THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



Judea knew nothing, but they were striking features of 

 the folk-festivals of the old Germanic worship. Their 

 appearance in the passion-plays is but another sign of 

 the victory of the Western folk-spirit over the invading 

 but alien religion of the East. As we have seen in the 

 previous essay, at an early stage of development the sex- 

 festival is associated with the religious festival, and both 

 with the dance. A robust primitive people finds its 

 supreme bliss in rhythmic motion. For such heaven is 

 but a great dancing-green, and all the gods are nimble 

 of foot. Long after Christianity had established itself 

 in Germany, the old heathen religious dances continued ; 

 even after the folk had forgotten the very names of its 

 ancient gods it danced on high festivals round the cock, 

 the horse's head, or the sacred tree. 1 On the one hand 

 we have the people, who regarded the dance as a symbol 

 of the highest religious ecstasy ; on the other hand we 

 have the missionaries and monks, who, branding it as 

 devilish, allowed their fancy to master their curiosity ; 

 so that the old corybantic rites which occasionally took 

 place at midnight in sequestered spots appeared to 

 mediaeval superstition as the wildest of bacchanals, in 

 which only devils, hobgoblins, and hags took any part. 

 Thus when the folk-spirit made the religious drama its 

 own we need not be surprised to find the dance on the 



1 See Manuhardt, Der JBaumkultus, under heading Tanz ; J. Grimm, Deutsche 

 Mythologie, Hexenfahrt, pp. 877 et seq. Herodias and her daughter types of the 

 sinful dancer are in the plays (e.g. C, p. 34) carried off to hell by a wild chorus 

 of devils. They it is who in mediaeval superstition lead the midnight revels of 

 devil and witch ; see the Malleus malcficarum, ed. 1494, fol. 1. Interesting con- 

 fessions bearing on the actual character of witch dances will be found in Birlinyer, 

 Aus Schwaben, 1874, Bd. i. pp. 131 et seq.; and in Niehues, Zur Geschichte der 

 Hcxcnprocesse -in Munster. 



