Today is the first of the four most important Raunächte of this year´s dark season. We do not only celebrate the twelve nights between Christmas Eve and Epiphany, we start with the so-called Thomas-night, the longest night of the year. As a folk where many of us live in a mountainy countryside with rough climate we still have strange archaic rites for those long dark nights, rites that not always go well with Christian practises. "Raunächte" are a part of heathen traditions that have made it into our time, like burning incense in the house while reciting incantations to keep the house safe, and strange flocks of creepy figures wandering from house to house, allegedly bringing luck to the residents, but only in case your house is clean as a whistle and you have done well during the year. It is the time of oracles and animals speaking in the middle of the night, and the doors to the otherworld wide open for the souls dwelling there. No whites get hung on the washing lines, because this means that a beloved person is to die the following year. My grandmother did indeed cling to those rites and told us eerie stories about what might happen if one did not stick to tradition, and my sister and I were terrified. Till then the both of us had thought that a krampus was the most terrifying thing. Something must have gone very wrong last dark season, not enough incense burning or a clothes line put in a place where the "Wilde Jagd" got entangled and was no more able to do its luck bringing -and that´s why a dangerous virus made it into the world. Don´t laugh, I have met old farmers who believe in this imterpretation. Superstition is still a widespread factor of our folk culture!
I have done most of the Christmas preparations, the house is clean, we are to pick up the turkey on Wednesday near number three´s domicile, only that hubby will have do it alone. Namo´s health has detoriated once again. He has lost weight, has not fed for two days in a row now, he suffers from diarrhea and is vomitting way too often. Of course, he is shedding like mad, which causes indigestion, but I fear this might be the beginning of the end... Not nice so close to Christmas, when all the grandchildren are on the way to pet and cuddle him, because he always loves to get cuddled, even from the little ones! Vaire is off the moment they enter the house, hiding behind the safe, which is a very good hiding place even though the safe is more like a decorative item. No one ever has put money or jewellery into it. Number four and five are just trying to get some fluids into Namo, but the more they feed him the quicker the output...