Altweibermühle
The Altweibermühle is a variation of the fountain of youth motif. In it, old women are magically transformed into young women again in a way that is usually not further explained; a transformation or metamorphosis , i.e. the bestowal of a new physical shape, takes place only to a limited extent , but rather the restoration of an earlier state.
About 1787 when the prince bergische Schulvisitator wrote Georg Anton Bredelin in Wolfach in the Black Forest under the title "The women mill Tripstrill" a still listed known by its catchy melody carnival Singspiel . It is the oldest carnival game still performed .
The plot can be divided into a prologue, six scenes and an epilogue. After the master miller Cyprian has touted his miracle mill, five men one after the other - a weaver, a tailor, a shoemaker, a farmer and a clerk - bring their old wives to the mill and complain of their suffering to the miller, with the buffoon Stolprian occasionally mocking himself Comments. The old women end up in the mill despite resistance. With every grinding process, Cyprian sings his magic song so that the transformation will succeed. After her rejuvenation, the woman no longer wants to know anything about her old husband, who complains vigorously about it, but all he has to do is ridicule the master miller or buffoon for his foolish actions. After the buffoon has seen where the rejuvenation of women is leading, he also brings his wife to the mill in the hope that she will leave him afterwards, but fate turns against him. This is followed by three stanzas as an epilogue, in which the men, the buffoon and the women each draw their own conclusions from the plot.
In the Upper Franconian town of Reckendorf as well as in the Upper Palatinate Schönsee , an "Altweibermühle" with the same name takes place every ten years, a carnival parade that has a tradition of around one hundred years. Young boys disguised as witches are caught by millers and “turned” by a fountain of youth in the form of a mill. They come out below as young girls and perform a dance with the waiting grooms.
A pictorial representation of an old woman's mill comes from the Nuremberg artist Johann Trautmann as a copper engraving from 1810 (Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg).
"Altweibermühle" is also the name of the mill building erected in 1929 at Treffentrill near Cleebronn in Baden-Württemberg , around which the Tripsdrill adventure park developed.
Literary
- Jürgen Bernt-Bärtl: The Altweibermühle . In: ders: Spiralhopser. Stories of a childhood . Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle 1967.
- Helga Pankoke (Red.): The old women mill. An anthology , 18 authors about encounters over three generations. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-351-00377-3 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Franke: Very old and very old. Causes and Problems of Old Age. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg etc. 1987 (= Understandable Science. Volume 118), ISBN 3-540-18260-8 , p. 102 f.
Web links
- Altweibermühle in Reckendorf
- Altweibermühle in Tripsdrill
- Performance of the "Altweibermühle" of the Wolfach fool's guild in Kißlegg, 2017 (video on YouTube)