German-Russian myths about the supernatural, superstitions, witches, merlins, ghosts, fairies, and other phenomena.....
Last Updated: 31 Aug 2003
1096-1099 The First Crusades. The Norman-French baronage "flocked" to the cross and marched to Constantinople.
1147 - 1149 in the month of May, the Second Crusades to the Holy Lands began from Ratisbon. To avoid conflicts, the French King Louis VII took his army a different route to the Holy Lands than the Germans lead Konrad III ... following him were his nephew Frederick Barbarosa [the red beard] and Henry the Lion... Following them were 70,000 horseman and an unknown number of foot-soldiers plus all the camp followers...
Henry the Lion
And Albert the Bear
Let us not forget
Frederick with the red hair.
Three Lords were they
Who changed the world
Their Way
Forever and one day.
Albert the Bear of Brandenburg's crusade was successful, he expanded his kingdom into the Slavic territory. Henry The Lion extended Germans into territory east of the Elbe, was confirmed in Saxony and regranted Bavaria... Frederick Barbarossa pushed the idea of restoring the Holy Roman Empire. The Germans had been pulling away from the ties of the Papal ruling hand...
1152 Frederick I Barbarossa was elected to follow Conrad III's to the throne.
You'' have to visit your history books to discover more about these three Kings.
1189 - 1192 The Third Crusades. Three monarchs lead they were Frederick Barbarossa, King Richard I of England and King Philip II of France....
In all there were eight crusades, the last one occurred in 1270...
By 14th century, the maps showed a fragmented Western and Eastern Europe but names are growing even more familiar: Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Austria, Upper Palatinate, Kingdom of Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Silesia, Moravia, Lusatia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Holstein, Carinthia, Bosnia, Walachia, Moldavia, Lithuania, Khanate of the Golden Hordes, Principality of Moscow, Novgorod, Livonia, Breton, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Wales, Scotland, France, Aragon, Castile, Portugal, Argon.....
Suddenly everything changed, again. All the population in these areas of Europe felt the horror of the plague known as the Black Death. Chaos. Huge trenches were dug and the dead were buried.....
Depopulation of Europe had occurred, again.
One can only imagine how these people must have felt about their Catholic God who seemed to have forgotten them....
Many Germans, who were still very superstitious, slipped back into some of these old beliefs. There were some of the old copies of the old bibles which held the sections the Pope and his group had eliminated..... The old bibles had held some of the old stories about reincarnation ...... Spirits of demons that could control the human spirit.... There were, also, copies of the Sibylla, ....
Why the rise of the old? Many people thought the plague was proof [part of the preditions] the world was nearing doomsday. Not only had the old Germanic legends foretold domesday even the new revise version of bible didn't omit Doomsday, which the Christians called "Judgment Day". So, all agreed, [old and new] the world would come to an end.
Many of the old superstitions seem to flare up and renew themselves in the homes of the Germans and others around the world....
...Nostradomius' Predictions spoke about doomsday of man and books with his predictions are still being sold in book stores at this very moment... [Year 2003].
The plague was to thrust our "thinkers" into new theories..... They were looking for answers but all seem to taking mankind right straight to domesday, or did it? Some thinkers voiced about changes being made and the need of recapturing human goodness [mortality] and turning away evil [greed, hate...].
Thinkers were starting to ponder and question some of the old Catholic laws and traditions which some believed may have sent people along the wrong path.....
Evolution of German beliefs took a new road, one less traveled and one which would prove to be very difficult and bloody....
In the 15th century the rebellion in the Catholic church occurred and became known as the Period of the Reformation from 1517 to 1648. Martin Luther convinced most of my German ancestors to follow his beliefs and my Swiss ancestors followed Zwingli. England had Calvin whos teachings took hold in Scotland, Hungary and Poland. Others who jumped the Catholic ship were the groups who would call themselves Anabasptists, Mennonites .... The Catholics and the Protesters [Protestants] fought for their religious beliefs in war that was to last 30 years [Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648]. The German states were divided. See my section on Germanic States and it explains which state remained under Catholic or Protestant rulers.
The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire under the Hapsburgs and the Pope, who was back in Rome, had lost their influence on the Protestants.
During the Age of Revolution a fellow by the name of Napoleon rose to power among the French. My German ancestors labeled Napoleon "the anti-Christ".
The French revolutionary armies invaded the German states... Some of my ancestors fled the French invaders who left "only eyes for weeping". My ancestors, who could not leave their homes, were soon under the rule of Napoleon, who set laws that prevented my ancestors migration from the the French occupied territory. My ancestors, who did escaped the French, migrated eastward. Some trekked all the way to Russia but most stopped in many places between their original German village and their new homes in Russia in the early 1800s. Most of my ancestors were Lutherans and most of them continued to believe in the supernatural, superstitions, witches, ghosts and fairies. Many wore amulets to ward off evil. Traveling with them were, also, the Catholics. Why? Surly the French, who were Catholic, would have taken care of their own. The French Revolutionaries were not Catholic. Nor were they Lutheran. They were people who believed God was a ancient belief and there was no place in their world for imaginary deities. Churches were turned into government buildings or stables, if needed. So, my ancestors, who left Germany reached Russia and their new homes where they built their churches and continued to believe in the Christian God... as their amber amulets was resting snugly in a pocket or as a stone on a necklass..... Amber was one of the more popular natural materials used to ward off evil at the turn of the 1800 to the 1900s....
It wasn't until the early 1900s that my parents generation, the first generation born here in the USA and who lived through the inventions of the to radio, television, computers, space ships and other modern technology, began to pull away from the beliefs of witches, ghosts, superstitions..... I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s standing smack dab on the edge of the boundary of the new world beliefs but still carrying on my back some of the old superstitions and beliefs of the supernatural. My children may have inherited a few superstitions and beliefs but I doubt their children do. I might be wrong. Walt Disney has taken children's classics and captured the imagination in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which has a terrible step-mother who into a witch.... Cinderella has a fairy godmother who changes a pumpkin into a carriage and rats into horses.... . And, now, the new series of books on Harry Potter, has managed to titillate young children and take them back to such things as spells and dragons and things that bump in the night.
So, where is all of this leading you, I, and the future generations? I don't know. What I do know is: Each of us are linked by a golden threads to each of our ancestors and if that golden thread should break we lose a part of ourself. Therefore, we can not fully understand ourselves unless we understand our ancestors. To do this we must know more than just a name. We must know where they came from, what they believed and why.
I can close my eyes and in my mind's eye take myself backward into time. I can see my ancestor standing in an oak grove. In the sky is the waxing moon of the 6th night. Two white bulls are standing with the handlers. A youthful Druid's apprentice is in a white robe climbing the oldest oak of the wood. With a gold knife the young apprentice cuts through the stem of the mistletoe, which falls freely into the hands of another apprentice who takes it to the elder Druid who placed the mistletoe on a pure white cloth. The Druid then gave orders that the two white bulls be sacrificed... The Druid was known for his poetic and prophetic words... They startle me.... I open my eyes and I am alone in my own oak grove. No Druids ever lived in my grove in California. However, there may have been an Indian.... or two... who may have seen the Catholic monks building a mission not far from here...
About a year ago, I started to collect Keltic, German and German-Russian superstitions and stories about the supernatural, witches, ghosts and fairies. If you have anything interesting you'd like to add let me know at: remmick@aol.com
The following link will take you to the index of superstitions.....
I suppose I should add that there are several supernatural phenomena that I do believe today. I believe in mind travel and ESP.
Also, I'd like to add the following quote about Slavic-Russian gods, spirits, fairy-folk and magic :
>>"Magic permeated every aspect of our ancestor's lives. The fields, forests, barn, bath and hearth were all ruled by spectral beings, sometimes good, sometimes horrible. Each flame and river was a goddess or god, each flower and stone a sentient being. The spirits of the dead too, filled the Slavic world. Life-draining wampyr, trees housing the souls of the departed, fairy-folk and ancestral spirits were an integral part of life, demanding respect and often, sacrifice. The Pagan Slav spent his entire existence tightly wrapped in a dark cloak of magic, mystery, and sometimes, terror. The spirits, after all, are always watching."<< http://hometown.aol.com/hpsofsnert/Gods.html"
This is not a Remmick-Hubert Web site but is worth the visit for those of you who want to know more about the Slavic-Russians world which many of our German-Russians entered about 1800 and lived for more than a hundred years or longer before migrating to the USA. I didn't see whom the creators are of this site but will add his/her/their names when known. |
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