LL-L 'Traditions' 2006.12.11 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L * 11 December 2006 * Volume 03
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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Traditions' 2006.12.09 (01) [E]

Beste Sandy,

you wrote:

> It's usual to discuss traditional festivities on the List around this time
of the year, but I thought this time I'd say a few words about our modern
ways of
> celebrating in the UK.
> ...

Very interesting people, these Brit's ;-)! The only advantage we (still??)
have in Germany is the lack of  fireworks on Halloween-day.
(BTW: I miss your and your fellow-people's postings in Scots...)

Allerbest Kumpelmenten

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L 'Traditions' 2006.12.09 (01) [E]

Beste Ron,

you wrote:

> My mother, who was quite superstitious, often exclaimed "Beschrei das
> nicht!"

Your mother must have been the Eastern member of your family! The expression
is very common for me because my grandma from East Prussia always liked to
use it. I've never heard it elsewhere since her dead in the seventies...

BTW: she also was very superstitious, and I find the same still today with
my relatives from the Lunenburg-area.
Very different here, in the marshlands. People here always had to calculate
the rules of the sea, e.g. the tides, the height of spring tide, with and
without the wind coming from a certain direction etc. They always knew: if
you don't build the dikes highly enough no ghost or God would save you from
being drowned! Additional the open artificial landscape doesn't give much
chances for 'trolls' and other mysterious creatures to hide themselves..

For the same reasons people here never have been very religious; their fight
against all types of constrained christianity, always hand in hand with
nobility and authority endured till the 19th century and still results in a
distinctive free thinking.

Greutens/Regards

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Traditions

Jonny,

All my ancestors are from the east.

Both of my parents were first-generation born "Hamburgers." My paternal
grandfather was born in Holstein (Segeberg) but was conceived in Eastern
Prussia, now a part that belongs to Kaliningrad, Russia (and his mother took
the identity of his father into her grave ...). He grew up in rural Holstein
culture but must have been partly influenced by his mother.  My paternal
grandmother was born and raised in the Polish part of Eastern Prussia, right
on what is now the border between Poland and Russia.  My maternal
grandfather was born and raised just about on the border between Mecklenburg
and Western Pomerania, not far from the Isle of Rugia (Rügen). They all grew
up speaking Low Saxon.

My maternal grandmother is the only exception; she was a speaker of Lower
Silesian German and was at least partly of Sorbian (Lusatian Slavic)
descent, though most of her area had lost the ancestral language. She never
even learned to understand Low Saxon after decades in the Northwest.  I
believe it was from this grandmother that superstitions mostly derived.  She
told me lots of stories that were clearly based on old Slavonic folklore,
and her Christianity, which she followed even more devoutly after her
husband and only son were killed, was interwoven with folkloristic detail
that was foreign in our area.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron
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