From the anthropological point of view, carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended.[15] Winter was thought of as the reign of the winter spirits that were to be driven out for the summer to return. Carnival can thus be regarded as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer: a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year.[16]
Traditionally, a carnival feast was the last opportunity to eat well before the time of food shortage at the end of the winter during which one was limited to the minimum necessary. On what nowadays is called vastenavond (the days before fasting), all the remaining winter stores of lard, butter, and meat which were left would be eaten, for it would soon start to rot and decay. The selected livestock had in fact already been slaughtered in November and the meat would be no longer preservable. All the food that had survived the winter had to be eaten to assure that everyone was fed enough to survive until the coming spring would provide new food sources.[17]
Several Germanic tribes celebrated the returning of the daylight. A predominant deity was during this jubilee driven around in a noisy procession on a ship on wheels.[18] The winter would be driven out, to make sure that fertility could return in spring.[15] A central figure was possibly the fertility goddess Nerthus. Also, there are some indications that the effigy of Nerthus[19] or Freyr was placed on a ship with wheels and accompanied by a procession of people in animal disguise and men in women's clothes.[17][20] Aboard the ship a marriage would be consummated as a fertility ritual.[21][22]