WALPURGA, vfil-piriTegn, or WALPUR GIS, SAINT. A West Saxon maiden of royal birth, who followed her brothers Saint Wilibfild and Saint Wunnibahl, in the time of Saint Boni face, from her native country to Germany, to help them in extending Christianity. Wilibald estahlished the Bishopric of Eichstlitt about 711, and Wunnibabl the neighboring Convent of [lei denheim about 745, the direction of Wilk!) Wal purga undertook after his death (about 750), as the first abbess, holding this position until her death, about 780. Her bones wore transferred to EichstIitt, where a convent was erected in her honor. The veneration of Walpurga became wide spread. Throughout all Germany, and even in Prance, the Netherlands, and England, churches and chapels were dedicated to her, relies of her were shown, and festivals celebrated in her honor. The feast of Walpurga falls proper ly February 25th; but as in some German cal endars it is assigned to May 1st, the name of Walpurga has become associated with some of the most noted popular superstitions. May 1st.
had been one of the most sacred days of all pagan ism. (See BELTAxx.) When the belief in witch craft (q.v.) had conic into vogue, the Walpurgis night obtained a notorious signilleance, inasmuch as during the night, between April 30 and May 1, the witches were held to ride on broomsticks and goats to the old places of judgment and sacri fice, in order to enjoy themselves there with their master the devil. Such witch-hills were tolerably numerous in Germany and the neighboring coun tries. The best known, however, was the highest point of the Harz, the Bracken .or Blocksberg, which has obtained a wide celebrity as the scene of the witches' Sabbath in Goethe 's Faust. The existing legends are not ancient, belonging to the period of the witch persecutions in the six teenth and seventeenth centuries, but they doubt less contain some measure of old belief.