!!!Aschermittwoch

Ash Wednesday, first day of Lent. In the rituals of the Catholic 
Church, the ashes of the palm fronds from the Palm Sunday of the 
previous year are consecrated and applied to the churchgoers' 
foreheads in the form of a cross as a sign of their mortality. France 
is the original source of the "Artists' Ash Wednesday", which has 
become popular through television broadcasts with its religious 
service with readings and musical performances (also in the 
Michaelerkirche church in Vienna; Innsbruck). Outside of the church, 
Ash Wednesday is emphasised as the end of the  Fasching season: the 
"Heringsschmaus" (herring and mayonnaise salad) meal, the culinary 
refinement of which hardly reminds us of its original meaning (fish as 
a food for the Lenten Fast); "Faschingbegraben", a custom in which the 
carnival season is symbolically buried or drowned; since 1922 
"Geldbeutelwaschen", a custom of washing purses in the old town 
section of Bregenz (borrowed from southwestern Germany).

!Literature
H. M. Wolf, Das Brauchbuch, 1992; H. Gehrer-Schwarz, 
Gealtbittelwaesch, 1986; K. Gaál, Fasching-Begraben, 1969 (OeWF 
documentary).


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