Caddy Buddy books

The moral lesson conveyed by this strange pastime or ceremony seems
hardly calculated to secure for it a noteworthy popularity in any age;
but for a long time it was, either as a ceremony or as a picture, very
popular throughout Europe. We know of forty-four places in which it was
painted or sculptured in some large public building, the oldest example
being that at Little Bale, which was painted in 1312. This, like that
in Great Bale, and most of the others, has been destroyed by time or
violence. The Dance was made the ornament of books of devotion, and the
subject of ornamental initial-letters; groups from it were engraved
repeatedly by those fantastic designers and exquisite workmen known as
the Little Masters of Germany; a single group was assumed as a device,
or trademark, by more than one printer; and it was sung in popular
ballads. There is now at Aix-la-Chapelle a huge state-bed-stead, on the
posts, sides, and footboards of which it is elaborately carved, in the
manner of the sixteenth century; and it was even made the ornament of
ladies' fans.


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