THE PAGEANTS

159

Sachs' "Das narrn-bad,"151 in which a doctor cures fools in a bath,
and by his representation of hell in "Das hell-bad"152 as a bath-
house with a large oven:153
Inn der mit da stund der bad-ofen,
Wie ein berg groB und ungehewer . ..
In summa all ding daucht mich ghrad,
Als wer die hell gleich wie ein bad
Two woodcuts illustrating poems setting forth the nature of
ovens in which old men and women find rejuvenation, were printed
about 1540.™ The Middle Ages knew the beneficial effect of the
heat of an oven on the sick.155 In the Schembartlauf the ancient
tradition of the thermal bath is given a grotesque turn in this
pageant of a cure for folly.
In 1514 it is the old women who are treated drastically by the
Laufer: they are shot from a cannon on the Holle (Fig. 45). The
text describing this pageant gives no details (f. 58r): "Jhr Hoel
war ein groB BuchB, darauB man alte Weiber SchoB." In our
miniature the cannon, entirely gilded, is represented as fixed on a
large brown block, which is surrounded by small evergreens on
the sleigh. It is a simple piece with a large bore, closed at one end
and furnished with an ornamental handle.156 From the mouth of
the cannon projects the head of a woman, with long hair hanging
down.157 The presence of the old woman in the carnival, both as a
doll and as a mask, has been discussed above; here again the
Holle represents an expression of the desire to expel the outworn
or detrimental elements from society at the new year. As we have
seen in connection with the fireworks of the Laufer, the shooting
of guns and cannons is a natural expression of exuberance in a
festival and at the same time a folk survival of purificatory cus-
toms still practiced today.
151 Hans Sachs, Werke, V, 305-9 (1530).
152 Ibid., III, 593-605 (1540).
153 Ibid., p. 595, II. 13-14, 18-19.
154 Cf. Geisberg (Holzschnitt), Nr. 1584-5.
155 An eleventh-century mention of the practice is cited in Hwb. d. d. Aberglau-
bens, VI, 1197.
156 For similar drawings of early cannon cf. A. Essenwein, Quellen zur Geschichte
der Feuerwaflen (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1872).
" The cannon in MS No. 8 has been touched off by a Laufer: one of his vic-
tims is flying into the air, three more old women lie on the ground.