This post is an autumn spell!
Autumn has for very long been my favourite season. I have always loved the rain, the storms and the colorful landscapes! The days are not too short yet, there is still a good chance to catch enough sunlight to have the energy to do things.
Still, this year I have enjoyed autumn the least. I have not really gotten into the mood for it, although my heart truly misses it. When I get home from work in the dark, I am bothered by the lack of light, and the currently too warm temperatures climate change brought upon us also feel anti atmospheric.
So, to maybe get into the right mood before the dark winter months swallow up all the colours in this world, I want to take a look at my favourite autumn traditions!
Erntedankfest
Yes, that was a long and German word. It basically means harvest-thanking-celebration.
Here in Germany, it is not a big holiday. No family meetings, no big feast, or whatever. The only times I ever truly noticed it was when I was a child. A Sunday in late September or early October (depending on if you live in a more protestant or catholic region), it signals the beginning of the harvest. When I was a child, this meant that my grandmother would cook a lot with the ingredients from her garden. We would eat potato soup and apple deserts for quite a while after this! I still picture her in self knitted clothes collecting apples, potatoes, carrots and all kinds of other things from her little fields.
Note to myself: Take more care of the garden next year, to enjoy the harvest once more!
Laternelaufen!
Another long and german word! This mean lantern walking or walking with a lantern.
This tradition also is one of my oldest autumn memories. As soon as the cold and rainy season starts, there are lantern walkings in the early evening hours organized everywhere. Each autumn, we went to several of those. Since it includes a lot of singing and playing music, we sometimes even went spontaneously, when we heard one nearby.
This tradition comes in different versions as well. In the north of Germany, where I grew up, people are traditionally protestant, and therefore use the tradition of lantern walks just as I described it. I have to add that it usually ends with fireworks all the participants watch together.
In traditionally catholic areas (like the far west of Germany, where I live now), this autumn celebration is always dated at the 10th or 11th of November and is in memory of St. Martin. Legend describes him as a roman soldier who in a cold winter night cut his coat in half and gave one half away to a freezing homeless person (who then apparently turned out to be Jesus in disguise, but I don’t want to get into this stuff now). This also changes the tradition a bit, because the lantern walks usually end with a bonfire and a barbecue. I have never celebrated it like that, but it sounds so cozy! And I have recently had one of those St.-Martin-lantern works in front of my window. Including a real horse, what actually startled me a bit.
It is also interesting to add that the core of these traditions of course came from pre-christian, pagan times. The harvest of the German pagans was meant to chase evil ghosts away, so bonfires were lit, and used to inflame torches to light up the night and sing and scare all kind of evil away, and I like that thought a lot!
Note to myself: Celebrate next autumn with a self-made lantern to use only when darkness needs to really badly be chased away.
Sadly, in the last years my own autumn tradition has included nothing of the above, and I am gonna change that. But for me, autumn meant visiting my favourite medieval town in this area, Monschau. It is an hour long ride by car that leads so wildly through the mountains that I battle motion sickness a lot each time, but it is always worth it. The hills around look dramatic in autumn colours. They let the little witching houses and the castle ruins around look so much more dramatic.
A trip to Monschau also means buying Printen (basically a better tasting gingerbread version from this region), and eating any dish with the other regional specialty – apparently very unique tasting mustard.
I already had this autumn trip this year, as I also did in the past few years, and it was one of those few moments in which autumn really got me.
Just as my witch has told me – traditions and rituals can really sooth a soul.
https://wol.jw.org/de/wol/d/r10/lp-x/101974820
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