The myth of Ewicher Yeeger, the Eternal Hunter, is deeply rooted in the Blue Mountain region of the Deitscherei, and in the spirit of the Pennsylvania Dutch people who are survivalists by heritage and in heart. Our Deitsch forebears were refugees in the Port of Philadelphia upon entering this land, their motherland war-torn, they bartered, begged, and many even traded their freedom into indentured servitude for the promise of safety in religious and self-expression. Our ancestors carried with them their regional dialects, cultural traditions, and folk beliefs, including the lore of Ewicher Yeeger.
According to the Brothers Grimm in their Deutsche Sagen (German folktales), the ewiger Jäger once was encountered by Count Eberhard of Württemberg when he once was out for a hunt in the woods. After hearing a loud swooshing and noise, Count Eberhard dismounted his horse and asked the ghostly hunter whether it wanted to do him harm. The hunter said no and told the Count that he was a human, formerly having been a lord. When he still was a lord he found such pleasure in hunting that he pleaded to God to let him hunt eternally until Judgement Day, and his wish was granted. Ever since, the ewiger Jäger had chased the very same deer for five and a half centuries already before meeting Count Eberhard. He further told the Count that his house and nobility were still undisclosed. Upon hearing this, Count Eberhard requested the huntsman to show his face to him to see whether he might be able to identify him. Upon doing so, his face was hardly as big as a fist, withered like a turnip, and wrinkled like a mushroom. The two parted ways- the huntsman continued chasing his deer and the Count returned home.
In 1732, the Pennsylvania Dutch (Deitsch) settlers had cleared large tracts of land along the Blue Mountain (Blobarrick), in the area now known as Lynn Township, Pennsylvania, where they built their farms and rapidly settled. Unfortunately, the soil in this region was not as arable as that of the neighboring areas, and the colonists experienced a major drought. When rain finally fell, seeds were washed away with the dry soil, along with seedlings that had taken root, and a major crop failure ensued, which caused the settlers to dub the land, Allemaengel (which means all deficiencies).
Compounding the drought and crop failure, wildlife that had inhabited this land prior to the colonists clearing the land had retreated to wooded areas on the opposite side of the Blobarrick, and early autumn snowstorms made fleeing the Allemaengel impossible. Folks desperately prayed and set out offerings of cloth and hay.
Starvation and sickness overwhelmed the people as autumn began to tumble toward winter, and one night they were also overcome with fear when the sound of a loud voice and barking hounds came from nowhere, yet all directions, simultaneously. The noise continued throughout the entire night, and when the colonists emerged from their homes at the break of day, they were shocked to see deer, rabbit, and other wild game plentiful on their lands for hunting. They took to harvesting the meat and preserving it for the winter ahead, knowing Ewicher Yeeger saved them from certain death. Throughout that winter, his hunting pack continued to be heard across the Blobarrick, and to this day, the area of the Deitscherei from Palmeton to Pine Grove and beyond continue to hear the barking hounds and howls of Ewicher Yeeger's pack, keeping the hunting lands abundant.
In Pennsylvania Dutch lore, Ewicher Yeeger is the god of death, scrapple, food preservation, and second chances. He represents the life that awaits beyond grief, the opportunity that lays on the other side of what could have been, acceptance of what never will be, and our capacity to dig into places within ourselves to do things we didn't believe we had the capacity to do in order to survive. Ewicher Yeeger is the antithesis of greed. His observance follows Ertfescht, our observance of gratitude for what we have, and takes our gratitude a little deeper, into our darker places, for reflection, and reminder of the light to come when you live harmoniously with your own personal needs, as well as the in sync with the world around you. These self-reflections should include gracefulness in the processes of letting go of yesterday, with promises of tomorrows to come when we do what needs to be done today.
I experienced my first in-person Ewicher Yeeger/ Hollersege this past weekend, on his home turf of the Blobarrick extension, adjacent to hallowed Deitsch burial ground and memorial stones. The chill in the air went straight to my bones, metaphorical of the death of a major part of my life currently falling away; as I shivered, I looked toward the sun, warming my face as she spilled across the Blobarrick across the fields- shadows formed, stretched, then retreated. Yet, I remained, on the earth, in Observance, and absolutely full. Full of truth and love in my heart. My son, all of my being, surrounded by community, family, and friends, I was initiated into the Urglaawe Guild of Braucherei and Hexerei Practitioners that day; something I did not know even existed back in 2010 when I began searching for a teacher.
Our forebears immigrated to escape fallout from the Thirty Years War and religious persecution in the Palatinate region, to face new hardships in Pennsylvania, including crop failure and cultural oppression/pressure to assimilate from the dominant rule of the English. Our language was nearly wiped out, and Braucherei/Hexerei went underground. Even through the anti-German sentiment brought by both world wars, and the public's exploitative misrepresentations of our folk practices and beliefs, we survived. Not only have we survived, but we have also grown to a point we are experiencing our own Pennsylvania Dutch Rennaissance. This is the embodiment of the spirit of Ewicher Yeeger's lesson- as a people, we do what needs to be done, using what we have, with mindfulness of the future, priority of task, and preservation of resources in harmony with our environment. When we engage in these values in mind, body, and spirit, we become the Eternal Hunter, forever ensuring balance between the people and the land, giving second chances to human nature that sometimes forgets its own self in the chain of man and beast and the humbleness that ensures our very survival.
Macht's immer besser!
by Gretchen E. Swank
Further Reading:
Der Ewicher Yeeger. Urglaawe. April 22, 2011. https//urglaawe.blogspot.com/2011/04/der-ewicher-yeeger.html?m=1
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