Himmelfahrt – Ascension Day: Avoidance of Sewing, Binding & Working
40 days after Easter, the Pennsylvania Dutch celebrate Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day). Although years ago shops would close throughout the Dutch Country, and most everyone took the day off for religious observation, today only the Plain Communities, the Old Order Mennonites and Amish, continue this tradition. In the Christian liturgical calendar, this day commemorates the story of Christ’s ascension into heaven, witnessed by his disciples, to whom he gave the “great commission,” instructions to spread the word of the miracles they witnessed. For this reason, Himmelfahrt was considered to be one of the holiest days of the year, aside from Good Friday (Karfreidaag), and folk cultural beliefs and traditions abounded on this particular day.
40 days after Easter, the Pennsylvania Dutch celebrate Himmelfahrt (Ascension Day). Although years ago shops would close throughout the Dutch Country, and most everyone took the day off for religious observation, today only the Plain Communities, the Old Order Mennonites and Amish, continue this tradition. In the Christian liturgical calendar, this day commemorates the story of Christ’s ascension into heaven, witnessed by his disciples, to whom he gave the “great commission,” instructions to spread the word of the miracles they witnessed. For this reason, Himmelfahrt was considered to be one of the holiest days of the year, aside from Good Friday (Karfreidaag), and folk cultural beliefs and traditions abounded on this particular day.
A general prohibition against work once prevailed on Ascension Day, which always falls on a Thursday. Being a midweek holiday it would have been easy to dismiss this ban on working, had it not been for the pervasive belief that one welcomed divine wrath for such an offense. On this day one was not to fasten or bind anything on earth, for fear of working against sacred symbolism of the ascension. To hammer a nail was to invite bodily injury, and lightning was thought to strike those who dared to sew a button or mend a tear.
Cautionary tales concerning those who dismissed these warnings once abounded. Dr. Alfred L. Shoemaker recorded a story near Muddy Creek in the Cocalico Valley, where a terrible storm shook the walls of the church on Ascension Day. The wise minister questioned the members of the congregation, if any poor soul had undertaken to sew that morning, and commanded that any such person wearing an article sewn that morning was to take it off and leave it outside. A woman got up and exited the church, leaving her apron on the fence outside. (Thankfully it was only her apron!) The storm continued to rage outside, and when the service was over, the woman’s apron had been burned to a cinder from a bolt of lightning.
For previous generations, going to church was about the only thing one could safely do on Ascension Day, aside from two other afternoon activities: gathering medicinal herbs, and going fishing. The belief was that if one made a tea of nine or seven herbs on Ascension Day, it would protect health throughout the year. One variation of this tradition specified the following herbs: three from the woods, including dogwood flowers, elder flowers, and wintergreen; three from the field, including cinquefoil, catnip, and ground ivy; and three from the garden, including horehound, sage and thyme.
Other variations of the tradition suggested that the varieties of herbs didn’t matter, so long as they were in increments of 7 or 9! Some of the other herbs commonly gathered on this day also mirrored the symbolism of “unbinding” on Ascension Day, such as snakeroot which was a laxative, and sarsaparilla which encouraged urination. The belief was that these herbs would be more effective in “unbinding” the release of waste from the body.
Fishing was another permissible pastime, undergirded by the belief that it resonated with the symbolism of the ascension. Some have suggested that it meant the fish would “rise” out of their hiding places in the depths, although it may also have to do with the biblical association of fishing with proselytizing, which was outlined in the “great commission” in the Ascension story.