With this may be compared an account given by Olaus Magnus, a Swedish writer of the fifteenth century, of how May Day was celebrated in his time. "A number of youths on horseback were drawn up in two lines facing each other, the one party representing 'Winter' and the other 'Summer.' The leader of the former was clad in wild beasts' skins, and he and his men were armed with snow-balls and pieces of ice. The commander of the latter--'Maj Greve,' or Count May--was, on the contrary, decorated with leaves and flowers, and his followers had for weapons branches of the birch or linden tree, which, having been previously steeped in water, were then in leaf. At a given signal, a sham fight ensued between the opposing forces. If the season was cold and backward, 'Winter' and his party were impetuous in their attack, and in the beginning the advantage was supposed to rest with them; but if the weather was genial, and the spring had fairly set in, 'Maj Greve' and his men carried all before them. Under any circumstances, however, the umpire always declared the victory to rest with 'Summer.' The winter party then strewed ashes on the ground, and a joyous banquet terminated the game." Mr L. Lloyd, author of "Peasant Life in Sweden" (1870), records some lines sung by Swedish children when collecting provisions for the _Maj gille_ or May feast, which recall the "Swallow-song":
"Best loves from Mr and Mrs Magpie, From all their eggs and all their fry, O give them alms, if ever so small, Else hens and chickens and eggs and all, A prey to 'Piet' will surely fall."
The Swedes raise their _Maj st[)a]ng_ or May-pole, not on May, but on St John's Eve, a change due, I suspect, to the exigencies of the climate.
German _Mailieder_ are one very much like the other; they are full of the simple gladness of children who have been shut up in houses, and who now can run about in the sunny air. I came across the following in Switzerland:
"Alles neu macht der Mai, Macht die Seele frisch und frei. Lasst dans Haus! Kommt hinaus! Windet einen Strauss!
"Rings erglänzet Sonnenschein, Dustend pranget Flur und Hain. Vögel-sang, Lust'ger Klang Tönt den Wald entlang."
In Lorraine girls dressed in white go from village to village stringing off couplets, in which the inhabitants are turned into somewhat unmerciful ridicule. The girls of this place enlighten the people of that as to their small failings, and so _vice versâ_. All the winter the village poets harvest the jokes made by one community at the expense of another, in order to shape them into a consecutive whole for recital on May Day. The girls are rewarded for their part in the business by small coin, cakes and fruit. The May-songs of Lorraine are termed "Trimazos," from the fact that they are always sung to the refrain,