“Therefore he has been led over mountains and valleys, through forests and rivers, over rocks and precipices, until he came to your house and cast his eyes on the virtuous maiden your daughter. And the Lord has been pleased to touch his heart with a mighty love for her, so that he has been moved to ask you to give her hand to him in holy wedlock.” Probably the young couple have grown up in sight of each other, the garden of the one father very likely adjoining the pigsty of the other; but the formula must be adhered to notwithstanding, and neither rocks nor precipices omitted from the programme; and even though the parents of the bride be a byword in the village for their noisy domestic quarrels, yet the little fiction of conjugal happiness must be kept up all the same, with a truly magnificent sacrifice of veracity to etiquette worthy of any Court journal discussing a royal alliance. And in point of fact a disinterested love-match between Saxon peasants is about as rare a thing as a genuine courtship between reigning princes. Most often it is a simple business contract arranged between the family heads, who each of them hopes to reap advantage from the bargain. When the answer has been a consent, then the compact is sealed by a feast called the _brautvertrinken_ (drinking the bride), to which are invited only the nearest relations on either side, the places of honor at the head of the table being given to the two ambassadors who have transacted the business. A second banquet, of a more solemn nature, is held some four weeks later, when rings have been exchanged in presence of the pastor. The state of the weather at the moment the rings are exchanged is regarded as prophetic for the married life of the young couple, according as it may be fair or stormy. Putting the ring on his bride’s finger, the young man says, “I give thee here my ring so true; God grant thou may it never rue!” CHAPTER XIV. THE SAXONS: MARRIAGE. The 25th of November, feast of St. Catherine,[14] is in many districts the day selected for tying all these matrimonial knots. When this is not the case, then the weddings take place in Carnival, oftenest in the week following the Sunday when the gospel of the marriage at Cana has been read in church; and Wednesday is considered the most lucky day for the purpose. The preparations for the great day occupy the best part of a week in every house which counts either a bride or bridegroom among its inmates. There are loaves and cakes of various sorts and shapes to be baked, fowls and pigs to be slaughtered; in wealthier houses even the sacrifice of a calf or an ox is considered necessary for the wedding-feast; and when this is the case the tongue is carefully removed, and, placed upon the best china plate, with a few laurel leaves by way of decoration, is carried to the parsonage as the customary offering to the reverend Herr Vater.