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 So treiben wir den Papst heraus / Aus Christus Kirche und Gottes Haus ("Thus we drive the Pope out / from Christ's church and God's house").

This version of the song was first published as a Liedblatt-Druck (a single-sheet printed broadside) in 1545, with a four-part musical setting.

[1][2] A slightly modernized text was included in the Deutscher Liederhort, edited by Ludwig Erk and Franz Magnus Böhme in 1893–1894.

[2] 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 "Winteraustreiben",[4] and reprinted in the Deutscher Liederhort in 1894.

Das danken Gott von Herzen wir, Bitten, daß er wollt senden schier Christum, uns zu erlösen Vom Winter und allem Bösen.

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 Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Ferdinand Rieser [de] described it as a Prostestant song of faith and a spiritual reworking of the folk tradition.

[5] In particular, the allusions to the Antichrist and to falsche Lehr und Lüge ("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.

[2] In a 17th-century version recorded in Balthasar Schnurr's Art-, Haus-, und Wunderbuch (1676), death replaces winter in the first line.

Die Blume sproßt aus göttlich Wort Und deutet auf viel schönern Ort, Wer ist's, der das gelehret?