastern horizon, may have excited in his mind a fear
lest, when it had wholly vanished, there should be moons no
more. 1
These and a thousand such misgivings may have thronged the
fancy and troubled the peace of the man who first began to reflect
on the mysteries of the world he lived in, and to take thought for a
more distant future than the morrow. It was natural, therefore, that
with such thoughts and fears he should have done all that in him
lay to bring back the faded blossom to the bough, to swing the low
sun of winter up to his old place in the summer sky, and to restore
its orbed fulness to the silver lamp of the waning moon. We may
smile at his vain endeavours if we please, but it was only by
making a long series of experiments, of which some were almost
inevitably doomed to failure, that man learned from experience the
futility of some of his attempted methods and the fruitfulness of
others. After all, magical ceremonies are nothing but experiments
which have failed and which continue to be repeated merely
because, for reasons which have already been indicated, the
operator is unaware of their failure. With the advance of knowledge
these ceremonies either cease to be performed altogether or are
kept up from force of habit long after the intention with which they
were instituted has been forgotten. Thus fallen from their high
estate, no longer regarded as solemn rites on the punctual
performance of which the welfare and even the life of the
community depend, they sink gradually to the level of simple
pageants, mummeries, and pastimes, till in the final stage of
degeneration they are wholly abandoned by older people, and,
from having once been the most serious occupation of the sage,
become at last the idle sport of children. It is in this final stage of
decay that most of the old magical rites of our European forefathers
linger on at the present day, and even from this their last retreat
they are fast being swept away by the rising tide of those
multitudinous forces, moral, intellectual, and social, which are
bearing mankind onward to a new and unknown goal. We may feel
some natural regret at the disappearance of quaint customs and
picturesque ceremonies, which have preserved to an age often
deemed dull and prosaic something of the flavour and freshness of
the olden time, some breath of the springtime of the world; yet our
regret will be lessened when we remember that these pretty
pageants, these now innocent diversions, had their origin in
ignorance and superstition; that if they are a record of human
endeavour, they are also a monument of fruitless ingenuity, of
wasted labour, and of blighted hopes; and that for all their gay
trappings-their flowers, their ribbons, and their music-they partake
far more of tragedy than of farce. 2
The interpretation which, following in the footsteps of W.
Mannhardt, I have attempted to give of these ceremonies has been
not a little confirmed by the discovery, made since this book was
first written, that the natives of Central Australia regularly practise
magical ceremonies for the purpose of awakening the dormant
energies of nature at the approach of what may be called the
Australian spring. Nowhere apparently are the alternations of the
seasons more sudden and the contrasts between them more striking
than in the deserts of Central Australia, where at the end of a long
period of drought the sandy and stony wilderness, over which the
silence and desolation of death appear to brood, is suddenly, after
a few days of torrential rain, transformed into a landscape smiling
with verdure and peopled with teeming multitudes of insects and
lizards, of frogs and birds. The marvellous change which passes
over the face of nature at such times has been compared even by
European observers to the effect of magic; no wonder, then, that
the savage should regard it as such in very deed. Now it is just
when there is promise of the approach of a good season that the
natives of Central Australia are wont especially to perform those
magical ceremonies of which the avowed intention is to multiply the
plants and animals they use as food. These ceremonies, therefore,
present a close analogy to the spring customs of our European
peasantry not only in the time of their celebration, but also in their
aim; for we can hardly doubt that in instituting rites designed to
assist the revival of plant life in spring our primitive forefathers were
moved, not by any sentimental wish to smell at early violets, or
pluck the rathe primrose, or watch yellow daffodils dancing in the
breeze, but by the very practical consideration, certainly not
formulated in abstract terms, that the life of man is inextricably
bound up with that of plants, and that if they were to perish he
could not survive. And as the faith of the Australian savage in the
efficacy of his magic rites is confirmed by observing that their
performance is invariably followed, sooner or later, by that increase
of vegetable and animal life which it is their object to produce, so,
we may suppose, it was with European savages in the olden time.
The sight of the fresh green in brake and thicket, of vernal flowers
blowing on mossy banks, of swallows arriving from the south, and
of the sun mounting daily higher in the sky, would be welcomed by
them as so many visible signs that their enchantments were indeed
taking effect, and would inspire them with a cheerful confidence
that all was well with a world which they could thus mould to suit
their wishes. Only in autumn days, as summer slowly faded, would
their confidence again be dashed by doubts and misgivings at
symptoms of decay, which told how vain were all their efforts to
stave off for ever the approach of winter and of death. 3