DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.74283#0147
THE GROTESQUES
129
modern butchers guild festival in Munich, the Metzgersprung.™
We find maskers in hides and horns in many another folk-festival,
and skins are worn in the morris- and sword-dances.161 Black
sheepskins cover the Rauchtschegetten, carnival dancers in
Switzerland.162 Skin-clad actors appear in the modern carnival
ceremonies in Thrace, apparently a relic of the spring-festival of
Dionysus.163 Of particular interest to us in this connection is the
Perchtenlauj of Bavaria, a run usually performed at Epiphany or
in the carnival period, with a history reaching back at least six
centuries.164 In this case, too, the name of the runners, Perchten,
is of doubtful etymology: the statements in early glossaries, like
the eleventh-century giperahta naht, "shining night," or Epiphany,
have been related to the mythical "Frau Percht," a being with both
good and evil nature, personified in this festival.165 Meisen sug-
gests a more natural interpretation of "Perht" as a post-Christian
folk-translation of Lucifer,166 and this seems all the more plausible
since some of the Perchten, the so-called "schiachen Perchten"
(schiach, "ugly," from MHG schiech, related to "scheu,
160 Cf. Spamer (Handbuch), p. 43 (with ill.), Spamer (Volkskunde), pp. 98, 99,
Abb. I.
161 Cf. Chambers (Med. Stage), I, 132, iqif.; Janson, 27; Chambers (Folk Play),
p. 126; Meschke, p. I4$f.
162 Cf. L. Riitimeyer, "Uber Masken und Maskengebrauche im Lotschental," Globus,
XCL, 1907, pp. 2O2ff., Abb. I.
163 Cf. Frazer, VII, 26ff.; Chambers (Folk Play), pp. 206-10. While L. R.
Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, p. 233, related the goat-skins worn by the
worshippers of Dionysus to the cult of the "goat-god," W. Ridgeway, The Origin
of Tragedy (Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1910), p. 87, attempted to prove there was no
particular significance in the skin-costumes, for the goat-skin or sheepskin is the
natural costume of the country people and shepherds in Greece. He concluded, ibid.,
p. 93, that Attic tragedy did not arise from some form of Dionysiac "mimesis," as
Farnell had argued, op. cit., p. 237, but from the ceremonies surrounding the wor-
ship of the dead.
164 Cf. M. Andree-Eysn, Volkskundliches aus dem bayrisch-osterreichischen Alpen-
gebiet (Braunschweig: F. Vieweg, 1910), pp. 156-184 ("Die Perchten im Salzburg-
ischen"); V. Waschnitius, Perht, Holda und verwandte Gestalten (Wien: A. Holder,
1914), pp. 6off. (documentation for Bavaria from the Thirteenth Century). Briigge-
mann (Vom Sch.), p. 26, notes that the "Berchtenlaufen" was forbidden in
Nuremberg by the Council in 1616.
165 Cf. W. Golther, Handbuch der Mythologie (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1895), p. 493
Mannhardt, I, 542-3, 548, explains the festival as a vegetation custom; Waschnitius,
op. cit., p. 140, on the other hand, relates Perht to the "Seelenkult."
166 Cf. K. Meisen, Nikolauskult und Nikolausbrauch im Abendlande (Dusseldorf:
L. Schwann, 1931), p. 441; de Vries, p. 293.
129
modern butchers guild festival in Munich, the Metzgersprung.™
We find maskers in hides and horns in many another folk-festival,
and skins are worn in the morris- and sword-dances.161 Black
sheepskins cover the Rauchtschegetten, carnival dancers in
Switzerland.162 Skin-clad actors appear in the modern carnival
ceremonies in Thrace, apparently a relic of the spring-festival of
Dionysus.163 Of particular interest to us in this connection is the
Perchtenlauj of Bavaria, a run usually performed at Epiphany or
in the carnival period, with a history reaching back at least six
centuries.164 In this case, too, the name of the runners, Perchten,
is of doubtful etymology: the statements in early glossaries, like
the eleventh-century giperahta naht, "shining night," or Epiphany,
have been related to the mythical "Frau Percht," a being with both
good and evil nature, personified in this festival.165 Meisen sug-
gests a more natural interpretation of "Perht" as a post-Christian
folk-translation of Lucifer,166 and this seems all the more plausible
since some of the Perchten, the so-called "schiachen Perchten"
(schiach, "ugly," from MHG schiech, related to "scheu,
160 Cf. Spamer (Handbuch), p. 43 (with ill.), Spamer (Volkskunde), pp. 98, 99,
Abb. I.
161 Cf. Chambers (Med. Stage), I, 132, iqif.; Janson, 27; Chambers (Folk Play),
p. 126; Meschke, p. I4$f.
162 Cf. L. Riitimeyer, "Uber Masken und Maskengebrauche im Lotschental," Globus,
XCL, 1907, pp. 2O2ff., Abb. I.
163 Cf. Frazer, VII, 26ff.; Chambers (Folk Play), pp. 206-10. While L. R.
Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, p. 233, related the goat-skins worn by the
worshippers of Dionysus to the cult of the "goat-god," W. Ridgeway, The Origin
of Tragedy (Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1910), p. 87, attempted to prove there was no
particular significance in the skin-costumes, for the goat-skin or sheepskin is the
natural costume of the country people and shepherds in Greece. He concluded, ibid.,
p. 93, that Attic tragedy did not arise from some form of Dionysiac "mimesis," as
Farnell had argued, op. cit., p. 237, but from the ceremonies surrounding the wor-
ship of the dead.
164 Cf. M. Andree-Eysn, Volkskundliches aus dem bayrisch-osterreichischen Alpen-
gebiet (Braunschweig: F. Vieweg, 1910), pp. 156-184 ("Die Perchten im Salzburg-
ischen"); V. Waschnitius, Perht, Holda und verwandte Gestalten (Wien: A. Holder,
1914), pp. 6off. (documentation for Bavaria from the Thirteenth Century). Briigge-
mann (Vom Sch.), p. 26, notes that the "Berchtenlaufen" was forbidden in
Nuremberg by the Council in 1616.
165 Cf. W. Golther, Handbuch der Mythologie (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1895), p. 493
Mannhardt, I, 542-3, 548, explains the festival as a vegetation custom; Waschnitius,
op. cit., p. 140, on the other hand, relates Perht to the "Seelenkult."
166 Cf. K. Meisen, Nikolauskult und Nikolausbrauch im Abendlande (Dusseldorf:
L. Schwann, 1931), p. 441; de Vries, p. 293.