The day before the wedding all the women got together to prepare the wedding feast. As was the custom all the villagers would be there. Because it was their beloved Mara not one person would think of not attending. Even Ewald who had not left his home for the last six months due to a crippling disease would get carried to the Meeting Hall on a special chair. There was no way that he was going to miss this, the wedding of the century. The beloved Mara and the handsome hunter Hulderic the White Wolf, favourite of the Gods.

The young girls were to go to the forest to pick Fliegenpilz. That is a special mushroom that has a red head with lots of white spots. If it is not prepared the right way they can be quite deadly however the people of Hamburg had the secret recipe. Prepared that way it would give them a certain kind of feeling that can be best described as floating on air. If too much of this Fliegenpilz is consumed then the results could be catastrophic because the user could start seeing things that were not there. Once someone had that much that they thought they could fly and jumped off the cliff. Therefore the use is now strictly controlled so that can never happen again.

As the girls were foraging through the woods Floretta yelled out. She had discovered at least twenty of these prized Fliegenpilz growing under a Pine tree. There was excitement as this was almost half of what they were looking for. Quickly they gathered them together and continued to look. Mara was the next one to find four of them growing together. There might only have been four but these were of a tremendous size. Rarely were they found this large.

Gerda and Herta found one each and Kathrin found two. Mara found the last three grouped together. This they decided was enough for their needs. They were not the type of people that would continue taking more just for the sake of taking. They had so much of the day still left due to such good foraging that it was decided there was time left to gather some flowers for extra decorations. There were so many flowers that it was hard to decide which ones were suitable.

Finally they decided that it would be easier just to take a few of each and decorate that way. They filled baskets full of beautiful flowers that were so aromatic that they were almost becoming light headed. It was decided to head back so that there would be enough time left to prepare the Fliegenpilz for the celebrations.

When they arrived back they delivered the Fliegenpilz to Luitgard and Ottilie who were the experts in preparing them. They quickly set about the task. This method of preparation was an old secret that was handed down only to a select few. First they had to remove the skin leaving no trace behind. Then they had to.....Oh no I cannot reveal the secret so I will have to stop here describing it. Suffice it to say that they prepared it exceptionally well for the wedding the next day.