THE SUPERSTITIOUS HUN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 127, 31 December 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE SUPERSTITIOUS HUN.

GERMANS' QUAINT BATTLE SP CHARMS.

Hc-Werer the German may flaunt hj» Kultur in the face of the world, he cannot dispute the fact that he is the most superstitious man in Europe. "He can," as a well-known diplomatist, who has spent the greater part of his life in Otrmany, declares, "give points and a beating to the most benighted Irish peasant or the most ignorant sailor that ever roamed the eeas. Ana this superstition pervades all classes, from the lowest to the "All-Highest. Wherever you travel in the Kaiser s land you will find beliefs and customs as strange as any known to England in the dark middle-ages. Everywhere, among the lower classes, you will hear stories of gnomes, their weird appearance' and their antics, told by v people wholv&ve often seen them. There are lew districts which have not one or more witched Who are a constant terror ~to their neighbours, and whose "eytfSwe" brings disaster to all who fafiWer it. '„ . '.. In Saxony and Bavaria, and in many another part of Germany, you will hear - terrible tales of vampires—of dead men '-who leave thjrir graves to suck-the Mood of sleepers, who pine and die -While "they draw- nourishment from ♦hern; and of domestic sprites, whose benevolent work it is to Avert danger and to perform kindly acts. ' . There are few Germans wha have «. dotrbt that'on M Souls' Eve the dead r come to life to revisit their old earthly haunts, and who do not as firnuy believe in death-omens as in lucky K n«nbeiw r and days. Even such an innocent act sneeze is sure to brin£ disease unles someone present averts it by ejaculating "Good health!*' Such are but a few of the countless superstitions that are as prevalent today in the Land of Culture as in tne most benighted ports of our own country in the days of our early Edwards. But more universal than any of them is the belief in charms and amulets which have the magic to keep death and harm at a distance. RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION. ' Just as no soldier of the Czar goes to battle without a cross suspended from his neck, as evidence of his simple trust in God, the soldier of the Kaiser takes with him the amulet, which is to shield him from bullet and bayonet. The Wurtemberger carries round his neck a little bap containing the drv polleu ot" flower?. v.hich ho be-lieves-'will carry him s Try through every peril of Ww. The Saxon sews the wings of a bat into the lining of his tunic; and the Bavarian, if his mascot should fail him, knows that he can heal the worst wound by letting a drop of his blood fall on a birch-tree. But the most popular and potent charm of all is the written prayer to which, it is said, hundreds of thousands of the Kaiser's warriors pin their faith absolutely. "In a sceptical and rationalistic age like the present," wrote "Eye-Witness" a short time ago, it js somewhat surprising to find reliance being placed on charms; and yet many of the Germans we have taken prisoners are in possession of so-called iwuyers, whicn are reaily written charms against death, wounds, disasters, and every imaginable •▼«•" One Buch chirm runs thus:—' May God preserve me against all manner of arms ond weapons, shot and cannon, long or short swords, knives or daggers, carbines or halberds, and anything that cuts or points; against thrusts, rapiers, long and short rifles or guns and such-like.'' Not content with tnis catalogue of possible mischances, the prayer proceeds to claim protection against'" all kinds of evil reports, a blow from behind, witchcraft, and poisoning." So prevalent has this custom of the prayer-mascot become that one of Germany's greatest Bishops has recently published a protest against it; and ordered the clergy to warn their Hocks a gains " the mischievous practice of believing in such godless and nonsensical writings/* Little less popular than these written prayers are mascots bearing strange allegorical devices, with words such as these: " Save me from death in battle. Protect mo from death by the sword;" and the inevitable "Gou punish England!" There is, no doubt, a serious and pathetic side to this simple trust of the German soldier in ins - cm a rni, because it enables us to under- ' stand his unquestioning trust in his Emperor and his generals when those high authorities tell him that Ostenu is only another name for Calais, and that Paris is in the next parish to Ypres. , The soldier and the peasant, however, have no monopoly of superstition, which is as prevalent in the highest as in the lowest circles. Kaiser Wilhelm, himself, is in this respect as much a pagan as the lowliest Wurtemberger who suspends his bag of pollen from his neck, or the Saxon who sews the wings of a bat into his tunic. No man in Europe has a greater faith in signs and omens and lucky days; and the fact that, so far in the war, every date he has fixed for a great triumph, such as entering Paris, or capturing Calais, has ignominiously failed him, has had no power to shake his faith in his powers of divination. To the Kaiser a cat is such a sure bringer of misfortune that he will not have on© in any of his palaces. If he sees a fox, it is said, he raises his hat, in order to propitiate it; and will never, for fear of evil, refer to it by name, but always as "Blue Foot," or as "he who goes to the forest." Such, too, is his faith in the "divinity that hedges" his august person, that he believes all the enemies' weapons are powerless to harm him. JUST TO MAKE SURE.

la spite, however, of this belief in his charmed life ho never omits to wear one or more of his mascots, which are warranted to make "assurance doubly 6ure." The most potent of these, known to fame as "the Hohenzollern Luck, ''is a ring of massive gold in which is set a square, dark-coloured stone, and of which the following romantic story is told. Beven centuries or so ago the ring was taken fram the finger of Saladiu by a (Jernian knight after a fierce battle under the walk of Jerusalem, and was given by him to the Margraf of Nuremberg, founder of the Hohenzollern family. From generation to generation the ring has been handed down as an heirloom and a talisman, with the magic to shield its wearer from harm and bring him good fortune. Under it* auspices the Hohenzollcrns waxed great and greater, until, after the death of Frederick the Great in 1786 its loss was followed by a scries ot disasters. With the return of tue talisman in 1813, however, the tide of fortune began to flow again, carrying Prussia to undreamed-of heights of power and splendour. Little less prized by the Emperor is 0 four-leafed sprig of clover which was picked l.y a child in the meadows of the Royal park at Kabelsburg in 1870, and ▼ as given by the child's father, .t Court servant, to King William I. The jicturiojs king carried the four-leafed

niaseot from victory to victory in the war against Franc*, and on his triumphal return gave it back to the child with the remark, "It has brought me luck, and I hope it will bring you luck too." Years later the precious clover came into the hands of the Kaiser of to-day, who, it is said, always carries it in his breast pocket and regards it with superstitious reverence. But the Hohenzollerns and superstition have long been allied. For two centuries every infant born to the Royal House has been cradled in an ancient box on rockere, to which wonderful protective and luck-bringing powers are credited. For centuries, too, every Hohenzollern has been a firm believer, though he may never have seen her, in the spectral "White Lady" who is 6aid to wander along the corridors and through the rooms of the Imperial Palaces; and in that other ancestral ghost, a gigantic strcetBweepiv., whose appearance, armed with his broom, in one of tl>© palaces heralds the death within a week of a member of the Imperial Family.