House and Garden 
Spreewalder to baptism,—takes him 
to the happiest festival of his life— 
his wedding, and finally bears him on 
his journey in his coffin to his last 
resting place. When winter stretches 
its crystal bridges over the Spreewald, 
the skating and sleighing begin be¬ 
tween the various villages. 
The night before the burial of a 
Spreewalder, a chorus of girls sing 
funeral hymns around the open coffin, 
which is surrounded by as many 
burning candles as the number of 
years which the deceased had lived. 
It is the custom in Burg for the 
female relatives of the deceased to 
appear clad entirely in white cloth, so 
that only the eyes and hands are free. 
It seems hardly credible, but it is true, 
that when the cof¬ 
fin is carried out, 
the bees and the 
cattle are solemnly 
informed by these 
simple folk, that 
now they are to 
have a new master 
whom they will 
have to obey. It 
is hard to believe 
that this “Sleepy 
Hollow” is within 
two hours’ journey 
by train from the 
great modern city 
of Berlin, but such 
is the fact. Im¬ 
mediately after 
COUNTRY INN OR LODGING HOUSE 
INTERIOR OF A WEN DISH PEASANT S HOUSE 
t he death of a 
Spreewalder, the 
windows are 
opened wide, to 
“let out the soul.” 
The bench on 
which the coffin 
has stood is 
knocked over at 
once, so that 
no person may 
sit upon it and 
“die after.’’ 
These supersti¬ 
tious Wends also 
believe that in or¬ 
der that the grave 
may not sink in, 
all the names of 
the relatives of 
the deceased must be recited, a light 
meal must be eaten before the burial, 
to be followed afterwards by a regular 
funeral feast with plentiful beer and 
schnapps. 
It was Professor Virchow who 
asserted that the excavations around 
the “Schlossberg” at Burg, showed 
undoubted evidences of prehistoric 
dwellings. The Slavs entered this par¬ 
ticular district in the sixth century. 
In the period of the Margrave Geros 
(so runs the legend) a Wendish prince 
by the name of Ciscibor, after the de¬ 
struction of his castle on the “Landes- 
krone” near Gorlitz, fled to the Spree¬ 
wald. He wandered to the banks of 
the Spree, built himself a raft and 
floated safely down the river as far as 
THE KITCHEN IN A WENDISH HOME 
66 
