Published: November 05, 2009 08:36 am      

Jim Atwell: Monsters I’ve known or been

On Halloween I turned into a ghoul, or maybe revealed my Inner Monster. Who knows or cares? It was great fun.

Halloween was also the date for Fly Creek’s Sauerkraut- Making Fest. Each year a dozen local sauerkraut lovers gather at Scottie Baker’s home and spend hours singing along raucously with country songs on the radio, shredding mounds of green cabbage and packing them into big crocks. Awful jokes are told, and loud laughter follows each one. An anthropologist really ought to observe.

The crocks are ceremonially transported to Anne’s and my house, where they perfume our back room for six weeks.

Then the fermented kraut is bagged and parceled out to the fest’s participators. Last year, as I remember, each got about a gallon to freeze and then serve across the long winter. This year, they’ll get more.

More, because Anne and I made a pilgrimage up north of Little Falls to the farm of Amos Lapp, the sober- looking Amish man you may know from the Cooperstown Farmer’s Market.

(That visit’s worth another column.) We came home with 15 heads of beautiful green cabbage, each of them 10 pounds. Yep, 150 pounds of cabbage; it occasioned a lot of shredding and pounding.

Since I’m not good at shredding or pounding these days, my contribution came later, after a delicious pot-luck beside Scottie’s cozy woodstove. As eaves dripped rain down windowpanes, Scottie dimmed the lights, and a daunting presence stepped into the group’s midst. It was (surprise!) a monk.

Earlier in the day I’d taken my black academic gown (not much in use lately) and fitted over it a wide scapular that hung to my knees, front and back. It was made of burlap and belted at the waist with brown rope. Then I added a hood made from a pair of black pants artfully safety pinned into a hood, with long panels (the legs), to drape over my shoulders. The finished product, as I modeled it in a full-length mirror, looked monkish, but ghoulish, too.

When I stepped into the party’s dimness, I spoke as Brother Requiem, last member of a 14th-century religious order. It is called the Little Brothers of a Happy Death, or more commonly, the Brothers of Death. Their holy founder, Blessed Moribundus, formed the order for special service at executions.

(I should say that, as Brother Requiem explained his order’s history, his delivery was, for some sauerkrauters, a bit startling. He had a variety of disturbing facial tics, kept twisting to look sharply to left and right, and interrupted himself with short barks of laughter at odd, inapt times. But, to return to his account:)

The service at executions, explained Brother Requiem, followed on a cultural shift in the 14th century: a move from public burnings to public hangings. This followed on reluctance of village and hamlet dwellers to use winter fuel for burning criminals or heretics, especially because such events happened almost weekly; there was little other entertainment out in the countryside. Requiem followed that with a chilling bark that made one listener sputter in his coffee. Country folk were also loath to use wood for a scaffold, and so they simply dangled the condemned from a tree branch. That provided them with at least fifteen to twenty minutes of diversion, as the victim twisted and jerked while the noose slowly tightened.

``And how the little children loved it!’’ added Brother Requiem, softening his voice and bark. ``Their homes were so poor, there could be no puppets or dollies to play with.’’ (At that, one sauerkrauter pushed away her dessert plate. But what could I do? I was just a channeler . . .)

Requiem continued in his normal voice, such as it was. ``And what service was offered by the Little Brothers of a Happy Death? Well, led by the Blessed Moribundus, a small group would chant its way through the crowd, singing `In paradisum deducant te angeli’ (May angels lead you to paradise), or, if it seemed more apt, `Dies irae, dies illa!’’ (Day of wrath, that dreadful day!’)

Moribundus would step forward and embrace the knees of the dangling man. He would pull down, slowly and carefully, so as not to cause an unfortunate (Bark!) disjuncture of head and neck. ``This would tighten the noose,’’ said Requiem, spreading his hands and leaning back in his chair, ``and thus shorten suffering.’’ The monk snorted.

``The crowd was a little disappointed — but they did enjoy the monks’ chanting and the solemn dance they did, each holding his arms as if he embraced a set of knees.’’

Brother Requiem sighed. ``Those were simpler, happier times,’’ he said, and then spoke grimly. ``But then came technology, destroying, as it so often does, innocent human joys. The guillotine made its appearance, and suddenly country hangings were obsolete.

Folk rushed to the cities for the bigger spectacles — the prisoner delivered in a cart (providing a chance to hurl insults and rotten fruit), the climb to the scaffold, the flash of sunlight on the falling blade. What chance did country ritual, including our monks,’ have against that?

``But Saint Moribundus was again inspired. He assigned gifted monks to squat by the guillotine head basket, looking up at the unfortunate. They would grimace, cross their eyes, waggle their tongues, tell awful jokes. And just when the condemned looked distracted by the fun, they’d signal the executioner, and another somewhat happier death was done.

``One monk,’’ said Requiem ``was a great weeper and could soak the front of his scapular in seconds. While the crowd jeered and taunted the condemned, he’d squat by the basket, sob, moan, gasp, wring his hands. He’d signal the executioner just when he sensed the condemned was starting to think, `Well, at least somebody ca-’’’ Requiem patted his knees. ``Another happy death!’’ he chortled, then twitched violently. ``But now executions are governmental, private, and I’m the very last Little Brother of Death. But there’s hopeful rumor of another movement under way.’’ He leaned forward. ``Have you heard of Blessed Kevorkian?’’ Read about Jim Atwell’s book, From Fly Creek--Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country, at JimAtwell. com.