Thus equipped they repaired to a spot
outside of the village, and there the old dame with the kettle asked the
old dame with the lock, "Whither away?" and the other answered her, "I
came to shut the village against ill-luck." With that she locked the
lock and threw it with the key into the kettle of water. Then they
marched thrice round the village, repeating the ceremony of the lock and
key at each round. Meantime all the villagers, arrayed in their best
clothes, were assembled in an open place. All the fires in the houses
had been previously extinguished. Two sturdy yokels now dug a tunnel
through a mound beside an oak tree; the tunnel was just high enough to
let a man creep through it on all fours. Two fires, lit by the
need-fire, were now laid, one at each end of the tunnel; and the old
woman with the kettle took her stand at the entrance of the tunnel,
while the one with the lock posted herself at the exit. Facing the
latter stood another woman with a great pot of milk before her, and on
the other side was set a pot full of melted swine's fat. All was now
ready. The villagers thereupon crawled through the tunnel on hands and
knees, one behind the other. Each, as he emerged from the tunnel,
received a spoonful of milk from the woman and looked at his face
reflected in the pot of melted swine's fat. Then another woman made a
cross with a piece of charcoal on his back. When all the inhabitants had
thus crept through the tunnel and been doctored at the other end, each
took some glowing embers home with him in a pot wherewith to rekindle
the fire on the domestic hearth.
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