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L O W L A N D S - L - 02 January 2011 - Volume 04<br>
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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From:
<span class="gd"><span style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc.</span></span><span class="gi"> </span><span class="go"><<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</a>></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject:
<span class="gi">LL-L "Tradition" 2011.01.02 (02) [EN-NL]</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="gi"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">> From: Marcus
Buck <<a href="mailto:list@marcusbuck.org" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy;">list@marcusbuck.org</span></a>></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">> Subject:
LL-L "Tradition" 2010.12.31 (03) [EN-NL]</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">.........</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">> Interesting. I guess this tradition is related to the
tradition of <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faslam" target="_blank"><span style="color: navy;">Faslam</span></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;">. "Faslam" is a highly compacted Low German word form
originating from "Fastelavend". It originally meant the day of Shrove
Tuesday, but in its rural Northern German context there was much contamination
with other festivities and the date is different in each village. It ranges
between January 1 and the actual Shrove Tuesday. My personal impression is that
"Faslam" has nothing to do with Carnival or Lent. I am not aware of
any aspects of Faslam that make any connections to christianity. Just the name
was borrowed from an event of the liturgical year.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><br>
> I'll try to give a short description of the basics of Faslam. Faslam is
different in every single village, but the main course is this: the
participants (usually the young people of the village, in earlier times the
main participants were the "Knechten" [farm hands]) walk from house
to house, singing songs and making noise, often in costume, and collecting
food. They collect bacon and sausages on birches or on pitchforks, eggs in a
basket, and Korn (sort of hard liquor) in their stomachs. After that they visit
the local inn, have a dance, consume the collected food and even more Korn and
beer.<br>
> In modern times this tradition is restricted to northeastern Lower Saxony and northern Saxony-Anhalt. But in earlier
times it was also known in many other regions of northern Germany. Would
be interesting to hear whether Faslam or something similar to Faslam was known
in the Dutch regions too.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I see here that, depending
on village etc. there is some variation of focus and also some repetition. </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">I see several moments of <strong>beggarrish singing</strong>, as it was in the
fifties (even often more by adults than by children at that time):</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- <strong>New Year</strong>: with a strong focus on gin
for elder people indeed.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- <strong>Epiphany</strong> (Driekoningen): with focus
on bacon on the birch (people disguised as kings)</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- <strong>Carnaval Tuesday</strong> (with carnaval
disguise)</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">- <strong>Eastern</strong>: with focus on boiled eggs
(preferrably painted brown by boiling with onion skins, except for some
figures in white, drafted with wax on the shell of the egg before boiling). The
onion skins also gave a special taste to the hard boiled eggs. It was standard
to give a pair of eggs.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">However there were some
regional differences. In the Antwerp Kempen area New Year singing was most
popular. In my Limburgish village Epiphany singing had a stronger focus.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">New is over here
(Steenokkerzeel) a tendency for kids to repeat the carnaval thing also at <strong>Halloween</strong>.</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Regards,</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal">Roger</p>
<p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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