The king got as a prize,
a vest, a neck-cloth, and so forth, and had the right of setting up
the May-bush or Whitsuntide-tree before his master's yard, where it
remained as an honourable token till the same day next year. Finally
the procession took its way to the tavern, where the king and queen
opened the dance. Sometimes the Whitsuntide King and Queen succeeded
to office in a different way. A man of straw, as large as life and
crowned with a red cap, was conveyed in a cart, between two men
armed and disguised as guards, to a place where a mock court was
waiting to try him. A great crowd followed the cart. After a formal
trial the straw man was condemned to death and fastened to a stake
on the execution ground. The young men with bandaged eyes tried to
stab him with a spear. He who succeeded became king and his
sweetheart queen. The straw man was known as the Goliath.
In a parish of Denmark it used to be the custom at Whitsuntide to
dress up a little girl as the Whitsun-bride and a little boy as her
groom. She was decked in all the finery of a grown-up bride, and
wore a crown of the freshest flowers of spring on her head.
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