The sun is just starting to rise over the Austrian town of Grossarl on the morning of December 21, the date of the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year. It’s Thomastag, or Thomas Day, in remembrance of the Apostle Thomas, who doubted the resurrection of Christ the longest and was the last disciple to “move out of the darkness.”
Grossarl is an historic market town in the Tyrolean Alps encircled by working dairy farms and mountain meadows. In recent years, it’s become a destination for winter sports and its traditional Advent market. On this particular morning, a band of colorfully costumed locals is lining up in the semi-darkness to embark on a seven-and-a-half-mile journey across its snowy hillsides that will last until sunset.
The raucous, menacing horned figures at the front of the procession might make you think you were witnessing the start of a Krampuslauf, or Krampus run. But the date is wrong: in this part of the world, hordes of people costumed as Krampus, the devilish henchman of the benign St. Nicholas, parade with him on December 5. Traditionally, the saint offers blessings, while Krampus doles out punishments.
Gazing further down the line, it becomes apparent that this is a diverse group of characters. Among them are a pair of witches, the skeletal figure of Death, a rooster, a lucky pig, an old woman with a baby, a night watchman, and quite a few others. In the middle of the procession is a personage with a curious split costume: a devil on the front side and a beatific woman on the back. This is Perchta, an enigmatic figure with roots in pagan folklore. She and her entourage are called Perchten.
“It’s very important to know that Perchten and Krampus are two different customs,” says Robert Kreuzer, founder of the Grossarl Perchten Association. He should know. He and his cousin, Rupert Kreuzer, a renowned wood carver of both Krampus and Perchten masks, have been participating in local Krampuslauf traditions since they were boys.
During Krampus processions, participants will whip spectators with switches and sometimes grab them. In contrast, the Perchten are more restrained, even though some of the Schiachperchten, or ugly Perchten, may appear intimidating. The Schönperchten, the beautiful Perchten who follow behind Perchta, tend to be either comical or orderly. “The Krampus come to punish and scold, while the Perchtens’ role is to drive away evil and bring good luck,” Robert says. It’s worth noting that the Perchta of yore was frequently depicted as a monster who slit the bellies of disobedient children and was fanatically intolerant of even a speck of dust in the house. On the positive side, she represented the cycles of nature and brought fertility and prosperity to those she visited.
The procession has deep roots in Alpine culture, but it’s only recently been revived here in Grossarl. “A restaurant association in our village had been looking for an event for the last weekend of Advent and asked me and a few other members of the Krampuslauf about the old Perchten tradition and whether it had ever existed in Grossarl,” says Robert. “We already knew about several Perchten runs in the surrounding area, so we researched whether it had ever been in our town.”
“We said we would only do it if it had already been done,” Rupert adds. “But we wouldn’t revive it for tourist purposes; we’d do it in the same way it had been done in the past, going from farm to farm to wish the farmers luck and blessings in the coming year in keeping with the old pagan custom.”
Perchta has been around at least since the 12th century, and the first historical mention of “Perchten runs” appeared in the middle of the 1500s. The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) ushered in an era of more than 200 years when Perchten were banned from publicly promenading because of their perceived connection to paganism by the Church. But Rupert and Robert found mentions of local Perchten parades in the 19th century, coinciding with the rise of German Romanticism and its newfound appreciation of folk culture. “In the end, we found the information relatively quickly, both through local sources and in the Austrian state archives. The records date from 1846 and almost every year thereafter until 1911, when they disappeared completely,” says Robert.
In 2021, the Grossarler Perchtenpass, or Perchten parade, made its reappearance. Much like the parades of old, they visit farms to symbolically bring blessings for the coming year. “Due to the number of farms in the area it’s only possible to manage 10 to 14 stops in the course of a day, so it’s going take us 10 years via 10 different routes to visit all of them,” Robert says. Sometimes their path runs through the Advent market in the heart of Grossarl, giving Christmas visitors a chance to witness and be a part of the spectacle.
Onlookers hear the clanging cow bells of the Schiachperchten well before they set eyes on them. They are led by the whip-cracking prankster, Kasperl, closely followed by a stampeding band of hairy, brutish figures brandishing birch rods and making an unholy racket. Their role is to scare away malevolent influences and clear the way for good fortune in the year to come.
Also roaming around are the Puzwaul (Cleaning Goblin), who carries a jute sack and threatens to snatch up children who have not behaved properly; the Kupfergeist (Copper Spirit), who exists only in Grossarl, where copper was mined for centuries; and the Sündenbock (Scapegoat), who traditionally takes on the sins and burdens of others and ritually purifies the house by burning incense and herbs.
The mood changes with the dignified arrival of Perchta as an embodiment of good and evil, a bringer of the light that follows the darkness. Traditionally depicted with two aspects, in Grossarl, she wears a devil’s mask in front and the luminous face of a beautiful woman in back, “an indication that there is actually good and bad in every person,” says Robert. She greets the crowds and proclaims, “I am Perchta. I hold a mirror before you and hope you will always see only the good in it and leave the bad outside.”
The Schönperchten follow, led by the Hauptmann (the Captain) who runs the show. He is accompanied by two musicians clad in traditional 19th-century rustic attire. Their companions include the Zöllner (Customs Officer), who makes the rounds seeking donations; the Umtrager (Peddler), proffering items from his overflowing backpack; and the Kaminkehrer, an actual local chimney sweep, who smudges soot on the faces of onlookers for luck. Then there’s the rambunctious giant goat known as the Habergoass, who charges around bumping into spectators and loudly bleating.
Perhaps most striking of all are the four Tafelperchten, each of whom wears an elaborate carved wooden headdress. There is the horned Hubertus crown, representing hunting, a harvest crown, a crown bearing the Grossarl coat of arms, and a newly introduced craft crown in honor of artisans and craftspeople.
As you can imagine, outfitting such a diversity of characters requires careful preparation and many hands. Rupert himself carved nearly every mask in his studio. “We have a lot of talented, off-site craftspeople who work in many trades—woodworkers, metalsmiths, professional tailors, mask painters,” he says. Much of the fabric for the costumes comes from vintage folk wear and is stitched up by a seamstress in the village. “Because the group is on the road all day, it’s important that the costumes be as light as possible to make it easier to walk. The masks themselves are not a problem, since they are carved from pine and are very thin,” Rupert says.
In the past, it was mostly farmhands in the Perchtenlauf, but now it’s mainly people from the town. Traditionally, only men have been welcomed into what is essentially a boys’ club. So far, Robert says, no women have asked to join, but he’s open to the idea. There is, however, a waiting list. “Right now there are only 35 roles and they’re always enacted by the same people. Some Perchten runs have more than 100 participants, but we’ve kept our number small intentionally. There is already a long list of young guys who would love to take part,” Robert says.
You can’t blame them. Unless they’re already running as a Krampus, when and where else will they have the opportunity to partake of such an authentic cultural tradition? And such a fun one: dressing up; tromping around the countryside in the snow; laughing and jesting; and above all, savoring the camaraderie of the occasion.
At any given stop, the company may pause for a snack, a coffee, beer, or schnapps. But before moving on to the next, the final word belongs to the Captain. As the procession lines up to depart, he addresses the onlookers with these words of farewell: “Dear farmers, the Grossarler Perchten wish you and yours, your friends and neighbors, your farms, peace, harmony and health in the coming year.”
