LL-L "Folklore" 2002.08.20 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 20.AUG.2002 (08) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: <burgdal32 at mac.com>
Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2002.08.19 (05) [E/LS]

> From: globalmoose at t-online.de (Global Moose Translations)
> Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2002.08.19 (02) [E]
>
> The Dutch Sinterklaas is traditionally accompanied by "Zwarte Piet",
> i.e.
> Black Peter. They arrive together on a steamboat from Spain every year,
> an
> event which is always covered on Dutch television.
>
> Greetings,
> Gabriele Kahn

Hi
 "Zwarte Piet" is not just accompaning Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas has
power
over him . Piet is his slave! (the new religion over the old religion)
It is
therefore he is black also, and that has nothing to do with the colour
of
his skin. It's a symbol.On old printings you can see Zwarte Piet with a
chain on his foot.And if you do not obey to the new rules (from
Sinterklaas)
you will end like Piet, captured in the darkness (of the sack!)
We know also a "Pietje Pek", an old name for the devil.

Groetjes
Luc Vanbrabant
Oekene

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From: RBlaustein at aol.com
Subject: LL-L "Folklore" 2002.08.19 (01) [E]

From: Richard Blaustein
Subject: Folklore
Date: 20 August 2002

Dear Lowlanders, I've been reading the discussion of bogeymen who carry
off
ill-behaved children with great interest and enjoyment. In the
mid-1970s, my
friend Carolyn Novak and I videotaped an interview with the late Harvey
Miller of the Pigeon's Roost community in Relief, Mitchell County, North
Carolina. Harvey was an Appalachian mountain farmer who also wrote a
column
for several regional newspapers in East Tennessee and Western North
Carolina
called News From Pigeon Roost. In our interview with him, Harvey Miller
recalled that one time when he was about five or six years old, he
started
fussing and crying at bedtime.Suddenly Harvey heard a sharp rapping
noise.
"What was that, Daddy?"  His father told Harvey, "That's the Pelznickl
knocking on the door with his stick and  If you don't settle down,
Harvey,
that old Pelznickl will carry away in his bag!" This prompted Harvey to
quiet
down and go to sleep.

I had never encountered the term Pelznickl before but knew that it had
to be
German.
Checking a German  dictionary, I connected "pelz" (fur, furry") with
"nickl"
(little devil or demon). A folklorist friend at the Library of Congress
Folklife Center, Carl Fleischhauer, was able to send me a map provided
by his
father in Germany indicating the various regional names by which Saint
Nicholas' companion Knecht Ruprecht is called in various
regions of Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Accrding to this
map,
the term Pelznickl appears mainly in Westphalia, the ancestral home of
many
of the Germans
who settled in Pennsylvania and then migrated south, like Harvey
Miller's
forebears.
In Pennsylvania and West Virginia, folklorists have documented a custom
of
Christmas
mumming called Belsnickling. Re: the etymology of "bogeyman," I recall
that
another
German regional name for Knecht Ruprecht is "Pelzbock." I am familiar
with
Sinterklaas and Zwaarte Piet, but now I would like to learn more the
various
other names given to this bogey character in Lowland languages and if it
carries off wicked children in its bag, like Jennie o' the Lang Pock.
Yours
truly, Richard Blaustein

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

Richard,

What you wrote is interesting in that (1) this _Nickl_ (assumedly
diminutive of _Nick_) reminds one of the nickname (no pun intended) "Old
Nick" for the devil, and it reminds one also of (2) surviving
pre-Christian rituals, such as carnaval, Christmas and New Year's
celebrations in Alemannic-speaking areas (Southwestern Germany, Northern
Switzerland and Eastern Austria) and, I believe, also in Southeastern
Germany, Southern Poland and Moravia, involving exhorcism of evil
spirits represented by folks wearing scary masks and dressed up in
furry, shaggy, bear-like costumes and making a lot of noise with bells,
rattles and the like.

Cheers!
Reinhard/Ron

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