The Poor Man of Toggenburg - Autobiography of Ulrich Bräker

with the rod. (This foolish error is common among inexperienced fathers, out of pure love they demand from their eldest children that they should show as tender an affection towards them as towards their mothers. And I have observed the same thing in myself and many other fathers, that they keep their firstborn under a discipline that is absurdly harsh, but it gradually lightens as other children follow.)

I can surely remember as far back - or as near - if not exactly to my second year. Very clearly I recollect how I crawled on all fours down a stony path and by gestures begged apples from an old dame. I know too that I was a wakeful child, and my mother, in order to earn a penny or two without my grandparents' knowledge, used to spin by lamplight at night in secret. I did not like to stay in the bedroom by myself, so she spread an apron on the floor and set me naked upon it, and I played with the shadows and her spindle. I remember too that she often carried me in her arms over the pasture to meet my father, and that I howled as soon as I saw him, for he always behaved harshly towards me if I would not come to him. I see his face before me now, and the gestures that he made, as if he were alive now.

In those days all victuals were cheap but there was little employment in the land. The famine and the war of 1712

were still fresh in our minds. I heard my mother tell many tales about it that made me quake and tremble. At the end of the 1730's cotton-spinning was first introduced into our village, and my mother may have been one of the first to spin "Löthligarn"

[...] In my childhood too, the first potatoes were planted in our district

As soon as I was put into my first pair of breeches my father began to like me better. He took me with him from place to place. In the autumn of the year 1739 he was burning saltpetre

The years 1709-10 were years of bad harvests and epidemics of cattle diseases throughout Europe. The Toggenburg war or Zwölferkrieg, ["war of 1712"] or 2nd Villmergen War, arose from the refusal of the men of Wattwil to build a road through the Hummelwald, as ordered by the Prince-Abbot of St. Gallen. The road was projected to run from Schwyz to the Austrian frontier, for strategic purposes, to cut Zürich off from the Protestant areas of Glarus. The men of Wattwil were supported by all the Toggenburg and by Zürich and Bern. The abbey of St. Gallen was occupied and the abbot and his monks had to leave the country. Peace negotiations were opened, but the Pope denounced the suggested agreement and fighting broke out again. The war ended in a bloody battle at Villmergen on 25 th July 1712, in which the armies of Bern and Zürich were victorious. Peace was made on August 11th, securing greater religious liberty for the Protestants. (Voellmy, v 1 p 373 and Bonjour, p 196-7).

Löthligarn was also called Schneller-yarn or stocking-yarn. It was a new type of cotton yarn, very fine, which was spun by hand on a spindle, requiring more skill than the coarse yarn spun on a wheel. One Schneller represented about 1200 metres. (Braun).

Potatoes were more popular than grain because they were not taxed. (Braun). They were also less vulnerable to destruction by hail and could be used in bread to eke out scarce grain supplies. (Hirzel, p 422).

Saltpetre was an ingredient of gunpowder and so in great demand. It is the extraction of potash from saltpetre-earth. This earth is formed by the action of air on decaying organic matter and an alkali such as lime. It can occur naturally, e.g. in stables with limestone walls, or can be made artificially in compost-heaps. The earth was placed in a large cask together with additional alkaline matter such as wood-ash, and water was drained through it for a day. The water was then strained off and used to "wash" another load of earth, after a third repetition it was boiled for several hours and left to cool in large basins for three to six days during which the saltpetre would form a deposit on the sides of the vessels. (A. and C.R. Aikin: Dictionary of chemistry and mineralogy, London, 1807, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 th ed., 1911).