Chapter 24
Trarira! der Sommer der ist da;
wir wollen hinaus in garten
und wollen des Sommers warten (attend).
wir wollen hinter die hecken (behind the hedges)
und wollen den Sommer wecken (wake).
der Winter hats verloren (has lost),
der Winter liegt gefangen (lies a prisoner);
und wer nicht dazu kommt (who won't agree),
den schlagen wir mit stangen (we'll beat with staves).
Elsewhere:Jajaja! der Sommertag (23)
ist da,
er kratzt dem Winter die augen aus (scratch W.'s eyes out),
und jagt die bauern zur stube hinaus (drive the boors out of doors).
Stab aus! (24) dem
Winter gehn die augen aus (W.'s eyes come out);
velchen, rosenblumen (violets and roses),
holen wir den Sommer (we fetch),
schicken den Winter über 'n Rhein (send W. over Rhine),
bringt uns guten kühlen wein.
Violen and die blumen
bringen uns den Sommer,
der Sommer ist so keck (cheeky, bold),
und wirft den Winter in den dreck (flings W. in the dirt).
Stab aus, stab aus,
blas dem Winter die augen aus (blow W.'s eyes out)!
Songs like this must have come down through many centuries; and what I have
quoted above from poets of the 13th cent. presupposes their existence,
or that of songs substantially the same. The conception and setting of the whole
are quite heathenish: valiant Summer found, fetched, wakened from his sleep;
vanquished Winter rolled in the dust, thrown into chains, beaten with staves,
blinded, banished; these are demigods or giants of antiquity. Violets are mentioned
with evident reference to the welcoming of Summer. In some parts the children
march out with white peeled rods, either for the purpose of helping Summer to
belabour the foe, or perhaps to represent the retinue of Winter, for it was
the old custom for the conquered and captive to be let go, carrying white staves
(RA. 134). One of the band of boys, marching at their head wrapt in straw, stands
for Winter, another decked with ivy for Summer. First the two fence with their
poles, presently they close and wrestle, till Winter is thrown and his straw
garment stript off him. During the duel, the rest keep singing:
stab aus, stab aus,
stecht dem Winter die augen aus!
This is completely the 'rauba birahanen, hrusti giwinnan, caesos spoliare armis'
of the heroic age; the barbarous punching out of eyes goes back to a still remoter
antiquity. (25) The wakening of
Summer is like the wakening of Sælde.
In some places, when the fight is over, and Winter put to flight,
they sing:
So treiben wir den Winter aus
durch unsre stadt zum thor hinaus (out of the gate);
here and there the whole action is compressed into the shout: 'Sommer' rein
(come in), Winter' naus (go out)!'
As we come back through the Odenwald toward inner Franconia, the
Spessart and the Rhön Mts, the words begin to change, and run as follows.
Stab aus, stab aus,
stecht dem Tod (death) die augen aus!
Then:
Wir haben den Tod hinausgetrieben (driven out),
den lieben Sommer bringen wir wieder (again),
den Summer und den Meien
mit blümlein mancherleien (of many a sort).
So Death has stept into Winter's place; we might say, because in Winter nature
slumbers and seems dead; but it may also be, that at an early time some heathenish
name for Winter had to give place to the christian conception of Death.
When we get to the heart of Franconia, e.g. Nürnberg, the songs
drop all mention of Summer, and dwell the more emphatically on the expulsion
of Death. (26) There country lasses
of seventeen or eighteen, arrayed in all their finery, parade the streets of
the whole town and suburbs; on or under their left arm they carrry a little
open coffin, with a shroud hanging over the sides, and a puppet lying under
that. Poor children carry nothing but an open box, in which lies a green bough
of beech with a stalk sticking up, on which an apple is fixed instead of the
head. Their monotone song begins: 'To-day is Midlent, we bear Death into the
water, and that is well.' Amongst other things:
Wir tragen den Tod in's wasser,
tragen ihn 'nein, und wieder 'raus (27)
(in, and out again),
tragen ihn vor des biedermanns haus (up to the goodman'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 ein panzer an (wears a coat of mail).
Similar customs and songs prevailed all over Franconia, and in Thuringia, Meissen,
Vogtland, Lausitz and Silesia. The beginning of the song varies:
Nun treiben wir den Tod aus (28)
(drive D. out),
den alten weibern in das haus (into the old women's house).
Or:
hinter's alte hirtenhaus (29)
(behind the old shepherd's house).
Further on:
hätten wir den Tod nicht ausgetrieben (not driven D. out),
wär er das jahr noch inne geblieben (30)
(he'd have staid all the year).
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 disputed as to where it should
be made and tied together; whatever 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 fruitul. 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
maypole. (31) In the Altmark, the
Wendish villages about Salzwedel, especially Seeben (where we saw Hennil still
in use, p. 749), have preserved the following custom: at Whitsuntide menservants
and maids tie fir-branches, straw and hay into a large figure, giving it as
much as possible a human shape. Profusely garlanded with field-flowers, the
image is fastened, sitting upright, on the brindled cow (of which more hereafter),
and lastly a pipe cut out of alder wood stuck in its mouth. So they conduct
it into the village, where all the houses are barred and bolted, and every one
chases the cow out of his yard, till the figure falls off, or goes to pieces
(Ad. Kuhn's Märk. sagen, p. 316-7).
From Switzerland, Tobler 425-6 gives us a popular play in rhymes,
which betray a Swabian origin, and contain a song of battle between Summer and
Winter. Summer is acted by a man in his bare shirt, holding in one hand a tree
decorated with ribbons and fruit, in the other a cudgel with the end much split.
Winter is warmly clad, but has a similar cudgel; they lay on to one another's
shoulders with loud thwacks, each renowning himself and running down his neighbour.
At length Winter falls back, and owns himself beaten. Schm. 3, 248 tells of
the like combat in Bavaria: Winter is wrapt in fur, Summer carries a green bough
in his hand, and the strife ends with Summer thrusting Winter out of doors.
I do not find the custom reported of Austria proper; it seems to be known in
Styria and the adjoining mountains of Carinthia: the young fellows divide into
two bands, one equipt with winter clothes and snowballs, the other with green
summer hats, forks and scythes. After fighting a while in front of the houses,
they end with singing jointly the praises of victorious Summer. (32)
It takes place in March or at St. Mary's Candlemas (see Suppl.).
Some of the districts named have within the last hundred years
discontinued this old festival of announcing Summer by the defeat of Winter,
others retain it to this day. Bygone centuries may well have seen it in other
German regions, where it has not left even a historical trace; there may however
be some accounts that have escaped my notice. In S. Germany, Swabia, Switzerland,
Bavaria, Austria, Styria, the ditties are longer and more formal, but the ceremony
itself not so artless and racy. In Lower Hesse, Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Friesland,
and the Netherlands, that is to say, where Easter-fires remained in vogue, I
can hardly anywhere detect this annunciation of Summer; in lieu of it we shall
find in N. Germany a far more imposing development of May-riding and the Maigraf
feast. Whether the announcing of Summer extended beyond the Palatinate into
Treves, Lorraine, and so into France, I cannot say for certain. (33)
Clearly it was not Protestant or Catholic religion that determined the longer
duration or speedier extinction of the custom. It is rather striking that it
should be rifest just in Middle Germany, and lean on Slav countries behind,
which likewise do it homage; but that is no reason for concluding that it is
of Slav origin, or that Slavs could have imported it up to and beyond the Rhine.
We must first consider more closely these Slav customs.
In Bohemia, children march, with a straw man representing Death,
to the end of the village, and there burn him while they sing:
Giz nesem Smrt ze wsy,
Now bear we D. from the village,
nowe Lèto do wsy;
new Summer to the village;
witey Lèto libèzne,
welcome Summer sweet,
obiljcko zelene!
little grain so green.
Elsewhere:
Smrt plyne po wode
D. floats down the water,
nowe Lèto k nám gede. (34)
new Summer to us rides.
Or:
Smrt gsme wám zanesly,
D. we've from you taken,
nowe Lèto prinesly.
new Summer to you brought.
In Moravia:
Nesem, nesem Marenu.
We bear, we bear Marena.
Other Slavs:
Wyneseme, wyneseme Mamuriendu.
Remove we Mamurienda.
Or:
wynesli sme Murienu se wsi,
we've taken Muriena out, and
prinesli sme May nowy do wsi. (35)
brought new May to the town.
ENDNOTES:
23. For Sommer ? conf. Bældæg for Bealdor,
p. 222-9, and Day, p. 738. [Back]
24. Also 'stam aus' or 'sta maus,' and 'heib aus, treib
aus, dem W. ist ein aug' aus.' Stabaus may be for staubaus = up and away, Schm.
3, 602; conf. Zingerle 2, 147. [Back]
25. The MHG. songs keep pace: 'der Meie hât sînen
schaft ûf den Winter verstochen,' dug his shaft into, MsH. 3, 195b. 'Mai
hat den W. erslagen', slain, Hätzl. 131, 58. 'vehten wil der W. kalt gegen
dem lieben Sumer,' MsH. 3, 423ª. [Back]
26. Seb. Frank's Weltbuch 51ª thus describes the
Shrovetide custom in Franconia: ' Four of them hold a sheet by his 4 corners,
whereon is laid a straw puppet in hose, jerkin and mask, like a dead man, the
which they toss up by the 4 corners, and catch him again in the sheet. This they
do the whole town through. At Midlent they make in some places a straw man or
imp, arrayed as a death, him the assembled youth bear into the nigh lying villages.
And by some they be well received, eased and fed with dried pears, milk and peas;
by others, which hold it a presage of coming death, evil entreated and driven
from their homesteads with foul words and oftentimes with buffets.' [Back]
27. This seems to indicate, that the deity of Death is
not to be annihilated by the ducking, but only made sensible of the people's dissatisfaction.
Cruel Death has during the year snatched many a victim, and men wish, as it were,
to be revenged on him. This is of a piece with the idea brought out on p. 20:
when a god has not answered your expectations, you bully him, you plunge his image
into water. So by the Franconians, on a failure of the wine-crop, St. Urban's
image, who had neglected to procure them wine (Fischart's Garg. 11) was flung
into the brook, or the mud (Seb. Frank 51b), or the water-trough, even in the
mere anticipation of a poor vintage (Agricola's Sprichw. 498. Gräter's Idunna
1812 p. 87). So the Bavarians, during St. Leonhard's solemn procession, would
occasionally drop him in the river (Schm. 2, 473). We know how the Naples people
to this day go to work with their San Gennaro, how seamen in a storm ill-use St.
Jame's image, not to speak of other instances. [Back]
28. Luther parodied this song in his Driving of the Pope
out, Journ. von u. für D. 1787. 2, 192-3. [Back]
29. 'Dem 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 tak the old 'Juden' for a iötunn. [Back]
30. J. F. Herrl, 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 conjecture. 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. [Back]
31. At Leipzig in the 17th cent. the festival had become
so discredited, that they had the straw puppet carried about and immersed by women
of ill fame. [Back]
32. Sartori's Neueste Reise d. Oestr., Vienna 1811. 2,
348. The Styrian battlesong is printed in Büsching's Wöch. nachr. 1,
226-8. [Back]
33. C. H. Schmid has indeed drawn up (Journ. v. u. f.
D. 1790, 314-5) a list of the lands and spots where Winter or Death is carried
out, and it includes parts of L. Saxony, Mecklenburg, even Friesland. But no authorities
are given; and other customs, similar, but without any of the distinctive features
of the subject in hand, are mixed up with it. Aug. Pfeiffer (b. Lauenstein 1640,
d. Lübeck '98) in Evang. Erquickungstunden, Leipz. 1698 mentions a 'battle
of Sum. and Win.', but names no places, and he had lived long in Silesia and Leipzig.
H. Lubbert (preacher at Bohlendorf by Lübeck, b. 1640, d. 1703) in his Fastnachtsteufel
p. 6 describes a March (not May) procession, but does not sufficiently bring out
the essential features. I extract the passage (from J. P. Schmidt's Fastelab.
p. 132), because it illustrates the far from ineffectual zeal of the clergy against
popular amusements, almost as strikingly as the diatribe, 560 years older, quoted
on pp. 259 seq.: 'The last year, on Dominica Quinquag. (4 weeks bef. Laetare),
I again publicly prayed every man to put away, once for all, these pagan doings.
Alas, I was doomed to see the wicked worldlings do it worse than before. Not alone
did children carrying long sticks wrapt in green leaves go about within doors,
and sing all manner of lewd jests, but specially the men-servants, one of them
having a green petticoat tied about him, went in two parties through the village
from house to house with a bag-pipe, singing, swilling, rioting like madmen in
the houses; afterward they joined together, drank, danced, and kept such pother
several nights through, that one scarce could sleep for it. At the said ungodly
night-dances were even some lightminded maids, that took part in the accursed
business.'
34. Celakowsky's Slowanské narodni pisne, Prague
1822. p. 209. He quotes other rhymes as well. [Back]
35. J. Kollár's Zpiewanky 1, 4. 400. [Back]
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