Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/457

 The Origin of the German Carnival Comedy 453 motive is common, as has been noted, 368 to the Carnival ritual drama and the Easter play. The Marienklagen lamentations of the Maries over the death of the Saviour find their parallel in the wailings of the women over the death of the old fertility god in the heathen ritual. 369 The dance of Mary Magdalene with a Roman officer in the A Isf eld Passion Play forms a parallel to the dance of the harlots with the soldiers at spring festivals, as may still be seen in Mexico. 370 The dances of the angels and devils in the religious plays are but Christian adaptations of the dances of demons, which were, as we have seen, 371 striking features of the Germanic folk-festivals. The dance of the Virgin Mary with the angels in the Alsfeld Passion Play has its parallel in the dance of Lilith with the devils in -the play of Jutta, and both go back to the dance of the old woman at the village festi- vals. The cock on a pillar, which warns Peter of his denial of his master in the Donaues chin gen Passion Play is of heathen origin. 3 ' 2 We meet this fowl again in the titles of two Carnival plays (Nos. 67, 89). The Hahnentanz was a dance performed by the peasants at their fire-festivals round a cock placed on a pillar, 373 and was not named after the prize which consisted of this fowl, as Creizenach surmises. 374 The processional type of the religious drama, which was con- nected with the Corpus Christi observance, must be attributed to the influence of the Carnival ship-procession. The satire upon social conditions in the pious plays probably came from the profane pieces. The comic types in the Carnival comedies appear also in the Church plays. 375 The quack doctor, his wife and the rascally man-servant, the old woman, whom even 368 Supra, pp. 413sqq. M9 Cf. Mannhardt, W.u.F.K., ii. 287. "The women wept for Tammuz" (Ez. viii. 15 14). 370 Supra, p. 443. 371 Supra, p. 439; cf. also Pearson, op. cit., ii. 327sq. Ibid., ii. 321n. 373 Cf. Grimm, op. cit., p. 558; Simrock, op. cit., p. 284; Mannhardt, W.u. F.K., i. 174; Pearson, op. cit., ii. 338. See the illustration of a cock on a phallic pillar, from a vase given as a prize at the ancient Olympian games, in Wall, op. cit., p. 437. The pole or pillar was sacred as an emblem of virility; cf. Gen. xxviii. 18-22, xxxv. 14; Is. xix. 19, see also Howard, op. cit., p. 94. The May- pole is an ancient phallic symbol; cf. O'Brien, op. cit., p. 235; Brown, op. cit., p. 47sg.; Wall, op. cit., p. 408. The cock, on account of his exceptional salacity, was considered by the ancients as a sacred animal; cf. Wall, op. cit., p. 438.