Whose Festival Is It?

Written by eklastic

At the outset of our annual town festival the mayor and other dignitaries as well as the wine princesses of the region gather on the balcony of the old town hall. The mayor gives a speech and everybody waits for the cannon to fire from the nearby castle. Once the shot is heard the mayor asks the crowd below: “Wem is die Kerwe?” and the crowd bellows: “Unser!!!” – and four days of revelling can commence.

Translation: “Whose Festival Is It?” – “Ours!!!”

Double-gedippt (sic!) for FOWC with Fandango: Outset

and Ragtag Daily Prompt: Festival

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6 thoughts on “Whose Festival Is It?”

    1. These are the village festivals that have been celebrated since the middle ages around German speaking countries. They traditionally take place when the village / town church celebrated its birthday (for example our village festival is celebrated on the 11th Sunday after Trinitatis, i.e. 2nd weekend in August). In the beginning it was food, drink (beer or wine, depending on the region) and music and dancing. Often this was the one weekend where farmworkers and tradesmen had their only leisure time during summer. Today it’s food and drink and music, and the usual travelling fairground attractions. The standard German name is “Kirchweih”, church consecration: in our dialect it’s “Kerwe” (other regional names for it are Kirmess, Kerb, Chilbi, Kirbi and many more, I found the English translation in the dict.leo.org dictionary and used it reluctantly). Often these festivals are on a large open space, with a beer tent and attractions (like the world famous [and completely overrated] Munich Oktoberfest but in our hometown it is in the old part of town, with many people having impromptu pubs (called “Straußwirtschaft”) in their yards.

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