§ 188.11. About 100 clergy, twenty colour-bearers, 150 musicians, 10,000 leapers, 3,000 beggars, and 2,000 singers take part in the =Leaping Procession at Echternach= in Luxemburg, which is celebrated yearly on Whit-Tuesday. It was spoken of in the sixteenth century as an ancient custom. After an “exciting” sermon, the procession is formed in rows of from four to six persons bound together by pocket-handkerchiefs held in their hands; Wilibrord’s dance is played, and all jump in time to the music, five steps forward and two backward, or two backward and three forward, varied by three or four leaps to the right and then as many to the left. Thus continually leaping the procession goes through the streets of the city to the parish church, up the sixty-two steps of the church stair and along the church aisles to the tomb of Wilibrord (§ 78, 3). The dance is kept up incessantly for two hours. The performers do so generally because of a vow, or as penance for some fault, or to secure the saint’s intercession for the cure of epilepsy and convulsive fits, common in that region, mainly no doubt owing to such senseless proceedings. The origin of the custom is obscure. Tradition relates that soon after the death of Wilibrord a disease appeared among the cattle which jumped incessantly in the stalls, till the people went leaping in procession to Wilibrord’s tomb, and the plague was stayed! But the custom is probably a Christian adaptation of an old spring festival dance of pagan times (§ 75, 3; comp. 2 Sam. vi. 14).