Glossary

The half-round leather patch miners wore at the back, to sit and slide on underground. It is still part of the parade dress.

The right of every newcomer to prospect for ore, with freedom from many feudal dues. It drew settlers to the mining towns and gave Freiberg its name.

News of a rich ore strike spreading so fast that miners and merchants poured in, a mining rush. The first followed the silver find at Freiberg around 1168, the great one the finds at Schneeberg (1470) and Annaberg (1491).

A miners’ parade in parade dress with miners’ bands. Most are held in Advent, ending with the great parade in Annaberg-Buchholz on the fourth Advent Sunday. See the Bergparade.

The Christmas service, held in the Erzgebirge very early on Christmas morning, often at five. Miners once marched to it carrying their lit lamps.

A woodturner, who shapes wood on the lathe. Smokers, nutcrackers, angels and pyramids are largely turned work.

The Ore Mountains, a range along the border of Saxony and the Czech Republic (in Czech, Krušné hory). See Chapter I.

An amateur carver who works in the evening after the shift. Miners carved this way, and made candle-holding figures, nativity scenes and Christmas mountains.

The evening after work, in the local dialect. Also the name of the 1937–38 Christmas exhibition in Schwarzenberg whose emblem became the best-known candle arch.

The small open oil or tallow lamp that miners hung from a hook and carried underground, in use until about 1890. Nobody knows for certain where the name comes from.

The miners’ greeting, used in the Erzgebirge since the late 1600s and still heard as hello and goodbye. It began as a wish that the rock would open onto rich veins and later also meant “come back up safely.”

The miners’ parade uniform: black jacket, leather seat apron, tall hat and insignia. Its trim and colors show the wearer’s rank and district. It was first set down by rule for a royal festival in 1719.

The mine’s building at the shaft head, where miners gathered and, in many mines, prayed before the shift. The last shift before Christmas was celebrated here.

A sociable winter evening when neighbors gathered in one house to save fuel, to work at their lace, sing and tell stories. From the old local phrase hutzen gehen, to go visiting the neighbors.

Bobbin lace making: crossing and twisting threads wound on wooden bobbins over a pillow. Long a home industry of Erzgebirge women, often done together at Hutzen evenings.

The miners’ brotherhood of a district (a Knappe is a trained miner), and its fund for the sick, the injured and widows, paid with a “box penny” from every wage. Today the clubs that march in the parades still carry the name.

A miner figure in parade dress holding candles, the partner of the candle angel. Miners held candles on church altars from the 1670s; the household figure appears in the 1830s. See angels and miners.

A turned angel holding candles, in a long white dress, a creation of the 1830s. Usually paired with the candle miner.

The miners’ last shift before Christmas, ended early with a devotion, songs and a shared meal. Named after the Mette, the early Christmas service.

The Christmas Eve supper of nine dishes, each standing for a wish for the coming year: lentils for small change, dumplings for big money, sauerkraut so the year won’t turn sour. Every family’s nine are a little different.

A painted wooden figure that cracks nuts in its jaw with a lever at the back. The Seiffen nutcracker dates from around 1870. See nutcrackers.

The ceremony that sets a town’s great Christmas pyramid turning for the season, on the Friday or Saturday before the first Advent Sunday.

The small cone of incense burned inside a smoker, made of charcoal, wood flour, resins and scent. The village of Crottendorf has made them since, by tradition, about 1750.

A small turned figure, often a tradesman, inside which an incense cone burns so that the smoke puffs from its mouth. The first are credited to a turner near Seiffen around 1850. See smokers.

A technique found only around Seiffen since about 1800: a ring of wet spruce is turned with an animal’s profile hidden in its cross-section, then split into 40 to 60 identical blanks, the Reifentiere. See ring-turned animals.

The miner’s two chief hand tools, a square-faced hammer and a pointed chisel on a handle. Crossed, they are the symbol of mining, on coats of arms, maps and parade dress. In English often loosely called “hammer and pick.”

The candle arch of metal or wood set in windows at Christmas. The name is an old word for an arch spanning between two walls. The oldest known dates from 1740. See candle arches.

A little tree made by lifting thin, curled shavings all around a turned cone of linden with a blade. See shaved trees.

A hanging candle chandelier with arms, sometimes turning and hung with miner figures. One hung underground for the last shift before Christmas.

The mine foreman, who oversees the work underground. The miners’ anthem, the Steigerlied, begins “Glück auf, Glück auf, der Steiger kommt”: the foreman is coming.

Two things in German: the rich Christmas loaf with raisins and almonds, and a mine gallery driven into a hillside. Both meanings go back to an old word for a post; the loaf is not named after the mine.

The large silver coin first struck in Joachimsthal (Jáchymov) in 1519–1520 and named after it. Through the Dutch daalder it gave English the word “dollar.”

The merchant of the old cottage industry, who brought home workers orders, models and materials and sold their goods far away. Today the word means “publisher.”

A nativity built as a miniature mountain landscape in a corner of the room, often beside a model mine, with figures moved by clockwork. It flourished in the 19th century.

A tiered stand of figures on turning plates, driven by a vane wheel at the top that the warmth of the candles sets spinning. From tabletop size to the height of a house. See pyramids.