Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

Rain of food

making, which has been traced back to the early part of the
sixteenth century1: on the last Thursday before Lent a pyramid
stacked with poultry, sausages, and eatables of every kind was taken
]n procession through the streets and, on reaching the big market-
place, was handed over to the mob, which scrambled for the prize.
In Spain a similar celebration was called Cucaita?: comestibles and
other things were fastened to the very top of a tall well-soaped pole,
UP which competitors clambered to the amusement of all. The same
sPort, which in Italy is known as the Giuoco della Cuccagna?, was
Iritroduced into France in 1425, and thenceforward the mtit de
cocagne became a frequent feature of public festivities4. It seems
never to have obtained much footing in Germany, where its
•Equivalent was to be found in such rites as the thirteenth-century
Gral at Magdeburg5. But it was certainly the ancestor of our own
Creasy Pole6, still a favourite item on the programmes of provincial
regattas. Indeed, it is not a little curious to reflect that a ceremony,

S u ^ans Sachs 'Sturm des vollen Bergs,' a poem of 1536, in E. Goetze Hans

ac^ Sdnitliche Fabeln und Schwiinke Halle a. S. 1893 i. 138—141 no. 43.
SicJ' Poeschel loc. cit. 1878 v. 410, J. Bolte—G. Polivka op. cit. iii. 148. See also the
<CU n^ru> de la Lengua Castellanapor la Real Academia Espafiolali Madrid 1914 p. 302c
hincaanaPa'° 'arg°i untado de jabon o de grasa, por el cual se ha de trepar, si se
<je j Veit,calmente en el suelo, o andar, si se coloca horizontalmente a cierta distancia
2 Div SU?,erncie

del agua, para coger como premio un objeto atado a su extremidad. |[
ijlvers16n de ver trepar por dicho palo.'
della ' ?are An -Kalian Dictionary Cambridge 1925 p. 196'' 'Cuccagna/. ...Giuoco
i , ' c"mbing a greasy pole for a prize fastened at the top of it.'
de Srandeencyclopidie Paris (1890) xi. 755 s.v. 'cocagne'...'Un terme tres employe,
^Wuissan^"''' ^'S116 un mat rond, Hsse et eleve, plantd en terre, dresse pendant les
aPpartienn:eS p"':)''clues! '! porte a son sommet des objets de toutes sortes, des prix qui
tiat est • 2 cem' ou ceux qm parviennent a grimper jusqu'en haut sans secours. Ce
^'^ftissen^11611861116111 savonn^' ce 1U' complique encore la difficulte des ascensions. Ce
a>nsi qu>0 ent P°pulaire a ete, il semble, introduit pour la premiere fois a Paris en 1425,
^bothe^ 6 voit par le Jour"al d'"" bourgeois de Paris sous Charles vii' [a. Potthast
^"faiseS ^ls!orica Medii Aevi- Berlin 1896 i. 686 f.], Diclionnaire de I'Aeadi'mif
tn terre '932 2i° s-v- 'cocagne'..."Mat de cocagne, Mat rond et lisse, plantc

Sans aucu_ aul ^uquel sont suspendus des prix qu'il faut aller detacher en grimpant
0 j. q • ecours. On plante ordinairement des mills de cocagne les jours de fete publique.'
; »itts:, Grimm Deittsches IVorterbuch Leipzig 1873 v. '9^° s-v- 1 Krales'...

psdeb!lr lederdentschland gekommen sein. dort hiesz gral m. ein /est, wie es z.b. die

*aSMurg\lCJl6pp"'chronik Potthast °P- berlin ,896 1002 f] "'" i2s° als
lHkt ein auf^ schildert ■■■ *»« bei jenem feste, z.b. in Magdeburg, bildetc den mitlel-
danfus)"" Ell'insd errichteter ban, der gral, in dem helden hausten und zum
eiJU>l,leit; d 'erVOr ia""», eine darstellung des graltempels, gedachl als inbegriff aller
if? ie' p'isch "a'"e *j kl""ods gral gieng dabei aufdas gcbiiude iiber, das ihm diente.
'ga/acit*** de" Gral oder Venusberg besuchen' Garg. 414 Sch. ...er ist da in

^ori?^ ^e Spanish r ...

ta'ly ab "ca"a «as sometimes, like our Greasy Bowsprit, a pole projecting

6 the water (supra n. 2).