Further, they may now bathe with impunity out of doors.
Very similar is the ceremony which, down to recent years, was
observed in some of the German villages of Moravia. Boys and girls
met on the afternoon of the first Sunday after Easter, and together
fashioned a puppet of straw to represent Death. Decked with
bright-coloured ribbons and cloths, and fastened to the top of a
long pole, the effigy was then borne with singing and clamour to the
nearest height, where it was stript of its gay attire and thrown or
rolled down the slope. One of the girls was next dressed in the
gauds taken from the effigy of Death, and with her at its head the
procession moved back to the village. In some villages the practice
is to bury the effigy in the place that has the most evil reputation
of all the country-side: others throw it into running water.
In the Lusatian ceremony described above, the tree which is brought
home after the destruction of the figure of Death is plainly
equivalent to the trees or branches which, in the preceding customs,
were brought back as representatives of Summer or Life, after Death
had been thrown away or destroyed.
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