GERMAN SUPERSTITION

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 11

GERMAN SUPERSTITION

GHOSTS WHICH LIKE BEER. s c A staff of eighty university profes- j sors has laboured for ten years in an effort to assemble all information , available on superstitious beliefs in £ Germany, says the “San Francisco £ Chronicle.” The fruits of their endeavours, the j first five volumes of the Encyclopaedia j of German Superstition, have now been published. Five more volumes , are to follow. All ghosts, according to the encyclopaedia, like beer. The best method to ] catch them is to place a half-emptied ( beer bottle near where the ghost is likely to make its appearance. , The ghost, according to ancient Ger- ( man beliefs, is bound to creep into the bottle, because it cannot resist the liquid. All one has to do, apparently, is to put the stopper on and the ghost is bottled up. Even the famous White Woman, whose appearance is said to predict tho death of a member of the Hohenzollern family, is listed in the encyclopaedia as a beer addict. At Cloister Lebnin, former property of the Hohenzollerns near Berlin, the White Woman is said to dwell in a brewery where centuries ago the pious monks of the monastery brewed their beer. The souls of the dead, so the encyclopaedia asserts, are equally fond of oeer. The biting of fingernails plays a prominent part in the supestitious beliefs of some Germans. In some parts of Germany mothers bite off their children’s fingernails to prevent them from stealing, the encyclopaedia adds. Cats and stags figure prominently in

the volumes published. If a cat crosses your path, expectorate three times, throw a stone across your path, and you will escape evil is another superstition. Three-coloured cats, it seems, erase dangers of a fire. According to another German belief, a cat’s brain supplies a powerful love potion. All things connected with stags have a healing effect on the sick. Thus, a stag’s tears will cure dysentery, the superstitious argue. Pages and pages of the encyclopaedia are devoted to the ill-omened Friday. Even Bismarck, the encylo-, paedia asserts, was loath to do important business on a Friday. Nevertheless he did not go as far as Napoleon, who would not begin a battle nor conclude a treaty on a Friday. On the other hand. Friday is a lucky day on which to marry, according to German superstitions. It also brings good luck to gamblers. All kinds of superstitious beliefs are connected with bathing. Among inhabitants of a district in Southern Baden there is a proverb: “The first bath you take will also be the last bath in your life. ' This belief hardly tends towards advancing cleanliness, the encyclopaedia hints. I