New Year's Past

[cellboy]

In order that the New Year might prosper, the old year - and the
spirits released by the solstice season - had to be buried or driven
away. In villages from Britain to Austria, the old year - in the form
of a straw dummy called Death - was carried through the streets and
then drowned in a stream or buried or burned.
Other people in other villages had more high spirited customs. On New
Year's Eve, costumed and masked as a disguise against malevolent
powers, people paraded through their towns, striking their houses
with sticks, beating drums, clanging bells and cracking whips. The
noise of the "town rattling", as it was called, drove out the ghosts
of the dying old year and brought the New Year safely in.
From "The Book of Chrismas", Time-Life Books