Time does not adhere to any speed limit, it races along the straight like a racing driver. Another week has begun, and it is even a special day: Kirchweih Monday. Unfortunately, the glamor of this festival has faded. When Ludwig Thoma created his farmer’s novels, the parish fair was still the biggest festival of the year: “The sow grunts in the yard; the farmer sharpens the knife,” Thoma described the scene, which always resulted in a dislocation of the stomach for several days. This was done by feeding liver dumplings and sausages, goose young with dumplings, plate meat with horseradish, roast pork with sauerkraut, duck with salad. Lard noodles, Schuxen and plum bavese were pushed behind.
Until 1866, each village had its own parish fair on the feast day of the church patron. Because this increased the number of public holidays, the fair was moved to the third Sunday in October. In the Upper Palatinate, the population ignored this decree. That’s why there is Kirwa there every weekend, but always in a different village. The Ammersrichter Kirwa are followed by the Wolfsfelder, the Saltendorfer, and the Gibbacher Kirwa, followed by the Kirchenreinbacher and the Ursulapoppenrichter Kirwa, until the Kühlenfelser Kirwa rounds off the season. The people in the Upper Palatinate virtually live in the Kirwa paradise.
But the general church fair in October was also full of joy. The dance music, the stamping and shouting that continued on the kirtahutschn, where the girls screamed when their admirers drove the swing up to the beam. Old sources prove what could not be avoided afterwards – the perennial kirta: “In the woods and in the thicket of perennials, one meets the pairs not too far apart, making sacrifices to Aphrodites.” The festival often ended in a fight. Then the guests returned home with “clumsy heads”, as Sebastian Franck complained in 1534.
“A good kirta lasts until Irta” is an old saying. That means translated: “A good church fair lasts until Tuesday.” The word Irta is as valuable as a lard noodle, because it comes from ancient times and was conveyed into our language by the Ostrogoths. So you should be humble and not eat a donut on this Monday when the bakeries are selling lard, striezel and farmer’s donuts for the parish fair. Even Powidl-Tatschkerl from Bohemia are within reach, dumplings filled with plums, which a Gaudibursch has renamed Covidl-Tascherl.