Suntemaarten

On St Martin's Day the children went past the houses in small groups with a suntemaarten. The girls had a coloured lantern, the boys a hollowed sugar beet into which they had cut a ship or a house. A tallow candle stood in the beet, so the figures lit up. They sang the same song each time, for a cent or a biscuit.

"Suntemeerte had er een koe, hij nòòde alle bure doe. Toe de bure kwame, toe was de koe begrave." And further on: "Hier woont een rijk man, die veel geve kan." What they collected they put together and shared out at home.

The next day, 12 November, they burned the enkjes, the leftover bits of candle, and went round the village with them once more. Jo Daan wrote it down in 1950, in Wieringer Land en Leven in de Taal.