Walpurgis Night

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Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht, Germany)

***** Location: Germany, Brocken Mountain
***** Season: Late Spring, May 1
***** Category: Observance

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Explanation

Brocken Mountain

May 1 marks the final victory of Spring over Winter, but before departing, the witches and their cohorts have one last fling. The night from April 30 to May 1 is called "Walpurgisnacht", the night of Walpurgis or Walpurga. The festival is marked by numerous rituals to ward off evil. Legend has it that on Walpurgisnacht the witches would gather on the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains. Because of the Walpurgisnacht scene in Goethe's Faust, in which Mephistopheles takes Faust to the Brocken and has him revel with the witches, the witches gathering became widely known.

The festival is marked by numerous rituals to ward off evil. On the eve of May 1st the bells toll in Luxembourg and many prayers are said, there are blessings with holy-water and blessed-palms in the homes and barns. In Schmalkalden in Thueringen the little girls, dressed as Hexen themselves, chase out the Walpermännchen. They wear paper hats and sometimes carry sticks in their hands. Similarly, in the south Harz region, the young boys ride stick-horses and chase the Hexen out of the fields. The most widespread remedy against evil spirits during Walpurgisnacht is noise. The boys begin making noise as soon as the sun sets.

In Bohemia boards are beaten onto the ground in front of the houses, accompanied by this chant: "Hex geh raus, 's brennt dei Haus." Whoever hears a pistol shot on that evening is supposed to say, "Schiess mei Hex a mit!" In Lippe the noise is referred to as "Maiklappen." A lot of noise is especially made in front of the houses of married couples who are childless, because it is believed that it is necessary to "further the blessings."

In the Berner Jura the shephard boys, on the eve of May 1, stand atop the manure-piles and crack whips in order to drive away wolves. The wolf is the incarnation of evil, and symbolizes the departure of winter. The manure-pile symbolizes fertility of the fields and gardens, and therefore is often the locale where prayers are said. Farmers who don't have as many cattle help each other out in the summer. They make a pledge-group, which takes this form in Donaueschingen: they go to a nearby chapel and pray, then they climb together onto a manure-pile, hold hands, and say "Mir (=wir) gmaren miteinand," which means "we are helping each other to bring home hay and grain with our cattle." [i.e. they are sharing each other's manure-piles, which is sprayed onto the fields as fertilizer].
http://www.serve.com/shea/germusa/walpurgi.htm

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The name derives from St. Walburga
Born in Devonshire, about 710; died at Heidenheim, 25 Feb., 777. She is the patroness of Eichstadt, Oudenarde, Furnes, Antwerp, Gronigen, Weilburg, and Zutphen, and is invoked as special patroness against hydrophobia, and in storms, and also by sailors. She was the daughter of St. Richard, one of the under-kings of the West Saxons, and of Winna, sister of St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany, and had two brothers, St. Willibald and St. Winibald. St. Richard, when starting with his two sons on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, entrusted Walburga, then eleven years old, to the abbess of Wimborne.

Read more about her here:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15526b.htm


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Link in German, with more LINKS to related pages.
http://www.harzlife.de/index.html?event/walpurgis.html

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Der Brocken ist ein sagenumwobener Berg. Auf ihm sollen sich seit alters her die Hexen treffen, um in der Walpurgisnacht mit dem Teufel zu tanzen. Aber erst gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts wurden hier die ersten Hexenfeste abgehalten.


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Worldwide use

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Things found on the way

The full text in German of Goethe’s famous poem:
http://www.internetschriftsteller.de/autoren-forum-02/schriftsteller/goethe/walpurgisnacht.html


Myths about the Walpurgis Night (German)
Quote:
Die Skepsis gegenüber der Walpurgisnacht-These änderte sich erst ab dem Jahre 1800, als Johann Wolfgang von Goethe den ersten Teil seines „Faust“ veröffentlichte. Goethes Schilderung des Hexensabbat in der Walpurgisnacht basierte auf dem Buch von Praetorius, dessen Eingrenzung der angeblichen Hexentänze auf die Nacht zum 1. Mai durch die Aufnahme in das deutsche Nationalepos nunmehr sakrosankt wurde.

Die Hexen zu dem Brocken ziehn,
Die Stoppel ist gelb, die Saat ist grün.
Dort sammelt sich der große Hauf,
Herr Urian sitzt oben auf.
So geht es über Stein und Stock,
Es farzt die Hexe, es stinkt der Bock.

Goethe
http://members.aol.com/tombeee/hexverf/walpurgis.html

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Brocken Phenomenon, Brocken spectre
ブロッケン現象, burokken genshoo
topic for haiku



A glory is an optical phenomenon produced by light backscattered (a combination of diffraction, reflection and refraction) towards its source by a cloud of uniformly-sized water droplets. A glory has multiple colored rings.

Glories are often seen in association with a Brocken spectre, the apparently enormously magnified shadow of an observer cast, when the Sun is low, upon the upper surfaces of clouds that are below the mountain upon which he stands. The name derives from the Brocken, the tallest peak of the Harz mountain range in Germany. Because the peak is above the cloud level, and the area is frequently misty, the condition of a shadow cast onto a cloud layer is relatively favored.

The appearance of giant shadows that seemed to move by themselves due to the movement of the cloud layer (this movement is another part of the definition of the Brocken Spectre), and which were surrounded by optical glory halos, may have contributed to the reputation the Harz mountains hold as a refuge for witches and evil spirits. In Goethe's Faust, the Brocken is called the Blocksberg and is the site of the Witches' Sabbath on Walpurgis Night.

© More in the WIKIPEDIA !



Basho and go-raikoo 来光, ブロッケン現象


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HAIKU

durch den Wald
ein Weg ohne Ende –
Walpurgisnacht !

through the forest
a walk without end -
Walpurgis Night !

Gabi Greve
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/message/187

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Walpurgisnacht

Liebesgeschwuere.
Techtelmechtel ausfechtend
fuehlt fuer mich der Tod.

Swearing sveltering love.
Fighting back and forth
Feels like death for me.

(Tr. Gabi Greve)

Patjomkin
http://www.dulzinea.de/forum/haiku-fruehling-winter/t1902-walpurgisnacht-mai.html

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Walpurgisnacht laesst
wild im Licht des Feuerscheins
die Hexen tanzen.

Walpurgis night -
In the light of a bonfire
Witches dancing wildly

(Tr. Gabi Greve)

Medusa
http://www.dulzinea.de/forum/haiku-lichtungen/t3517-walpurgisnacht.html

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Related words

***** Walpurgis Fire, Walpurgis Bonfire
During the whole night, people are dancing around the bonfire, celebrating with the witches !

Walpurgisfeuer.
Um die lodernden Flammen
tanzen Technofreaks.

Walpurgis bonfire.
Around the blazing flames
Techno-freaks dancing.

Udo Wenzel
http://www.haiku-heute.de/Tafel/Tafel-002/tafel-002.html


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WKD : May Day in England

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