Easter Remembered
by Dr. Viktor Pratscher
Translated
by Brad
Schwebler
On Easter the children went
to their godparents "zammetran." Immediately the children went early in
the morning in droves with beaming faces from one godparent to
another and told what the Easter Bunny had brought them all.
Everywhere they were given presents: the boys received the (Lebzelter?)
horses and the girls received (Lebzelter?)
dolls, in addition to toys, apples, nuts, figs, and of course
beautiful colored Easter eggs and a coin. On the occasion of the
confirmation the child asks his baptismal godparents to be there and
receives a valuable gift in memory of it, at which the "Zammentragen?"
also stops. The confirmation was always on Green Thursday in the
first hundred years but in the last decade it's been done on the day
of the Ascension of Christ. On this day the church is crammed
full. On the second Easter day the girls are sprayed by the boys.
The mischief with which the
girls formerly had water poured over them is rather subdued today
and a sensible understanding exists.
On the second Whitsunday the
girls were spread before the gates. But the real point of this
spread was only seen if it appeared with flowers. In the night on
the first of May the May trees were formerly set out. Five or six
years ago the commandant of the fire brigade still put a tree out.
The May tree is on a high perch with a green branch above on which
colorful ribbons and bottles are fastened. In the course of the
month of May many manors held May celebrations at which good
acquaintances or the youth were invited. There it was a jolly time.
[Published at DVHH.org Oct 2005 by Jody McKim
Pharr]
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