Arrived
at its destination--a field outside the village--the figure is
stripped of its clothes and ornaments; then the crowd rushes at it
and tears it to bits, scuffling for the fragments. Every one tries
to get a wisp of the straw of which the effigy was made, because
such a wisp, placed in the manger, is believed to make the cattle
thrive. Or the straw is put in the hens' nest, it being supposed
that this prevents the hens from carrying away their eggs, and makes
them brood much better. The same attribution of a fertilising power
to the figure of Death appears in the belief that if the bearers of
the figure, after throwing it away, beat cattle with their sticks,
this will render the beasts fat or prolific. Perhaps the sticks had
been previously used to beat the Death, and so had acquired the
fertilising power ascribed to the effigy. We have seen, too, that at
Leipsic a straw effigy of Death was shown to young wives to make
them fruitful.
It seems hardly possible to separate from the May-trees the trees or
branches which are brought into the village after the destruction of
the Death.
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