Sunbird hunting
The sun bird hunting , also called sun bird expulsion is a custom to the Chair of Peter celebration , which especially in Westphalia and especially in the Sauerland was widespread. There are different explanations for the custom. It is often associated with the beginning of spring or the displacement of vermin.
Custom
The custom was practiced on February 22nd, the ecclesiastical feast day Kathedra Petri (popularly Petri chair celebration). This day is considered the beginning of spring, in the servants and daily wage regulations of the Duchy of Westphalia from 1423 it is set as the end of the winter and the beginning of the summer half-year: “… and de Somer sal an gan, an sunte peters daghe, as he to rome up den stol quam ”(and summer is supposed to begin on Saint Peter's day when he came to the chair in Rome).
There are different variants of the custom. Usually children or just boys go from house to house, knock on doors, posts or thresholds with a mallet and sing a song or say a saying. Often gifts are also collected . In Eversberg people went around the house three times. In the area around Warendorf and Beckum , residents walked through their house and knocked on all doors. The landlord also knocked on the corner posts of the houses and stables with a cross hammer. Anton Praetorius wrote around 1600 that a friend would run to the other before sunrise and knock on the door with an ax. Pig herders are said to have practiced the custom in Goldbeck im Lippeschen . It is often stated that the sun bird was driven out in the morning, in Hagen people moved around again in the evening. Johann Suibert Seibertz reported that around 1800 every schoolchild in Brilon carried a sun bird made of paper on a long pole and, at the end of the festivities, placed it at the feet of the statue of St. Peters as a sign of victory for spring.
Most of the evidence for the custom can be found in Westphalian, but it was also known beyond. After Friedrich Woeste it reached in the south as far as the Lenne , but this can only affect its upper reaches, because it was also known in Helden and in the Oberbergischen . A children's move to the sunbird hunt in 1330 is documented for the first time; in Westphalia the custom has been handed down since the 15th century. Around 1600 Anton Praetorius described him in his report "von Zauberey und Zauberern" for the Münster monastery . The custom was banned in Soest in 1635 and in Grafschaft Mark in 1669 because it was considered superstitious and pagan. In the 20th century it was only rarely cared for, for example the last time in Hagen around 1870 and in Allendorf until around 1910. But there are also places where children still hunt the sunbird today.
text
There are different texts that were sung or recited when hunting the sunbird. The following text is given in the Low German dictionary:
Riut, riut, Sunnenviuel!
Sense Päiter is all do.
Sense Tigges follow nō,
is for all Düören do.
Kläine Mius, gräote Mius,
all ineffectual iutem Hius.
Iut boxes and boxes,
iut all swamps,
iut cellars and muds,
iut bottles and shears.
In the stinking pits dō sat inside rot!
Bit gint Jōr um düese Teyt,
do kummet vey un caterpillar dey.
Out, out, butterfly!
Saint Peter is already there.
Saint Matthias (February 24th) follows,
is at all doors.
Little mouse and big mouse,
all vermin should get out of the house.
From boxes and boxes,
from all corners,
from cellars and walls,
from sheds and barns.
You shall rot in the stone hollow!
See you
at the same time next year,
then we'll come and call you.
Anton Praetorius gave the following text for the Münster monastery around 1600:
Herut, herut, Süllevugel,
Sünt Peters Stohlfier is nu kuemen,
Pass up dien Hus and Hof and Stall,
Heischoppen, Schür and anneres all
Until van Dage üöwert Johr,
Dat di kien Schade happened!
Explanations
The name "Sonnenvogel" occurs in many variants: Sonnenvogel, Sommervogel, Süntevogel, Sünteworm or Söllvogel, plus regionally different pronunciations of the sounds. Because of these many variants, it is difficult to reliably deduce the origin.
Folk tradition gives two explanations for the custom: driving out winter and waking up spring, and driving away vermin. In the Sauerland plateau, sun bird generally refers to a butterfly, regionally also specifically a yellow or white butterfly or even a ladybug. It is seen as a sign of the beginning of spring. The sun bird is also interpreted as a lark or stands for a paper kite. The Brothers Grimm suspected that the sun bird was a symbol of the sun. The word Söll is derived from a Nordic word sol for sun, but is also interpreted as a threshold (Süll = threshold). Woeste explained the reinterpretation with the fact that the population no longer knew the original meaning, and saw in it the origin of the change from a spring custom to incantations against vermin, under the threshold or in woodwork in general. Süntevogel is possibly a distortion from Sonnenvogel by the related "Sünte Peter" and "Sünte Tigges". Woeste once associated it with the Nordic "sut fugla", mourning of the birds, a paraphrase for winter, then he explained it with a meaning "aisig" (gruesome, horrible) of the word "sünte", including the Form Sünteworm fits.
In addition to driving away winter, the custom is intended to drive vermin such as toads, snakes and newts out of the house, or to prevent cattle diseases. By driving out the Sünteworm, timber is to be protected from the woodworm.
The origins of the custom were also sought among the Germans . Woeste saw in the butterflies symbols of " Frô ", who as the sun god also presided over peace and fertility. These butterflies should be chased out of their hiding places. Others saw attributes of Donar in the sunbirds and the hammer and interpreted the laying down of the sunbird as a "homage to St. Peter, who in Christianity defeated the peasant god of the heathen and took over his legacy as a weather maker."
literature
- Hubertus Schmalor: Traditional songs of the annual circle in the Sauerland (= daunlots. Internet contributions from the christine-koch-dialect archive at the eslohe machine and home museum . No. 30 ). Eslohe 2011 ( sauerlandmundart.de [PDF; 2.8 MB ; accessed on April 22, 2012]).
- Adalbert Kuhn : Legends, customs and fairy tales from Westphalia and some others, especially the neighboring areas of northern Germany . tape 2 . Leipzig 1859, p. 119–123 ( zeno.org [accessed April 22, 2012]).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from: Johann Suibert Seibertz: Landes- und Rechtsgeschichte des Herzogthums Westfalen. 3rd volume, Arnsberg 1854, p. 44.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Kuhn (see literature)
- ↑ a b c d e f Julius Mette: De Sommer sall angahn to Sünte Petersdage. In De Suerländer 1960. p. 93f ( PDF, 9.2 MB ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and remove then this note. ).
- ↑ Montanus (Vincenz Jacob von Zuccalmaglio) : The German folk festivals, folk customs and German folk beliefs. P. 22.
- ↑ a b c d e Schmalor (see literature)
- ↑ A forgotten custom: The hunt for the sun bird. Sauerlandkurier from February 20, 2008. ( online ( memento of the original from December 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. )
- ↑ a b c d e Friedrich Woeste : About an electoral decree of 1699 to eradicate superstition in the Graffschaft Mark. In: Journal of the Bergisches Geschichtsverein. 11th volume. Bonn 1876. pp. 81-82 and 85-87 ( PDF, 8.3 MB ).
- ↑ Michael Senger: Customs throughout the year. In: Heimat- und Geschichtsverein der kath. Kirchrarbach parish (ed.): Deeply rooted - widely branched . Life in the Henne and Rarbach valleys. Kirchrarbach 2012, ISBN 978-3-930264-96-4 , p. 558-559 . (for further examples see web links)
- ↑ a b c Reinhard Pilkmann-Pohl: Low German dictionary of the Kurkölnischen Sauerland . Strobel-Verlag, Arnsberg 1988, ISBN 3-87793-024-7 ( sauerlaender-heimatbund.de [PDF; 8.0 MB ; accessed on April 22, 2012]).
- ↑ a b c d e f Friedrich Woeste : Dictionary of the Westphalian dialect. Norden and Leipzig 1882, pp. 248, 263 ( online ).
- ^ Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm : German Dictionary . Leipzig 1851, vol. 16, col. 1693.
- ^ Friedrich Woeste : Folk traditions in the Graffschaft Mark. Iserlohn 1848, p. 24. ( Google Books ).
