Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/416

 412 Rudwin furrows of the fields and in the streets of the village, 61 seems, however, to have been more wide-spread among the ancient Germans, and has survived down to the present day in some German villages on Shrove Tuesday, oftener on Plough Mon- day. 62 It is also still observed by the Thracian peasants. 63 In some districts of Germany, furthermore, a ship was drawn in addition to the plough. 64 It is interesting to note in this con- nection that the Greek word for ship 17X0101; signifies a plough in German. 65 In Ulm on the Danube a ship-procession took place annually down to 1530 when an order by the city council put a stop to it. 66 The custom, however, was later revived, and is still observed in that town and in many other towns and villages in Germany. In Ulm, in case of snow, the ship is placed on a sleigh. 67 A ship-cart was drawn in the Nuremberg procession of maskers ("Schembartlauf") from 1475 on, 68 and the analogous Perchtenlauf in the Alpine districts very probably also contained a ship in honor of the goddess Berchta. A curious type of a ship-procession was observed in Oldenburg down to recent times on Whitsunday. Small ships were placed the preceding evening on a waggon, which was drawn the next day through the streets of the town. 69 The ship-cart, in Keltic and Teutonic countries as well as in Greece and Rome, was not always a vacant throne. It con- tained, as a rule, an image or some other emblem of divinity. 70 When its original symbolism was forgotten, the ship represented the most proper place in which a god could dwell in the midst of his people. We have seen that Dionysus paraded in his ship through the streets of Athens. 71 The ship-car in the Nuremberg 61 Cf. Chambers, op. cit., i. 118. 62 Cf. J. Grimm, op. tit., i. 263sq.; Mannhardt, op cit., i. 553sqq. 63 Cf. Frazer, op. cit., vi. 99. 64 Cf. Grimm, loc. a*.;Simrock, op. cit., p. 370; W. Mannhardt, op. cit., 559. 66 Cf. Sepp, op. cit., p. 55. 66 Cf. Mannhardt, op. cit., 1. 559. 67 Cf. E. Meier, Deutsche Sagen, Sitten u. Brduche aus Schwaben (1852), p. 374, No. 6. 68 Cf. Wackernagel, Kl. Schriften, p. 108. 69 Cf. L. Strackerjan, Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogtum Oldenburg (1887), ii. 47, No. 316. 70 Cf. (Hastings') Encycl. of Rel. & Eth. iii. 226a. 71 Supra, p. 407.