Oats have been defined by Dr. Johnson as a grain serving to nourish horses in England and men in Scotland; and in spite of this contemptuous definition, its name, to us Caledonian born, must always awaken pleasant recollections of the porridge and bannocks of our childhood. It is, however, a new experience to find a country where this often unappreciated grain occupies a still prouder position, and where its name is associated with memories yet more pregnant and tender; for autumn, not spring, is the season of Saxon love, and oats, not myrtle, are here emblematic of courtship and betrothal.
In proportion as the waving surface of the green oat-fields begins{95} to assume a golden tint, so also does curiosity awaken and gossip grow rife in the village. Well-informed people may have hinted before that such and such a youth had been seen more than once stepping in at the gate of the big red house in the long street, and more than one chatterer had been ready to identify the speckled carnations which on Sundays adorned the hat of some youthful Conrad or Thomas, as having been grown in the garden of a certain Anna or Maria; but after all these had been but mere conjectures, for nothing positive can be known as yet, and ill-natured people were apt to console themselves with the reflection that St. Catherine’s Day was yet a long way off, and that “there is many a slip ’twixt cup and lip.”
But now the great day which is to dispel all doubt and put an end to conjecture is approaching—that day which will destroy so many illusions and fulfil so few; for now the sun has given the final touch to the ripening grain, and soon the golden sheaves are lying piled together on the clean-shorn stubble-field, only waiting to be carted away. Then one evening when the sun is sinking low on the horizon, and no breath of air is there to lift the white powdery dust from off the hedge-rows, the sound of a drum is heard in the village street, and a voice proclaims aloud that “to-morrow the oats are to be fetched home.”
Like wildfire the news has spread throughout the village; the cry is taken up and repeated with various intonations of hope, curiosity, anticipation, or triumph, “To-morrow the oats will be fetched.”
A stranger probably fails to perceive anything particularly thrilling about this intelligence, having no reason to suppose the garnering of oats to be in any way more interesting than the carting of potatoes or wheat; and, no doubt, to the majority of land-owners the thought of to-morrow’s work is chiefly connected with dry prosaic details, such as repairing the harness and oiling the cart-wheels. But there are others in the village on whom the announcement has had an electrifying effect, and for whom the words are synonymous with love and wedding-bells. Five or six of the young village swains, or maybe as many as eight or ten, spend that evening in a state of pleasurable bustle and excitement, busying themselves in cleaning and decking out the cart for the morrow, furbishing up the best harness, grooming the work-horses till their coats are made to shine like satin, and plaiting up their manes with bright-colored ribbons.
Early next morning the sound of harness-bells and the loud cracking{96} of whips cause all curious folk to rush to their doors; and as every one is curious, the whole population is soon assembled in the street to gaze at the sight of young Hans N——, attired in his bravest clothes and wearing in his cap a monstrous bouquet, riding postilion fashion on the left-hand horse, and cracking his whip with ostentatious triumph, while behind, on the gayly decorated cart, is seated a blushing maiden, who lowers her eyes in confusion at thus seeing herself the object of general attention—at least this is what she is supposed to do, for every well-brought-up girl ought surely to blush and hang her head in graceful embarrassment when she first appears in the character of a bride; and although no formal proposal has yet taken place, by consenting to assist the young man to bring in his oats she has virtually confessed her willingness to become his wife.
Her appearance on this occasion will doubtless cause much envy and disappointment among her less fortunate companions, who gaze out furtively through the chinks of the wooden boarding at the spectacle of a triumph they had perhaps hoped for themselves. “So it is the red-haired Susanna after all, and not the miller’s Agnes, as every one made sure,” the gossips are saying. “And who has young Martin got on his cart, I wonder? May I never spin flax again if it is not that saucy wench, the black-eyed Lisi, who was all but promised to small-pox Peter of the green corner house”—and so on, and so on, in endless variety, as the decorated carts go by in procession, each one giving rise to manifold remarks and comments, and not one of them failing to leave disappointment and heart-burning in its rear.
This custom of the maiden helping the young man to bring in his oats, and thereby signifying her willingness to marry him, is prevalent only in a certain district to the north of Transylvania called the Haferland, or country of oats—a broad expanse of country covered at harvest-time by a billowy sea of golden grain, the whole fortune of the land-owners. In other parts various other betrothal customs are prevalent, as for instance in Neppendorf, a large village close to Hermanstadt, inhabited partly by Saxons, partly by Austrians, or L?ndlers, as they call themselves. This latter race is of far more recent introduction in the country than the Saxons, having only come hither (last century) in the time of Maria Theresa, who had summoned them to replenish some of the Saxon colonies in danger of becoming extinct. If it is strange to note how rigidly the Saxons have kept themselves from mingling with the surrounding Magyars and Roumanians,{97} it is yet more curious to see how these two German races have existed side by side for over a hundred years without amalgamating; and this for no sort of antagonistic reason, for they live together in perfect harmony, attending the same church, and conforming to the same regulations, but each people preserving its own individual costume and customs. The Saxons and the L?ndlers have each their different parts of the church assigned to them; no Saxon woman would ever think of donning the fur cap of a L?ndler matron, while as little would the latter exchange her tight-fitting fur coat for the wide hanging mantle worn by the other.
SAXON BETROTHED COUPLE.
{98}
Until quite lately unions have very seldom taken place between members of these different races. Only within the last twenty years or so have some of the Saxon youths awoke to the consciousness that the Austrian girls make better and more active housewives than their own phlegmatic countrywomen, and have consequently sought them in marriage. Even then, when both parties are willing, many a projected union makes shipwreck upon the stiff-neckedness of the two paterfamilias, who neither of them will concede anything to the other. Thus, for instance, when the Saxon father of the bridegroom demands that his future daughter-in-law should adopt Saxon attire when she becomes the wife of his son, the L?ndler father will probably take offence and withdraw his consent at the last moment; not a cap nor a jacket, not even a pin or an inch of ribbon, will either of the two concede to the wishes of the young people. Thus many hopeful alliances are nipped in the bud, and those which have been accomplished are almost invariably based on th............