At Tuebingen as late as 1830 at midnight on Christmas Eve an image of the Christ Child was rocked on the tower of the chief church in a small cradle surrounded with lights, while the spectators below sang a cradle-song.{55} According to a recent writer the "rocking" is still continued in the Upper Innthal.{56} In the Tyrolese cathedral city of Brixen it was once performed every day between Christmas and Candlemas by the sacristan or boy-acolytes. That the proceedings had a tendency to be disorderly is shown by an eighteenth-century instruction to the sacristan: "Be sure to take a stick or a thong of ox-hide, for the boys are often very ill-behaved."{57} There are records of other curious ceremonies in German or Austrian churches. At St. Peter am Windberge in Muehlkreis in Upper Austria, during the service on Christmas night a life-sized wooden figure of the Holy Child was offered in |112| a basket to the congregation; each person reverently kissed it and passed it on to his neighbour. This was done as late as 1883.{58} At Crimmitschau in Saxony a boy, dressed as an angel, used to be let down from the roof singing Luther's "Vom Himmel hoch," and the custom was only given up when the breaking of the rope which supported the singer had caused a serious accident.{59} * * * * * It is in Italy, probably, that the cult of the Christ Child is most ardently practised to-day. No people have a greater love of children than the Italians, none more of that dramatic instinct which such a form of worship demands. "Easter," says Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco, "is the great popular feast in the eastern Church, Christmas in the Latin--especially in Italy. One is the feast of the next world, and the other of this. Italians are fond of this world."{60} Christmas is for the poorer Italians a summing up of human birthdays, an occasion for pouring out on the _Bambino_ parental and fraternal affection as well as religious worship. In Rome, Christmas used to be heralded by the arrival, ten days before the end of Advent, of the Calabrian minstrels or _pifferari_ with their sylvan pipes (_zampogne_), resembling the Scottish bagpipe, but less harsh in sound. These minstrels were to be seen in every street in Rome, playing their wild plaintive music before the shrines of the Madonna, under the traditional notion of charming away her labour-pains. Often they would stop at a carpenter's shop "per politezza al messer San Giuseppe."{61} Since 1870 the _pifferari_ have become rare in Rome, but some were seen there by an English lady quite recently. At Naples, too, there are _zampognari_ before Christmas, though far fewer than there used to be; for one _lira_ they will pipe their rustic melodies before any householder's street Madonna through a whole _novena_.{62} [Illustration: CALABRIAN SHEPHERDS PLAYING IN ROME AT CHRISTMAS. _After an Etching by D. Allan._ From Hone's "Every-day Book" (London, 1826).]