Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/196

188 "The cock-chafer, too, seems to have been a hallowed insect of yore. It is called Mai-Käfer in German, from the period of the year when it generally comes first out of the ground; and that period, as said before, was the sacred time of the Goddess of Love. German children have a custom of placing that beetle on their left hand, to which they generally attach it by a thread; and then they sing a verse the meaning of which has long puzzled investigators. Mannhardt has collected quite a variety of such verses, all taken direct from the lips of German boys, in order to prove that they refer to that final catastrophe when the Gods and their Giant antagonists are warring with each other, and the Asa-world collapses in a fearful tumult and universal conflagration. All the rhymes collected until now make it extremely probable that they refer to the danger which envelops, and finally destroys, Holda's reign. Still, Mannhardt was not able to give any verse in which her name is distinctly traceable I believe I can supply the missing link in regard to the curious Cock-chafer Songs which are of such high mythological interest. I distinctly remember a ditty sung by children, in which the cock-chafer is bidden to fly to his father (presumably "Wodan, the consort of Freia-Holda ), who is said to be 'at war,' and to his mother, who is in Holler-Land,' where a conflagration has broken out, which consumes Holler-Land:—

"The latter joyful exclamation may be supposed to be the Christian Io triumphe, the utterance of joy over the destruction of the heathen Asa-world. I need scarcely remind the reader that the song which is sung in Germany about the cock-chafer is also sung in some parts of this country about the ladybird:—