Monstrous tradition

Doing the rounds this week of schools and homes with children is a bearded old chap in long robes: St Nikolaus. He brings little gifts for good children, carried in a basket loaded on to the back of his small, but also bearded, assistant. Wearing a tall mitre, his face obscured by a white beard and carrying a crook to tend his flock, the saint’s true identity is only given away by a pair of clumping-great farming boots.

However, before his arrival, children are often fearful in case they have been given a bad report. For St Nik is also accompanied by the fearsome krampusses. These huge, hairy, roaring and cacophonic creatures were roaring around the village at the weekend, lunging into the crowd, dragging out wrongdoers and whacking them around the shins with bunches of twigs.

True to say, most of the punishment is meted out on teenage girls who “foolishly” place themselves near the front of the crowd, secretly hoping to be singled out though they don’t know who lies behind the mask. For the masks are huge and hideous with snarling mouths and fearsome teeth.  Long horns add to the ghastly appearance.

The masks are old and carved in wood, handed down through generations - Embach does not allow krampus groups wearing the modern “horror” masks. Shaggy bear-like skins cover the body and on his back, the krampus carries huge iron globes full of something that sends out a deafening clanking sound – possibly the teeth and bones of previous victims.

As St Nikolaus visits homes in the village during the following evenings, the Krampusses hover menacingly in the background, ready to deal with any children who their saintly master dictates need punishment. The threat is enough and the sound of them outside the home makes the blood run cold.

Looking back, I see that this is pretty much where this blog started out two years and nearly 70 blogs ago. The story above is much the same as it was then…but isn’t that what tradition is all about?