[911] Ditchfield, 28.
[912] Bertrand, 314; Arbois de Jubainville, Cycl. myth. 385; Rhys, C. H. 77.
[913] Tille, D. W. 109.
[914] C. de Berger (1723), Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascharis, 218 ‘Vecolo aut cervolo facere; hoc est sub forma vitulae aut cervuli per plateas discurrere, ut apud nos in festis Bacchanalibus vulgo dicitur correr la tora’; J. Ihre (†1769), Gloss. Suio-Gothicum, s. v. Jul. ‘Julbock est ludicrum, quo tempore hoc pellem et formam arietis induunt adolescentuli et ita adstantibus incursant. Credo idem hoc esse quod exteri scriptores cervulum appellant.’ In the Life of Bishop Arni (nat. 1237) it is recorded how in his youth he once joined in a scinnleic or ‘hide-play’ (C. P. B. ii. 385). Frazer, ii. 447, describes the New Year custom of colluinn in Scotland and St. Kilda. A man clad in a cowhide is driven deasil round each house to bless it. Bits of hide are also burnt for amulets. Probably the favourite Christmas game of Blind Man’s Buff was originally a scinnleic (N. W. Thomas, in F. L. xi. 262).
[915] Brand, i. 210, 217; Jackson and Burne, 381, 392, 407; Ashton, 178; Jahn, 487, 500; Müller, 487, 500. Scandinavian countries bake the Christmas ‘Yule-boar.’ Often this is made from the last sheaf and the crumbs mixed with the seed-corn (Frazer, ii. 29). Germany has its Martinshörner (Jahn, 250; Pfannenschmidt, 215).
[916] Dyer, 501; Ashton, 214.
[917] Brand, i. 19; Dyer, 21, 447; Ashton, 86, 233. Brand, i. 210, describes a Hallow-e’en custom in the Isle of Lewis of pouring a cup of ale in the sea to ‘Shony,’ a sea god.
[918] Brand, i. 14; Dyer, 22, 448; Northall, 187. A cake with a hole in the middle is hung on the horn of the leading ox.
[919] Grimm, iv. 1808. Hens are fed on New Year’s day with mixed corn to make them lay well.
[920] Gregory, Posthuma, 113 ‘It hath been a Custom, and yet is elsewhere, to whip up the Children upon Innocents-Day morning, that the memory of this Murther might stick the closer, and in a moderate proportion to act over the cruelty again in kind.’ In Germany, adults are beaten (Grimm, iv. 1820). In mediaeval France ‘innocenter,’ ‘donner les innocents,’ was a custom exactly parallel to the Easter prisio (Rigollot, 138, 173).