and who the "Wends" or "Sorbs" are. Early in the last century, we read--I
think it was in the year 1702--our Ambassador at Vienna, one Hales,
travelling home by way of Bautzen, to his utter surprise found himself in
that city in the midst of a crowd of people, strange of form, strange of
speech, strange of garb--but unquestionably picturesque--such as he had
never before seen or heard of. They are there still, wearing the same
dress, using the same speech, looking as odd and outlandish as ever. We
need not go back to the records of Alfred the Great, of Wulfstan and
Other, to learn what a powerful nation the Wends, one of the principal
branches of the great Slav family, were in times gone by. In the days when
Wendish warriors, like King Niklot, were feared in battle, their ships
went forth across the sea, side by side with those of the Vikings,
planting colonies on the Danish Isles, in Holland, in Spain--aye, very
ambitious Slav historians will even have it that our own _Sorbiodunum_
(Salisbury) is "the town of the Sorbs," founded by Sorb settlers in 449,
and that to the same settlers--also styled _Weleti_ (Alfred the Great
calls them _Vylte_)--do our "Wilton" and "Wiltshire" owe their names. On
the Continent they once overspread nearly all Germany. Hanover has its
"Wendland," Brunswick its "Wendish Gate." Franconia, when ruinously
devastated by intestinal wars of German races, was, at Boniface's
instance, recultivated by immigrant Wends, famous in his days, and after,
for their husbandry. The entire North German population, from the Elbe
eastward, and north of the Bavarian and Bohemian mountains, is in descent
far more Wendish than German. Wendish names, Wendish customs, Wendish
fragments of speech, bits of Wendish institutions, survive everywhere, to
tell of past Slav occupation. Altenburg is Wendish to a man, the
Mecklenburgs are to the present day ruled even by Wendish grand dukes.
Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, Luebeck, Leipzig, Schwerin, and many more
German towns, still bear Wendish names.
There are now but a poor 150,000 or 160,000 left of this once powerful
people. And that handful is dwindling fast. Every year sees the tide of
spreading Germanism making further inroad on the minute domain which the
Germanised Wends have left to their parent race in that much disputed
territory, the Lusatias. Prussian administration, Prussian education,
Prussian pedantic suppression of everything which is not neo-German, are
rapidly quenching the still smoking flax. It boots little that the Saxon
Government, kinder in its own smaller country, has, very late in the day,
changed its policy, and is now striving to preserve what is, at its lowest
valuation, a most interesting little piece of ethnographic archaeology. It
is much too late now to stop the march of Germanisation, which has pushed
on so rapidly that even in the same family you may at the present day find
parents still thoroughly Wendish, and _priding_ themselves on their
Wendish patronymics, and children wholly German, styling themselves by
newly coined German names. Evidently the race is dying fast.
Its death was in truth prepared a long time ago. Once the Saxons had
obtained the mastery, the poor Slavs were oppressed and persecuted in
every way. They were forbidden to wear their own peculiar dress. They were
forbidden to trade. The gates of their own towns were closed against them,
or else opened only to admit them into a despised "ghetto." No man of
culture dared to own himself a Wend. Accordingly, though they possess a
language unique for its plasticity and pliancy, up to the time of the
Reformation written literature they had none. For centuries their race
has been identified with the lowest walks in life. They must have their
own parsons, of course; but that was all. Otherwise, hewers of wood and
drawers of water, toiling cultivators of the soil, they were doomed to
remain--very "serfs," lending, as we know, in the north, a peculiar name
to that servile station ("serfs," from "serbs"), just as in the south
"Slav" became the distinctive term for "slave."
To the eye of the archaeologist, all this hardship has secured one
compensating advantage. It has left the Wends--in dress, in customs, in
habits of mind, in songs and traditions--most interestingly primitive.
Everything specifically Wendish bears the unmistakable stamp of national
childhood, early thought, old-world life. There has been no development
within the race, as among other Slavs. There have been modern overlayings,
no doubt; but they are all foreign additions. The Wendish kernel has
remained untouched, displaying with remarkable distinctness that
peculiarly characteristic feature which runs through all the Slav kindred,
at once uniting and separating various tribes, combining a curious unity
of substructure with a striking variety of surface. Among the "Serbs,"
or--"Sorbs"--really "Srbs"--of Germany, occur names which reveal a close
kinship with Russians, Bohemians, and Croats. By the strange
survival--among two tribes alone in all the world--of a complete dual, and
the retention of a distinct preterite tense (without the use of an
auxiliary verb) their language links them plainly with the Old Bulgarians.
Their national melodies exhibit a marked resemblance to those melancholy
airs which charm English visitors in Russia. Yet a Pole, one of their
nearest neighbours, is totally at sea among the Wends. His language is to
them almost as unintelligible as that of their "dumb" neighbours on the
opposite side, the _Njemski_--that is, the Germans. Even among themselves
the Lusatians are divided in speech. In Lower Lusatia, for instance, where
the population are descended from the ancient Lusitschani, if you want to
ask a girl for a kiss, you must say: _gulitza, daj mi murki_. In Upper
Lusatia, where dwell the Miltschani, the same request takes the shape of:
_holitza, daj mi hupkuh_. My German friends would have it that to their
ears Wendish sounded very like English--which simply meant, that they
understood neither the one nor the other. In truth, there is no
resemblance whatever between the two tongues, except it be this, that like
some of our own people, the Wends are incorrigibly given to putting their
H's in the wrong place. The explanation, in respect of the Wends, is, that
in their language no word is known to begin with a vowel. Hence, to make
German at all pronounceable to their lips, they often have to add an H as
initial letter, the impropriety of which addition they happen generally to
remember at the wrong time. It will terrify linguists among ourselves to
be told that this Slav language--which the Germans despise as barbarous,
which has scarcely any literature, and which is spoken by very few men of
high education--possesses, in addition to our ordinary verbs, also verbs
"neutropassive," "inchoative," "durative," "momentaneous," and
"iterative"; an aorist, like Greek, and a preterite aorist of its own; a
subjunctive pluperfect, and in declension seven cases, including a
"sociative" case, and a "locative." The most remarkable characteristics
of the language, however, are the richness of its vocalisation, and its
peculiar flexibility and pliancy, which enable those who speak it to coin
new and very expressive words for distinct ideas almost at pleasure, yet
open to no misconstruction.
In outward appearance the Wends are throughout a powerful, healthy, and
muscular race, whose men are coveted for the conscription. The first
Napoleon's famous "Bouchers Saxons"--the Saxon dragoons--were Wends almost
to a man. And in the present day, it is the Wends who contribute the
lion's share of recruits to the Saxon household regiments. Their women are
prized throughout Germany as nurses. They are all well-built, well-shaped,
strong of muscle, and nimble in motion, like the Lacedaemonian women of
old. All surrounding Germany recruits its nurses from Wendland. Next to
stature, the most distinctive external feature of the race is its national
dress, which, as in most similar cases, survives longest, and in its most
characteristic form, among women. As between different districts, such
dress varies very markedly, but throughout it has some common features.
Short bright-coloured skirts, with the hips preternaturally enlarged by
artificial padding, and an unconscionable amount of starch put into the
petticoats on Sundays; close-fitting bodices, under which, in some
districts, by an atrocious perversion of taste, are placed bits of stout
cardboard, designed to compress a strongly developed bust to hideous
flatness; small tight-fitting caps, into which is gathered all the hair,
and which are often concealed under some bright-coloured outer head-gear,
with an abundance of ribbons dependent; and a goodly allowance of
scrupulously clean collar, frill, and neckerchiefs, at any rate on
Sundays; and, on festive occasions, stockings of the same irreproachable
whiteness put upon massive calves which on other occasions are worn all
bare--these are, briefly put, the main characteristics of the women's
dress. Oddly, the Roman Catholics, who elsewhere--in the Black Forest, for
instance--affect the gayest colours, among the Wends show a partiality for
the soberest of hues, more specifically brown and black. The men delight
in big buttons, bright waistcoats, and high boots, long coats which pass
on from father to son through generations, and either preternaturally
stout hats of prehistoric mould, or else large blue caps with monster
shades. Their peculiar customs are simply legion, and so are their
traditions and superstitions. Their fairs are a thing to see.
Old-fashioned as the Wends are, ordinary shopping has no attraction for
them. But the merry fair, with its life and society, its exchange of
gossip, its display of finery, its haggling and bargaining, its music and
its dancing, is irresistibly alluring. At the great fair at Vetzschau in
olden days you might see as many as a thousand Wendish girls, all dressed
in their best, formally but merrily going through their Wendish dances in
the market-place. In matters of faith the Wends are all great believers in
little superstitious formulas and observances, such as not turning a knife
or a harrow edge or tine upward, lest the devil should sit down upon it.
Their favourite devices for attracting a man's or a maiden's love are a
little too artlessly natural to be fit for recital here. One great
prevailing superstition is the belief in lucky stones--_kamushkis_.
Stones, in truth, play a leading part in their traditions. They have a
belief that stones went on growing, like plants, till the time of our
Saviour's temptation, in the course of which, by an improvement upon the
authorised text, they assert that he hurt his foot against one by
accident. In punishment for having caused that pain, their growth is
understood to have been stopped. They have other stones as
well--"fright-stones" and "devil-stones" for instance. But the _kamushkis_
are by far the most important and the most valuable. They are handed on as
precious heirlooms from parent to child, and often put down at a high
value in the inventory of an estate. The supernatural world of the Wends
is as densely peopled as any mythology ever yet heard of. There is the
_psches-poniza_--the noon woman, to avoid whom women in pregnancy and
after their confinement dare not go out of doors in the midday hours;
there is the _smerkava_, or "dusk-woman," who is fatal to children, the
_wichor_, or whirlwind; the _plon_, or dragon, who terrifies, but also
brings treasure; the _bud_, or Will-o'-the-Wisp; the _bubak_, or bogey;
the nocturnal huntsman, _nocny hanik_; and the nocturnal carman, _nocny
forman_; the _murava_, or nightmare; the _kobod_ or _koblik_; the
_chodota_ (witch); the _buzawosj_, who frightens children; the _djas_, the
_graby_, the _schyry zed_, the _kunkaz_, there are spirits "black" and
"white." Every mill has its peculiar _nykus_ or _nyx_, who must be fed and
propitiated. And then there are roguish sprites, such as _Pumpot_, who is
a sort of Wendish "barguest," doing kind turns as often as he plays
mischievous pranks. All this curious Slav mythology alone is worth
studying. If in a family children keep dying young, the remedy certain to
be applied is, to christen the next born "Adam" or "Eve," according to its
sex, which is thought absolutely to ensure its life. Like most
much-believing races, the Wends are remarkably simple-minded, trustful,
leadable, and docile, free from that peculiar cunning and malice which is
often charged, rightly or wrongly, to Slav races--not without fault, but
in the main a race of whom one grows fond.
To see the Wends ethnographically at their best, you should seek them in
their forest homes, all through that vast stretch of more or less
pine-clad plain, mostly sand, extending northwards from the last distant
spurs of the "Riesengebirge" (which bounds at the same time Bohemia and
Silesia), to the utmost limits of their territory in the March of
Brandenburg, and much beyond that--or else in that uniquely beautiful
Spreewald, some hundred of miles or so south of Berlin, a land of giant
forest and water, an archipelago of turfy islets. That is the ancient
headquarters of the Wendish nation, still peopled by a peculiar tribe,
with peculiar, very quaint dress, with traditions and customs all their
own, settled round the venerated site of their old kings' castle. It is
all a land of mystic romance, sylvan silence, old-world usages, such as
well become the supposed "Sacred Forest" of the ancient "Suevi." Alders
and oaks--the former of a size met with nowhere else--cast a dense, black
shade over the whole scene, which is in reality but one vast lake, on
whose black and torpidly moving waters float wooded _kaupes_ or isles,
scattered over which dwell in solitude and practical isolation the
toilsome inhabitants, having no means of communication open to them
except the myriads of arms of the sluggishly flowing Spree. A parish
covers many square miles. Each little cottage, a picture by itself amid
its bold forest surroundings, stands long distances away from its
neighbours. The outskirts of the forest consist of wide tracts of wobbling
meadow, a floating web of roots and herbage, over which one can scarcely
move without sinking into water up to the hips. Were you to tread through,
down you would go helplessly into the fathomless black swamp. On those
vast meadows grow the heavy crops of sweet nutritious grass which make the
Spreewald hay valued at Berlin for its quality as is the hay of the Meuse
at Paris. On their little islands, as in the _Hortillonages_ of the Somme,
the _kaupers_ raise magnificent crops of vegetables (more particularly
cucumbers, without which Berlin would scarcely be itself), which, as on
the Somme, they are constrained to carry to market by boat. Boats and
skates, in fact, supply in that wooded Holland the only means of
locomotion. And thanks to its canals and its water, all in it is so fresh,
and so luxuriant, and so remarkably silent, that, while one is there,
there seems no place like the Spreewald in which to be thoroughly alone
with Nature. On a mound artificially raised upon one of these islands, at
Burg, once stood the castle of the great Wendish kings, whose sceptre is
supposed still to descend in secret from sire to son in a particular
family, known only to the best initiated of Wends. To this country more
specifically, together with some scores of distinctive water sprites (each
endowed with its own attribute), does Wendish mythology owe its numerous
legends about snakes wearing precious crowns, which on occasion they will
carelessly lay down on the grass, where, if luck should lead you that way,
you may seize them and so ensure to yourself untold riches--provided that
you can manage to get safely away.
In the mountainous country about Bautzen and Loebau in Saxony, where the
scenery is fine, the air bracing, the soil mostly fat, nineteenth century
levelling has been far too long at work for race customs to have
maintained themselves altogether pure. There stand the ancient sacrificing
places of the Wends, the Czorneboh, sacred to the "black god," the
Bjeliboh, sacred to the "white" one--respectively, the Mounts Ebal and
Gerizim of Wendland--and many more. Wendish traditions and Wendish speech
are still very rife in those parts. And most of the brains of the race are
to be found in that well-cultivated district--the "Wendish Mozart,"
Immisch, Hornigk, Pfuhl--all the literary coryphaei of the race. From
Bautzen, certainly, with its bipartite cathedral, in which Roman Catholics
and Protestants worship peaceably side by side, divided only by a grating,
it is quite impossible to dissociate Wendish traditions. That is to the
Upper Lusatians what Cottbus is to the lower--_mjesto_, "the town" _par
excellence_. There are very true Wends in those regions still. In a
village near Hochkirch the community managed for a long time successfully
to keep out Germans, refusing to sell any property otherwise than to a
Wend. But under the influence of advancing civilisation so many things
externally peculiar to the race have disappeared--their forests, and their
wooden buildings, much of their ancient dress; they live so much in the
great world, that they can scarcely be said to have kept up their
peculiar race-life in absolute purity.
In the forest, on the other hand, where, in fact, dwell the bulk of the
not yet denationalised race, you still see Wends as they were many
centuries ago. It is a curious country, that easternmost stretch of what
once was the great forest of Miriquidi, almost touching Bautzen and
Goerlitz with its southernmost fringe, and extending northward far into the
March of Brandenburg. At first glance you would take it to be intolerably
prosaic. It spreads out at a dead level, flat as a rink, for miles and
miles away, far as the eye can see, with nothing to break the straight
sky-line--except it be clouds of dust whirled up by the wind from the
powdery surface of this German Sahara. The villages lie far apart, divided
by huge stretches of dark pine forest, much of it well-grown, not a
little, however, crippled and stunted. The roads are, often, mere tracks
of bottomless sand, along which toils the heavy coach at a foot pace,
drawn by three horses at least, and shaking the passengers inside to bits
by its rough motion across gnarled pine-roots which in the dry sand will
never rot. But look at it a little more closely, and you will find a
peculiar kind of wild romance resting upon it. If you take the trouble to
inquire, you will find that all this forest is peopled with elves. There
are stories and legends and superstitions attaching to almost every point.
Hid away among it are the sites of ancient Wendish villages--you may see
where stood the houses, you may trace where were the ridged fields, you
may feel, Wends will have it, by a creeping sensation coming over you as
you pass, where were the ancient grave-yards. Here is an ancient haunted
Celtic barrow. There is a cave in which are supposed to meet, at certain
uncanny hours, the ghosts of cruel Swedish invaders, barbarously murdered
in self-defence, or else Wendish warriors of much older time. Yonder,
again, is a mound beneath which lies a treasure. Here "spooks" this
spirit, there his fellow. By the Wends the forest is regarded with
peculiar awe. It is to them a personality, almost a deity, exacting, as
they will have it, every year at least one victim as a tribute or
sacrifice. Every now and then you will come upon a heap of dry branches,
on which you may observe that every passer-by religiously lays an
additional stick. That is a "dead man," a Wendish "cairn," raised up in
memory of some person who on that spot lost his life. Between the forest
and dry fields picturesquely stretch out sheets of water, some of them of
large size. And where there is water, the scenery at once assumes a hue of
freshness and verdure which is most relieving. Dull and bare as this
country generally is, no Switzer loves his own beautiful mountain home
more fervently, or admires it with greater appreciation, than do the Wends
their native patch of sand and peat and forest; nor does he miss it, when
away, with more painful home-sickness.
In this flat tract of land you may see the German Slavs still living in
their traditional timber or clay-and-wattle houses, built in the orthodox
Wendish style--with a little round-roofed oven in front, and a draw-well
surmounted by a tall slanting beam, with a little garden, the
_Ausgedinge-haus_ for the pensioned-off late proprietor, the curious
barge-board, ornamented at either end with some crudely fantastical
carving (which was borrowed more than a thousand years ago from the early
Saxons), and with that most characteristic mark of all, the heavy arched
beam overshadowing the low windows. The house would be thatched, but that
the Prussian government absolutely forbids thatch for new roofing. The
entire settlement is laid out on the old nomad plan, reminding one of
times when for security villagers had to dwell close together. In the
middle of the village is the broad street or green, planted with high
trees, which, by their contrast with the surrounding pine forest, indicate
the site to the traveller a long way off. The Wends are devoted lovers of
trees, and in every truly Wendish village you are sure to find a large
lime tree, tall or stunted, but in every case spreading out its branches a
long distance sideways, and overshadowing a goodly space. That tree has
for generations back formed the centre of local life, and is venerated as
becomes a "sacred tree" of ancient date. Here young and old are wont to
assemble. Here, on Saturday afternoons in spring-time, gather the young
girls to blend their tuneful voices in sacred song heralding the advent of
Easter. Here used to meet the village council--which has in recent times,
for reasons of practical convenience, removed to the public-house--the
_gromada_, or _hromada_, summoned by means of a _kokula_ or _hejka_, that
is, a "crooked stick" or a hammer, sent round from house to house. Every
householder, large or small, has a right to be present and to take his
full part in the proceedings; for the Wends are no respecters of persons.
In the centre sits the _solta_, as president, supported by his "sidesmen,"
the _starski_. And there are discussed the affairs of the little
community, heavily and solemnly at first, but with increasing animation as
the _palenza_, or _schnaps_, gets into people's heads. The most
interesting by far of these periodical meetings is the _gromada
hoklapnica_--the "gromada of brawls," that is--which is held in most
villages on St. Thomas' Day, in some on Epiphany Day, to transact, with
much pomp and circumstance, the business which has reference to the whole
year. The annual accounts are there settled. New members are received into
the commune, and if any have married, the Wendish marriage tax is levied
upon them. If there are any paupers in the parish, they are at that
meeting billeted in regular succession upon parishioners. Another
important matter to settle is the institution of paid parish officers,
none of whom are appointed for more than a year at a time. Watchman,
field-guard, blacksmith, road-mender, &c., all are expected to attend, cap
in hand, making their obeisance as before a Czar, thanking the _gromada_
for past favours, which have secured them infinitesimal pay, and humbly
supplicating for new, which are, as a rule, granted with a rather pompous
and condescending grace.
The village homesteads line the common or street on either side, standing
gable outwards, as every Wendish house ought to stand. From them radiate
in long narrow strips the fields, as originally divided, when the settlers
were still a semi-nomad race, when each member was scrupulously assigned
his own share of loam, clay, high land, low land, peat, sand, meadow--not
only in order that none might be better off than his neighbour, but also
that the workers in the fields might at all times make sure of
fellowship, to lighten their toil by chat and song, and by taking their
meals in company. During the whole of their history the Wends have shown
themselves devoted to agriculture. Their social system was based upon
agriculture; agriculture occupied their thoughts. Their legends represent
their ancient kings, and the saints of their hagiology, as engaged in
agriculture. And their girls, thinking of marriage, may be heard to sing:
"No, such a suitor I will not have
Who writeth with a pen;
The husband for me is the man
Who plougheth with the plough."
By intuitive instinct the Wends prefer cultivating light land, whereas the
Germans give the preference to strong. All their implements seem made for
light soil. Such are their wooden spades, tastefully edged with steel
which, though not perhaps as useful as our all-steel implements, look
incomparably more picturesque. And from light soil the Wends know better
than any race how to raise remunerative crops. They understand heavy land,
too--as witness their excellent tillage in Upper Lusatia, and above all in
that German "Land of Goshen," the Duchy of Altenburg. But on sand they are
most at home. And in the poorest districts you may make sure that wherever
you see a particularly fine patch of corn, or potatoes, or millet, or
buckwheat, that patch is peasant's land.