On one fine sunny day in May the members of the guilds, men and women, would gather in the Community Garden of Kneiphof (Kneiphof). The men wore white jackets, the women were also dressed in white, with black ribbons tied round their heads.
Everyone set out from the Community Garden to the sound of music in the following order: the procession was headed by the town musicians, followed by one of the leaders of the procession, holding a large beer ladle, and behind him came all the others in pairs, carrying mashing paddles. In the middle of the procession was carried the guild banner of white taffeta embroidered in gold with the inscription:
By God and by our sovereign shall merriment be granted us as a gift 1.
Behind the banner walked the second leader of the procession with a beer ladle in his hands, then the maltsters with mashing paddles, each carrying on his shoulders a hoop from a beer barrel twined with linen towels. Then came musicians again, and behind them, at the tail of the procession, the women, led by a man in a white jacket.
The procession left Kneiphof and passed through Altstadt (Altstadt) and Löbenicht (Löbenicht), up the Mill Hill (Mühlenberg), then past the castle along Rossgarten (Roßgarten) to Maraunenhof (Maraunenhof). It was heading for the town forest of Löbenicht, where more than thirty tables had been laid; there the general merriment and feasting began, accompanied by copious libations. Having eaten their fill and grown merry with drink, the participants of the festive procession danced all night long.
The next day, after lunch, the procession returned to the town: the women carried on their shoulders the beer-barrel hoops, entwined with greenery and decorated with yellow meadow flowers.
The festive procession took place for the last time on 1 May 1667.
LEGENDS OF PRUSSIA in the blog of Tatyana Kolivay.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
1. In the original:
Durch Gott und unsern Landesherrn
wird uns die Freud' vergönnet gern.
SOURCES
Karl Faber. Die Haupt- und ResidenzStadt Königsberg. Das Merkwürdigste aus der Geschichte. 1840. Gräfe und Unzer.
Hartmut Schustereit. Es kommt der Herr der Herrlichkeit: Eine Erzählung aus Altpreußen um Pfarrer Georg Weissel. 2015. Buchwerkstatt Berlin.
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
