On Sunday the people, armed with
sticks and straps, assemble before the house where the figure is
lodged. Four lads then draw the effigy by cords through the village
amid exultant shouts, while all the others beat it with their sticks
and straps. On reaching a field which belongs to a neighbouring
village they lay down the figure, cudgel it soundly, and scatter the
fragments over the field. The people believe that the village from
which Death has been thus carried out will be safe from any
infectious disease for the whole year.
4. Bringing in Summer
IN THE PRECEDING ceremonies the return of Spring, Summer, or Life,
as a sequel to the expulsion of Death, is only implied or at most
announced. In the following ceremonies it is plainly enacted. Thus
in some parts of Bohemia the effigy of Death is drowned by being
thrown into the water at sunset; then the girls go out into the wood
and cut down a young tree with a green crown, hang a doll dressed as
a woman on it, deck the whole with green, red, and white ribbons,
and march in procession with their _L?to_ (Summer) into the village,
collecting gifts and singing--
"Death swims in the water,
Spring comes to visit us,
With eggs that are red,
With yellow pancakes.
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