Müllenhoff regards the sword-dance as primarily a rhythmic _Abbild_ or mimic representation of war, subsequently modified in character by use at the village feasts[718]. It is true that the notice of Tacitus and the allusion in _Beowulf_ suggest that it had a military character; and it may fairly be inferred that it formed part of that war-cult from which, as pointed out in a previous chapter, heroic poetry sprang. This is confirmed by the fact that some at least of the _dramatis personae_ of the modern dances belong to the heroic category. Side by side with local types such as the Pitman or the Sailor, and with doublets of the grotesques such as Little Foxey or the Squire’s Son[719], appear the five kings of the Clausthal dance, the ‘worthies’ of the Lübeck dance, and the ‘champions of Christendom’ of the Shetland dance. These particular groups betray a Renaissance rather than a mediaeval imagination; as with the morris-dance of _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, the village schoolmaster, Holophernes or another, has probably been at work upon them[720]. Some of the heterogeneous English _dramatis personae_, Nelson for instance, testify to a still later origin. On the other hand, the Sterkader or Stercatherus of the Lübeck dance suggests that genuine national heroes were occasionally celebrated in this fashion. At the same time I do not believe, with Müllenhoff, that the sword-dance originated in the war-cult. Its essentially agricultural character seems to be shown by the grotesques traditionally associated with it, the man in woman’s clothes, the skin or tail-wearing clown and the hobby-horse, all of which seem to find their natural explanation in the facts of agricultural worship[721]. Again, the dance makes its appearance, not like heroic poetry in general as part of the minstrel repertory, but as a purely popular thing at the agricultural festivals. To these festivals, therefore, we may reasonably suppose it to have originally belonged, and to have been borrowed from them by the young warriors who danced before the king. They, however, perhaps gave it the heroic element which, in its turn, drifted into the popular versions. We have already seen that popular heroic _cantilenae_ existed together with those of minstrelsy up to a late date. Nor does Müllenhoff’s view find much support from the classical sword-dances which he adduces. As to the origin of the _lusus Troiae_ or Pyrrhic dance which the Romans adopted from Doric Greece, I can say nothing[722]; but the native Italian dance of the _Salii_ or priests of Mars in March and October is clearly agricultural. It belongs to the cult of Mars, not as war-god, but in his more primitive quality of a fertilization spirit[723].