Perchten

God bless the Austrians! Speaking of yule goats and yulicorns and horned beasts of all manners this holiday season, I want to write one time about Perchten. My friend Heidi, who was brought up a halfling in Austria and America just returned from a winter visit to the motherland. She returned with pictures and videos and stories from a magical and lovely sounding snowy terrain, which has quickly and surprisingly become my next dream destination (sorry, Chile and Panama, you will have to take 2nd and 3rd chairs...) We sat down after work Thursday and sipped some Austrian Schnaps*, and then later some very strong Romanian grappa, and Heidi answered all of my tedious questions about Krampus and Perchten, two Austrian traditions that I wanted a little more 411 on.




Here's the breakdown:
Krampus is a devily dude (scary horned beast) who rolls with Saint Nikolas in early December. Whatever children have been good get goodies from St. Nick, and whoever was bad gets coal and crappy stuff from Krampus. He is frightening and gross, and is probably a Christian version of the pagan Perchten.
Perchten comes closer to Christmas at around the time of winter solstice. It is a scary horned beast that goes through the streets with switches (made of horse hair I believe). He whips teenage boys who taunt him and romps through the streets cleansing the evil from the dark time of year. Heidi showed us some vide footage from the town her mom lives in. First, men from the countryside paraded through the streets rhythmically banging cowbells. Following them were the Perchten, scary horned beasts, who would periodically push or shove someone or whip a teenager. Absolutely fascinating. Apparently, there is quite a debate going on in Austria about which region can claim to be the first to come up with the Perchten tradition. Whoever it was, good job. I like it. A lot.




Speaking of liking a lot, check out Heidi's engaging story telling expressions:




*Schnaps is the Austrian spelling and indicates the real stuff, which is good. Schnapps is the crappy American version of Schnaps. Just saying...