OLD GERMAN FESTIVAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20851, 18 April 1931, Page 5 (Supplement)

OLD GERMAN FESTIVAL.

FEUD OF. 550 YEARS AGO. HEROIC DEED KEPT GREEN. Tho German city of Kyritz, in the northwestern part of the province of Brandenburg, celebrated in iebruary for the 550 th. time its " Bassewitz Festival." At the beginning of 1381 a feud arose between the Duke of Mecklenburg and the nobility of the district of Prignitz, of which Kyritz is the administrative seat. While they were contending, a Mecklen burg knight named von Bassewitz made a plundering raid on the Prignitz. Ihe Kyritz burghers defeated him, and the city council decreed that their heroic deed " shall be celebrated for all time on tho Monday following Invocavit through a festival of thanks and praise and the distribution of gifts." To this clay each participant in the forenoon's church services receives a small loaf of bread, and four-pound loaves are distributed among the poor. Following this, the old choral, " Now thank we all our God," is sung, accompanied by the city orchestra stationed in the tower of the church.

Von Bassewitz fried again, some years later to take Ivyritz by having a tunnel ring under the city walls. His intention was to have it end m the church, but he miscalculated, and ended it on the market place, where the sturdy burghers killed him and all his men. His sword can still bo seen in the Rathaus.