8o

THE DANCERS

the bells had become a sign of profession: "Die Schellen gehbren
dem Narren."144 Yet even after the turn of the century the Laufer,
who do not belong to the fraternity of fools, continue to adorn
themselves with bells, wearing them as before around the waist and
below one knee or both knees. We are reminded of folk dancers
and actors of today, to whom the bells are often an indispensable
feature of festival costume;145 particularly in the morris-dance a
pad of bells is worn at the knee,146 and in some sword-dances.147
These dances, of which we shall see examples in our MS, were
known in Germany in the Fifteenth Century:148 for the sword-
dance there is neither reference to bells nor a representation of
them in illustrations before 1600,149 but we have several early in-
stances of bells in the morris-dance. They adorn the grotesque
little figures of the "maruschkatanntz" designed by Erasmus
Grasser in 1480 for the Munich Tanzhaus;150 strings of bells
encircle the wrists and ankles of the frenzied dancers sculptured
144 Hans Sachs, writing his Scheinpart-spruch in 1548, can only interpret the bells
of the Laufer as the symbol of the folly of the revolt in 1348, cf. 11. 250-4:
"Der-gleich deuten die schellen/ Ir thorheyt inn den fellen,/ Inn auffrur zu ver-
harren,/ Gleich unbesindten narren." Murner uses "schellig" to characterize mad
folly, cf. Narrenbeschworung, 9, 1. 37: "So loufft er, als er schellig wer." In the
verse on the "Schellenmacher" which Hans Sachs wrote in 1565 for Jost Amman's
Stiinde und Handwerker the bells are given purposes related only to "NarrnweiB":
"Zum Schlittenzeug," "auff die Stech Bahn," "Schellen an die Narren Kappn"; cf.
Hans Sachs (Werke), XXIII, 271 ff.
145 Among the figures of the Schemenlaufen in Imst are the "Scheller," with large
cow-bells on his back, the "Lagge-Scheller," whose wooden cow-bells are meant
as a satire of the "Scheller," and the "Roller," who wears about his middle a large belt
studded with small bells, cf. Schwabik, p. 81. Examples of German bell customs are also
described by Fehrle, pp. 8, 10, 27, 39 f. (Abb. 7, Villinger Hansele, Abb. 8, Rott-
weiler Hansele); cf. also Spamer (Volkskunde), p. 96, Abb. 1. In folk custom bells
are rung with apotropaic or fertilization purpose, cf. Frazer, IX, 117, 157, 242ff.
(Perchten), 247. Briiggemann (Vom Sch.), p. $of., stresses the motive of fertility
in the bells of the Laufer.
146 Cf. Sharp and Oppe, op. cit., p. 5; Chambers (Folk-Play), p. 151.
147 Cf. Chambers (Folk-Play), p. 126.
148 Cf. Fastnachtsspiele, Nr. 14, for a fifteenth-century "Morischgentanz"; further
a reference in the Ratsv erldss'e to a "morischkotanz" in Nuremberg in 1479, cf.
Hampe (Theaterwesen), p. 226, Nr. 6; other German examples are cited by P. Halm,
Erasmus Grasser (Augsburg: B. Filser, 1928), pp. iqoff.; cited below as "Halm."
For the sword-dance in Nuremberg there are historical depositions from the year
1490, cf. Meschke, p. 20.
149 Cf. Meschke, p. 36, and App. A.
150 Ten of the original sixteen figures are preserved and are reproduced in Halm,
Tafel II-XI. Cf. also ibid., Tafel XCIV, for a fifteenth-century Italian example.