Random Saturday - Nachtkrabb

Do you know the "Nachtkrabb"? No? I'm not surprised.
Although the Nachtkrabb has always been familiar to me, there's really only one story I remember from my own family. My little brother was probably around five years old at the time (we're talking late 70s). He was sitting at the kitchen table, ready to eat an egg, when one of my other brothers came in and told him that if he cracked the egg, a Nachtkrabb would come flying out. Little brother freaked out and actually stopped eating eggs for a short while (but got over it quite quickly).
What I don't remember is if he had been told about the Nachtkrabb before and if that was what shocked him so much or if it was just the idea of anything at all flying (!) out of that egg.

You must know, the Nachtkrabb is a mysterious and dark creature, a bugbear in the folklore of southern Germany and Austria.
Other names for him (I have only seen someone call it her once) are Nachtkrapp or Nachtrabe which translates to "Night raven". I'll stick with the "bb" spelling for this post.

I love ravens and they were the inspiration for this
bead embroidered necklace, not the Nachtkrabb,
but I have been thinking about a Nachtkrabb
version for a while ... if only I had a good idea!

As it often happens in folklore, the tales can differ more or less from region to region.
I don't even remember if we only knew the name or if we were actually got told a story. If we were, it would probably have been the one that prevails here - of the huge black birdlike creature flying through the night looking for children who haven't gone to bed - and it would have had to come from my father's side because my mother wasn't Swabian.
In short, it's one of those stories made up to get children to do or not to do certain things, in this case staying out after dark. In some regions children who don't obey get caught in a big sack and carried away. What happens to them isn't said, but they don't make it home which leaves the outcome open, but doesn't bode well. Other regions are more explicit, there the Nachtkrabb takes the children back to his nest where he devours them.

Other countries have their own versions of the night ravens, by the way.
The raven and other corvids have always been part of folk tales, in good or bad ways.
Just think of Hugin and Munin, the ravens of the god Odin, sent out by him to bring him news of the world.
In some cultures, ravens were used in oracles to predict the outcome of battles or help to make important decisions.
Some Native American tribes see the raven both as a creator and a trickster.
The positive image changed in Christianity. Corvids fed off carrion, animals but also humans after battles or excecutions which didn't help their reputation. They were seen as messengers of death, disaster, and plague, and also as familiars of witches.

Contemporary art depicting two ravens,
such as Hugin and Munin, by Kim Diaz Holm
(the young Mr. Holm). CC BY 4.0 

So with that negative image in mind, the idea of a huge kidnapping variety could easily frighten you as a kid.
But why did I describe the Nachtkrabb as a birdlike creature and not as a ravenlike one?
There are not just different tales about what he does, but also different theories about his origin.

One of those is that it doesn't have anything to do with ravens at all, but with the Northern Bald Ibis, a bird that used to be widespread, for example across parts of Central Europe such as Southern Germany or Austria. Hunting the ibis for food, the beautiful feathers or taxidermy, and the destruction of its habitat brought it to the brink of complete extinction.
There is a population in Morocco and smaller ones elsewhere thanks to reintroductions, but the species is still endangered.
The Wilhelma, a big Botanical-Zoological Garden not far from here, has always had a big aviary with them in front of which you often heard people commenting how ugly they were. I think they're fabulous.
Anyhow, their looks may have inspired spooky stories.

Picture by Len Worthington, CC BY-SA 2.0
via Wikimedia Commons

So who knows what's the truth.
Today people (hopefully!) try to avoid scary stories like that in the raising of children even if it's supposed to be for their own sake, but nevertheless the Nachtkrabb hasn't been forgotten completely.
He still has a place in some local carnival celebrations, for example, where some of the masks remind of ravens, others of the bald ibis, but also stories, songs, or amusement parks!
You won't be understanding the lyrics of this song as it's in a German dialect (not mine), but I like the video.



To be honest, back then I thought the idea of a tiny Nachtkrabb flying out of an egg was rather cute than scary, but I couldn't tell you what image exactly I have in my head (which is the reason why I haven't managed to make my own version yet).
You know me, though. I can't tell you a story with animals without bringing a cat into it.
This is a painting by my friend Heather - the one from the HeatherCats - which I had to own. I could see my Ponder spreading his wings and flying into the night like that. I love this little painting so much.
On the other hand, I also think it would be a good inspiration for a Nachtkrabb piece ... I'm not going to give up on the idea yet.

Are there any regional bugbear stories where you are?

Random Saturday - "Poesiealbum"

The other day I rummaged through my book cabinets. Where was it? I was so sure it had always been right there. Which cabinet or drawer or "safe spot" had I absent-mindedly chosen this time?
I'm talking about my "Poesiealbum", literally "poetry album".
I don't know if you have ever heard of this tradition which has been around for centuries, mostly in German and Dutch speaking regions of Europe.
Thank you to my friend (one of my sisters couldn't find her album, either, and my friend saved the other one having to look for hers) who was so kind to send me pictures of her album to illustrate this post. Of course I edited out the names and location.

The tradition started with the "Stammbuch" or "Album Amicorum" in the early 16th century in the circle of the Wittenberg reformers. Followers of Luther and his associates asked them for handwritten notes to remember their connection.

"Stammbücher" could be books, often theological ones, with added empty pages, but also loose leaves which could then be bound into a Bible.

In the beginning, this tradition was not restricted to academic circles, but to Protestant ones. When it was mainly taken over by the academic community with students collecting notes by fellow students, but also professors, it spread to other countries and also among Catholics.
For some time, it was also adopted by nobility where guest books had already been a custom.

Usually, those albums were used during times of study or travel and ended with the start of a profession. They were kept not only for sentimental reasons to remember friends from that period, but also for references that could be helpful.

While the tradition had mostly vanished in academic circles in the early 19th century, the middle class, which had started taking it over in the late 18th century, kept it alive. Now also women and children collected inscriptions by family and friends and the "Stammbuch" became the "Poesiealbum" which also meant the type of inscriptions changed and were frowned upon by "opinion leaders in matter of artistic taste" who found them too trivial.

They changed even more, however, especially after the "Poesiealbum" mostly became a thing in elementary schools.
The inscriptions could be anything from single poetry verses, quotes, advice, adminitions, religious or secular, but in my time many of the little poems - some of which turned up regularly with some classmates using the same one for everyone's album - were confirmations of everlasting friendship or they were humorous, sometimes both.

Here's an example for the first one :
I sincerely hope that you will not forget me so quickly, and I wish you something special, stay just the way you are!

I can't remember the first ones I wrote, but I got bored of the usual quotes or proverbs after a while, so instead I took poems by a German humorist, for example the one about why the lemons turned sour. From what I read, that's not something many children did.

You usually wrote on the right page and the left page got some kind of picture.
Very popular were "Glanzbilder", literally "glossy pictures" (in English "die cuts" or "scraps"), of kittens, puppies, birds, flower bouquets (sometimes in baskets), angels, even better (and more expensive) if they had glitter. You can still get these today, by the way. When we did a kind of "Poesiealbum" for a retiring colleague, I got some for the nostalgic feeling.

My godmother put a pressed flower in my album, safely covered with adhesive foil.
There were also a lot of drawings, though. Or a mix of glossy and hand drawn pictures. I used to do bad illustrations myself to go with the poems chosen by me, for example lemons with stick legs.

When I look at album pages others share, they all look so familiar to me.
We still had lessons for "Schönschrift" = "beautiful writing" in our early school years - I never got a 1, which was our best mark, no matter how hard I tried - and of course that was expected from us to apply in the albums as well.
Therefore, a lot of those pages could be right out of my own album, down to the embellishments, the dog-ears hiding "secret" little messages, the pencil lines to make sure all lines were straight (sometimes erased afterwards, sometimes not, sometimes badly) - and the typos!
Of course we wrote with fountain pens back then and every, now and then see letters erased with what was called "ink killer" for example (and which came back again after a certain time) or are crossed out.
If you had a "Poesiealbum", you had to live with all of that because you had absolutely no influence on what the others wrote, how beautifully they wrote or not or how messy it got.

I had almost forgotten about this kind of pencil "rubbings"!

My album is quite messy which isn't entirely the others' fault.
I had reserved a spot for my mother and one of the coveted glossy pictures. A classmate thought it was meant for use and glued it in. I ripped it back out which of course looked ugly, so I glued the pages together.

Those who have been following me for a while know about my difficult relationship with glue ... yes, it looked terrible and also I felt really guilty for hiding my classmate's inscription that way. Brigitte, I'm so sorry, I was only 6 and overcome by emotion when I did that.
By the way ... my mother never got around to actually write into my album although I had found a note with a draft once (I knew she didn't want to because she didn't like her own handwriting), so all of that had been for nothing.

I'm always amazed how beautiful and clean older albums look, stunning handwriting, sometimes with drawings, really pretty.

Picture via pxhere

Interesting is also that there are actually books like that in 19th century US America, probably introduced by German or Dutch immigrants.
They didn't catch on, though, and were replaced by the more popular yearbooks.

The "Poesiealbum" finally got a successor, the so-called "Freundschaftsbuch" or "Freundebuch" = "friendship book" or "friend book" which is funny because that's what the old Latin name means.
It doesn't take us back to those old times, though.
The "Freundschaftsbuch" looks like a lot like a collection of questionnaires with pre-printed categories - name, hobbies, likes and dislikes, and so on. I'm not a fan, so I'm not even going to say more about it.

Of course I still haven't given up hope that I'll find my album soon, then I will share some of it (not the glued pages!) in an extra post. As we like to say, "the houses loses nothing", it must be here somewhere!


Sources:

1. Werner Wilhelm Schnabel: Das Album Amicorum. In: Album : Organisationsform narrativer Kohärenz, ed. by Anke Kramer and Annegret Pelz. Göttingen : Wallstein Verlag, 2013, pages 213 - 285 (in German)
2. Antje Petty: "Dies schrieb Dir zur Erinnerung ..." From Album Amicorum to Autograph Book. On: Max-Kade-Institute for German-American Studies. University of Wisconsin-Madison
3. Stefanie Bock: Das Poesiealbum: Eine evangelische Erfindung. On: indeon, August 16, 2022 (in German)
4. Peg Frizzell: My Cherished Poesie Album. On: FanningSparks

Heiliwog - The twenty-third door

Let's go and get some water, shall we? Not just any water, however. Holy water or how it is called in the town of Endingen in Germany's Black Forest "heiliwog".

I heard the tale goes like this.
A girl's mother was very sick. At night the girl had a dream and a voice told her to go to one of the town's fountains at midnight on Christmas Eve and fill her jug with the running water, but only during the twelve chimes of the church clock because then the water would turn into holy water.
The girl did what had been told her and when her mother drank the water, she regained her health.

This custom is still alive today, people gather at the fountains on Christmas Eve after church to fetch their "heiliwog" during the twelve chimes.
The first sip is taken right away, wishes for a merry Christmas are exchanged, the rest of the water is taken home.
At home, this blessing is spoken in dialect "Heiliwog, Gottes Gob, Glick ins Hüs, Unglick nüss!" which means "Heiliwog, God's gift, luck into the house, misfortune out!"

I couldn't find out how old exactly this custom is, but it says very, very old and you can imagine it is. Isn't it lovely how these customs keep on living?

Sources:
SWR documentary "Weihnachten auf dem Land - Erinnerungen aus dem Südwesten" (Christmas in the countryside - Memories from the Southwest)
Schwarzwald aktuell - "G'schichtle 111: Endingen: An Heiligabend wird's Wasser heilig" (Little story 111: Endingen: On Christmas Eve, the water becomes holy)

The Schwibbogen - The twentieth door

Schwibbogen or Lichterbogen is the German word for candle arches.
The first candle arch was made in the 18th century - I found different years and can't say which is the right one - by a blacksmith named Johann Teller. Teller worked in the Ore Mountains making equipment and hardware for the mines. 
The candle arch was inspired by the pit hole entry and made for the "Mettenschicht" which is an old miners' tradition, the last shift before Christmas which ended early with a meal and a celebration.

Early candle arches were made from wrought iron, but wood became more and more popular from the beginning of the 20th century.
Over the years designs changed as well. One of the most famous designs was created by Paula Jordan in 1937, it showed the main sources of income for the people living in the Ore Mountains and traditional symbols.
Nowadays you'll find anything from the traditional design to cities or forest scenes and you'll find all sizes, too!
You can also find patterns to make your own candle arches.

A friend of mine was so nice to allow me to post a few pictures of candle arches that her husband and his father made.

This is my favorite made by
my friend's husband. Isn't it beautiful?

Made by my friend's father-in-law
after the Paula Jordan design.
 As you can see, there are miners,
a bobbin lace maker,
and a wood carver.

A 3D candle arch with indirect
lighting between the two layers
of wood, made by my friend's husband.

Christmas stockings - The nineteenth door

The Christmas stocking ... to be honest I never wondered before where, when or why this tradition had started. Only when I prepared the post for Saint Nicholas Day and thought of the shoes the children put in front of the door for Saint Nick to fill them, I suddenly saw the possible connection and set out to find out more.
Indeed the legend that Saint Nicholas who had just inherited something secretly dropped three lumps of gold in a poor man's house seems to be the source for both traditions.
The legend's details change a little depending on where you find it. St. Nick threw the gold through the window, he gave gold coins, he went through the chimney himself to drop the gold into the stockings or threw the gold through the chimney and it landed in the stockings hung up there for drying. The result was always the same, the man's three daughters had enough gold to get married.

Stockings have been a part of Christmas for centuries although there was a time they had to fight for its place with the Christmas tree.
Nowadays there is no fight between the stocking and the tree, they both have their place in the Christmas traditions in some countries.
Stockings come in all sizes, patterns and colors. For some historical pictures have a look at this article in the Smithsonian Mag.


Do you have your own Christmas stocking tradition? Maybe you still remember your first stocking? Tell us about it!

Happy Hanukkah - The sixteenth door

Today we are going to take a day off from Christmas. Instead I want to wish my Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah.

Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, starts on the Hebrew calendar date of 25 Kislev and lasts for eight days. This year that is the sunset 16th of December until nightfall 24 of December.
It commemorates the rebellion of the Maccabees against the empire of Antiochus IV. When the Maccabees reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem from their oppressors, a miracle occurred. Although the fighters found only enough oil to light the lantern in the temple for one day, the oil lasted for eight days.

There are five traditions on Hanukkah.
There is the lighting of the menorah, a candelabra with nine candles. On the first day one candle is lit, two on the second day and so on. One of the nine candles, the shamash, is set higher or lower than the others and is used to light the other candles.
Hanukkah has its own special songs to be sung with the family.
Traditional food during the festival is oily honoring the miracle in the temple, like latkes (potato pancakes) and  sufganyot (round jelly doughnuts).
It is customary to play with dreidels or spinning tops. Each side of the dreidel is imprinted with a Hebrew letter.
There is also the custom of giving Hanukkah gelt which is either real or chocolate coins.


I don't want you to get this wrong, I don't know much about Hanukkah and had to do some research, then again I didn't know much about other topics in this advent calendar, either. If I wrote something incorrect, please forgive me and let me know. I am also aware that this post just scratches the surface.

The advent candle - The ninth door

We never stop learning.
As you can imagine, the advent calendar is not something I can wing. There's research to be done, pictures to be taken, there's the actual writing (being distracted by all kinds of things of course), and don't think it's that easy to decide on a topic even before doing all of that!
When browsing around I found this on Wikipedia:
An Advent candle is a candle marked with the days of December up to Christmas Eve. It is typically used in a household rather than a church setting: each day in December the candle is burnt down a little more, to the mark for the day, to show the passing of the days leading up to Christmas [...] Advent candles are traditionally white, though other Christmas-themed colors have become popular. The custom of having an Advent candle seems to have started in Germany, where children traditionally insert a small candle into a decorated orange. This candle is called the Christingle. It is now widespread in some other European countries such as the United Kingdom.

Huh?
Sometimes I wonder if I am really German. First the Christmas pickle, now this? 
Just wait, though. I went shopping for important things like kitchen tissues and what waited for me there on a shelf? An Advent candle! Well, actually a whole bunch of them in light and dark red and white.
I know it's the ninth today, but I wanted to show it in its unused glory.

Now I'll have to find out about the Christingle because that's another tradition I haven't heard of before. Germany seems to be bigger than I thought! ;-)

A kiss under the mistletoe - The fourth door

The other day I came home and found mistletoe hanging on the door of our house.
We all know about the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe, but where does this tradition come from? There is actually more than one story.

To the ancient Celtic druids mistletoe was a sacred plant with healing powers and as an aid to fertility. They cut it with a golden sickle, but they didn't kiss under it.
In ancient Greece it was also associated with fertility and people kissed under it during the Saturnalia festival or in marriage ceremonies.
For Scandinavians mistletoe was a plant of peace under which they declared a truce.
In 18th century England there were "kissing balls", balls of mistletoe decorated with ribbons, evergreens and ornaments. Young ladies standing under such a kissing ball could not refuse a kiss. If a lady remained unkissed, it meant that she would not marry the next year, indeed people even avoided her saying she would probably stay an old maid.

My favorite is the story of Frigg, a Norse goddess. When the god Loki set out to kill her son Balder, she made each animal and each plant on Earth promise to not harm Balder. The mistletoe that grows in trees, however, was forgotten. Loki made an arrow from a mistletoe branch and made the blind god of winter, Hoder, shoot Balder. The tears that Frigg shed over him are said to have turned into the white mistletoe berries.

When she was able to revive Balder after three days, she was so happy that she kissed everyone who walked by under the tree on which the mistletoe had grown and decreed that who stands under the mistletoe should be not harmed but kissed.

I have to admit that the English tradition of plucking a berry off the mistletoe after each kiss had been new to me. When all berries are gone, the kissing is over. Reason enough to get a big mistletoe with lots of berries, right?

The eleventh door - Pickle, anyone?

I wrote about this last year on our guild blog, but I just can't get over it, so I'll tell the story once again here.
On Christmas Eve a long time ago I got a big parcel from the tall guy. I dug deeper and deeper, through the paper, if I remember right there was also a stone in there, and then I found it - a plane ticket to the USA. I think I jumped around like a rubber ball. Then I saw the date for the flight there - the 28th of December?? I had to work the week after the holidays! The tall guy calmed me down. My boss came home from his family a day earlier to take over and they had already filled out my vacation request. I still have to swallow when I think of it, that was so lovely!

Once I had arrived in the USA, my friend took me to visit one of her friends. She had a beautiful house and a huge Christmas tree and there it was hanging in all innocence - a glass pickle. I thought that was very funny and asked her where she found that.


Just imagine my surprise when she told me that the Christmas pickle was a German tradition! And there I always thought I was German and still had never heard about that anywhere. Not in my family, not from any of my friends.
Obviously the pickle is hung into the tree in a hidden spot and the child who spots it first, gets a small extra gift. Oooookay. A nice idea, but I still insisted I had never heard of it in Germany.

It seems no one can actually tell how the Christmas pickle and its story were born, but it is produced in Germany now.
Maybe one of you can bring light into that sour darkness? ;-)