Thus at Brunnen, on the Lake of Lucerne,
boys go about in procession on Twelfth Night carrying torches and
making a great noise with horns, bells, whips, and so forth to
frighten away two female spirits of the wood, Strudeli and
Str?tteli. The people think that if they do not make enough noise,
there will be little fruit that year. Again, in Labrugui?re, a
canton of Southern France, on the eve of Twelfth Day the people run
through the streets, jangling bells, clattering kettles, and doing
everything to make a discordant noise. Then by the light of torches
and blazing faggots they set up a prodigious hue and cry, an
ear-splitting uproar, hoping thereby to chase all the wandering
ghosts and devils from the town.
LVII. Public Scapegoats
1. The Expulsion of Embodied Evils
THUS far we have dealt with that class of the general expulsion of
evils which I have called direct or immediate. In this class the
evils are invisible, at least to common eyes, and the mode of
deliverance consists for the most part in beating the empty air and
raising such a hubbub as may scare the mischievous spirits and put
them to flight.
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