This is the first part of the drama; while the second consists in one of the girls being solemnly invested with the clothes and ornaments previously worn by the figure, and, like it, being led in procession round the village to the singing of the same hymns as before. The ceremony terminates by a feast at the house of the parents whose daughter has acted the principal part, and from which, as before, the boys are excluded. According to popular belief, it is allowed to eat fruit only after this day, as now the “Death”—that is, the unwholesomeness—has been expelled from them. Also, the river in which the Death has been drowned may now be considered fit for public bathing. If this ceremony be ever neglected in the village where it is customary, such neglect is supposed to entail death to one of the young people, or loss of virtue to a girl. This same custom may, as I have said, be found still lingering in various other parts, everywhere with slight variations. Thus there are places where the figure is burned instead of drowned; and Passion Sunday (often called the Dead Sunday), or else the 25th of March, is the day sometimes fixed for its accomplishment. [Illustration: SAXON GIRL IN FULL DRESS.] In some places it was usual for the figure to be attired in the shirt of the last person who had died, and with the veil of the most recent bride on its head. Also, the figure is occasionally pelted with stones by the youths of both sexes—those who succeed in hitting it being secured against death for the coming year. At Nuremberg little girls dressed in white used to go in procession through the town, carrying a small open coffin in which a doll was laid out in state, or sometimes only a stick dressed up, and with an apple to represent the head. In most of these places the rhymes sung apply to the departure of winter and the advent of summer, such as the following: “And now we have chased the Death away, And brought in the summer so warm and gay— The summer and the month of May. We bring sweet flowers full many a one, We bring the rays of the golden sun, For the dreary Death at last is gone.” Or else: “Come all of you and do not tarry, The evil Death away to carry; Come, spring, once more, with us to dwell— Welcome, O spring, in wood and dell!” And there is no doubt that similar rhymes used also to be sung in Transylvania, until they were replaced by Lutheran hymns after the Reformation.