Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

763 SUMMER AND WINTER.
tragen ihn vor des biedermanns liaus (up to the goodnian s
house) .
Wollt ihr uns kein schmalz nicht geben (won t give us no
lard),
lassen wir euch den Tod nicht sehen (won t let you see D.).
Der Tod der hat em panzer an (wears a coat of mail) .
Similar customs and songs prevailed all over Franconia, and in
Thuringia, Meissen, Vogtland, Lausitz and Silesia. The begin
ning of the song
Or :
varies :
Nun treiben wir den Tod aus 1
(drive D. out),
den alien weibern in das haus (into the old women s house).
hinter s alte hirtenhaus 2
Further on :
(behind the old shepherd s house).
hiitten wir den Tod nicht ausgetrieben (not driven D. out),
war er das jahr noch inne geblieben 3
year).
(he d have staid all the
Usually a puppet, a figure of straw or wood, was carried about,
and thrown into water, into a bog, or else burnt ; if the figure
was female, it was carried by a boy, if male, by a girl. They
what
disputed as to where it should be made and tied together ;
ever house it was brought out of, there nobody died that year.
Those who had thrown Death away, fled in haste, lest he should
start up and give them chase ; if they met cattle on their way
home, they beat them with staves, believing
that that would
make them fruitful. In Silesia they often dragged about a bare
fir-tree with chains of straw, as though it were a prisoner. Here
and there a strong man, in the midst of children, carried a may-
1 Luther parodied this song in his Driving of the Pope out, Journ. von u. fur
D. 1787. 2, 192-3.
2 Dern alten Juden in seinen bauch, etc. into the old Jew s , belly, on to the
young Jew s back, the worse for him ; over hill and dale, so he may never come
back over the ; heath, to spite the shepherds we went ; through the greenwood,
there sang birds young and old. Finn Magnusen (Edda 2, 135) would have us take
the old Juden for a iotunn.
3 J. F. Herri, on certain antiquities found in the Erfurt country 1787, p. 28,
has the line : wir tragen den Krodo in s wasser, but confesses afterwards (Journ.
v. u. f. D. 1787. 483-4) that he dragged the dubious name into the text on pure con
jecture.
The more suspicious becomes the following strophe in Hellbach s Suppl.
to the Archiv v. u. f. Schwarzburg, Hildburgh. 1789. p. 52 : wir tragen den alten
thor (fool) hinaus, hinter s alte hirtenhaus, wir haben nun den sommer gewonnen,
und Krodes macht ist weggekommen, K .s power is at an end. The expressions
in the last line smack of recent invention.