Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/265

 Animal Superstitions and Totemism. 253

ern and western portions of Europe and in Spanish

America.^

Other animals sacrificed in the same way are —

Bear: Swabia (iii.)-^

Frog : Bohemia ^ in the ceremonies connected with the King of the May (iii.).

Goat : Jiiterbock (ii.)^

Goose : Bavaria, Brittany, Saxony, Switzerland, Derby- shire.^

Pigeon : very frequently in the Middle Ages ; later a wooden bird was shot at ; this custom is still found in Schleswig-Holstein (i.) (ii.)-^

Cat : Pomerania (combined with a hunt), Kelso, Shropshire, &c.(ii.);''' the cat was frequently shut up in a wooden bottle with a quantity of soot, and he who beat out the bottom and escaped the soot was the hero of the day,^

Owl : North Walsham.^

Deer: to this class belongs the running deer in the Schiitz- enfest of Burg.^°

' Cockfighting seems to be a variant of this custom; it was practised on Shrove Tuesday, the same day as the Hahnenschlag. I hope to deal elsewhere with the " Brauthahn," some forms of which include the "Hahnenschlag." The egg-games may also be mentioned here; v. Holland, vi., 105; Hender- son, p. 84; Sebillot, Cotitumes, p. 251; F. L. /., iv., 131, vi., 60; Nicholson, p. 12.

- De Gubernatis, p. 426.

^ Mannhardt, Bk., p. 354.

'' Kloster, xii., 76.

= Kloster, xii., 1005; RoUand, vi., 175; Meyrac, p. 95; Grabner, Ver. Niederlande, p. 360; for other refs. v. Jahn, Opfergebrciuche, p. 234.


 * Am Urquell, i., 129; Jahn, p. 149; Handelmann, p. 12.

'Jahn, p. 107; Brand, ii., 303; Grabner, p. 361; Burne, p. 450; Handelmann, p. 22.

8 Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, i., 2; Kloster, xii., 552. The inn- sign of the "Cock and Bottle" is obviously an allusion to this, as is that of the " Dog and Duck " to a similar amusement. " Gare au pot au noir " is a phrase used in France in playing Blind Man's Buff.

joke. It will, however, appear later that the custom probably existed in Germany. At Lille ducks and rabbits were used (Desrousseaux, i., 289).
 * De Gubernatis, p. 560. According to Hone this was only a practical

'° Handelmann, p. 25. Did the Elaphebolia take its name from a similar practice ?