Culture with Schlaraffia in Dover, New Jersey, is the kind members create themselves. On Monday evenings during the season the Newarka (105) gathers in the Trutze Passaica der Fuchsbau for its own poems, talks, songs at the piano, parodies and spontaneous repartee in German. Guests listen, laugh and need to bring nothing but attention.
A songbook from 1892
How long art has been part of this Reych is documented in a library. The Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library keeps the booklet from the Newarka's sanction feast of 22 April 1892: sixteen pages, blue cover, tied with a ribbon. Inside are five song sheets printed in Fraktur, among them Lulu Praga, the Schlaraffen-Hymne and the Urschlaraffenlied, plus a bill of fare that is a small work of art in itself. In brandio volvptas stands above it, and every course hides a pun: Blue Point oysters appear as Avstreae Pvncti azvli, Bermuda potatoes as Sommerinselnknollen, coffee as Arabische Bohnenbrühe and cigars as Lvnten. A note at the foot orders that the pauses between courses be filled with speech and fencing. The members of 1892 clearly knew the game well.
Piano, drum and a new subject every Monday
Down the stairs, the Fuchsbau keeps a piano and a big drum, because, as the Reych puts it, nothing works without music. The Monday themes supply the words. One evening sails with the Vikings and drops the horned helmets right away. Another declares full speed ahead for the Fechsungen, as Schlaraffen call their own contributions, on the subject of the Autobahn, and a week later honors Nikolaus August Otto and his four-stroke engine. Buffalo Bill gets a stampede, the Knights Templar are weighed as heroes or villains, and on one October night the Junker rose up against the seasoned knights, which in Schlaraffia counts as an art form.
Festive evenings in full armor
Some evenings put music at the center. The 136th Founding Festival on 30 November 2026 calls for full armor, music, songs and a shared Liebesmahl, the festive meal of the Reych. At the Ordensfest in April the orders gathered on years of rides and friendships are shown off, and the Pickelhaube Sippung on a Sunday morning remains a tradition kept, in the Reych's own words, nowhere else but Dover.
German verse on the upper Morris Canal
Dover is a town of iron ore, the Rockaway River and the old Morris Canal, whose boats once climbed the hills on inclined planes; the canal has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1974. Its German-speaking past has largely faded from the streets. All the more remarkable that a Reych sanctioned in 1892 still fills a Monday evening here with German song and wordplay.
Bring your ears
Nobody hands a guest the floor unless he asks for it. The themes of the coming Mondays are in the Newarka calendar, and the answers for first-time guests cover the practical side. For the wider background, the English network pages explain what Schlaraffia is and why Schlaraffen play it.
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