Note 914 — Chapter XII · NEW YEAR CUSTOMS

C. de Berger (1723), Commentatio de personis vulgo larvis seu mascharis, 218 ‘Vecolo aut cervolo facere; hoc est sub forma vitulae aut cervuli per plateas discurrere, ut apud nos in festis Bacchanalibus vulgo dicitur correr la tora’; J. Ihre (†1769), Gloss. Suio-Gothicum, s. v. Jul. ‘Julbock est ludicrum, quo tempore hoc pellem et formam arietis induunt adolescentuli et ita adstantibus incursant. Credo idem hoc esse quod exteri scriptores cervulum appellant.’ In the Life of Bishop Arni (nat. 1237) it is recorded how in his youth he once joined in a scinnleic or ‘hide-play’ (C. P. B. ii. 385). Frazer, ii. 447, describes the New Year custom of colluinn in Scotland and St. Kilda. A man clad in a cowhide is driven deasil round each house to bless it. Bits of hide are also burnt for amulets. Probably the favourite Christmas game of Blind Man’s Buff was originally a scinnleic (N. W. Thomas, in F. L. xi. 262).