Die Buben sind fleissig.

Stieglitz, Stieglitz,

Die Mädeln sind gar nichts nütz.”[469]

“Boys are the busy ones,

Goldfinch, goldfinch.

Girls are no use at all.”

At the festivals, and especially the weddings of mountain folk, the youths and maidens carry on a veritable poetic warfare, which sometimes becomes pretty severe.

Ten different German tribes too had champions who sang in scornful contests like that of the two Greenland poets.[470] In trade rivalry the tailor suffers most. Religious differences have given rise to such jargon as this:

“Franz Willwanz

Willwippke Kadanz,