Rauhnacht

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Fortune telling in the Rauhnächten, Russian illustration, 1885

The Rauhnächte (also Raunächte or smoke nights ), twelve nights (also Twelfth ) Glöckelnächte , Inner nights or sub nights are some nights at the turn, which in the European tradition is attributed a special importance. Usually it is the twelve days of Christmas from Christmas Day (December 25th) to the feast of the Epiphany (January 6th), occasionally other periods, for example those between St. Thomas's Day and New Year's. In some areas, Thomas Night is not counted. According to popular belief, the stormy forces of midwinter retreated in the night of January 6th, "the wild hunt " went to rest at the end of the rough nights . As a peasant rule , the twelve rough nights determined the weather in the twelve months of the new year according to the pauren practick .

Depending on the region, the number of rough nights differs between three and twelve nights. The four most important rough nights are described as:

On the origin of the customs

Word origin

The etymology of the word Rauhnacht is controversial. According to one view, it goes back to the Middle High German word rûch 'hairy', which is still used today in furring as 'rough goods ' or ' smoked goods ' for fur goods. It would refer to fur-clad demons who are up to mischief on these nights, or perhaps to rituals around livestock.

Another derivation of the word Rauhnacht is based on the traditional smoking of the stables with incense by the priest or the farmer. This interpretation is also quite old, as Johannes Boemus (1520) and Sebastian Franck (1534) report on smoking: “The twelve nights between Christmas and Christmas Day is not a house that does not smoke every day in yr herberg / for all devils ghost and magic. "

Depending on whether you prefer the first or the second interpretation, the other is interpreted as a secondary reinterpretation. The term Glöckelnächte refers to the "Glöckeln" go door to door and anläuten, one stop custom .

Calendar bases

The custom probably has its origin in the calendar after a lunar year . A year made up of twelve lunar months has only 354 days. As in all simple, "non- intercalating lunisolar calendars " (i.e. all lunar calendars that do not insert entire lunar months in a multi-year rhythm as leap months in order to stay in line with the solar year ), the eleven days missing on the 365 days of the solar year - or twelve nights - inserted as “ dead days ” (these are days “outside of time”, in particular outside of the lunar monthly calculation).

Such days are often widely assumed in mythologies that the laws of nature are no longer in force and that the boundaries to other worlds therefore fell. In many cultures that use such a calendar system, this period of time is often associated with rituals and folk customs. It is also assumed that the customs around the "winter return" at the end of Mardi Gras are related to this: They represent an intercalation with regard to the beginning of the year with the spring equinox .

Christmas date

In early Christianity, the birth festival of Christ was relatively indefinite. In 354 AD there is the first written record that a pagan festival was celebrated in Rome on December 25th. Apparently this custom was closely connected with the imperial cult in the Roman Empire . In the 19th century the theory of a pre-Christian Germanic solstice festival arose , which it was claimed to have been overlaid by the church with Christian customs. It is disputed whether the Germanic peoples celebrated a Yule festival around the winter solstice - i.e. from December 21st . Historically verifiable written evidence is available in the form of calendar sticks with rune symbols . It is undisputed that the word "Yule Festival" was in use before Christianization. The church had tried in vain to replace the word with other terms ( Norrøn : "Dróttins burðar tíð", Old Swedish: "gudz födzlo hötidh"). Most of the evidence is from Christian times, so it is difficult to get a picture of the various festivals. This also applies to the “Night of the Mothers” with the Anglo-Saxons.

Mythology and Customs

The Rauhnächte are a time that is said to have been suitable for casting out or conjuring spirits , for contact with animals or for divination practices since early modern times .

Greece and Southeast Europe

The goblins of the underworld saw the world tree in black and white
Kalikanzari (evil goblins) saw the world tree

The Kalikanzari ( Greek : καλικάντζαρος, καλικάντζαροι [Pl.]) Are evil goblins . You saw in the underworld on the world tree so that it falls - and thus the world. They come to the surface for two weeks around the winter solstice and cause trouble for people.

Probably the time was the time of the birth of Christ from December 25th. until 06.01. customized. During this time, the seasonal changes in the position of the sun stagnate . The winter solstice was originally understood as the phase of the "solar standstill" (Greek: Ηλιοστάσιο). After the two weeks the goblins have to go back. In their absence the world tree is healed. This legend is widespread throughout Southeast Europe.

The wild hunt and other ghosts

In the middle of the twelve nights, namely on New Year's Eve , the wild hunt should start . During this time the stand ghosts rich open and the souls of the dead and the spirits have output. Demons can organize parades or roam the country with the wild hunt. Until recently the belief was widespread in large parts of Europe that people who knew magic and who had made a pact with the devil turned into werewolves at this time and in this form threatened people and cattle, for example in the Baltic States , in West Germany, especially in the Eifel and the neighboring Ardennes , or in Bulgaria .

This idea is reflected in the Perchten runs in the Alpine region. Another form of the Perchten, but regionally separate and independent, are the Glöckler . Even the custom of making noise on New Year's Eve (New Year's Eve fireworks ) should keep the monsters away, in the Alpine region there is also blasting on all rough nights . Rummelpottlauf is still widespread in northern Germany today .

Fortune telling and talking animals

Supposedly, the Rauhnächte are also suitable for consulting oracles . In New Year's Eve, this belief is still cultivated to this day - albeit primarily out of sociability - in the form of lead casting or wax casting. The onion calendar is used to forecast the weather. Animals in the barn are supposed to speak human language at midnight on some rough nights and tell about the future - however, if you hear the animals speak, you will die immediately afterwards. In some places the animals are allowed to complain about their master to a house spirit (as an intrusion of the heathen world into the Christian festivities, but also in a Christianized equivalent): If he has treated them badly in the last year, he will be punished.

In the 19th century, the Rauhnächte was an opportunity for unmarried women to see their future bridegroom at midnight on a Stations of the Cross or some other magical place. His figure then appeared and passed in silence, and the girl was not allowed to speak to him or look after him because that would have meant death ( Brittany , Wales , Scotland ).

claims

In Upper Austria the saying goes : D 'Rauhnacht sand four, twoa foast and twoa dirr ("The rough nights are four, two fat and two dry") - "fat" days with plenty of food are the winter solstice / Thomasnacht and Epiphany, " dry “days, ie fasting days, are Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

Order and prudence

The four important Rauhnächte were in some places so dangerous that they were celebrated with fasting and prayer . There was no disorder in the house, no white laundry hanging on the line (which the riders would steal and then use as a shroud for the owner during the year). Clotheslines were not allowed to be stretched, as the wild hunt could get caught in them. In another version, this is especially forbidden for (younger) women. By hanging up white (under) linen, the wild hunt would be attracted and then “attack” these women. Women and children shouldn't be alone on the street after dark either. In addition, cards may not be played. In some areas of the Eastern Alps, these regulations were monitored by Perchten. The so-called Roggenmuhme , also "Rockenmör", punishes the lazy maids who have not spun their distaffs during the twelve nights.

literature

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See also

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Manfred Becker-Huberti: Lexicon of festivals and customs ; Herder Verlag, special edition 2007: “The eve of Epiphany played a special role in popular belief. On the last evening of the Twelve Rauhnächte, which was considered the worst and was therefore called Oberstnacht, the year-end customs reappeared: belief in demons and Christianity were remarkably linked here. "
  2. ↑ Hellmut Rosenfeld: 'Bauernprakik'. In: Burghart Wachinger u. a. (Ed.): The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . 2nd, completely revised edition, volume 1: 'A solis ortus cardine' - Colmar Dominican chronicler. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1978, ISBN 3-11-007264-5 , Sp. 640-642.
  3. ↑ For example Duden. The large dictionary of the German language in 10 volumes. 3rd edition Mannheim 1999, sub Raunächte .
  4. ↑ Kluge. Etymological dictionary of the German language, edit. by Elmar Seebold. 25th edition Berlin 2011, sub Rauchnächte .
  5. ↑ Sebastian Franck, Weltbuech: Spiegel vnd bildtniß des gantzen erdbodenens… Tübingen 1534, cited above. according to Hans Dünninger, Horst Schopf: Customs and festivals in the Franconian year. Kulmbach 1971, p. 24.
  6. ↑ Rudolf Kleinpaul : The living and the dead: in popular belief, religion and legend . GJ Göschen'sche Verlagshandlung, Berlin / Leipzig 1898 ( limited preview in the Google book search). ; see. also Helmut Groschwitz: Mondzeiten: On the genesis and practice of modern lunar calendars (= Regensburg writings on folklore / comparative cultural studies; Volume = 18), Münster, New York, Munich, Berlin 2008, chapter: The moon in calendars since the late Middle Ages ISBN 978-3 -8309-1862-2 .
  7. ^ Gregor Rohmann : Tanzwut. Cosmos, Church and Man in the History of the Significance of a Medieval Concept of Disease . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-525-36721-6 , pp. 267 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ Jakob Grimm : German Mythology , Dieterich, Göttingen 1835
  9. ↑ Hans Förster: The celebration of the birth of Christ in the old church. Contributions to research into the beginnings of the Epiphany and Christmas festivities . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2000, ISBN 3-16-147291-8 , p. 116 ( limited preview in the Google book search - see Andreas Nordberg : The pagan Germanic tribes also celebrated a great joyous festival at the time of the winter solstice, the so-called Yule Festival).
  10. ↑ Werner Weissmann: Sun, Grail, Demons . Significant occidental symbols in myth, religion and art. WUV Universitätsverlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85114-778-2 , p. 267 f .
  11. ^ Andreas Nordberg: Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning. ( Memento of December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 2.1 MB) Kalendrar och kalendarisk riter i det förkristna Norden . Uppsala 2006, p. 65.
  12. ↑ Anders Hultgård : Jul. In: Heinrich Beck (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Volume 16, de Gruyter, Berlin 2000. p. 101.
  13. ↑ Walter Puchner: Die Folklore Südosteuropas: A comparative overview . Böhlau Verlag Wien, 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-20312-4 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  14. ↑ a b Carlo Ginzburg; Raymond Rosenthal: Ecstasies: deciphering the witches' Sabbath . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2004, ISBN 0-226-29693-8 , pp. 169 (English): “According to one etymological conjecture that has met with many objections, the term kallikantzaros derives from kalos-kentauros (beautiful centaur)”
  15. ↑ www.mittelalter-gewandung.net , viewed: December 23, 2014.
  16. ↑ www.pp-mittelalter-shop.com www.lottevonderinde.de , viewed: December 23, 2014.
  17. ↑ www.lottevonderinde.de , viewed: December 23, 2014.
  18. ↑ The wild hunt in the Ardennes . In: Johann Wilhelm Wolf (Hrsg.): Dutch sagas . No. 173 . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1843, p. 615–616 ( zeno.org [accessed November 29, 2019]).
  19. ↑ Jacob Grimm: German Mythology . Wiesbaden 2014, p. 370.