Little Devils

December fifth is Krampos in Austria. The story goes that these krampos or trolls come out of the woods and scare the kids into being good for the rest of the year. If the kids have been bad or if the krampos think that they need a little incentive to be good they will hit the children on the back of their legs with their twitches.

[musical procession] [2] [flo!] [4] [my wonderful (not krampos) students]

[the dance begins] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [my fav.] [7] [philip] [notice the fear] [10] [11] [12] [13] [mike & friends] [15]

But now it's kind of just a fun occasion to meet with friends for some gluwine (hot spiced wine) downtown, bring your kids to get their beatings, or dress up as a krampos and have an excuse to run around and hit people with switches. Most of the kids in the town aren't applicable for the first two options, so they either dress up or come to enjoy the chaos. Those who don't dress up all wear multiple pairs of pants or pad their pants with reversed soccer shin-guards and cardboard. Once downtown, the dance begins!

I'm telling you all this after having experienced it. But when I first showed up I had no idea what to expect. My uncle Sep, and cousins Lisa and Stephan were playing in the band that marched through the street entertaining the crowd of gluwined parents, so I wandered around on my own, trying to remain invisible. Then some kids from the school spotted me.

It wouldn't have been so bad but they were in costume and wielding their switches at me. I escaped after receiving a few stinging slaps and hid next to a tree as they discovered new victims. In the tree's shadow I socialized with a few parents who I had met through the school and drained the remaining juice from my camera and then made my way over to join my relatives for some Gluwine.

From the Gluwine table, we had a great view of the dance on the street. It heated up now and then as some of the older kids and young adults joined in and let out some pent up aggressions. Good thing that there were the 'good' Krampos who were wearing armbands to identify them as 'good.'

I'm sure that a few people sustained minor injuries, but everyone had a great time. It may seem scary or odd, but keep in mind that these people don’t have Halloween…

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