SAXON HISTORICAL FEAST—LEGEND.
As I happened to arrive at Hermanstadt[4] precisely seven hundred years
later than the German colonists who had founded that city, I had the
good-luck to assist at a national festival of peculiarly interesting
character.
Of the town’s foundation, old chronicles tell us how the outwanderers,
on reaching the large and fertile plain where it now stands, drove two
swords crosswise into the ground, and thereon took their oath to be
true and faithful subjects of the monarch who had called them hither,
and with their best heart’s-blood to defend the land which had given
them shelter. The two swords on which this oath was registered were
carefully preserved, and sent, one to Broos and the other to Draas—two
towns marking the extremities of the Saxonland—there to be treasured
up forever. But in consequence of evil times which came over the
land, and of the war and bloodshed which devastated it, one of these
swords—that of Broos—got lost. But we are told that the other is
still to be seen in the church of Draas. It is of man’s length, from
which it is argued that these Saxon immigrants were well-grown and
vigorous men.
Who this Herman was who gave his name to the city can only be
conjectured—probably one of the leaders of the little band, for, as
we see by the names of some of the surrounding villages, each has been
called after some old German, whose identity has not transpired, as
Neppendorf from Eppo, Hammersdorf from Humbert, etc.
Some old chronicles, indeed, tell us that when the Hungarian King
Stephen I. was married to Gisela, sister of the German King Henry
II., there came in her suite a poor Baron Herman, along with his
family, from Nuremberg to Transylvania, and he it was who founded the
settlement which later developed into the present town of Hermanstadt.
It is said that the first settlement was formed in 1202; likewise that
the said Herman lived to the age of a hundred and twenty-five, and was
the progenitor of a renowned and powerful race.
Another legend accounts for the foundation of Hermanstadt with the
old well-worn tale which has done duty for so many other cities, of a
shepherd who, when allowed to take as much land as he could compass
with a buffalo’s hide, cut up the skin into narrow strips, and so
contrived to secure a handsome property. This particular sharp-witted
peasant was, by profession, a keeper of swine; and there is a fountain
in the lower town which still goes by the name of the _funtine
porcolor_, or swineherd’s well.
With all these conflicting statements staring one in the face, there
did not seem to be (so far as I could learn) any very authentic reason
for supposing Hermanstadt to have been founded precisely in 1184; but
everybody had apparently made up their minds that such was the case,
so the date was to be commemorated by a costumed procession, extensive
preparations for which kept the quiet little town in a state of
fermentation for many weeks beforehand.
All the tradesmen of the place seemed to have suddenly gone mad, and
could hardly be induced to attend to the every-day wants of commonplace
mortals whose ancestors had not the _prestige_ of a seven-centuried
expatriation. If I went to order a pair of walking-boots, I was
disdainfully informed that I could not hope for them that week, as
all hands were employed in fashioning high-peaked leather boots of
yellow pig-skin for Herman and his retainers. If I looked in at the
glove-maker’s I fared no better, for he had lost all interest in pale
kids or _gants de suède_; and the solitary pair of Sarah Bernhardt
gloves, hitherto the pride of his show-window, had been ruthlessly cast
aside to make way for ponderous gauntlets of heroic dimensions. The
tailors would have nothing to do with vulgar coat or trousers, but had
soared unanimously to the loftier regions of jerkins and galligaskins;
even the tinsmith had lost his mental equilibrium, apparently laboring
under the delusion that he was an ancient armorer who could not
possibly demean himself by mending a simple modern pudding-mould.
We unfortunate strangers, bootless, gloveless, coatless, and
puddingless as we were in those days, had a very hard time of it
indeed while this national fever was at its height, and keenly felt
the terrible disadvantage of not having been born as ancient Saxons.
At last, however, the preparations were complete, and forgetting our
privations, we were fain to acknowledge the sight to be one of the
most curious and exceptional we had ever witnessed. The old-fashioned
streets made a fitting background for this mediæval pageant, in which
peasants and burghers, on foot and on horseback; groups of maidens,
quaintly attired, plying the distaff as they went along; German
matrons, with jewelled head-dresses and cunningly wrought golden
girdles; gayly ornamented chariots, bearing the fruits of the field or
the trophies of the chase, passed us in solemn procession; while on
a sylvan stage erected in the depths of the old oak forest a simple
but moving drama set forth the words and actions of the forefathers
of those very actors—the German colonists who, seven hundred years
previously, had come hither to seek a home in the wild Hungarian
forests.
The costumes and procession had been arranged by native artists, and,
as a work of art, no doubt many parts of the performance were open to
criticism. Some of our fashionable painters would assuredly have turned
sick and faint at sight of the unfortunate combinations of coloring
which frequently marred the effect of otherwise correctly arranged
costumes. Whoever has lived in large towns must have seen such things
better done, over and over again; but what gave this festival a unique
stamp of originality, not to be attained by any amount of mere artistic
arrangement, was the feeling which penetrated the whole scene and
animated each single actor.
[Illustration: MOUNTED PEASANTS, FROM THE HISTORICAL PROCESSION.]
It is difficult to conceive, as it is impossible to describe, the deep
and peculiar impression caused by this display of patriotism on the
part of Germans who have never seen their father-land—Rhinelanders who
are not likely ever to behold the blue rushing waters of the Rhine.
Until now we had always been taught that Germany was inhabited by
Germans, France by Frenchmen, and England by Englishmen; but here we
have such a complex medley of nationalities as wellnigh to upset all
our school-room teaching. Listening to the words of the German drama,
we can easily fancy ourselves at Cologne or Nuremberg, were it not for
the dark faces of Roumanian peasants pushing forward to look at the
unwonted scene, and for the Hungarian uniforms of the gendarmes who are
pushing them back.
* * * * *
More primitive but not less interesting than the historical procession
just described is the way in which the arrival of these German
immigrants is still yearly commemorated in the village of Nadesch.
There, on a particular day of the year, all the lads dress up as
pilgrims, in long woollen garments, rope girdles, and with massive
staves in their hands. Thus attired, they assemble round the flag;
a venerable old man takes the lead, beating the drum; and, singing
psalms, they go in procession down the street, now and then entering
some particularly spacious court-yard, where a dance is executed
and refreshments partaken of. A visit to the pastor is also _de
rigueur_, and the procession only breaks up at evenfall, after
having traversed the whole village from end to end. When questioned
as to the signification of this custom, the people answer, “Thus
came our fathers, free people like ourselves, from Saxonia into this
land, behind the flag and drum, and with staves in their hands. And
because we have not ourselves invented this custom, neither did our
ancestors invent it, but have transmitted it to us from generation to
generation, so do we, too, desire to hand it down to our children and
grandchildren.”
How these Germans came to settle so many hundred miles away from
their own country has also formed the subject of numerous tales, none
prettier nor more suggestive than their identification with the lost
children of Hameln—a well-known German legend, rendered familiar to
English readers through Browning’s poem.
“It was in the year 1284” (so runs the tale) “that, in the little town
of Hameln, in Westphalia, a strange individual made his appearance.
He wore a coat of cloth of many colors, and announced himself as a
rat-catcher, engaging to rid the town of all rats and mice for a
certain sum of money. The bargain being struck, the rat-catcher drew
out of his pocket a small pipe, and began whistling; whereupon from
every barn, stable, cellar, and garret there issued forth a prodigious
number of rats and mice, collecting in swarms round the stranger, all
intent upon his music.
“All the vermin of the place being thus assembled, the piper, still
playing, proceeded to the banks of the river Weser, and rolling up his
breeches above the knee, he waded into the water, blindly followed by
rats and mice, which were speedily drowned in the rushing current.
“But the burghers of Hameln, seeing themselves thus easily delivered
from their plague, repented the heavy sum of money they had promised,
putting off the payment, under various excuses, whenever the stranger
claimed the reward of his labors.
“At last the piper grew angry and went away, cursing the town which had
behaved so dishonorably; but he was seen to haunt the neighborhood,
dressed as a huntsman, with high-peaked scarlet cap; and at daybreak on
the 26th of June, feast of St. John, the shrill note of his pipe was
again heard in the streets of Hameln.
“This time neither rats nor mice responded to the summons, for all
vermin had perished in the waters of the Weser; but the little children
came running out of the houses, struggling out of their parents’ arms,
and could not be withheld from following the sinister piper. In this
way he led the infantine procession to the foot of a neighboring hill,
into which he disappeared along with the children he had beguiled.
Among these was the half-grown-up daughter of the burgomaster of
Hameln, a maiden of wondrous grace and beauty.
“A nurse-maid who, with a little one in her arms, had been irresistibly
compelled to join the procession, found strength enough at the last
moment to tear herself away, and, reaching the town in breathless
haste, brought the sad news to the bereaved parents. Also one little
boy, who had run out in his shirt, feeling cold, went back to fetch his
jacket, and was likewise saved from his comrades’ fate; for by the time
he regained the hill-side the opening had closed up, leaving no trace
of the mysterious piper nor of the hundred and thirty children who had
followed him.”
Nor were they ever found again by the heart-broken parents; but
popular tradition has averred the Germans who about that time made
their appearance in Transylvania to be no other than the lost children
of Hameln, who, having performed their long journey by subterranean
passages, reissued to the light of day through the opening of a cavern
known as the Almescher Höhle, in the north-east of Transylvania.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The Hungarian name of is Nagy-Szeben, and its Roumanian appellation
Sibiiu.