[743]. It is a commonplace in sociology that agricultural communities worship female deities as representatives of fertility, while the god like Tiw or Woden springs from warlike and nomadic conditions.
[744]. For example, the rain-song in Servia, an interesting ceremony, full of cries and with a refrain sung by dancing maidens. The dodola, a girl otherwise naked, but entirely covered with grass, weeds, and flowers, goes with a retinue of maidens from house to house; before each house the girls form a dancing ring with the dodola in the middle. The woman of the house pours water over the dodola, while she dances and turns about; the other maidens now sing the song for rain, each line ending with the refrain, oj dodo oj dodo le! See Grimm, Mythologie⁴, p. 494. Similar customs prevail in Greece; the song is here full of repetitions. See Grimm, Kl. Schr., II. 447. In the Athenæum, No. 2857 (1882), G. L. Gomme has some interesting notes on a survival of these processional rites.
[745]. E. H. Meyer, p. 223.
[746]. Grimm, Mythol.,⁴ I. 52.
[747]. References ibid., I. 214 ff., with similar cases. See also III. 86 f.
[748]. William of Malmesbury tells a story to show that the church could do better than condemn. In 1012 fifteen young men and women were dancing and singing in a churchyard and disturbed Robert the priest. He prayed at them, and for a whole year they had to dance and sing without ceasing until they sank to the middle in the earth.
[749]. Gregor. M. Dial., III. 28, quoted by W. Müller, Geschichte und System der altdeutschen Religion, Göttingen, 1844, pp. 74 f. The first book of this excellent treatise is even now the best summary of old Germanic rites,—clear, compact, and with all necessary references. For the boar’s head and the famous Latin song, at Oxford, see Grimm, Mythol.⁴, p. 178; for the vows, Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, pp. 900 f.
[750]. From Du Cange, s.v. Kalendae. See too Hampson, Med. Æv. Kal., I. 140 ff.
[751]. Broadwood and Maitland, p. 30. Survivals of procession song (Ansingelieder) are printed by Böhme, Kinderlied, 331 ff. The refrain has some body in a song “’t Godsdeel of den Rommelpot,” printed by Coussemaker, Chants Pop. des Flamands, p. 95, and also found in different parts of Germany. The begging songs for Martinmas Eve, found in Flanders, are widespread in Germany; Firmenich, work quoted, prints a good dozen and more from different places. The steps of dance and march are best heard in his version from Oldenburg, I. 231.
[752]. Firmenich, I. 281.