And a lover's principal gift to his sweetheart invariably consists of a carefully turned and brightly-painted "kriebatsche," an antiquated spindle and distaff that is, which is held dear as a family Bible. Spinning, indeed, is among Wends a far more important occupation than elsewhere. For men and women alike wear by preference linen clothes, made of good, stout, substantial stuff, thick enough to keep out the cold. In rural Germany a peasant girl is expected as an indispensable preparative for marriage to knit her "tally" of stockings. In Wendland the _trousseau_ consists all of spun linen. Servants invariably receive part of their wages in flax. Spinning accordingly is about the most important work to be accomplished in a household. And as it lends itself capitally to sociability and mirth, the Wendish maidens take to it with peculiar zest. The date for beginning these gatherings throughout Lusatia is the 11th of October, St. Burkhard's Day in the Wendish calendar. On that day the young unmarried women tell themselves off into _psazas_, that is, spinning companies, consisting of twelve at the outside, all of them girls of unblemished character. Among no race on earth is purity more valued and insisted upon--in both sexes--than among these poor forest Wends. Wherever corruption has crept in, it is wholly due to the evil seductions of Germans, who have taken advantage of the helplessness of Wendish girls when away on service. In a Wendish village, to have made a _faux pas_ deprives a young fellow and girl alike of their character for life. The girl must not sit with the other girls in church when the young are catechised; she must not walk up to the altar on high festivals; she must not join in the singing; and the spinning companies will not have her. In olden time she was not even allowed to dance. Young men going notoriously astray used to be punished in their own way.