Austria: containing a Description of the Manners, Customs, Character and Costumes of the People of that EmpireShoberl, Frederic
History
Austria: containing a Description of the Manners, Customs, Character and Costumes of the People of that Empire
Shoberl, Frederic
Austria -- Social life and customs
The women of this part of the Tyrol have such a predilection for red
and blue stockings, that they seldom wear them of any other colour.
When these stockings are not plaited, they load them with embroidery
and all sorts of whimsical figures. With the women, the stockings,
corset and girdle, are the articles in which finery is particularly
studied, as the hat, the waistcoat, and the braces are with the men.
The manners of the women of the Tyrol are gentle and sedate. Equally
chaste wives and tender mothers, they devote themselves entirely to
their household affairs and to the care of their children. Constant in
their sentiments, the man whom they once love is the object of their
everlasting affection. Kind to all around them, they are not shy at
the appearance of a stranger. On the contrary, when he approaches
their habitation the mother sends her daughters to meet the traveller,
and with engaging modesty they offer him fruit and present him with
flowers. When once introduced into the cottage, the whole family
throngs around him; the most delicious milk assuages his thirst, while
a dish of smoked meat is prepared to appease the hunger excited by the
keen air of the mountains.
Naturally quick and hasty, the Tyrolese prosecutes with heart and soul
whatever he takes in hand. His dances alone, by their irregularity and
vivacity, sufficiently attest the vehemence of his character. The
music which excites him to pleasure is so brisk, that he can scarcely
follow the measure. In short, these people cannot do any thing in a
cool and quiet manner: if they fight, it is with an ardour which never
allows them to calculate the danger; and when they indulge in
pleasure, they give themselves up to it entirely. Is the country in
danger? mourning is in every heart, and arms are in every hand: their
very apparel acquaints the stranger with their feelings and their
thoughts.
The national songs of the Tyrolese likewise prove the violence of
their passions. Always lively and gay, they frequently pass from low
natural tones to the highest sharps. From the expressions of these
songs, you may know that they belong to men wandering in vast
solitudes, and whose strains, crossing deep valleys, excite the voices
of the herdsmen on the opposite hills. It is to this wildness and
irregularity that the national airs of the Tyrol owe the celebrity
which they have acquired. What traveller, who has ever witnessed the
sensations they produce, could hear them without emotion!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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