Burning the Buerg
The Sunday after Shrove Tuesday is Buergsonndeg (Buerg Sunday), when a Buerg, a huge pile
of straw, brushwood and logs, often topped by a cross, becomes a roaring bonfire. At the hour appointed for the spectacle,
the architects and builders of the pile - usually the town’s young people - march in torch-lit procession to the site,
their progress closely monitored by volunteers from the local fire department. It can be cold outside, late in winter, waiting
for a bonfire, so a barbecue and mulled wine are available to provide sustenance and warmth. In some towns, the honour of
setting the Buerg ablaze goes to the most recently married local couple.
Buergsonndeg is a tradition with a long, venerable past. The blaze symbolises the driving-out of
winter, the beginning of spring and the triumph of warm over cold, of light over darkness. Some claim it is one of the last
vestiges of the Inquisition, when witches were burned.
Easter
According to legend, after the Gloria of Maundy Thursday Mass, church bells fly to Rome to receive shrift
from the Pope. While the bells are away, on Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday, the school children take over
their duties, calling the local people to their observances by cranking loud wooden ratchets, swinging rattle-boxes and playing
drums. "Fir d’éischt Mol, fir d’zweet Mol, ’t laut of" goes their cry (ringing once, ringing twice, ringing
all together).
Klibberjongen (ratchet boys) are a thing of the past but only because today girls are admitted to
the fun, too. The young racket-makers are paid in Easter eggs or the odd coin, usually collected door-to-door on Easter Sunday
morning, after the bells have returned to the belfry. "Dik-dik-dak, dik-dik-dak, haut as Ouschterdag" (cackle away, today
is Easter day) goes the Klibberlidd, the traditional ratchet song.
In Luxembourg, as in many Christian countries, Easter would be incomplete without the Easter bunny and painted
Easter eggs. Parents and grandparents hide Easter eggs around the house or the garden in little "nests", then stand back and
watch as delighted children hunt for them. And although supermarkets proffer Easter eggs in industrial quantities, the practice
of painting eggs by hand at home still endures.
On Bratzelsonndeg (Pretzel Sunday), a man gives his girlfriend or wife a pretzel, a symbol of love;
at Easter, a woman offers her boyfriend or husband a praline-filled chocolate Easter egg.
Social, or popular, Easter festivities take place on Easter Monday, not on Easter Sunday. Many families visit
one of the country’s two Éimaischen fairs, one held in the capital’s old-town quarter, in the Fëschmaart
(Fish Market), the other in Nospelt, a town in Canton Capellen, in the west of the country.
The Éimaischen on Fëschmaart is over by noon; in Nospelt, the fun continues until late afternoon.
Food, drink and folk entertainment are important, but at both events the real focus of attention is pottery. In Nospelt, which
boasts deposits of fine clay, artists working at the potter’s wheel provide demonstrations of their craft. At the Fëschmaart
and in Nospelt, visitors are offered the traditional Éimaischen keepsake: the Péckvillchen, a bird-shaped earthenware "flute"
which produces a sound eerily like the cry of the cuckoo.
Gënzefest (Broom Festival), Wiltz
Broom is found throughout the country but nowhere in greater profusion than on the cliffs and hilltops of
the Oesling region. At Whitsuntide, the usually bleak northern countryside is literally transformed by the bright yellow of
millions of tiny little blossoms.
Wiltz honours broom in its Gënzefest, held on the Monday after Whitsunday. The main attraction is
the traditional parade, which celebrates broom and the customs of the old farming country
St Nicolas
St Nicolas, who lived in the 4th century, was bishop of Lycia in Asia Minor. His life is shrouded in many
legends (the most famous probably being the one that relates how he miraculously saved three children from the salting tub
of a crazed butcher). St Nicolas has thus become the patron saint of children and on the eve of his feast, which is on 6 December,
he descends from heaven, accompanied by his black servant Ruprecht (called Houseker by Luxembourgers) and a donkey
laden with presents, to reward little children who have been good. Children who have misbehaved receive a Rutt, or switch.
In some towns, the holy man and his servant dressed in black go from house to house late on 5 December carrying
presents to youngsters. If so, parents will have made the "arrangements". Usually, however, children rise early the next morning,
on 6 December, to discover their plates overflowing with chocolates and presents, and the saint nowhere in sight. Unless,
of course, their town or one of its associations has arranged for the Kleeschen (the Luxembourg diminutive
for St Nicolas) to make a public appearance. In this case, the local brass band will be out in force to greet the Saint when
he arrives by car, train, boat or even aeroplane, and escort him to the concert hall where children are waiting to greet him
with songs and speeches. The evening always culminates in a carefully organised, "heavenly" distribution of presents.
St Nicolas should not be confused with the German Weihnachtsmann or the French Père Noël.
These gentlemen never appear before Christmas day. As for the chuckling, bearded figures, mantled in red and white, who pop
up in supermarkets on the day after Halloween: they make it difficult for the little ones to tell St Nicolas from Santa Claus.
