The feast is noisy and merry, and many are the games and jokes practised on these occasions. One of these, called the _badspringen_ (jumping the bath), consists in placing a washing trough or bath upside down on the ground with a lighted candle upon it. All the young women present are then invited to jump over without upsetting or putting out the light. Those successful in this evolution will be mothers of healthy boys. If they are bashful and refuse to jump, or awkward enough to upset and put out the candle, they will be childless or have only girls. The _spiesstanz_, or spit dance, is also usual at christening feasts. Two roasting-spits are laid on the ground crosswise, as in the sword-dance, and the movements executed much in the same manner. Sometimes it is the grandfather of the new-born infant, who, proud of his agility, opens the performance singing: “Purple plum so sweet, See my nimble feet, How I jump and slide, How I hop and glide. Look how well I dance, See how high I prance. Purple plum so sweet, See my nimble feet.” But if the grandfather be old and feeble, and the godfathers unwilling to exert themselves, then it is usually the midwife who, for a small consideration, undertakes the dancing. It is not customary for the young mother to be seated at table along with the guests; and even though she be well and hearty enough to have baked the cakes and milked the cows on that same day, etiquette demands that she should play the interesting invalid and lie abed till the feasting is over. Full four weeks after the birth of her child must she stay at home, and durst not step over the threshold of her court-yard, even though she has resumed all her daily occupations within the first week of the event. “I may not go outside till my time is out; the Herr Vater would be sorely angered if he saw me,” is the answer I have often received from a woman who declined to come out on the road. Neither may she spin during these four weeks, lest her child should suffer from dizziness. When the time of this enforced retirement has elapsed, the young mother repairs to church to be blessed by the pastor; but before so doing she is careful to seek out the nearest well and throw down a piece of bread into its depths, probably as an offering to the _brunnenfrau_ who resides in every well, and is fond of luring little children down to her. With these first four weeks the greatest perils of infancy are considered to be at an end, but no careful mother will fail to observe the many little customs and regulations which alone will insure the further health and well-being of her child. Thus she will always remember that the baby may only be washed between sunrise and sunset, and that the bath water should not be poured out into the yard at a place where any one can step over it, which would entail death or sickness, or at the very least deprive the infant of its sleep.