"" ("Driving out Death") or "" ("Driving out Winter") is an old German song associated with the folk custom of , which celebrated the death of winter and the rebirth of spring. In the 16th century a version of the song was rewritten as a Protestant attack on the Pope.
A folksong associated with the Lenten tradition of the driving out of winter existed in Germany as early as the first half of the 16th century, when it was used as the model for a Protestant antipapal parody, which began with the words ("Thus we drive the Pope out / from Christ's church and God's house"). This version of the song was first published as a (a single-sheet printed broadside) in 1545, with a four-part musical setting. A slightly modernized text was included in the , edited by Ludwig Erk and Franz Magnus Böhme in 1893âÂÂ1894. The parody was traditionally attributed to Martin Luther himself and included among his works, but more recent scholarship suggests that the author was probably Johannes Mathesius, who brought the song to Luther's attention in April 1545; Luther then arranged for its publication, with some additions and alterations to strengthen the attack on the Pope, whom the song equates with the Antichrist.
The original folk version of the song, in which winter rather than the Pope was driven out, does not seem to have appeared in print until several decades later. A text from 1584 was printed by Franz Magnus Böhme in his Altdeutsches Liederbuch of 1877 under the title , and reprinted in the in 1894. (The version quoted below is from the ).
Although drawing on older, traditional material, this version of the text has been adapted to make it more overtly Protestant; in his study of the sources of , described it as a Prostestant song of faith and a spiritual reworking of the folk tradition. The editors of the judged only the opening lines of the first two stanzas and the third stanza to be of genuinely folk character. In particular, the allusions to the Antichrist and to ("false teaching and lies") were probably influenced by the Lutheran parody, since they are characteristic of Protestant attacks on the Pope, but make much less sense when applied to the season of winter.
In a 17th-century version recorded in Balthasar Schnurr's (1676), death replaces winter in the first line. This version was sung by children as part of the Silesian celebration of on the last Sunday of Lent:
In 1806 Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano included another version of the song, under the title , in the first volume of their collection of old German songs and poems, . Because of the popularity of their work, this has become the most widely known version. (The text quoted below is from the centennial edition of 1906, edited by , with minor changes in spelling and punctuation from the first edition.)
The song is based on an old pagan custom of Driving out Death. This custom has long been traditional in many parts of Germany (such as Silesia, Thuringia, Franconia). Christians considered death to be the Antichrist, who was to be banished, to free the way for the Saviour. This custom of Driving out Death (also known as Driving out Winter) represented the struggle against Winter and the subsequent awakening of Earth in Spring.