02:36

Ruth Deutschmann

Benjamin Epp

Aldrans

2008-06-16

Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner

Nicole D´Incecco

1922

It was the practice here, you had to go to church on Sundays, even in summer during hay-making. On Saturday evening we always had to pray the rosary after dinner. While we’re on the subject, I'd like to recite a short poem to you. You’ll laugh. But that's how it was ? a very short poem: "It is a habit throughout Tyrol, to pray a little in the eve. From the devil to save your soul this is your best chance. The rosary, the litany and quite a few Our Fathers, Christ, hear our prayer and have mercy on us all. It goes quite smoothly, rather fun to do it in one breath. Thinking is quite difficult, and not to be advised. While praying the rosary, the stable hand is rhyming his Schnaderhüpfel." You do understand the dialect? "The Dirn, that is the maid, thinks how much she’s going to get paid" Do you get that? "And plays with the apron’s Zipfel. The farmer, kneeling near the window, knocks down nine pins in his mind." He is thinking about bowling. "The boy, kneeling behind the farmer, counts nails in the farmer's shoe sole. To finish we make the sign of the cross. Now we go to light a candle. Devil, if you want to come now, you won’t any find of us at home." That’s a poem which carries a little bit of truth in a way. When you were tired, and praying the rosary, it wasn’t really worship. That’s what it was like! So there’s some truth to the poem.You probably didn’t understand all of it, in dialect, the way it’s written down. But I think about it a lot. Sometimes you also fell asleep, when you were tired. That’s just what it was like.