Of the picturesqueness and oddity of the Bavarian peasants' costumes, nothing but a picture can give you any idea.You can imagine the men in tight breeches, buttoned below the knee, jackets of the jockey cut, and both jacket and waistcoat covered with big metal buttons, sometimes coins, as thickly as can be sewed on: but the women defy the pen; a Bavarian peasant woman, in holiday dress, is the most fearfully and wonderfully made object in the universe.She displays a good length of striped stockings, and wears thin slippers, or sandals; her skirts are like a hogshead in size and shape, and reach so near her shoulders as to make her appear hump-backed; the sleeves are hugely swelled out at the shoulder, and taper to the wrist; the bodice is a stiff and most elaborately ornamented piece of armor; and there is a kind of breastplate, or center-piece, of gold, silver, and precious stones, or what passes for them; and the head is adorned with some monstrous heirloom, of finely worked gold or silver, or a tower, gilded and shining with long streamers, or bound in a simple black turban, with flowing ends.Little old girls, dressed like their mothers, have the air of creations of the fancy, who have walked out of a fairy-book.There is an endless variety in these old costumes; and one sees, every moment, one more preposterous than the preceding.The girls from the Tyrol, with their bright neckerchiefs and pointed black felt hats, with gold cord and tassels, are some of them very pretty: but one looks a long time for a bright face among the other class; and, when it is discovered, the owner appears like a maiden who was enchanted a hundred years ago, and has not been released from the spell, but is still doomed to wear the garments and the ornaments that should long ago have mouldered away with her ancestors.
The Theresien Wiese was a city of Vanity Fair for two weeks, every day crowded with a motley throng.Booths, and even structures of some solidity, rose on it as if by magic.The lottery-houses were set up early, and, to the last, attracted crowds, who could not resist the tempting display of goods and trinkets, which might be won by investing six kreuzers in a bit of paper, which might, when unrolled, contain a number.These lotteries are all authorized: some of them were for the benefit of the agricultural society; some were for the poor, and others on individual account: and they always thrive; for the German, above all others, loves to try his luck.
There were streets of shanties, where various things were offered for sale besides cheese and sausages.There was a long line of booths, where images could be shot at with bird-guns; and when the shots were successful, the images went through astonishing revolutions.There was a circus, in front of which some of the spangled performers always stood beating drums and posturing, in order to entice in spectators.There were the puppet-booths, before which all day stood gaping, delighted crowds, who roared with laughter whenever the little frau beat her loutish husband about the head, and set him to tend the baby, who continued to wail, notwithstanding the man knocked its head against the doorpost.There were the great beer-restaurants, with temporary benches and tables' planted about with evergreens, always thronged with a noisy, jolly crowd.There were the fires, over which fresh fish were broiling on sticks; and, if you lingered, you saw the fish taken alive from tubs of water standing by, dressed and spitted and broiling before the wiggle was out of their tails.There were the old women, who mixed the flour and fried the brown cakes before your eyes, or cooked the fragrant sausage, and offered it piping hot.
And every restaurant and show had its band, brass or string,--a full array of red-faced fellows tooting through horns, or a sorry quartette, the fat woman with the harp, the lean man blowing himself out through the clarinet, the long-haired fellow with the flute, and the robust and thick-necked fiddler.Everywhere there was music; the air was full of the odor of cheese and cooking sausage; so that there was nothing wanting to the most complete enjoyment.The crowd surged round, jammed together, in the best possible humor.Those who could not sit at tables sat on the ground, with a link of an eatable I have already named in one hand, and a mug of beer beside them.Toward evening, the ground was strewn with these gray quart mugs, which gave as perfect evidence of the battle of the day as the cannon-balls on the sand before Fort Fisher did of the contest there.Besides this, for the amusement of the crowd, there is, every day, a wheelbarrow race, a sack race, a blindfold contest, or something of the sort, which turns out to be a very flat performance.But all the time the eating and the drinking go on, and the clatter and clink of it fill the air; so that the great object of the fair is not lost sight of.