MICHAELS DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 30, 6 February 1933, Page 3

MICHAELS DAY

DEATH OF THE DEVIL

AUGSBURG CEREMONIAL

AN ANCIENT

'"Tow-eel"- That is what it would be if translated, writes F. T. Birchall in the "New York Times Magazine." Good St. Michael - has just finished spearing the devil to death, and a guttural hurrah rings from thousands of childish throats. The elders join in, too, of course, to see the devil at last get his due. ■ , " . All see the spear, grasped in the hands of mighty St. Michael, descend once, twice, thrice—until the job is done." Then the crowd departs, and the children know that they will see the performance :again next year; and every year as long aa they live. For St. Michael has been killing the devil annually for 400 years, and it seems probable that he will keep up the good work during the next four centuries. They make quite a to-do about it in Augsburg, the greatest commercial city in Europe during the Middle Ages, and still a sizeable town of only a few less than 200,000 inhabitants in whom the devil is more or less interested, as he is also in the inhabitants of the merest village elsewhere. ■ • . SEEN FOUR TIMES. This marvellous spectacle of St Michael's triumph over his Satanic majesty can be seen four times on the good saint's day in the autumn, and no child who can walk or be carried would miss it for all that Satan has to offer. The first slaying is done at six o'clock of the evening preceding St. Michael's Day. Then St. Michael takes a rest, and repeats the act at: ten o'clock the next morning, and then, having got, his second wind, so to speak, he does it again at eleven, and does it all over again at noon. That finishes it for the year. The noon show is the greatest of the four, for St. Michael sticks his spear into the Father of Evil once for every time the clock strikes. On the appointed day_ all the children, accompanied by their elders, gather in the square in front of the Eathaus, on the side of which is St. Michael's Tower, and keep their eyes on the little window above the clock in which the saint appears to do the deed expected of' him. Here is the picture:— From the Burgomaster's window in the Eathaus the' parti-coloured sea of child faces and child garments of blue, pink, yellow, brown, and green in eyery conceivable shade seemed to fill not only the great square itself, four stories below, but to overflow endlessly into eyery adjacent street from which a view of St. Michael's Tower was obtainable. . And how patient they were! A waiting throng of some forty or fifty thousand American children would have been audible at least half a mile away. From this crowd there arose only a deep, murmur such as might come from a hive of bee's at swarming time. Every face was turned to the tower window above the great clock; every face betokened excitement and expectancy. SUMMONED TO AID. St. Michael, it seems, was summoned by Bishop TJlrich to the. aid of Augsburg when it was -being-besieged by the Huns. Unable to come himself, St. Michael sent Ulrich his mighty spear, at the end of which Was a cross. Thereupon the Huns were soundly trounced, and made to behave for a generation or two. All this was remembered in the sixteenth century, when Augsburg became almost fabulously wealthy, and in 1526 it was ordained by the ecclesiastical authorities that on every St. Michael's Day there should be exhibited to the citizens a representation of the good saint in his star act. of downing the devil with the sacred spear ho lent to Ulrich for use against the Huns.~'-^ And that is what the children of Augsburg' are summoned to St. Michael's.Tower to see.; The hand pi the. great tower clock approaches twelve, and —look— •'■■'"■■ The window above-, the clock opens and there slowly rolls, forward from within, the Turamiehelo a beautifully carved and gilded group of. two some eight feet high, probably the work of Christopher Murmann, a famous woodcarver of the sixteenth century. The figures are moved by clockwork. On a tiny platform the fallen Satan lies helpless, while, with one foot upon him, a tall, winged Michael, in golden armour, a cross of brilliants . on the gilded helm above his shining curls, raises the great spear above the prostrate Evil One. . A FINE SIGHT. . 'Tis a noble spectacle. Satan's red tongue protrudes to show his inherent wickedness—as if the twisted tail, cloven hoofs, and evil horns of the old archfiend were not evidence enough. He is obviously down and out, yet his eyes have ■a; baleful glare, in great contrast to the noble demeanour of St. Michael, whose face bears an expression of sweet melancholy, as though to indir cate that this is a sad, though necessary, duty undertaken in no spirit' of wrath or vengeance, but solely because it must be. It is just such a look as 'should, even if it does not, animate the righteous countenance of father in the woodshed as, with slat raised, he remarks to, young hopeful: "This is going to hurt you more than it does me, my son," ' Saints are like that. The clock strikes. Up conies the great spear and down it goes on the chest of the prostrate Evil One with a resounding clang. There must be a bell or something in the wooden figure to produce that sound, for it echoes through the whole square. And from thousands of childish throats up goes a shrill scream of delight. Again the clock strikes, again the wood spear comes down, and again the shrieks of the delighted youngsters fill the air. "Au fein! Heiliger Michael. Au backel" • "Michel, gib' ihm feste!" Which being translated would ■' become "Yow-ee! Grand, holy Michael! How it hurts!" "Soak him again, Michael!" ■ . But it is quite as emphatic in German. And so it goes for twelve strokes of the clock and twelve thrusts of the spear. Then the clockwork runs down, the glittering figure rolls back into the embrasure, the window closes, the crowd in the square.melts away, and it is all over until St.-Michael's Day comes around; again. -':..".. ■ . White bread has been forbidden, until next harvest, to soldiers, policemen, and boarders in., . schools, and colleges in Rumania. Instead, they -will receive rye bread and a kind of stiff porridge made of maize.