The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1928-06-15

/ are carried by boat In summer are
loaded on sleds.
Eels and cucumbers.
Eels, cucumbers and cherry pies as
big as prayer-rugs figure in all feasts
in these Spreewald Swamps.
The Spreewald eel, slim and slip
perry, smoked or stewed, is enshrined
in the songs and traditions of this
singular community. A Spreewald
swamp home without its eel traps
would be like a chicken farm without
chicken coops. Whether you like
stewed eel or not, you can't sit down
in tiny Spreewald restaurant with
out buying one; it simply isn't done!
And the cells, gastronomically, are
mated for life with the cucumbers!
These giant cucumbers, deadly
green in shade and wickedly curved
like scimitars, threaten you at every
turn. Cucumbers in heaps on the
river banks; punts piled high with Gu
cumbers being poled to market at
Burg or Cottbus; men, women and
children plucking, peeling, packing or
eating .cucumbers, or asleep on piles
Of them, are always in the summer
picture. You wonder the whole world
could consume such uncounted tons
and not succumb to international in
digestion.
Even the huge cherry pies, delicious
as they are, fairly overwhelm you by
their stupendOus size. Throughout the
region big, broad-mouthed clay ovens,
built apart from the houses, are busy
baking these pies, and as you glide
along the canals on a still day the
forest air is laden with their appe-
tizing odOr.
BuXOm Wendish maidens, swamp
angels in knee skirts and bare legs,
push and pull the pies about in the
ovens with ten-fOOt poles, rausing
now and then to recrack some old
bucolic joke with a nearby Spreewald
swain busy slicing cucumbers or skin
ming an eel.
Tourists by thousands from nearby
cities flock to this quaint nook of Eu-
rope in summer; and then the Wend
cashes in his cucumbers, his cells and
cherry pies, reaps a rich harvest from
his oddly carved wooden geese and
dolls, and takes toll for polling lovers
and sightseers up and down the laby-
rinth of water lands dividing the
Spreewald into thousand charming
green isles. Here, too, all kinds of So
cieties and bunds come for their out
ings, many, walking clubs of school
boys and girls coming from as far
away as Berlin and Leipzig.
Superstition Still Rife.
Slaves still to some ancient super
stitions, the Wends carve crude wood
en- figures of beasts, birds and fishes
and mount them on the gables of their
humble huts. These images, they say,
keep off evil spirits and disease and
bring good luck.
Some of these old Wendish super
stitions, dating back maybe 1900
years, find their cOunterparts today in
many rural American communities.
For example, the Wends say that a
growing hen must be killed or she will
bring bad luck. Another Wendish be-
lief common among other races is that
when a man dies window should be
opened, so that his soul may take its
flight.
If it thunders during a Spreewald
wedding every one is very unhappy,
for this is bad omen.
Make a wish when you see shoot
ing star and the wish will come true.
During certain dances held in the
spring the farmers jump into the air,
believing that the higher they jump
on this occasion the higher their flax
will grow.
Stewed mice will cure an alcoholic
appetite, and plague of rats is
sure sign of divine displeasure.
The dried heart of bat killed on
Christmas Eve, if carried in the
pocket, will bring luck at cards.
The rattle of storks' bills comes to
your ears as you approach a Spree
valid village-an odd sound, like that
made by boy scraping a stick over
a picket fence. When these long
legged birds nest on the roofs of
houses they are supposed to bring
good luck. Lightning will never strike
a house while a stork is roosting on
it, the Wends declare. Likewise, if a
young stork falls from the nest, it is
bad omen.
Should an old stork quit her nest,
the people living in the house below
should also move out at once or take
the consequences. The Wends say
that at Creation the birds of the
world chose the stOrk as king, and
that it thinks and could converse with
men If only its tongue were longer.