Excerpt from Deutsche Sitten Und Bra¿ucheIn reading Die deutschen Sitten and Brc'iuche one finds himself constantly face to face with customs and prae tices derived and inherited from the past. Indeed many quaint and strange rites and Observances are rooted in ancient Pagan beliefs and practices, beliefs and prae tices often grown pale and shadowy in modern days, yet nevertheless real and potent. The Germanic past still dominates or, at least, in¿uences the lives of the men and women of the present, it still shapes. Much of their thinking, of their views of life and destiny.A study of the essential characteristics of a people afiords the best possible incentive to serious, honest study and is, accordingly, pedagogically sound and valuable. But it also lays a good foundation for an intelligent appreciation of that people's literature. Long ago Goethe, the Altmeister wrote.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.