Imagine the Ore Mountains without villages, roads or houses. No chimney is smoking, no church tower rises between the hills.

People move in small groups to wherever they can find food. They hunt, fish and gather berries, nuts, roots and other edible plants. Wood gives fire and warmth. Furs protect against the cold.

Children grow up right in the middle of this world, too. They learn: How do you keep a fire burning? What tracks do animals leave?

Back then, family means one thing above all: getting through together.

Everyone knows something. Everyone learns something. And knowledge is passed down from the big ones to the little ones.

Families have been doing that for thousands of years.

Only the knowledge has changed.

Over many thousands of years, people's lives change. More and more families no longer keep following their food from place to place. In the wider region, permanent houses appear.

Anyone who owns animals has to look after them every day. Anyone who grows grain has to sow, harvest and lay in stores.

Suddenly there is a place where you belong.

And a great deal of work that will still be there tomorrow.

Sheep, goats, pigs and cattle can provide meat, milk, hides or wool. Children grow up with these animals. They help with small jobs and learn by watching and joining in.

And playing?

Of course.

Children were children back then, too.

After all, you don't need a toy shop for a game. Wood, stones, plant fibres and other things from nature can become toys.

And presumably not everything children did with them back then was what their parents had in mind.

But the higher parts of the Ore Mountains are still a long way from being a landscape full of villages at this time.

Something mighty still waits there:

the forest.

Imagine you set off on a walk – and behind the next mountain there is no village.

Nor behind the one after that.

The network of towns, villages, roads and fields that we know today does not yet exist.

Deer and roe deer move between the trees. Wild boar root about in the ground for food.

For people, the forest therefore means two things:

It gives – and it demands respect.

Anyone who ventures deep inside should know what they are doing. Cold, weather, injuries or simply the wrong direction can be more dangerous than any monster from a fairy tale.

And the wolves?

No. A wolf is not waiting behind every tree to eat a child.

Wild animals normally prefer to keep out of people's way.

Still, people who keep animals or travel through great forests have to know that they share their habitat with large wild animals.

The forest is not a dark place full of monsters. It is a habitat – for people and animals.

No one yet suspects how greatly people will soon change this landscape.

Now something happens that can still be seen today.

In the High Middle Ages, more and more people arrive. Forest is cleared – that is, felled and made usable for houses, fields and meadows. Paths appear. New settlements are founded.

But let's not imagine it like a history book this time.

Imagine your family were there.

You arrive in an area of enormous forests.

No removal van. No DIY store. No supermarket.

Yet you still need water, food, fire, somewhere to sleep and, as soon as possible, a roof over your heads.

So everyone gets stuck in.

Wood is felled and worked. Houses go up. Fields and meadows are laid out. Animals need fodder and shelter.

And before winter comes, there should be enough supplies.

Hardly anyone can manage that alone.

Families and neighbours need one another.

Everyone brings knowledge and skills. And children learn something new every day, simply because they are in the thick of it.

From forest to home

Little by little, the landscape changes.

Where there was once almost nothing but forest, houses, arable land, meadows, paths and eventually villages appear.

Then something very human happens:

A place where a family at first just had to get through the first winter somehow eventually becomes home.

Children are born there.

They know the paths, streams and woods.

Their children, in turn, grow up there.

And eventually a family's roots reach several generations deep into the same soil.

That is how a landscape becomes a homeland.

Perhaps that explains, just a little, why people from the Ore Mountains still sometimes cling so remarkably firmly to their hills.

And then people discover something beneath these mountains that will change the region fundamentally once again.

Silver brings more and more people into the mountains.

They search, dig and work their way into the rock.

Settlements grow. New kinds of work appear. Families find their livelihood around mining.

But mining needs far more than miners.

Someone has to fell timber. Make tools. Make shoes. Grow food. Transport goods. Build houses.

The mountain sets a whole region in motion.

Underground

Underground – that is, inside the mountain – the work is hard.

It is dark and damp. Water can seep into the pits. Rock has to be loosened and hauled out.

And many jobs are dangerous.

So people begin to find solutions.

How do you get water out of the mountain?

How do you transport heavy loads?

How do you bring in fresh air?

How do you get even deeper?

After all, problems don't go away just because you grumble about them properly.

So people think, build, improve and try again.

Miners, craftsmen and other skilled people gather more and more knowledge.

Hard work grows into skill.

And for the Ore Mountains, this skill will become at least as valuable as the silver beneath its hills.

The forest changes, too

Mines need a great deal of timber.

For tunnels and shafts, buildings, tools, fires and much more.

The forest remains a habitat for animals and a means of survival for people. But people interfere with it more and more.

Now three things belong firmly together:

Family. Forest. Mountain.

And from this comes something that still shapes the Ore Mountains today:

People who have learned to solve problems with their heads and their hands.

The larger the settlements grow and the more is worked and built, the more different trades the Ore Mountains need.

Blacksmiths heat iron until it glows and shape tools.

Carpenters build with wood.

Millers turn grain into flour.

Bakers turn that into bread.

Miners know the mountain.

Others understand something about water, wood, metal or machines.

The Ore Mountains become an area full of people who are really good at something.

This skill has to come from somewhere.

Much of it is shown and learned together.

Later, young people learn particular trades from experienced craftsmen and masters.

And knowledge travels on.

What one person can do, they show to the next.

The next changes something.

And eventually it works even better.

When you can't buy something …

… you simply have to think.

A tool breaks?

Repair it.

Something doesn't fit?

Adapt it.

The right device is missing?

Perhaps you can build one.

Material is valuable. Simply throwing something away and ordering a new one doesn't work.

Sounds somehow familiar in the Ore Mountains.

Over generations, this builds up into a huge treasure chest of knowledge.

For mining can grow – and later shrink again.

Work can change.

But anyone who has learned to create things with head and hands can try something new.

The Ore Mountains therefore possess more than treasures beneath the earth.

Their greatest treasure perhaps grows up above it:

People who know how to do things.

A winter evening in the Ore Mountains.

Outside, snow lies on the ground. The forest is dark. Night falls early.

Through the cracks of a house, perhaps more cold air creeps in than we would like today.

But inside, a fire is burning.

And now something happens that belongs to the Ore Mountains just as much as work and mining:

People make themselves comfortable.

Children hear stories that the adults may well have heard as children themselves.

Of course, work gets done as well.

But there is also talking and laughter.

For no one gets through an Ore Mountain winter any better just by looking particularly grim.

A homeland to sing about

People don't just live in the Ore Mountains.

They live with them.

With forests, hills, valleys, streams, snow and long winters.

This landscape can make life hard.

And at the same time be wonderfully beautiful.

People talk about what they love.

And they sing about it.

Over many generations, a strong tradition of music and song develops in the Ore Mountains.

Songs tell of work, of people, of longing – and, again and again, of the beloved homeland.

Later, some of these songs themselves become a piece of the Ore Mountains.

After all, anyone with a beautiful homeland has to tell of it somehow.

Winter is warmer together

Fire and light warm a room.

But warmth comes in other ways, too.

When people sit together.

When someone tells a story.

When someone starts a song and others join in.

From such forms of togetherness, special Ore Mountain traditions grow over a long time.

Later, these include the Hutznohmd, the Hutzenabend: people come together, talk, work, tell stories, sing and spend the evening together.

Much of this is not kept in a museum.

It is passed on at home.

From grandparents to parents.

From parents to children.

Perhaps that is why traditions in the Ore Mountains are still so deeply rooted in families today.

Wood has accompanied the people of the Ore Mountains for a long time.

It is used to build houses, heat homes, make tools and produce things for daily use.

But people from the Ore Mountains can make something else out of wood:

beautiful things.

Knowledge about wood grows over generations. Children, too, know the material and the tools from an early age.

Later, working with wood becomes even more important for many families – especially where other ways of earning a living are not enough or are changing.

But a toy meant something different to a child back then than it does today.

Broken? Then it gets made whole again.

A toy is valuable.

A wooden horse, a doll or another beloved piece is not simply thrown away because something has broken off.

It is repaired.

Perhaps something is fixed back on, patched up or repainted.

And sometimes that very thing can be a present.

A child doesn't necessarily need to receive something new to beam with joy.

When a beloved toy lies before them whole again, that can be quite a treasure.

Little hands help

Where families make things at home, work is shared out.

Children, too, can – depending on their age – help with simple tasks.

Sorting parts. Holding something. Joining in at suitable stages of the work.

From today's point of view, we would call much of this child labour.

For many families back then, this help was part of making a living.

But something else happens as well:

Children see every day how something is made.

A piece of wood becomes a shape.

A shape becomes a figure.

Work becomes skill.

And eventually the little hands can do what big hands once showed them.

This is how a craft travels through the generations.

From hand to hand. From family to family.

The great flowering of Ore Mountain toymaking and woodcraft comes only later.

But its roots are already growing.

The Christian faith and the Christmas story are at the centre. Families attend church services, sing and spend the festive season together.

Candles and other sources of light are precious.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that light later becomes one of the strongest symbols of an Ore Mountain Christmas.

And Father Christmas?

Father Christmas, as children know him today, cannot simply be placed in every century.

The tradition of Saint Nicholas is much older.

Later, other figures and customs emerge and change.

With the Reformation, the Christkind (Christ Child) as a bringer of gifts also gains importance in Protestant regions.

Figures such as Knecht Ruprecht also belong to old Christmas traditions that develop differently from region to region.

So our Christmas today did not simply fall from the sky fully formed at some point.

And the Ore Mountains, too, keep adding more of their own.

Music.

Light.

Woodcraft.

Mining motifs.

Shared evenings.

Family customs.

Later come the figures and lights that almost everyone today associates with an Ore Mountain Christmas.

Not all of this is yet known to Carl in 1762.

Schwibbögen (candle arches), pyramids, smoking men, nutcrackers and other forms famous today each have their own history and are not artificially moved forward into Carl's childhood.

But the world from which many of these traditions grow is already there.

Christmas doesn't have to be grand

A present doesn't have to be expensive.

Perhaps something is made by hand.

Perhaps a child receives something useful.

Perhaps a beloved toy is repaired and suddenly lies there whole again.

Joy is not measured by how many parcels lie under a tree.

Especially in families who own little, light, special food, music, stories and time together can take on extraordinary value.

Perhaps that is why Christmas in the Ore Mountains still shines a little brighter today.

Not because people here always had more.

But because light, warmth, family and community become especially precious when winters are dark and life is sometimes hard.

Now we have almost arrived in Carl's time.

And the Ore Mountains have changed.

There are villages and towns. Mining and crafts have shaped the region. Families hold knowledge that has been passed down through generations.

Children experience work and responsibility earlier than today.

But they also play.

They hear stories.

They sing.

They know their animals, woods and paths.

They experience festivals and Christmas.

And some grow up in families in which a particular craft has been known for generations.

School and learning

Learning is changing, too.

Children can receive lessons and learn – depending on place, time and circumstances – reading, writing, arithmetic and religious instruction.

But childhoods are very different.

A child from a wealthy family has different opportunities from a child whose family has to work every day just to make ends meet.

Not every child owns books.

Not every child can keep learning for as long as they would like.

And yet knowledge is valuable.

Anyone who can read, do sums or write has skills that open up new possibilities.

When someone falls ill

Here, too, Carl's world is far from ours.

No ambulance arrives within a few minutes.

There is no modern paediatric practice and no pharmacy with today's medicines.

Families know home remedies and medicinal plants. There are doctors, but medical help is by no means as accessible to everyone as it is today.

An illness that can be treated well today could become dangerous back then.

So here, too, something important belongs to family knowledge:

People look after one another.

And yet life goes on

This is important.

Carl's world does not consist only of hunger, illness and hard work.

People fall in love.

Children get up to mischief.

Families celebrate.

Neighbours laugh together.

People sing, dance and tell stories.

Children delight in snow.

And presumably, even in 1760, they reliably find a way to drive their parents round the bend now and then.

People back then are not grey figures from a history book.

They rejoice, argue, hope, love and dream just like families today.

Only their world looks different.

He is not simply born into some “olden days”.

People have opened up forests and built villages.

They have gone into the mountains and searched for ore.

They have solved problems, improved tools and learned crafts.

They have made much out of little.

They have sung and made music.

They have passed on stories and customs.

They have shown children what they themselves learned from their parents.

Generation by generation.

Carl grows up in a landscape that can be beautiful and sometimes unforgiving.

In a region whose people have learned to roll up their sleeves, to persevere, to help and to keep finding new solutions.

But also in a homeland full of music, stories, nature, festivals and warmth.

Perhaps a person can never be fully explained by their homeland.

But Carl's Ore Mountains explain a good deal.

Deep roots

Much will still change after Carl.

The famous Ore Mountain woodcraft will keep growing.

Toys from the mountains will later travel out into the world.

New Christmas customs and figures will emerge.

Music and songs of the homeland will accompany generations.

Mining comes and goes.

But some things remain remarkably stubborn.

Family.

Solidarity.

Craftsmanship.

Inventiveness.

A closeness to nature.

Tradition.

And that hard-to-explain feeling that many people from the Ore Mountains get when they see their hills again after a long time away.

Perhaps it is because home is not just the place where you live.

Home is roots.

And in the Ore Mountains, some of them run quite deep.

Imagine your family living from what grows nearby and what your money can buy.

When harvests fail and prices rise, it is not only about “less cake”. It is about bread, flour and whether everyone gets enough to eat.

That is the question Volume 02 puts on the table.

Not as a sermon — as a shared discovery.

1770 begins with unusual weather: thunderstorms in January, flooding, snow in March, a wet summer. The harvest is poor. Prices rise.

1771 is no recovery year: a mild winter, snow in May, rain into August. The harvest is destroyed. Prices explode.

1772 brings the full force of need: hunger, emergency food, illness, high mortality, migrations. Later supply eases somewhat — impoverishment remains.

The order matters. Not the single snow day alone, but the sequence without a pause for breath.

The figures are not quiz answers for everyday life — they show a relationship.

When a day’s wage is 4 groschen and a loaf costs 10 groschen or more, that is not abstract statistics. It is the question: What can we still afford today?

Ask yourselves as a family:

What would we run out of first if bread and other staples suddenly cost many times as much?

There is no prescribed right answer. There is only an honest conversation.

Today we often think first of school, leisure and protected spaces for children.

In the eighteenth century children belonged earlier and more closely to the economic survival of the family. They helped in the house, in the fields, with everyday provision.

That does not mean children were not children.

It means a family’s hardship was their hardship too. Volume 02 makes that tangible without projecting modern childhood backwards.

Historical reasons sat close together:

- hunger
- lack of work
- lack of food
- hope of a better living

The “great wandering” Pietzonka describes was not travel from curiosity. It was often the last way to keep living.

Talk about what home means to you — and what would have to be missing before you would leave a place. Without dragging today’s politics in. Simply as a human principle.

The family question may stay open:

Does help always have to be something big?

Sometimes a look, sharing attention, a piece of bread, walking with someone is enough. Sometimes you yourself have almost nothing — and still face the choice not to look away.

The book compresses that question into adventure form. The story does not invent the crisis. It makes it vivid for children.

That is the bridge between history and conversation.

Between Pietzonka’s documented crisis chain and what you can talk about at the table today.

Not: “What would you have done better then?”

But: What does solidarity mean when need closes in?