What is Walpurgis Night?

We discovered on the afternoon of April 30th that on May 1^st everything in our town would be closed due to a holiday. I’ve heard of May Day before, but I didn’t realize it was considered a significant enough holiday for shops to be closed. In fact, in Germany, May Day is combined with Walpurgis Nacht. What is Walpurgis Night, you ask? Here is your tutorial.

Walpurgis Night in Germany

Digging into my trusty online encyclopedia, I learned that April 30^th is celebrated in Germany with people dressing in costumes, playing pranks, and hanging herbs and making loud noises to ward off evil spirits. As you can imagine, when you hear the term “evil spirits,” the holiday dates back to pagan times and recognized the coming of spring. With the advent of Christianity, April 30^th and May 1^st were combined into one joint holiday.

The name comes from the legend of St. Walburga, who was an English-born nun who lived in Germany. People believed that she cured many locals of their illnesses. The encyclopedia says, “Walburga is traditionally associated with May 1 because of a medieval account of her being canonized upon the translation of her remains from their place of burial to a church circa 870. Although it is likely that the date of her canonization is purely coincidental to the date of the pagan celebrations of spring, people were able to celebrate both events under church law without fear of reprisal.”

What is Walpurgis Night in my Town?

Walpurgis Night in Germany is most closely associated with the Harz Mountains, which are five and a half hours northeast of where I live. Apparently, the Harz Mountains are ground zero for the holiday, and there, it is like an early Halloween with bonfires, witches and more. My town celebrates a very small, scaled-down version.

Though I didn’t see any costumes or pranks, I did go to the town square to watch the raising of the Maibaum (May tree).

People dined outside on wurst (hotdog-like sausages) and beer on one of the first warm, rainless evenings in months. The bonfire was ready for after-dark and the volunteer fire department raised & anchored in place an extremely tall tree festooned with bright spring ribbons and green wreaths dangling below as the sun set.  

Small Town Celebrations Everywhere

After the Mayor made some remarks (that I didn’t understand because they were in German), he thanked “our American friends” for coming. I got that part because he said it in English. The tree rose from its horizontal position to a vertical position and the community applauded.

Small town celebrations are charming everywhere, no matter what corner of the globe you’re in. In the very small town where I grew up, the 4^th of July parade had no huge floats or razzle dazzle. We did, however, have Boy Scouts marching and the only music was from the high school band. Here in southwestern Germany, the elementary and middle school children performed dance routines for their community in the town square that they and their teachers had prepared. I smiled the whole time because rarely will you see anything more wholesome than this. As I said, small town charm is the same everywhere.

This is an example of the world growing smaller as one travels. It is heart-warming evidence of finding more ways that we, as people, are similar than ways in which we are different.

Welcome Spring!

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