ABSTRACT
In the last chapter an attempt was made to approach popular attitudes and values by way of popular heroes. One danger of this approach was that the heroes had to be taken out of their setting. In traditional European popular culture, the most important kind of setting was that of the festival: family festivals, like weddings; community festivals, like the feast of the patron saint of a town or parish (Fête Patronale, Kirchenweihtag, etc.); annual festivals involving most Europeans, like Easter, May Day, Midsummer, the Twelve Days of Christmas, New Year, and the Epiphany; and finally, Carnival. These were special occasions when people stopped work and ate, drank and spent whatever they had. The Italian priest Alberto Fortis recorded with disapproval on his visit to Dalmatia that ‘domestic economy is not commonly understood by the Morlaks, a pastoral people of that region; in this respect they resemble the Hottentots, and finish off in a week what should have lasted for many months, simply because an opportunity to make merry has presented itself’.1
