Schwendtag

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According to popular belief, a Schwendtag (Bavarian; also: discarded day , unlucky day , Alsatian Nöttelestag ) is a day on which nothing new (e.g. vacation, travel, work, surgery, marriage, engagement, business deals) should be started. According to popular belief, something old can be removed on these days (e.g. mucking out, weeding, cleaning). While certain activities should be avoided on the wastage days , the lost days recommend certain work or point out upcoming events (e.g. weather change).

Already in ancient Rome unlucky days were named in the calendar as dies atri (sing. Dies ater "black day").

In the Middle Ages, on "discarded days" (also called critical days , Latin dies incerti and dies critici ), which emerged from the Hippocratic concept of the crisis of the course of illness and were later considered ominous, medical measures such as bloodletting or other forms of therapy were sometimes referred to (according to Assessment by bathers or astrology physicians ) waived as a precaution.

Word origin

The Bavarian term Schwendtag derives from mhd. Swende , ahd. Swendi “destruction, banishment” (modern still Schwende “land gained through clearing”), to the verb dwindle (mhd. Swinden , ahd. Swintan “lose weight, wither, pass away”) ). In Sundgau, Schwendtage were called Nöttelestage

Calendar assignment

There are e.g. T. significantly different calendar listings of unfortunate days.

Kuhn and Schwartz (1848) cite a “manuscript from Stendal ” which is known as “unhappy days”: January 1st, 3rd, 6th, 17th, 18th; February 8, 16, 17; March 1st, 12th, 13th, 15th; April 3rd, 15th, 17th, 18th; May 8, 10, 17, 30; June 1st and 7th; July 1st, 5th, 6th; August 1st, 3rd, 18th, 20th; September 15, 18, 30; October 15th and 17th; November 11th and 17th; December 1st, 7th, 11th; of which are mentioned as particularly unfortunate: March 13th, April 1st, August 1st and 18th, September 1st, 3rd and 30th, and December 1st ( sic , April 1st, September 1st and 3rd missing in the first list). The first of April is called the unlucky day because it was the birthday of Judas. On August 1st, according to the church, Lucifer is said to have been banished from paradise to hell. In addition, December 1st is dated as a black day, since Sodom and Gomorrah went under on that day.

See also

swell

  1. ↑ What are Schwendtage? Retrieved April 10, 2017 .
  2. ^ Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke : Critical days. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 809.
  3. ↑ In Swiss terms , Schwändtag only has the meaning “Day for common compulsory labor to clean up the Alps, common land of scrub, stones, etc.” Schweizerisches Idiotikon 12.1036 .
  4. ^ Karl Simrock, Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie , 1864, p. 590 ; Switzerland. gnötelig “needy” ( Switzerland. Idiotikon 4.864).
  5. ↑ Adalbert Kuhn and Wilhelm Schwartz, Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche (1848), p. 460. “Whichever child is born on these days seldom lives long, and when it starts it remains poor and miserable. No marriage is good these days either; whoever travels in it will certainly come home unhealthy. Of them, the five most unfortunate ones are where not to travel: March 13th, August 18th, September 1st, 30th. There are still three days to be noted, which are unhappy, and whoever leaves blood in them will certainly die in 7 or 8 days: April 1st, when Judas the traitor was born, August 1st, when the devil was cast from heaven, December 1st, when Sodom and Gomorrah were corrupted from heaven with fire and brimstone. Who is born on these days, dies a bad death and hardly escapes the world's disgrace, and rarely grows old. "