Moss people

The moss man (also Moosmännel, Moosmaa or Vogtl. Muesmoa ) is the symbol Vogtland Christmas. Although it is typical for basically the whole Vogtland, he now presents only in a few areas of a living tradition dar.

The Sage

The moss man figure as Santa goes back to the moss man the legend, the - even living in abject poverty - good people at all times helping stood to the side in their poverty. Moss man moss and Weibel, only three feet high, lived in the deep forest under tree sticks and in caves, subsisted miserably on roots and fruits of the forest and dressed scantily with moss and fir branches. They had only one enemy, the " Wild Huntsman ". Before him and his train they were safe under the logs and poles, in which the woodcutter had beaten three crosses. The people were friendly disposed towards the moss people. They helped especially the poor, and the foliage - three handfuls of it had to be - with whom she rewarded good deeds, turned into gold, so that the plight of the poor forest dwellers came to an end.

At Christmas time the moss males flee the inhospitable snowy forest to the people in the Christmas bars and stay there the twelve sub- nights, then return to their beloved and so useful forest.

According to the folklorist of carrying the Christmas light moss man recalls the winter resting under warm mosses life and the recurring sun.

History and Folk Art

In the vast forest areas in the east, southeast and northwest of the Vogtland region of the moss man was crafted as a carrier of the Christmas light even in the second half of the 19th century. The core of the figure was the so-called " bastard ", a simple wooden skeleton from ungefügtem hull with nailed arms and legs inserted. Hands and feet, usually obtained from experienced carvers were glued to arms and legs. The heads provided the carver, unless the hobbyist, not content to provide their moss man with a head made ​​of porcelain or later celluloid. The moss man got a suit made ​​of cardboard, the most women anfertigten and the - that's the essence - was entirely covered with moss. In one hand the moss man wore the Christmas light, in the other a branch as a walking stick.

In this primitive form of the hobbyists are not stopped. Over the years, Moss Men have arisen in the form of knights, soldiers, hunters, foresters and forest -goers who wore instead of the simple Christmas light a small turret, a flying buttress or a fir tree. But what is common to all, this is the dress of green moss from the forest home.

In the eastern Vogtland, where after 1945 the folk art of carving has greatly developed, especially the Falkensteiner carvers it went successfully, to give the almost forgotten moss man back to life, not to carve it out of basswood and him the legend according to give appearance.

If the old moss men tinkered, they drove often bitter economic hardship this: "Find the cities of poor children to earn a few pennies, they build pyramids of wood rods clad with moss or colored paper and attached to which Dillen with lights. Or they manufacture in Reichenbach moss men to peddle them on the Christmas markets. " So wrote Dr. Johann August Ernst Köhler in 1867 in his work" folk custom, superstition, myths and other ancient traditions in the Voigt country. "

Moss man moss man stories and legends can be found, however, by the Thuringian forest to the Ore Mountains near Dresden, in the books of the storyteller. Thus was seen the old typical Vogtland figure for general moss man.