rejoice,
and, binding him fast on a waggon, take him to the village, where they
tell all the people how they have caught the Wild Man. At every house they
receive a gift.(567) In the Erzgebirge the following custom was annually
observed at Shrovetide about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Two
men disguised as Wild Men, the one in brushwood and moss, the other in
straw, were led about the streets, and at last taken to the market-place,
where they were chased up and down, shot and stabbed. Before falling they
reeled about with strange gestures and spirted blood on the people from
bladders which they carried. When they were down the huntsmen placed them
on boards and carried them to the ale-house, the miners marching beside
them and winding blasts on their mining tools as if they had taken a noble
head of game.(568) A very similar Shrovetide custom is still observed near
Schluckenau in Bohemia. A man dressed up as a Wild Man is chased through
several streets till he comes to a narrow lane across which a cord is
stretched. He stumbles over the cord and, falling to the ground, is
overtaken and caught by his pursuers. The executioner runs up and stabs
with his sword a bladder filled with blood which the Wild Man wears round
his body; so the Wild Man dies, while a stream of blood reddens the
ground. Next day a straw-man, made up to look like the Wild Man, is placed
on a litter, and, accompanied by a great crowd, is taken to a pool into
which it is thrown by the executioner. The ceremony is called "burying the
Carnival."(569)

(M164) In Semic (Bohemia) the custom of beheading the King is observed on
Whit-Monday. A troop of young people disguise themselves; each is girt
with a girdle of bark and carries a wooden sword and a trumpet of
willow-bark. The King wears a robe of tree-bark adorned with flowers, on
his head is a crown of bark decked with flowers and branches, his feet are
wound about with ferns, a mask hides his face, and for a sceptre he has a
hawthorn switch in his hand. A lad leads him through the vill