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RECEPTION OF SUMMER. 779
Summer, that we have learnt to know. In Sweden and Gothland
a battle of Winter and Summer, a triumphal entry of the latter.
In Schonen, Denmark, L. Saxony and England simply Mayliding,
or fetching of the May- waggon. On the Rhine merely a
battle of Winter and Summer, without immersion, 1 without the
pomp of an entry.
In Franconia, Thuringia, Meissen, Silesia and
Bohemia only the carrying-out of wintry Death ; no battle, no
formal introduction of Summer. 2 Of these festivals the first and
second fall in May, the third and fourth in March. In the first
two, the whole population takes part with unabated enthusiasm ;
in the last two, only the lower poorer class. It is however
the first and third modes that have retained the full idea of the
performance, the struggle between the two powers of the year,
whilst in the second and fourth the antithesis is wanting. The
May- riding has no Winter in it, the farewell to Death no Sum
mer ; one is all joy, the other all sadness. But in all the first
three modes, the higher being to whom honour is done is repre
sented by living persons, in the fourth by a puppet, yet both the
one and the other are fantastically dressed up.
Now we can take a look in one or two other directions.
On the battle between Vetr and Sumar ON. tradition is silent, 3
as on much else, that nevertheless lived on among the people.
The oldest vestige known to me of a duel between the seasons
amongst
us is that {
Conflictus hiemis et veris over the cuckoo
(p. 675-6). The idea of a Summer-god marching in, bringing
blessings, putting new life into everything, is quite in the spirit
of our earliest ages : it is just how Nerthus comes into the land
(p. 251) ; also Freyr (p. 213), Isis (p. 258), Hulda (p. 268),Berhta
1
It was a different thing therefore when in olden times the Frankfort boys and
girls, every year at Candlemas (Febr. 2), threw a stuffed garment into the Main, and
sang : Reuker Uder schlug sein mutter, schlug ihr arm und bein entzwoi, dass sie
mordio schrei, Lersner s Chron. p. 492. I leave the song unexplained.
2 Yet Summer as a contrast does occasionally come out plainly in songs or
customs of Bohemia and Lausitz.
3 Finn Magnusen, always prone to see some natural phenomenon underlying a
myth, finds the contrast of summer and winter lurking in more than one place in the
Edda: in Fiollsvinnsmal and Harbardsliod (th. 2, 135. 3, 44 of his Edda), in Saxo s
Oiler and Othin saga (th. 1, 196. Lex. 765), in that of Thiassi (Lex. 887), because
OSinn sets the eye of the slain giant in the sky (p. and Winter is also to
),
have his eyes punched out (p. 765) to me Uhland ; (Ueber Thor p. 117. 120) seems
ISunn as
more profound, in regarding Thiassi as the storm-eagle, and kidnapped
remains a
the green of summer (ingriin, so to speak) ; but the nature of this goddess
secret to us.