More Saxon Life

The landscape was flat as a tabletop and was endlessly crisscrossed by drainage ditches and canals. Probably a similar density of canals as you find in Mesopotamia except the purpose was to drain away excess water rather than to irrigate the fields. Many fields had drainage pipes buried underneath them to aid in the removal of water. Since the land was at sea level and many parts below sea level, the water did not want to go away. I had read that in Espelkamp, agriculture traditionally was impossible 2 years out of 6 because the water could not be gotten rid of in time to plow the fields. Much of the same prevails in most of the lands touching the North and Baltic seas. This would explain why the Saxons and the Scandinavians were traditionally so warlike. What do you do when you can't plow your fields and your family faces starvation? You go to war. It would also explain the settlement pattern of isolated farmhouses as opposed to settling in villages. It would give a defensive advantage in a place where frequent famines could turn your neighbor into a deadly enemy.

Several kilometers way, in the direction of Luebecke, was a hill that could not have been higher than 200 feet. To me as a child, this was a mountain.

The Saxons and allied tribes from the Jutland Peninsula were quite successful in prevailing against their Keltic neighbors to the South. Part of the motivation would have been hunger. Another factor though would have been their excellent steel swords. Swords that did not bend after the first blow, as the swords of the Kelts did. How did they make such good swords? Well, one of the many old tales that were told was about Wieland the Weapon Smith (called Wayland Smith in England). Reportedly he would forge a sword and then grind it down into dust and mix the dust with his chicken feed. He would feed the mix to his chickens, gather up the chicken shit, and heat it up to reduce it to metal again. In the process he would have added enough carbon to turn soft iron into steel.

The area I was born in was a peninsula ofWestphalian land jutting deep into Lower Saxony. This area was Keltic at one time and I think that some of the strange festivals we had may have had Keltic origins a long time ago. For example, we had a celebration called Suennermarten that had elements of similarity to Halloween. It took place at night every November 8th. We never heard of pumpkins but we had a huge turnip of roughly the same coloration called a Kuerbis. We would hollow it out, carve a scary face on it, and stick it out in a field with a lit candle in it. Groups of us kids would roam from farm to farm, carrying paper lanters on a stick with lit candles in them and a sack for treats. We did not say trick or treat. Rather, we sang a song, Suennermarten, Gauemarten, ect, and hold out our sacks for candy, pennies or fruit. Some farms we would skip by common consent because we knew from past experience that we could expect little better than rotten apples.

Formally though, the holiday was the feast of St Martin of Tours (suenner means saint in the Saxon language). This holiday in England is called Martinmass. I don't know how hollowed out scary turnips and children begging for sweets from house to house with lanterns came to be associated with St Martin. It is at this point that I think a Keltic connection may come in. At least, I tend to think of anything weird as being Keltic.

In better times than any I ever experienced, that did not have the postwar starvation and want, eating a goose was associated with St Martins day. The story is that the citizens of Tours wanted to make St Martin their bishop. He wanted to have nothing to do with it and hid out in a goose pen so that they could not force him to become their bishop. To no avail though because the cackling of the geese gave him away. As a consequence, every year on St Martins day, people eat goose to punish the geese for having given St Martin's hideout away.

There was a holiday whose name I cannot remember. People would sing and dance around a bonfire. When the flames had died down, couples who had just gotten engaged would hold hands and jump over the fire together.

In a neighboring village they had a maypole, but I never saw it.

Horsemeat was commonly eaten in my area. This, in spite of the fact that the eating of horsemeat was strongly prohibited by the Christians because at one time it was so strongly associated with the old religion.

I had read that in my area until late in the 19th century, you had to foreswear belief in Odin, Thor and Saxnot before the ministers would consent to baptize your child. Very probably no one believed in these any more and the oath had become merely a ritual harkening back to the old days. I never saw any of the kind of religiosity that is so common in the USA. Coming to New York from Germany, I was shocked to find the family of a friend saying a prayer before they ate. In my experience, prayer was a sort of tedious boredom that was confined to church and that you happily left there.

Another festival that we delighted in was Schuetzenfest. In the old days, a Schuetze was an archer and the festival must have originated as an annual competition of the yeoman archers. You could hear a band playing Prussia's Gloria and other marches. From farm after farm, people would join the crowd following the band, holding lit lanterns. Eventually we would gather in a clearing in the forest where there would be a shooting competition. A wooden eagle was suspended by a thread from the limb of an oak tree. Whoever downed the eagle by shooting the thread was crowned king for the day.

There were holidays like Fassnacht and Sylvesternacht that were drunken debauches that we children took no part in.

Holidays like Easter and Pingsten (Pentecost) were occasions where people dressed their best and attended country dances.

St Nicholas had no connection with Christmas. He was not a jolly elf but rather a figure that was universally feared by the children. His day was December 6th. He and his helper wore chains around their waist instead of belts and big black boots. I can still hear the ominous jangling of the chains and the pounding of their boots on our stairs as they came up. They would ask your parents if you had been a good boy all year? They seemed to like to linger for a while before responding. Rumours abounded regarding parents who said that you had been terrible, resulting in the children being beaten on the spot. You would leave your shoes outside the door. If you had been good, candy would be left in your shoes. If bad, lumps of coal.

Events like the rethatching of a house and funerals had many of the aspects of a holiday. All the men in the area would join in the work while the women prepared vast amounts of food and put it out on tables outside.

In regard to funerals, we had a strange local custom. The body was not buried immediately but was left in an open air pavilion in the middle of the cemetery. The body was not buried until it had lain in state for three days and nights.