the old-china mania, which i hear is beginning to die out in england, has only lately become epidemic in austria; and as i, like many others, have been slightly touched by this malady, the quaintly decorated pottery wine-jugs still to be found in many saxon peasant houses offered a new and interesting field of research.
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these jugs are by no means so plentiful nor so cheap as they were a few years ago, for cunning bric-à-brac jews have found out this hitherto unknown store of antiquities, and pilger hither from the capital to buy up wholesale whatever they find. yet by a little patience and perseverance any one living in the country may yet find enough old curiosities to satisfy a reasonable mania; and while seeking for these relics i have come across many another remnant of antiquity quite as interesting but of less tangible nature.
saxon peasant at home.
inside a saxon peasant’s house everything is of exemplary neatness and speaks of welfare. the boards are clean scoured, the window-panes shine like crystal. there is no point on which a saxon hausfrau (housewife) is so sensitive as that of order and neatness,{52} and she is visibly put out if surprised by a visit on washing or baking day, when things are not looking quite so trim as usual.
if we happen to come on a week-day we generally find the best room, or prunkzimmer, locked up, with darkened shutters; and only on our request to be shown the embroidered pillow-covers and the best jugs reserved for grand occasions will the hostess half ungraciously proceed to unlock the door and throw open the shutter.
this prunkzimmer takes the place of the state parlor in our scotch farm-houses; but those latter, with their funereal horse-hair furniture and cheerless polished table, would contrast unfavorably beside these quaint, old-fashioned german apartments. here the furniture, consisting of benches, bunkers, bedsteads, chest of drawers, and chairs, are painted in lively colors, often festoons of roses and tulips on a ground of dark blue or green; the patterns, frequently bold and striking, if of a somewhat barbaric style of art, betray the oriental influence of roumanian country artists, of whom they are doubtless borrowed. a similarly painted wooden framework runs round the top of the room, above the doors and windows, with pegs, from which are suspended the jugs i am in search of, and a bar, behind which rows of plates are secured.
on the large unoccupied bedsteads are piled up, sometimes as high as the ceiling, stores of huge, downy pillows, their covers richly embroidered in quaint patterns executed in black, scarlet, or blue and yellow worsted. they are mostly worked in the usual tapestry cross-stitch, and often represent flowers, birds, or animals in the old german style—the name of the embroideress and the date of the work being usually introduced. many of the pieces i saw were very old, and dates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are constantly turning up; but alongside are others of recent date, for the custom of thus employing the long winter evenings is still kept up among the village girls.
i asked some of them whence they took their patterns, whether they had any sampler books or printed designs to copy from. nothing of the sort, i was told; they just copy from one another and from old pieces of work. thus it comes about that many of them to-day go on reproducing some old bird or flower, first introduced by an ancestress of the worker many hundred years ago.
this system of copying is clearly to be traced in the different villages. as each village forms a separate body or community, and{53} intercourse and intermarriage hardly ever take place, these patterns become localized, and one design is apt to run in one particular place to the exclusion of others. thus i remarked one village where flourishes a peculiar breed of square-built peacocks, alternated with preposterous stags in red and blue worsted, but these fabulous animals are rarely wont to stray beyond the confines of their own parish; while in another community there is a strongly marked epidemic of embroidered double-eagles, perhaps explainable by the fact that part of the population is of austrian extraction.
saxon embroidery.
the saxon hausfrau will generally receive us in a surly, mistrustful manner, and the saxon peasant will not dream of rising from his seat when he sees a lady enter the room. if we happen to be tired we had better sit down unbidden, for neither he nor she is likely to offer us a chair.
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our question as to whether they have any jugs or plates is usually met with a sort of ungracious affirmative. “will they sell them?” “not on any account whatsoever! these jugs belonged to some dearly beloved great-grandfather or grandmother, and must be preserved in their memory. not for unheard-of sums of gold could they bear to separate themselves from such a relic,” etc.
these assertions must, however, be taken for what they are worth, and whoever has tried the experiment will have found by experience that it is merely a question of money, and that sometimes an extra bid of ten or twenty kreuzers (twopence or fourpence) will turn the scale, and induce these pious grandchildren to consign to oblivion the memory of the beloved ancestor.
these jugs, which are destined to hold wine (one for each guest) on the occasion of their baptismal, wedding, or funeral banquets, are from nine to eleven inches high, and have a metal lid attached to the handle. every variety of coloring and pattern is to be found among them; sometimes it is an uncouth design of dancing or drunken peasants, sometimes a pair of stags, or a dog in pursuit of a hare, or else a basket filled with fruit, or raised medallions with sprigs of flowers in the centre.
my inquiries were usually met by the suspicious counter-questions, “why do you want to buy our jugs? what are you going to do with them?” and the answer i gave, that i was fond of such old things, and that they would be hung up in my dining-room, was often received with evident disbelief.
these people are not easily induced to talk about themselves, and have little sense of humor or power of repartee. they have an instinctive distrust of whoever tries to draw them out, scenting in each superfluous question a member of a species they abhor—namely, “a chiel among them taking notes;” or, as the saxon puts it, “one of those incomprehensible towns-folk, ever fretting and ferreting after our ways and customs, and who have no sensible reason for doing so either.”
saxon embroidery and pottery.
(this and the illustration on p. 53 are from the collection of saxon antiquities in possession of herr emil sigerus at hermanstadt.)
two analogous incidents which i met with, soon after my arrival in transylvania, seemed to give me the respective clews to saxon and roumanian character. the first was in a saxon peasant’s house, where i had just purchased two jugs and a plate, for which, being still a stranger in those parts, i had paid considerably more than they were worth, when on leaving the house the hostess put a small bunch{57} of flowers into my hand. the nosegay was somewhat tumbled and faded, for this was sunday afternoon, and probably the woman or her daughter had worn these flowers at church earlier in the day. in my ignorance of saxon character i took this offering in the light of a courteous attention, and accepted the bouquet with a word of thanks.
my error did not last long, for as i stepped into the court-yard the wooden, noah’s-ark faced woman hurried after me, and roughly snatching the nosegay out of my hand, she harshly exclaimed,
“i do not give my flowers for nothing! unless you pay me two kreuzers (a halfpenny), i shall keep them for myself!”
very much amused, i paid the required sum, feeling that, in spite of the crushed condition of the flowers, i had got more than a halfpenny’s worth out of my hostess after all.
two or three days later, when out riding, we lost our way in the mazes of the yungwald, the large oak-forest which stretches for miles over the country to the south of hermanstadt. it was near sunset when we found ourselves in a totally strange neighborhood, not knowing which turn to take in order to regain the road back to the town. just then a roumanian peasant woman came in sight. she had on her back a bundle of firewood, which she had probably stolen in the forest, and in her hand she carried a large bunch of purple iris flowers, fresh and dripping from some neighboring marsh.
i suppose that i must have looked longingly at the beautiful purple bunch, for while my husband was asking the way as well as he could by means of a little broken italian, she came round to the side of my horse, and with a pretty gesture held up the flowers for my acceptance. with the saxon lesson fresh in my mind i hesitated to take them, for i had left my purse at home; so i explained to her by pantomime that i had no money about me. she had not been thinking of money, it seems, and energetically disclaimed the offer of payment, continuing her way after a courteous buna sara (good-evening).
since then, in my walks and rides about hermanstadt, i have often been presented with similar offerings from perfectly unknown roumanian peasants, who would sometimes stop their galloping horses and get out of the cart merely for the purpose of giving me a few flowers; but never, never has it been my good-luck to receive the smallest sign of spontaneous courtesy from any saxon, and i grieve to say that frequently my experience has been all the other way.
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one day, for instance, when walking in a hay-field through which ran a rapid mill-stream, i suddenly missed my dog, a lively rat-terrier, which had been running backward and forward in search of field-mice. “brick, brick, brick!” i called in vain over and over again, but brick was nowhere to be seen. only a stifled squealing, apparently proceeding from the mill-stream some way off, met my ear; but i did not immediately think of connecting this sound with my truant terrier. some saxon peasants were at work near the water stowing up hay on to a cart. “have you not seen my dog?” i called out to them.
one of the men now slowly removed his pipe from his mouth. “your dog?” he asked, stolidly. “oh yes; he’s just drowning yonder in the stream.” and he lazily pointed over his shoulder with a pitchfork.
i rushed to the bank, and there sure enough was my poor half-drowned brick struggling to keep himself above water, but almost exhausted already. he had fallen in over the treacherous edge, which was masked by overhanging bushes; and the banks being too steep to effect a landing, he must inevitably have perished had i not come up in time. with considerable difficulty, and at the risk of falling in myself, i managed to drag him out, the worthy saxons meanwhile looking on with indolent enjoyment, never dreaming of offering assistance.
the hard and grasping characters of the saxons appear in every detail of their daily life; they taint their family relations, and would almost seem to put a marketable price on the most sacred affections. thus a saxon mother in her cradle-song informs the sleeping infant that she values it as high as a hundred florins; while the grief over a beloved corpse often takes the form of counting up the exact pecuniary loss to the family sustained from the decease.
their family life does not appear to be happy, and divorces are lamentably numerous. it seems, in fact, as if divorce had grown to be an established habit among these people; and despite all efforts, of the clergy to discourage this abuse, and the difficulties purposely put in the way of divorcing parties, there is little prospect of improvement as yet. no improvement can possibly take place till saxon parents give up forcing their children to wed against their will, merely for mercenary reasons, and till girls are allowed to attain a reasonable age before binding themselves down to a contract of such importance.{59} when want of sympathy towards the proposed husband is urged on the part of the girl, such objections are usually settled by the practical advice of the long-sighted parents. “try him for a time, and maybe you will get to like him; and if not—well, the misfortune is none so great, and you can always seek for a divorce.” brides of fifteen are quite the order of the day, and few are suffered to reach so mature an age as seventeen or eighteen; the consequence of these arrangements being that fully a third of the couples go asunder, each choosing another mate, with whom they usually fare better than with their first venture.
often in the course of my visits to saxon peasant houses have i come across one of these unfortunate young females returned to her parents’ house, sometimes after a few weeks only of matrimony, there to await the divorce which is to set her free to choose again.
the reasons which induce these people to sue for a separation are frequently so exceedingly futile and ridiculous as hardly to deserve that name. often it is the food which is made a cause of complaint—either the husband declaring that his wife will take no trouble to please him with her cookery, or else the wife complaining of his being capricious and hard to please. an underdone potato may prove so very indigestible as to sever the conjugal bond, or an ill-baked loaf of bread assume such dimensions as to constitute a barrier for life.
village pastors whose parishes lie in the wine-bearing districts affirm that the season immediately following upon the vintage, when the cellars are full of new wine, is the most quarrelsome time in the year, and the one which engenders most separations. but even without the aid of stimulants, and when no thought of divorce is in their minds, quarrelsome ménages are numerous; and the old story of the tartar carrying off the shrewish wife of a thoroughly resigned husband may well have had its origin here. this legend, told all over hungary, relates how a peasant, as he calmly watched the retreating figure of the tartar bearing off the wife of his bosom, was heard to murmur, “poor tartar! thou hast made a bad bargain.”
in transylvania this same story is told of a saxon peasant, but with a sequel; for this version relates how the bereaved widower settled himself down to a hearty supper that same evening, ever and anon murmuring, as his eye rested on the empty chair opposite his own, the words, “poor tartar!” for he was a kind-hearted man, and{60} felt compassion even for the sufferings of a barbarian. but of a sudden the door flies open, and the wretched man once more beholds his lost wife standing before him. her temper had proved too much even for a tartar, who had wisely flown, leaving his captive behind.
the words “poor tartar!” now gave place to another form of ejaculation; and whenever he deemed himself out of ear-shot, the saxon muttered bitterly between his teeth “rascally tartar! rascally tartar!”
but for this unfortunate dénouement, who knows whether saxon husbands of to-day might not frequently be moved to regret the good old times when an obliging tartar might be expected thus to relieve them of such superfluous blessings?
the bond between parent and child seems to be hardly more commendable. perhaps my experience has been exceptionally infelicitous, but certainly never in any country has it been my ill-fortune to listen to such shocking and disrespectful language from children to their parents as what i have occasionally overheard in saxon cottages.
the saxon peasant being a declared enemy of large families presents a striking contrast to his roumanian neighbor, with whom six or eight bairns are a very common allowance, and who regards each new addition to the family as another gift of god. the oft-repeated insinuation that the transylvanian saxons seek to limit their progeny by unnatural means does not seem to be entirely without foundation. it is said that to have two children only is considered the correct thing in a saxon household, and that the saxon mother who, when cross-questioned as to her offspring, has to acknowledge three bairns, turns away her head shamefacedly, as though she were confessing a crime.
it is because the saxon does not care to see his fields cut up into small sections that he desires his family to be small; and the consequence of this short-sighted egotism is, that the population of many villages shows a yearly decrease, and that houses often stand empty because there is no one to live there.[7] thus one village near hermanstadt can show twenty-seven, another twelve such deserted dwellings. a man whose whole family consisted of two daughters, both married to peasants with houses of their own, was asked what would{61} become of his fine well-built home after his decease. “it will just stand empty,” was the stolid reply. in some villages these empty saxon houses have been taken possession of by roumanians, who look strangely incongruous within these massive stone walls, reminding one somehow of sparrows which have taken up their residence in a deserted rookery.
saxon political economists, alive to the danger of their race becoming extinct, think of trying to get new batches of german colonists to settle here, in order to freshen up and increase the number of the race; but there is little chance of such projects being successful. the inducements which formerly tempted strangers no longer exist; and there are probably few germans who would think it worth their while to settle in a country where every inch of land has already been appropriated, and where the government seeks to rob each one of his nationality.
the besetting fault of this whole saxon nation seems to be an immoderate spirit of egotism, so short-sighted as frequently to defeat its own end, leading each man to consider only his individual welfare, to the exclusion of every other feeling. it is strange and paradoxical that these honest, moral, thrifty, industrious, and educated saxons should live thus in their well-built, roomy houses in a constant state of inward dissension and strife; while their neighbors, the poor, ignorant, thieving roumanians, crowded together in their wretched hovels, are united by the bonds of a most touching family affection.