Wild Man Souvenir Beer/Water Pitcher with 2 matching drinking cups, 1939 Schutzenfest Luzern

Wild Man (closely related to the Green Man) Souvenir Beer/Water Pitchers with matching drinking vessels, from 1939 Schützenfest Luzern. These are gorgeous. Schützenfest is a German festival dating to medieval times. It celebrates an alert marksman (Schütze) saving a young child's life from an eagle attack. The grateful townspeople crowned this person Schützenkönig. The festival includes a sharpshooting competition, music, food and drink, and more. These particular pieces came from the 1939 festival in Lucerne, Switzerland, a key year in history for Switzerland. When the war began in 1939, Switzerland mobilized 435,000 citizen soldiers out of a population of 4.2 million. Production figures for Swiss service rifles, which had firepower equal to those of the Germans, demonstrate an ample supply of small arms. Swiss militiamen were instructed to disregard any alleged "official" surrender as enemy propaganda and, if necessary, to fight individually. This meant that a nation of sharpshooters would be sniping at German soldiers at long ranges from every mountain.