THE BUTCHERS' LEAP AT MUNICH.
A correspondent of the London Athenæum, writing from Munich, gives the following account of the festival of the Butchers' Leap in the Fountain: "This strange ceremonial, like the Schäffler Tanz, is said to have its origin in the time of the plague. While the Coopers danced with garlands and music through the streets, the Butchers sprang into the fountain in the market-place, to show their fellow-citizens that its water was no longer to be dreaded as poisoned. Perhaps they were the Sanitary Commissioners of those days; and by bathing themselves in the water and dashing it about on the crowd would teach the true means of putting pestilence to flight.
"Though the Coopers' Dance takes place only once in seven years, the Butchers' Leap occurs annually, and always on Fasching Montag,—the Monday before Shrove Tuesday. I believe the ceremony is of great importance to the trade of the Butchers; as certain privileges granted to them are annually renewed at this time, and in connection with the Leap. These two ceremonies—of the Coopers' Dance and the Butchers' Leap—are now almost the last remains of the picturesque and quaint customs of old Munich.
"The Butchers commence proceedings by attending High Mass in St. Peter's Church,—close to the Schrannien Platz, or market-place, in which the fountain is situated. It is a desolate-looking church, this St. Peter's, as seen from without,—old, decaying, and ugly; within, tawdry and—though not desolate and decaying—ugly. From staringly white walls frown down on the spectator torture-pictures, alternating with huge gilt images of sentimental saints in clumsy drapery. The altars are masses of golden clouds and golden cherubs.
"Music, as from the orchestra of a theatre rather than from the choir of a church, greeted us as we entered. The Butchers were just passing out. We caught glimpses of scarlet coats; and saw two huge silver flagons, covered with a very panoply of gold and silver medals, borne aloft by pompous officials clothed in scarlet. Having watched the procession—some half-dozen tiny butchers' sons, urchins of five and six years old, with rosy, round faces and chubby hands, mounted on stalwart horses and dressed in little scarlet coats, top-boots, and jaunty green velvet hats—seven butchers' apprentices, the Leapers of the day, also dressed in scarlet and mounted on horseback—the musicians,—the long train of master-butchers and journeymen in long dark cloaks and with huge nosegays in their hats—and the scarlet officials bearing the decorated flagons,—having watched, I say, all these good folk wend their way in long procession up the narrow street leading from the church, and seen them cross the market-place in the direction of the Palace, where they are awaited by the King,—let us look around, and notice the features of the market-place:—for it is, in fact, a quaint old bit of the city, and well worth a glimpse.
"If I love the Ludwig Strasse as the most beautiful portion of the new Munich, I almost equally love the Schrannien Platz as about the quaintest part of old Munich. It is long and narrow as a market-place, but wide as a street. The houses are old; many of them very handsome, and rich with ornamental stucco-work,—
'All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruit and flowers and bunches of knot-grass.'