Scraper barrow
A Schürreskarre is a single- wheel wooden cart that used to be used until the 20th century. B. was used by carrers and farmers to transport heavy, bulky loads such as barrels, stones, wooden planks, boxes, heavy blocks of ice, etc. These wooden wheelbarrows came in different types, e.g. B. with slightly obtuse-angled planks for stones ( Schärjer in Neuwied) or with a flat, then quarter-circle cover over the wheel for various goods.
Today this centuries-old means of transport can still be found at the Schürres cart races. This custom is particularly common in the Bergisches Land at fair times and folk festivals. On the one hand, a Schürreskarrenrennen is a sporty competition with obstacles. On a staked route, you have to drive through a course. The participants have to balance the carts using seesaws, for example. Two people are involved: The Schürcher (pusher) pushes the vehicle on which the Geschürcher (pushed) sits in front . Sometimes there are also tasks to be solved that require skill, such as snapping at sausages hanging high up or eating wildberry pancakes without using cutlery or hands.
On the other hand, a scrap barrow race is also about original creativity. The carts are usually provided with imaginative bodies. To the delight of the public at the roadside, local and national topics are caricatured with representations and sayings. And so the sporting event is transformed in some places into original folk amusement, whereby not the fastest, but the most original disguised carts are awarded.
Locations with poker cart races
The custom of the Schürreskarrenrennens is cultivated in many villages in the Bergisches Land, but also in the near and far, for example in Bensberg , Berghausen (Langenfeld) , Düsseldorf-Urdenbach , Ensen - Westhoven , Herkenrath , Cologne-Flittard , Cologne-Rath , Kürten , Marialinden , Rösrath , Sinzig - Löhndorf , Wahlscheid , Windhagen-Stockhausen , Zündorf .
Another spelling in literature for the Schürcher is Schürger, since the Bergisch Platt is a spoken language.
literature
- Georg Geist: Rösrath and his high-spirited Schörreskaar-Jonge - How an idea can become a popular tradition in our time , in: Rheinisch-Bergischer Calendar 2000, Heimatjahrbuch für das Bergisches Land, 70th year, Bergisch Gladbach 1999, pages 268-272, ISBN 3-87314-344-5