| 释义 |
Walpurgis|vælˈpɜːgɪs|
The name (St. Walpurga or Walburga) of an 8th-c. Anglo-Saxon saint and missionary in Heidenheim, Germany, used: a. in Walpurgis night [tr. G. Walpurgisnacht], in German folklore and esp. Goethe's Faust a feast of the powers of darkness or witches' sabbath (cf. Sabbath 3) celebrated on the Brocken, a peak in the Harz mountains, on 30 April. Also transf., an orgiastic celebration or party.
1823F. L. Gower tr. Goethe's Faust 233 Walpurgis Night. The Hartz Mountain. Wild and desolate country. 1900J. Frazer Golden Bough (ed. 2) I. i. 36 The special season for thus promoting the growth of flax..in some places is Candlemas or Walpurgis Night (the eve of May Day). 1933J. Cary Amer. Visitor xvi. 213 A fire which illuminated a kind of Walpurgis night of ragamuffins, soldiers, doxies from the town. 1964L. Deighton Funeral in Berlin xlv. 286, I sank into a vortex of imaginings in which Walpurgis Night and..the smell of petrol..were indissolubly linked. 1980Amer. Scholar Autumn 456 Walpurgis Night on the eve of Mayday is an excuse for bacchanalia.
b. In other attrib. uses with reference to this festival.
1857C. Kingsley Two Years Ago III. i. 33 That Walpurgis-dance of the witches and the fiends, which will..whirl unbidden through a mortal brain. 1899R. Whiteing No. 5 John St. xxix. 300 The Bosses..have come to keep Walpurgis revel. 1979J. Tate tr. K. A. Blom's Limits of Pain xx. 164 The last day of April..he could mix in the crowds,..warming himself by the Walpurgis bonfires. |
