Our World View
The ancient tales and customs are an expression of an archaic view of the world. Living in a hard environment, where avalanches and landslides are a part of normal live, peolpe knew that they had to respect the forces of nature. Their homesteads were surrounded by large areas of wilderness – the home of giants and hags. Only the farms and fields belonged to mankind. In winter, the forces of the outer world entered the summer pastures and, during the Holy Night, even the houses of the living.
This world view was also present in the heathen myths as they had been written down in medieval iceland. The gods live in the center of the world in their wealthy homesteads nearby the world tree and the well of destiny. The realm of the mortals lies around this divine farm. Behind the mountains and woods, begins the world of the giants who constantly threaten the fields of Midgard.
This perpetual fight against the forces of wilderness was well known to the alemannic Peasants. Every spring, they had to clean their fields from the debris brought down by avalanches. Knowing how to survive in this harsh world, was essential to the communities. Thus the traditions were holy. Many tales remind of a golden age, when green pastures covered even the highest mountains. But when a ruthless peasant broke the rulesof tradition, the glaciers tumbled down and covered the Blüemlisalp with ice. This theme can also be found in the old pagan myths: There, the gods transgressed the sacred order and thus evoked the end of the world, when all life must freeze in an endless winter.
The reason for these catastrophes was the destruction of a fragile balance, upon which the world was built. For the heathen men, the world was not the creation of an almighty god, but the result of a constant struggle of different forces – warmth and cold, light and darkness, life and death. According to the roman author Tacitus, the ancient germans believed that life had sprung in the clash of fire and water. There was no good or evil in this eternal fight. The struggle between these ancient forces was an expression of destiny. One thing lead to another and whatever happened, had to happen. The purpose of life was to do, what a man had to do.
Nevertheless, there was nothing fatalistic about the traditionel world view. A wild will of life filled the peasants living on their poor farmsteads. They believed in their destiny: To be worthy of the heritage they had recieved from their ancestors. Their whole live was centered about their homestead. The hof had been passed down from father to son for generations, and it was a holy duty to preserve the land for the next generation. Thus, a man was but a small joint in an endless chain of life that reached from the mystic ancestors riding through the winter nights to the children who would live and work on the hof in the coming ages. Thus, freedom and personal responsibility are among the highest traditional values: A man had to take responsibility for his hof and could not give it out of his hands. This was both a heavy burden and a source of pride for the men living on their small farmsteads surrounded by endless woods, myres and mountains.