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MAY-KIDINO. 777
jaunt, in a Church- visitation ordinance of 1563 (Baltische studien
6, 137) ; and more precise information has lately been collected
on the survival of May-riding at Hildesheim, where the beautiful
custom only died out in the 18th century. 1 Towards Whitsun
tide the maigreve was elected, and the forest commoners in the
Use had to hew timber from seven villages to build the Maywaggon;
all loppings must be loaded thereon, and only four
horses allowed to draw it in the forest. A grand expedition from
the town fetches away the waggon, the burgomaster and council
receive a May-wreath from the commoners, and hand it over
to the maigreve. The waggon holds 60 or 70 bundles of may
(birch), which are delivered to the maigreve to be further dis
tributed. Monasteries and churches get large bundles, every
steeple is adorned with it, and the floor of the church strown
with clippings of boxwood and field-flowers. The maigreve
entertains the commoners, and is strictly bound to serve up a
dish of crabs. But in all this we have only a fetching-in of
the May-waggon from the wood under formal escort of the Maygrave
; not a word now about the battle he had to fight with
winter. Is it conceivable that earlier ages should have done
without this battle ? Assuredly they had it, and it was only by
degrees that custom left it out. By and by it became content with
even less. In some parishes of Holstein they keep the commence
ment of May by crowning a young fellow and a girl with leaves
and flowers, conducting them with music to a tavern, and there
drinking and dancing ; the pair are called maigrev and mcvigron, i.e.
maigrafin (Schiitze 3, 72). The Schleswig maygrave-feast (festum
frondicomans) is described in Ulr. Petersen s treatise already
quoted (p. 694 n.) .
2 In Swabia the children at sunrise go into the
wood, the boys carrying silk handkerchiefs on staves, the girls
ribbons on boughs ; their leader, the May-king, has a right to
choose his queen.
In Gelders they used on Mayday-eve to set up
then
trees decorated and hung with tapers
like a Christmas-tree ;
3
came a song and ring-dance.
All over Germany, to this day,
1 Koken and Liintzel s Mittheilungen 2, 45-61.
3 He says : the memory of this ancient but useless May-feast finally passed
by inheritance to the town-cattle, which, even since 1670, had every Mayday a gar
land of beech-leaves thrown about the neck, and so bedizened were driven home ;
for which service the cowherd could count upon his fee.
3 Geldersche Volksalmanak voor 1835, pp. 10-28. The song is given in Hoffm.