Impaginato 5.p65 - Universitat Rovira i Virgili

104
Roslyn M. Frank
As the procession goes round from house to house, the Schimmelreiter enters
first, followed by Christpuppe who makes the children repeat some verse of
Scripture or a hymn; if they know it well, he rewards them with gingerbreads
from his wallet; if not, he beats them with a bundle filled with ashes. Then both
he and the Schimmelreiter dance and pass on. Only then are the Feien allowed
to enter; they jump about and frighten the children (Miles [1912] 1976: 230-
231 (Figures 16, 17, 18). Indeed, the ritual of smearing ashes on the faces of
those encountered, as well as the fact that ashes form an integral part of the
make-up of the performers themselves, are recurrent features of the performances.
As such, the use of ashes may have been a fundamental component of the «goodluck»
healing ceremonies themselves. There are many examples of the old
European belief in the «good luck» conferred by ashes, blackening one’s face
with them and black creatures in general (Alford 1930: 277 ff; Barandiaran
1973, II: 375; Creighton 1950: 20-21; Frank 2005).
Figure 16. St. Nikolaus with his companions in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria 1958.
Photo Wolf Lüking. Reproduced in Weber-Kellermann (1978: 33).