Another wedding

Saturday was spent sorting various legal papers, and visiting the chief forester for the area. His job is to make sure that for every tree chopped down 6 are planted. He finds it quite difficult to understand that we are planting trees before chopping any down.
The high-light of Saturday was the wedding of the local shepherd.
He is an important man in the area. He looks after all the sheep for everyone in the immediate area, so has more than 2000 ewes under his control. His payment for doing this is one lamb for each 100 lambs born. Which means that in the last 7 years he has become the largest owner of sheep in the area.
Of course, he used to look after the sheep, he now has 6 other people who do it for him. There is effectively no cost to the feeding - the sheep are allowed anywhere except cultivated areas and forest, which means they have lots of places they can go.
So his wedding was always going to be a big affair. As I've mentioned before, the wedding guests have to put a suitable sum in an envelope with their name on it. This avoids anyone being overly mean, or overly generous. It would never do to be the latter - you might get invited to lots more weddings which would cost you a fortune.
The ceremony in this case took place about 5pm and everyone repaired to the village hall, where the band were already belting out Romanian songs and dances.
Not much happens until the important guests arrive which is at 8pm. Everyone has a plate of cold meats at their place, along with jugs of tuica, bottles of beer, wine, soft drinks and liqueurs. You can drink these in any order you like. The priest leaves about 9 which means that the party can actually get going.
Round about 10pm the second course is served which is usually something like Frankfurters with lashings of mustard. The drinking is fast and furious, but the real event at this time is the stealing of the bride's shoes. This is done by some of the children, and the bride's Godfather has to ransom them. The children get to keep the money.
This particular Godfather was ( appropriately) from Italy, and, in order to avoid the bride being kidnapped ( which would cost him even more money) he had secured her to his wrist with a pair of police cufflinks. Unfortunately for him, he had borrowed the cuffs from the local police chief, who had promptly given the spare set of keys to the people detailed to do the kipnapping.
This they accomplished without the Godfather even noticing - but he did notice when he tried to chase after her as she was carried off and found he was attached to a table leg. The ransom was laughingly paid, by which time it was necessary for the sober-up soup to be served.
This is always chicken noodle. Nobody ever comments on the food at weddings - except on the chicken noodle soup. If it's not up the mark, the envelopes very definitely have less cash in them. People talk about it for days after a wedding, so you can imagine the effort that goes in to making sure it is excellent.
All the time the band is playing. Last night they actually played for more than 12 hours with no breaks, apart from a couple of minutes to down a glass. Around midnight a lone saxophone is heard and a great shout goes up. This is the entry of the drunk chicken. There is a song that goes with it, only accompanied by the sax. Each line is followed by a trill, then another line, another trill and so on endlessly. Some of the lines are standard, but lots are made up for the occasion. For example last night there was great hilarity at the suggestion that the bride would find her new husband pretty useless after his day's work shagging sheep. Followed by a line that suggested that even having shagged the sheep, he would have no problem taking care of his bride. The drunken chicken is in a basket carried round and shown to everyone. Of course, it's not a real chicken. The point is to get the ball rolling for the envelopes. The most important guests are last to hand over the envelopes. They are not opened until the next day in private.
By 2am people are ready for some food again, which, last night, was chicken,pork,mashed potatoes - and cabbage salad of course. You might think the main dish sounds a little dry or bland, but I can assure you it is neither. Until you have tasted the Mosna potatoes, chickens, pigs and especially cabbage, you have never had a real gastronomic experience.
Not long after this Alin and I left to get back to Sighisoara. We walked along the main street in Mosna to where the car was parked under the most brilliant stars. In Transylvania they don't have light polution the way we do.
I got to bed about 3:30am, to be woken up 10 minutes later by a wedding party spilling out into the street from the hotel across the square.
That can't have been much of a party.
The one in Mosna lasted until after 7am.