Chapter 24

Kuhn (pp. 314-29) has lately furnished us with accurate accounts of Whitsun customs in the Marks. In the Mittelmark the houses are decorated with 'mai,' in the Altmark the farm-servants, horse-keepers, and ox-boys go round the farms, and carry May-crowns made of flowers and birch twigs to the farmers, who used to hang them up on their houses, and leave them hanging till the next year. On Whitsun morning the cows and horses are driven for the first time to the fallow pasture, and it is a great thing to be the first there. The animal that arrives first has a bunch of 'mai' tied to its tail, which bunch is called dau-sleipe (dew-sweep), (69) while the last comer is dressed up in fir-twigs, all sorts of green stuff and field flowers, and called the motley cow or motley horse, and the boy belonging to it the pingst-kääm or pingst-käärel. At Havelberg the cow that came home first at night used to be adorned with the crown of flowers, and the last got the thau-schleife; now this latter practice is alone kept up. (70) In some of the Altmark villages, the lad whose horse gets to the pasture first is named thau-schlepper, and he who drives the hindmost is made motley boy, viz. they clothe him from head to foot in wild flowers, and at noon lead him from farm to farm, the dew-sweeper pronouncing the rhymes. In other places a pole decked with flowers and ribbons is carried round, and called the bammel (dangle) or pings-kääm, though, as a rule, this last name is reserved for the boy shrouded in leaves and flowers, who accompanies. He is sometimes led by two others called hundebrösel. In some parts of the Mittelmark the muffled boy is called kaudernest. On the Drömling the boys go round with the pingst-kääm, and the girls with the may-bride, collecting gifts. Some villages south of the Drömling have a more elaborate ceremonial. On 'White Sunday,' a fortnight before Easter, the herdboys march to the pasture with white sticks (supra p. 766), and with these they mark off a spot, to which no one may drive his cattle till Whitsuntide. (71) This being done, the smaller boys name their brides (72) to the bigger ones, and no one must reveal the name till Whitsunday, when the railed-off pasture is thrown open, and any one may tell the brides' names. On Whitmonday one of the boys is disguised by having two petticoats put on him, and one of them is pulled over his head and tied up; then they swathe him in may, hang flower-wreaths about his neck, and set a flower-crown on his head. They call him the füstge mai (well-appointed, armed), and lead him round to all the houses; at the same time the girls go round with their may-bride, who is completely covered with ribbons, her bridal band hanging to the ground behind; she wears a large nosegay on her head, and keeps on singing her ditties till some gift is handed to her.

Other villages have horse-races on Whitmonday for a wreath which is hung out. Whoever snatches it down both times is crowned, and led in triumph to the village as May-king.

A work composed in the 13^th cent. by Aegidius aureae vallis religiosus reports the Netherland custom of electing a Whitsun queen in the time of bp. Albero of Lüttich (d. 1155): 'Sacerdotes ceteraeque ecclesiasticae personae cum universo populo, in solemnitatibus paschae et pentecostes, aliquam ex sacerdotum concubinis, purpuratem ac diademate renitentem in eminentiori solio constitutam et cortinis velatam, reginam creabant, et coram ea assistentes in choreis tympanis et aliis musicalibus instrumentis tota die psallebant, et quasi idolatrae effecti ipsam tanquam idolum colebant,' Chapeaville 2, 98. To this day poor women in Holland at Whitsuntide carry about a girl sitting in a little carriage, and beg for money. This girl, decked with flowers and ribbons, and named pinxterbloem, reminds us of the ancient goddess on her travels. The same pinxterbloem is a name for the iris pseudacorus, which blossoms at that very season; and the sword-lily is named after other deities beside Iris (perunika, p. 183-4). On the Zaterdag before Pentecost, the boys go out early in the morning, and with great shouting and din awake the lazy sleepers, and tie a bundle of nettles at their door. Both the day and the late sleeper are called luilap or luilak (sluggard). Summer also had to be wakened, p. 765.

Everything goes to prove, that the approach of summer was to our forefathers a holy tide, welcomed by sacrifices, feast and dance, and largely governing and brightening the people's life. Of Easter fires, so closely connected with May fires, an account has been given; the festive gatherings of May-day night will be described more minutely in the Chap. on Witches. At this season brides were chosen and proclaimed, servants changed, and houses taken possession of by new tenants.

With this I conclude my treatment of Summer and Winter; i.e. of the mythic meanings mixed up with the two halves of the year. An examination of the twelve solar and thirteen lunar months (73) is more than I can undertake here, for want of space; I promise to make good the deficiency elsewhere. This much I will say, that a fair proportion of our names of months also is referable to heathen gods, as we now see by the identification of Hrede (March) and Eastre (April), p. 289. Phol, who had his Phol-day (p. 614), seems to have ruled over a Phol-mânôt (May and Sept.), conf. Diut. i. 409, 432, and Scheffer's Haltaus 36. The days of our week may have been arranged and named on the model of the Romans (p. 127); the names of the three months aforesaid are independent of any Latin influence. (74) A remarkable feature among Slavs and Germans is the using of one name for two successive months, as when the Anglo-Saxons speak of an ærra and æftera Geola, ærra and æftera Lîða, and we of a great and little Horn (Jan. and Feb.), nay, Ougest is followed up by an Ougstin, the god by a goddess; I even see a mythical substratum in popular saws on certain months, thus of February they say: 'the Spörkelsin has seven smocks on, of different lengths every one, and them she shakes,' i.e. raises wind with them. 'Sporkel,' we know, is traced to the Roman spurcalia.




ENDNOTES: