410 APPENDIX I 



Idlten for the season always ends with a feast, the Kiltbraten, and a 

 special feature of the Kilt is the propounding of riddles, 1 which 

 reminds us of the part riddles play in the fenstern and at marriage 

 and sex-festivals. Very often food is brought to the Kunkelstube, 

 and the young men then pay for the beer ; each maid has her 

 Kunkelheber, who, like the Mai or Kirmes lover, is specially attached 

 to her for the season. At the Kiltbraten, or Letze, as it is called in 

 the Rottenberg district, there is, besides the feast provided by a 

 general contribution and the beer provided by the lads, a dance 

 which lasts late into the night. It is clear that in the Kilt or Kun- 

 kelstube we have all the elements of the old Mrat or mahal, the 

 common feast, the dance, and the sex-freedom. Were these merely 

 an outcome of coarse peasant natures, or survivals of older social 

 customs ? I do not think there can be a doubt that we have fossils 

 of the old endogamous group institutions. In Swabia, especially 

 in the Ulm district, the Kilt was termed Haierloss. This word is 

 identified with fenstern and giisslein gen, but also with the Kiltgang 

 as Kunkelstube. The sixteenth and seventeenth century preachers 

 were very strong against it, classing it with shameful songs, music 

 and other devilish pastimes. Now in M.H.G. Iieierleis, heierles is a 

 choral dance. It appears as heigertanz in Geiler von Kaisersberg's 

 sermons, where we find that the performers take hands as in a 

 country dance. Now I have no hesitation in connecting this word 

 with the root M or hig (p. 127). It certainly did not arise, as 

 Lexer (PTorterbuch, i. 1210) supposes, from the cries of heia / How, 

 in that case, explain the form Jieig ? No, we have here simply the old 

 choral dance of the sex-festival, the htleih (pp. 132, 133) over again, 

 the los or leis being only the lais form of leich. 



If we once grasp this relationship of the Kunkelstuben to the 

 old htleih, the numerous police regulations against them become 

 intelligible ; 2 we then understand why the Pfarrer of Depshofen 

 reported in 1625 the great immorality among the young people at 

 the Gungelhauser held at night ; why the Pfarrer Gaisser in his 



1 One Kiltfrage runs : "What is the difference between a dear soul and a 

 poor soul (Liebenseelc and Armenseele] ? " i.e. between a sweetheart and the soul 

 of the dead. "With the former one puts the candles out, for the latter one 

 lights them." 



2 For very full information on this and other points, see Birlinger, Volk- 

 thumliches aus Schwaben, 1862, Bd. ii. pp. 431 et seg., andAus Schwaben, Neue 

 Sammlung, 1874, Bd. ii. pp. 356 et seq. 



