Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/270

258 After holding it successively on each of these places, it is finally put back into the cradle, while the guests prepare to enjoy the Tauf Schmaus, or christening banquet.

Each person is expected to bring a small contribution in the shape of eggs, bacon, fruit, or cakes; and the god-parents do not fail to come each laden with a bottle of good wine, besides some other small gift for the child.

The banquet is a noisy and merry one, and many are the games and jokes practiced on these occasions. One of these, called the Badspringen (jumping the bath), consists in putting a lighted candle on a washing-trough, which is placed upside-down on the ground. All the young women present are invited to jump over without upsetting or putting out the light. Those who are successful in this evolution will be mothers of healthy boys. If they are bashful, and refuse to jump, or should they be awkward enough to upset the candle, they will be childless, or have only girls.

The Spiesstanz, or spit-dance, is also usual on these occasions. Two roasting-spits are laid on the ground crosswise, as in the sword-dance and the movements executed much in the same manner.

Sometimes it is the grandfather of the new-born infant who opens the performance, proud of displaying his agility as he sings:

 Purple plum so sweet, See my nimble feet; How I jump and slide, How I hop and glide; See how well I dance, See how well I prance. Purple plum so sweet, See my nimble feet."

But if the grandfather be old and feeble, and if the godfathers can not be induced to exert themselves, then it is usually the midwife who, for a small consideration, undertakes the dancing.

It is hardly ever customary for the young mother to be seated at the table along with the guests; and even if she be well and hearty enough to have baked the cakes and milked the cows on that same day, etiquette demands that she should play the interesting invalid and lie in bed till the feasting be over.

For full four weeks after the birth of her child must she stay at home, and durst not step over the threshold of her court-yard, even though she has resumed all her daily occupations within the first week of her recovery. "I may not go outside till my time is out; the Herr Vater would be sorely angered if he saw me," is the answer I have often heard from a woman who declined to come out on to the road. Neither may she spin during these four weeks, lest her child should suffer from dizziness.

When the time of this enforced retirement has elapsed, the young