A cuckoo clock rarely shows only the time. Most models carry a small scene: a man with an axe, a couple in traditional dress, a mill wheel, a stag above the dial. These figurines are not decoration that could just as easily be left off. They are the reason the cuckoo clock survived the era in which it became redundant as a timekeeper.
We are often asked what the individual figurines mean. Here are the answers.
Why figurines at all
The cuckoo clock came out of a region where people sat at home through the winter and made from wood whatever could be sold. What they put on their clocks was what they knew: forest, woodwork, livestock, hunting, the inn, the village fair. At heart, a Black Forest cuckoo clock is therefore a picture of everyday life in the 19th century, translated into miniature.
That buyers in Hamburg, Stockholm or Chicago wanted exactly that was something the clock peddlers learned quickly. Motifs that sold stayed. The repertoire that still exists today comes out of that selection. There is more on this in our article on the history of the cuckoo clock.
The cuckoo
The only figurine found on every clock. It sits behind the little door above the dial, comes out on the hour and usually on the half hour as well, opens its beak and beats its wings. Both movements are mechanically coupled to the bellows that produce the call. The cuckoo therefore does not move in response to the call but through the same lever that triggers it. How that works is explained in How does a cuckoo clock work?
Why a cuckoo of all birds: because its call consists of two notes and is easier to reproduce with two pipes than the song of any other bird. The technology determined the motif, not the other way round.
The woodchopper
The best known moving figurine after the cuckoo. A man in working clothes raises and lowers his axe over a block of wood. He stands for the trade that fed the Black Forest for centuries, and incidentally for the material the clock itself is made of.
Technically he is an elegant solution: the woodchopper usually hangs directly on the pendulum. He works as long as the clock runs, with no weight and no movement of his own. Our clocks with moving figures show him in several versions.
The dancing couples
On the balcony of many chalet clocks, a disc with couples in Black Forest costume turns. They belong to the music box and therefore only start moving once the melody begins after the cuckoo call. Without a music box they stand still or are absent altogether.
The motif is the village fair. Two melodies in alternation are customary, usually Edelweiss and The Happy Wanderer. You will find the matching models under cuckoo clocks with music.
The mill wheel
A water wheel on the side of the house or on the stream in front of it. In the Black Forest the mill was the first building with a machine inside it, and on the clock it stands for exactly that: for the moment when water power takes over the work.
On our models the mill wheel is one of the figures that start moving with the music box. When the melody begins after the cuckoo call, the wheel turns along with it, together with the dancers and the rest of the scene.
Stag, antlers and foliage
On the carved clocks the scene is replaced by a motif: vine or oak leaves around the dial, above them a stag head with antlers, plus birds, occasionally a hare or a rifle.
This is the hunting scene that traditionally belonged in a study or a hunting lodge. In formal terms it is the most austere version of the cuckoo clock, without figurines, without a house, only surface, relief and contour. If you are looking for a clock that stays quiet and tells no story, this is the right place.
Inn, beer stein, card game
On some chalet models a group sits at a table, a stein is raised or a hand of cards lies on the boards. This is the taproom, the place where everything in a Black Forest village that was not work came together.
These scenes are the most elaborate ones we build. Every figure that moves needs its own mechanical linkage, which has to be made, fitted and adjusted. That is why the large scene clocks sit where they sit in price. We have broken this down in What does a cuckoo clock cost?
Which figures move and which do not
A rule of thumb that holds for almost all of our clocks: whatever moves, moves on the hour and the half hour, after the cuckoo call, together with the melody. Movement and music depend on the same mechanism. That is why you will find scenes with dancing couples, a turning mill wheel and working figures almost exclusively on the 8 day clocks with a music box.
Each product description states which of a model's figures are in motion. On the sawmill it is the sawyers, the woodchopper, the mill wheel and the dancers; on the beer garden it is the waitress, the coachman and the mill wheel.
The remaining figures stand still: the farmer at the fence, the goose in the front garden, the horse in front of the cart. That is not an omission. A scene in which everything moves looks restless, and every additional mechanism is one more part that will want servicing in thirty years.
How the figurines are made
Every figurine passes through several stages before it stands on the clock. It begins with a blank that sets the shape. After that each figurine is cleaned up, primed and painted by hand, one at a time: face, costume, tools, every piece on its own.
On a large scene that means several dozen individual parts. It is where most of the working hours in a clock are spent, and the reason why two examples of the same model never look quite identical.
Which scene suits you
One practical thought to close with. A talkative chalet clock needs a room where it can be looked at, and someone who wants to look at it. A carved clock works on almost any wall and in almost any interior, because it is an object rather than a story.
You will find all models side by side in our overview of all cuckoo clocks. If there is a particular motif you would like to know more about, write to us: info@schneider-clocks.com.