About a hundred years ago or more the custom at
Althenneberg, in Upper Bavaria, used to be as follows. On the
afternoon of Easter Saturday the lads collected wood, which they
piled in a cornfield, while in the middle of the pile they set up a
tall wooden cross all swathed in straw. After the evening service
they lighted their lanterns at the consecrated candle in the church,
and ran with them at full speed to the pyre, each striving to get
there first. The first to arrive set fire to the heap. No woman or
girl might come near the bonfire, but they were allowed to watch it
from a distance. As the flames rose the men and lads rejoiced and
made merry, shouting, "We are burning the Judas!" The man who had
been the first to reach the pyre and to kindle it was rewarded on
Easter Sunday by the women, who gave him coloured eggs at the church
door. The object of the whole ceremony was to keep off the hail. At
other villages of Upper Bavaria the ceremony, which took place
between nine and ten at night on Easter Saturday, was called
"burning the Easter Man.
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