Ferryman
The ferryman (historically also Ferge , Färer ) leads a ferry over a watercourse or lake. In today's parlance, the profession in Germany is called ferry driver .
The ferryman's profession was very widespread when there were hardly any bridges on the Central European streams and rivers . Back then, the ferry was a common means of transport when travelers couldn't use a ford .
The saying, mainly coined in Basel , Verzell du daas em Fäärimaa! means that you don't believe your counterpart (see Basel ferries ). The ferryman is attested that he is a good listener for the concerns of his passengers.
The ferryman as a symbol and motif
The figure of the ferryman had a mythological meaning in many cultures and was often associated with the transition from life to death. Already in the old Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh a ferryman whose name is unknown appears who translates the hero across the sea of death to an island on which his ancestor Utnapishtim lives. The figure of the ferryman Mahaf is known from Egyptian mythology , who, under the supervision of the god Cherti, leads the deceased into the realm of the dead of Duat . The ferryman Charon also plays a role in Greek mythology , who brings the deceased to the underworld ( Hades ) via the Acheron stream . As payment for the crossing, a coin was placed under the tongue of the dead in Greece.
In mythology
The journey on a ferry can often be found in myths and stories as a metaphor for transition or decisive phases of a journey . The ferryman usually appears as a guide or helper for those whom he brings to the other bank, be it the realm of the dead or the next section of the journey.
Already in the Gilgamesh epic , one of the oldest known poems of mankind, which tells of the search of the Sumerian king Gilgamesh (ruled about 2652–2602 BC) for immortality, the ferryman Ur-šanabi appears , who takes the king over the water of death brings.
According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead , Mahaf takes the souls of the dead to the underworld on a papyrus boat . A remarkable detail: the death ship is under the care of the god Aken (see: Cherti ), who spends most of the time sleeping at the helm. If souls are to be brought to his wife Amet, who greets the souls at the gate of the underworld, Mahaf first has to wake him up - which, however, according to the ancient texts, is sometimes not easy.
The ferryman Charon is known from Greek mythology , who also accompanies the souls of the dead across the river Acheron (also Lethe or Styx ) to the entrance of the underworld.
In Iranian studies the name Zarathustra is also associated with the description of a religious function and in this context with “(afterlife) leader”, “ferryman” (Indo-European geront ) and thus with a religious tradition that is up to 4000 years old.
In Norse mythology , Odin appears as a ferryman named Hárbarðr ("Gray Beard ") who teaches his son Thor a lesson.
In the 25th Aventiure of the Song of the Nibelungs, Hagen slays the unwilling ferryman, sets the Burgundy army across the Danube itself and then destroys the ferry so as not to allow anyone to return home.
In art
The mythological figure of the ferryman also found its way into art again and again. In Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy ( Divina Comedia ), written in the early 14th century, in the eighth song of the first book ( Inferno , "Hell"), the ferryman Phlegias appears to bring Dante and Virgil across the River Styx . In the 1950s, the motif became the model for Salvador Dalí's The Boat with the Angel as the Ferryman in his Divina Comedia series consisting of 101 watercolors .
In his ballad Des tiny people crossing the ferryman , August Kopisch lets the ferryman translate an invisible dwarf people who want to flee from modern civilization.
Hermann Hesse takes up the motif of the ferryman in his book Siddhartha (1922) by having Siddhartha, the seeker, at a turning point in his life become the ferryman's assistant Vasudeva and later the ferryman himself.
Chris de Burgh's song Don't Pay the Ferryman (1982) is about a ferryman with sinister intentions.
Others
Hello , the greeting or phone call that is common in many languages to draw someone's attention is possibly related to the ferryman in terms of linguistic history with “holla”, the shortened call “get over!”.
