Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

HEEALDS OF SUMMEE. 763
schouwen). H. Sachs iv. 3, 49 seq. describes the same festival;
round the first summer flower they dance and sing. den ersten
Uuomen vlehten, MS. 1, 41 b
(see SuppL).
That the first cockchafer also was fetched in with ceremonies,
we saw on p. 693-4 ; to this day the passion for hunting these
chafers and playing with them is indestructibly rooted among
boys.
In like manner the first swallow, the first stork was hailed as
messenger of spring (ayye\o$ eapos]. The swallow s return was
celebrated even by the Greeks and Romans: Athenaeus 8, 15 p.
360 gives
1
a %e\i,B6vi,(7fjLa, chanted by children at Rhodes, who
carried a swallow about and collected eatables. The custom still
survives in Greece; the young people assemble on March 1, and
traverse all the streets, singing a sweet spring-song ;
the singers
carry a swallow carved out of wood, which stands on a cylinder,
and keeps turning round. 2 Hirundine prima, says Horace
swallow was taken
Epist. i. 7, 13. That in Germany also the first
notice of in the Mid. Ages, is shewn by the superstitious obser
vance (Sup. G, and I, 217) of digging a coal out of the ground
on her appearance. In Sweden the country folk welcome her
with a thrice repeated shout of joy (Westerdahl p. 55). Both
swallow and stork are accounted sacred inviolable creatures. He
that first announced the return of the stork to the Greeks,
received messenger s pay. As late as last century the warders
of many German towns were required to blow-in the approaching
3
herald of spring and a drink of honour was served out to them
,
from the town-cellar. An epigram by Joach. Olearius begins :
Ver laetum rediit, rediitque ciconia grata,
aspera dum 4
pulso frigore cessat hiems.
The cuckoo may also be regarded as the announcer of spring,
and an O.Engl. song appeals to him : sumer is icumen in, Ihude
sing cucu ! Hone s Daybook 1, 739 (see SuppL).
The proclaiming of summer by songs of the younger folk still
1
Ilgen. opusc. pkilol. 1, 165. Zell s Ferienschr. 1, 53. 88. Schneidewin s
Delectus 2, 465-6.
2 Fauriel 2, 256. Disc, prelim, xxviii. More fully in Theod. Kind p. 12.
3 Alpenrosen (Bern 1817) p. 49 ; conf. Rebel s song Der storch.
4 Eostock 1610 ; conf. Jon. Praetorius s Storchs und schwalben-winterquartier,
Francf. 1676, p. 185.