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CHILDREN'S GAMES 523 |
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There are also surviving some ceremonial dances, such as the singular ceremony observed at Echternach, in Luxemburg, on Whit-Tuesday, in which ten or fifteen thousand pilgrims take part. Professor Attwell thus describes it in Notes and Queries of May 17, 1890:—
" Early on the morning of Whit-Tuesday pilgrims arrive at Echternach from the neighbouring villages, some alone, or in little family parties, some in small bodies personally conducted by their cures, singing litanies in honour of St. Willibrord. At about eight o'clock the bells of the parish church begin to peal, and the clergy, intoning the ' Veni Creator,' and preceded by numerous banners, issue from the principal porch and march along the bank of the Sure to a stone crucifix, near which, from an extemporised pulpit, the crowd is addressed. The short sermon ended, the procession begins. It is headed by a choir of some hundreds of voices chanting antiphonally with the clergy the litanies of the saint. Then come numerous ecclesiastics, followed by a band playing the cadenced music of the dance. The pilgrims are headed by young children and men and women belonging to the parish, after whom comes the throng, in groups of from three to six persons of either sex. The dancers take three jumps forward and one backward, or five forward and two backward. It is, of course, impossible for a moving crowd consisting of many thousands to keep anything like time, save those who are near one of the many bands of music, which, at irregular intervals, accompany the procession. No special order is observed, but there is no confusion. Poor mothers with sickly children in their arms jump side by side with young well-to-do girls; old men, broken with toil, jump in step with vigorous fellows in the heyday of youth. Water and wine are freely offered by the townsfolk to the pilgrims, many of whom sink exhausted under the unwonted effort. It sometimes happens that sick persons get paid substitutes to perform for them the expiatory jumping. The distance traversed is less than a mile, but the time occupied is fully two hours. Before the church can be entered sixty-four steps have to be mounted. But the singular backward and forward movements and the accompanying music |
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