Traditional beer taverns on the North-German coasts have candles burning at each table. Visiting smokers should beware of lighting their cigarettes with these. It will inevitably provoke some harsh reaction by the locals or the publician.
"Stop that! Each time you light a smoke with a candle you kill a fisherman!"
Most folks, even those protesting the atrocious deed, have long forgotten why this is believed to be so. But every child here knows by heart that you just don’t do that. It kills fishermen.
Here’s the background story as it was told to me a long time ago.
During the dark wintertimes the seas are roaring, the winds gusty and the big rivers frozen. There’s no chance to sail out for fish. The fishermen are out of pay and go hungry.
To survive, the fisher families gather in their huts around the table. They chip dry wood into tiny splints. They dunk the tips of these into a strong smelling can in front of them. The result is carefully lined up aside to eventually dry. The can holds a well stirred mixture of yellow phosphor, sulfer, potassium chlorate and gum arabicum. The fishermen produce matches. At daytime, they and their children will roam the market and knock on doors to sell them.
Lighting a smoke with a candle robs the fishermen of their only winter income. It kills.
The wisdom from that old tale is still kept alive as a social norm here, long after its reason went away. It is so ingrained in me that I don’t dare to use a candle to light up, even when alone.
But then, many of our small rites, morals and believes are kept alive for generations, while their original background and usefullness long disappeared.
