was postponed, because the date originally fixed was
Childermas. In Cornwall no housewife would scour or scrub on Childermas,
and in Northamptonshire it was considered very unlucky to begin any
undertaking or even to do washing throughout the year on the day of the
week on which the feast fell. Childermas was there called Dyzemas and a
saying ran: "What is begun on Dyzemas Day will never be finished." In
Ireland it was called "the cross day of the year," and it was said that
anything then begun must have an unlucky ending.{17}

In folk-ritual the day is remarkable for its association with whipping
customs. The seventeenth-century writer Gregorie mentions a custom of
whipping up children on Innocents' Day in the morning, and explains its
purpose as being that the memory of Herod's "murther might stick the
closer; and, in a moderate proportion, to act over the crueltie again in
kind."{18}

|316| This explanation will hardly hold water; the many and various
examples of the practice of whipping at Christmas collected by
Mannhardt{19} show that it is not confined either to Innocents' Day or
to children. Moreover it is often regarded not as a cruel infliction, but
as a service for which return must be made in good things to eat.

In central and southern Germany the custom is called "peppering"
(_pfeffern_) and also by other names. In the Orlagau the girls on St.
Stephen's, and the boys on St. John's Day beat their parents and
godparents with green fir-branches, while the menservants beat their
masters with rosemary sticks, saying:

"Fresh green! Long life!
Give me a bright _thaler_ [or nuts, &c.]."

They are entertained with plum-loaf or gingerbreads and brandy. In the
Saxon Erzgebirge the young fellows whip the women and girls on St.
Stephen's Day, if possible while they are still in bed, with birch-rods,
singing the while:

"Fresh green, fair and fine,
Gingerbread and brandy-wine";

and on St. John's Day the women pay the men back. At several places in
the Thuringian Forest children on Innocents' Day beat passers-by with
birch-boughs, and get in return apples, nuts, and other dainties. Various
other German examples of the same class of practice are given by
Mannhardt.{20}

In France children who let themselves be caught in bed on the morning of
Holy Innocents' came in for a whipping from their parents; while in one
province, Normandy, the early risers among the young people themselves
gave the slu