Spokenkieker
Spökenkieker is a Low German expression for people who are given the gift of the second face , especially the prediction of deaths. Spökenkieker should preferably be found in Westphalia and Friesland .
The Low German term Spökenkieker can be translated into High German as something like "Spuk-Gucker" or "Geister-Seer". Spökenkiekern is said to have the ability to look into the future . The prediction of scary and frightening things such as serious illness , death or war is typical of the whimsy .
“Do you know the pale
ones in the heathland, with blond, flaky hair?
With eyes as clear as on the edge of the pond.
Ride the lightning of the wave?
Oh, say a prayer, fervently genuine,
for the seers of the night, the tormented sex. "
“With a stick in hand, his right hand raised to his broad-brimmed hat, he looks into the distance as if he suspects what is coming. `Spökenkieker´ - that's what people with the` `second face '' were called. It was mainly shepherds who had the so-called 'previous faces' and instilled respect in people. What the Spökenkieker saw for the future was generally not good: They heralded death, ruin and wars. The Westphalian literature contains a wealth of stories and reports about them. "
Spookery
Walter Vogt writes that the forecaster can foresee funeral trains, weddings, army columns and conflagrations. Events sometimes don't happen until years later. Spökenkieker can be recognized by light blonde hair, the ghostly look of the water-blue eyes and a pale or overly delicate complexion. In the past it was mainly shepherds who were “intimately familiar” with the secrets of nature. There is also a “second sight” in Scotland, but above all “the second sight” can be found in the Sauerland and Münsterland. He states that 80% visual, 15% acoustic and only 5% other sensations are involved in the previous faces.
Attempts to explain
Religion cannot play a role in the occurrence of the second face; it occurs in regions of different religions. Statistically, mockery meets twilight and darkness, areas with little sunshine and “barren soil”.
Gisbert Strotdrees describes the folk prophecies, which, according to him, have only been demonstrable in northwest Germany since the end of the 16th century, as a "form of fantastic narration", combining the styles of fairy tales, sagas and historical reports and making documentary claims; it is "assumed - mostly tacitly - that such a kind of future view is possible".
"This ability is not a gift of God or nature, but a late effect of the ancestral sorcery sins."
Monuments
In the course of maintaining the tradition, a memorial was set for the Spökenkieker in the Münsterland town of Harsewinkel in 1962. Another memorial is located in the Mühlenhof open-air museum in Münster . The bronze sculpture “Spökenkieker” by Rudolf Breilmann , a foundation of the Niederdeutsches Münster Association, reminds us of the people in the Münsterland who were able to “foresee” events. In Friesoythe, a memorial indicates that the town clerk Theodor Caspar Anton Joseph Wreesmann (1855–1941) predicted in 1940 that after the war "one could look at the church from the market square". In Deininghausen , the "old Jasper" was a spookie. “What he foresaw met with uncanny certainty.” In 1830 he predicted the Cologne-Minden Railway, which opened in 1847: “The road will be made of iron, and horse-less wagons will drive on it with a terrible noise.” In Lüdinghausen There is a monument to the Spökenkieker Caspar Winkelsett (1778–1846) at the Borgmühle.
The term Spökenkieker is sometimes used with a slightly mocking appeal in today's parlance for pessimists and non-seekers, even if they lack any talent for predicting future events.
Examples
- The fire of Loburg Castle on July 22, 1899 caused by two lightning strikes is said to have been prophesied by a Spökenkieker in Ostbevern :
“He wanted to have seen the sparks from the lock ignited by the lightning strike far north to a hedge 200 meters high. The man was laughed at. But then everything turned out almost exactly the same. "
- The Spökenkieker von Schwelm: The coffin carpenter Kaspar Hülsenbeck always had a suitable coffin ready, "as if it had been pre-ordered".
“And yet it seemed scary to some over time. Whenever someone came into the workshop, it trickled coolly down his back. But nobody could explain why that was the case. "
Others
- The Westphalian poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff has taken the phenomenon of derisiveness seriously in her literary works.
- The reconnaissance tower A of the German Armed Forces on the Schleswig-Holstein Baltic Sea coast is popularly called Spökenkieker.
- The South Oldenburg dialect poet Jan Willem ( Botterblaumen Boogie , 1979) published a song about the Spökenkieker in 2004.
- A sculpture by Annette Wittkamp-Fröhling in Lüdinghausen shows the Spökenkieker Caspar Winkelset (1778–1846).
- The fifth volume in the Asterix snackt Platt series is entitled De Spökenkieker (2015). It is the Low German transmission of the German version of Der Seher (1975) from the Asterix series.
- Under the name Spökenkieker - newspaper for the northern Emsland and the surrounding area , the association for the promotion of alternatives, social justice and democratic education e. V. , based in Papenburg , published an alternative monthly newspaper from January 1981 to August 1984.
- In Papenburg , the “Papenbörger Hus” association offers a tour through the Von Velen facility under the title Spökenkieker tour with fire and torchlight and a real ghost from October to March.
- The Spökenkieker house on the island of Eiderstedt has been an information center since 2007, providing information about life and work in the nature of Eiderstedt.
literature
- Karl Schmeing: Seer and seer belief, sociology and psychology of the "second face". Darmstadt 1954
- Gisbert Strotdrees: The second face. In: Lena Krull (Hrsg.): Westphalian places of memory. Ferdinand Schöningh. Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-506-78607-4 . - A critical analysis from a historical and folkloric perspective.
- L. Rafael, H. Kiesekamp: The Spökenkieker and other Westphalian stories. Essen (Ruhr) 1909
- Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Pictures from Westphalia. Weltgeist-Bücher 1840, online edition
- Walter Vogt, Die Spökenkierker the tormented sex
- Kurt E. Koch, Obsession and Exorcism, 1981, Bibel and Scripture Mission Schwäbisch Gmünd, pp. 80 ff.
- JDH Temme: A Westphalian peasant wedding. In: Westermanns Monatshefte Volume 4, Braunschweig 1858, p. 248 ff. The "Spökenkieker"
- Jasper - the "Spökenkieker" from Deininghausen. In: City magazine Castrop-Rauxel, issue 108 (5/2016), p. 6.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Definition of the term in the Brockhaus Encyclopedia , Volume 17, Wiesbaden 1973.
- ↑ Meaning of the term In: mundmische.de.
- ↑ Walter Vogt in the journal Wegbegleiter from July 1997, No. 4, Volume II, p. 198 ff.
- ↑ Walter Vogt gives classic examples on the wegbegleiter.ch page.
- ↑ Gisbert Strotdrees: The Second Face . In: Lena Krull (Hrsg.): Westphalian places of memory . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-506-78607-4 , p. 525 , doi : 10.30965 / 9783657786077 .
- ↑ Spökenkieker monument in Harsewinkel
- ↑ In Harsewinkel one thinks of the “Spökenkieker” who lived there under the name “Alter Stümpel” from 1830 to 1904. The real name was Anton Westermann. ( Website about the monument in Harsewinkel )
- ^ Spökenkieker memorial in Friesoythe
- ↑ Jasper, the Spökenkieker von Deininghausen , see literature
- ↑ Spökenkieker monument in Lüdinghausen
- ^ Siegfried Schmieder (ed.): Ostbevern. Contributions to history and culture, history of the Loburg . Warendorf 1988, p. 575.
- ↑ Der Spökenkieker von Schwelm - Sagenhaftes Ruhrgebiet In: legendhaftes-ruhrgebiet.de , accessed on April 11, 2018.
- ^ R. Goscinny, A. Uderzo: De Spökenkieker ; Low German translation of Asterix Volume 19: Der Seher. Egmont Ehapa 2015.
- ^ Spökenkieker tour in Papenburg
- ↑ The Spökenkiekerhaus information center is in Tönning
- ↑ In thirty years of work, Schmeing examined over 100 "Spökenkieker" psychologically in Germany and published his results in 1954 in the book Seher und Seherglaube .