The Cellar - December 5, 2006: Krampus

well my friends let me tell you a bit about that crazy, kid-frightning tradition, as I happen to live right in the epicenter of the Krampus world.
the mask shown is actually not a traditional one, but was heavily inspired by hollywood (LOTR,...). I put some pics on to show you how it mostly and traditionally looks like.

there are two kinds of krampus happenings:
the one where single or small groups of krampusses run around the neighbourhood at night and horrify kids. Not only do they look wild, they also have big bells (cow bells - don´t know if you have them where you live) and they also have cows-tails or birches from willow sticks and try to hit people coming in their way.
Small kids don´t leave the house, but look out of the windows to watch them walk by and make noise. Bigger kids (mostly boys from 15 yrs. onwards) go out to provoke them and then run away. This mostly works fine, as a crampus with his fur and wooden mask carries around 20 to 30 kilogram of weith, and the kids do not. Sometime you get beat up.

the other tradition are parades of large groups or clubs, they are normally organiszed in (like biker clubs). Last Saturday 30 clubs with in total 500 krampusses held a parade just 2 blocks from my home. With thousands of spectators.

the whole Krampus-horror is over when St. Nikolaus comes.

the original sense behind that is to drive away evil an prepare nature (natures ghosts) for a not too hard winter. It is certainly an ancient custom - I don´t exactly get the logic behind that but that is the way it works.

anyway - it is an interesting and spectacular remain of an alpine tradition...