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240
RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS
he knew little concerning their origin, or their mode of observance!; yet little doubt can be entertained that their influence is traceable in practices which are to be found about this time of the year in several of the nations of Europe, particularly in the Carnival and in the day of All Fools.
The Carnival is derived, according to Moresin, from the times cf Gentilism, and he quotes Joannes Boemus Aubanus for an account of the extravagancies and indecencies with which it was formerly observed in Germany, that identify its affinity to the Lupercal on the one hand, and, as we should say, the Holí on the other. On the three days preceding Lent he observes?,
That this was by no means singular is plain, from the adinission of Macrobius, which he puts into the moutlis of two of his interlocutors, Horus and Vettius. - 1 Saturn. cap. XV.
? Quo item modo tres præcedentes quadragesimale jejunium dies peragat, dicere opus non erit, si cognoscatur qua populari qua spontanea insania caetera Germania, a qua et Franconia minime desciscit, vivat, comedit enim et bibit, seque ludo jocoque omnimodo adeo dedit, quasi usus nunquam veniant, quasi cras moritura hodie prius omnium rerum satietatem capere velit; atque ne pudor obstet qui se ludicro illi comunittunt, facies larvis obducunt, sexum et ætatem mentientes, viri mulierum vestimenta, mulieres virorum induunt. Quidam Satyros aut malos demones potius repræsentare volentes, minio se aut atramento tingunt; habituque nefando deturpant; alii nudi discurrentes Lupercos agunt, a quibus ego annuum istum delirandi noren ad nos defluxisse existimo.
Naogeorgus, in his description, has a variety of passages as applicable to the Holi as the Carnival:Then old and young are both as much as guests of Bacchus' feast; And four days long they tipple, square, and feede, and never rest.
