In my youth most of them were tinkers, mending pots and kettles, making brooms and sharpening knives. According to their age-old custom, they travelled the world. The ones that stayed home, however, were always on the road and with their begging, made the place unsafe. It is said that the squire, after a sleepless night, looked out of the window at dawn, and saw practically the whole village passing by the house with sacks on their backs. He shouted down: "I really think it's great to see you go out to work so early. I do admire your industry." They told him truthfully: "We are not going to work, we are going begging." He is supposed to have said: "Does your sheriff allow this?" and they answered: "He always comes with us but doesn't carry a sack."
After passing through the place without having been molested or merely followed by begging children, the road passed a farmhouse which was officially called Juliushof, but the country people called it 'mugging farm'. It was inhabited by even worse ragamuffins and any careful man would button up his pockets when passing by. After having left this place behind, with some trepidation, we eventually reached the outskirts of Schnaid. 
The accompanying parish villages, Rothensand and Greater and Smaller Buchfeld lie in a circle around the village church which was built on a hill visible from afar in the area. If any of the locals, the Mayor or any farmer who knew us, saw us on our way, we needs must come inside his house and partake of honey, black bread and butter. They would be very hurt if we did not eat a lot. After these refreshments, we would climb the last hill to Schnaid. In the presbytery, our Uncle, Grandmother and Cook, Kathi, received us beaming all over and we immediately sat down to tea after our long journey. I don't know who derived more pleasure from our holiday visit, we or uncle Heinrich.
On the village green stood an old lime tree, which had already stood there at the time of the thirty years war. The Swedes, at the time, shot down the Parish Priest, who had taken refuge in its branches. In other ways too, those terrible times were remembered (1618-1648). "Bet kindle bet, morgen kommt der Schwed", used to be taught. Another rhyme they knew in several variations, went like this: "The Swedes are here, took away all our gear. Broke our windows, took away all the lead. Made bullets of the lot.. and the farmers were shot." Near the presbytery in the village there was a deep old well, in those days the only one in the place. The water had to be brought up by turning a wheel. When there was any long drought, the well dried up and water had to be brought up the hill from a spring lower down. There were only well-to-do farmers in the village, no paupers. As they could not do without a woman to carry messages, she was housed in the community building. For a cobbler, who was also indispensible, the community had built a small dwelling. It was outside the village. Thus, if he should ever become a nuisance, they would be able to give him notice to quit. He was a bachelor and was called Master Gift (tr. Poison). When the children went out to his house calling his name, he would rush out of his door with lightening speed, carrying his leather strap and laid about him, thrashing whomever he could reach. He also caught me one time, but as a member of the presbytery household I was treated comparatively gently.
Weddings were celebrated with great pomp and circumstance. As was the custom, the priest accompanied the bride to the church and received a twig of rosemary, a lemon and a silk scarfe. On the way to the church, the village
youths barred the road with ropes and only let the bride pass after the usual ransom. When my uncle Baptist Schneider married
the daughter of Mayor Kroeppel of Greater Buchfeld (Großbuchfeld), whose wedding to which I was invited with my mother, there was
a grand display of the peasant womens’ Sunday best. They wore very becoming bonnets with broad black ribbons tied into a bow at the back and with the ends flowing down behind. They were called ‘Part-hauben’, and dated back to
the former fashions of the town ladies in Bamberg. Then they wore a bodice and pleated cloth skirts bordered below with a red and a green stripe and coloured silk aprons. They also had long velvet mittens, lined with rabbit
fur. My mother too at that wedding wore a similar outfit and because of her strikingly handsome appearance, received great praise. The older countrymen, on such occasions still used to wear knee breaches and long coats with
silver buttons and wore three-cornered hats. This national costume has now completely disappeared. Later on I tried in vain to buy such an old outfit. Nowadays the men wear a kind of domestic manservant’s dress, the women
mostly shapeless snoods, tilted backwards, braided with glass beads and voluminous skirts with crinolines underneath. Only their red, or on occasions, white head scarves with two wimples at the forehead, has been preserved from
olden times.
From the village customs of those days I remember a Midsummer Day. In the daytime the young folk of the village carried a beer through the place stopping for a song at every house, which consisted in long verses asking for wood for a bonfire. Those who gave nothing had to listen to a scathing rhyme about a mean old scrooge, sung in harmony. After dark a widely visible fire was lit on the common and old and young jumped over it in pairs. We too were there with Kathi the cook, and were allowed to jump over the fire with her.
The presbytery was an old building and included stables and a barn across the yard for the upkeep of the farm part of it. However, my uncle did not take any part in this. My grandmother kept a lot of chickens, geese and ducks. The barn was a marvellous playground. Behind it was the presbytery garden in which my uncle’s young trees were planted in great numbers. After my uncle’s death, his successor sent us fruit every year from the trees he had planted. Each of us children were given a quantity of fruit for ourselves from the elder trees. There was a special sort of sweet apple that was our favourites.
In front of the house towards the road was a small front garden. There was a vine growing up the front of the house, which grew muscatel grapes. We said they tasted like bed bugs, nevertheless, there were no grapes left as far as children’s arms could reach outside the windows.
Of special interest was the attic of the presbytery in whose nooks and crannies there were all sorts of interesting items left by my uncle’s predecessors. In one corner was an enormous heap of cardboard boxes lined with tinfoil. One predecessor all his life had snuff delivered to him in these boxes and had carefully preserved them. In spite of the most imaginative use of them in our games, we were unable to use them all up. On the ceiling were hundreds of bats, hanging down on one foot clawing a beam, and rolled up like tiny little sacks. One day we took a broom to them and towards lunchtime chased them out into the open via the pigeon coop. The village people were quite terrified to see a large number of these weird creatures swarm about in broad day light like little black devils. They ran out of their houses, crossed themselves and were convinced that it all had a most sinister meaning.
Outside the house I spent a lot of time with the family of the teacher, Mr. Marquard. They were charming people - the teacher with an old fashioned, dignified demeanour. He wore his hair according to an old military tradition, combed forward at the temples. At school he was excellent, also a first class musician and conductor of the choir. I can still see him, when during one of the church feast days, the choir threatened to come adrift. Marquard jumped up from the organ and with furious looks and with a loud beat of his baton managed to restore order. Afterwards he called them a useless lot that should be ashamed of themselves. There was much music making and singing. I remember one of the songs I learned in those days: -
Horseradish man, Horseradish man,
Is your little wife alive?
Yes, yes she’s still alive and kicks about,
My dear old wife.
- to be repeated ad infinitum. There was another dance tune about a tassel cap.
Peter, an elder son of the teacher and his wife, a clever pleasant lad, became a teacher, then qualified for university, but unfortunately died early. The daughter Irma was a quiet girl with a sense of humour. Two younger sons, Georg and Matthaeus (called Schorsch and Maz) were about my own age. They went to grammar school and later on, one studied science, the other theology. Both of them became college professors and are still good friends of mine.
Another boy, a farmer’s son from the neighbourhood, who played with us a great deal, also studied and ended up as a judge. He did not acquire any culture, however and remained a peasant all his life. Another boy, Heinrich, I remember as an altar server. He was able to rattle off the Latin responses faster than we could read them. He used to pronounce ‘Deus Meus’ as ‘Dois Mois’. At the age of eighteen, he took over his relations’ farm, married a girl of his own age, who had been destined to be his wife from an early age, but did not age gracefully, sorry to relate.
We were not made to study hard in the presbytery, my uncle leaving that for us to do in the school in town. However, he told us a lot of things during our walks. Often our walks took us to the Kreuzberg which is not far from Schnaid, above the river Aisch. Heavy wooden crosses leaned against the pilgrims church, which were carried round the church by the praying pilgrims. There was a lovely, vast view from up there. So that we would not get homesick, our uncle took us often up a neighbouring hill from which it was possible to see the Altenburg near Bamberg. It was not really necessary, because we used to say goodbye to the presbytery with the greatest sorrow. How quickly the days used to pass there!