If there are cockroaches, it must be Christmas!

A schabe is a cockroach. A strohschabe is a cockroach made of straw. Or perhaps one that lives in straw, I’m not sure. The arrival of these creatures signifies that the Christmas season has begun, naturally. After all, when you think Christmas, you think cockroaches, right?

We got to Krungl early enough to watch the Strohschabe get ready to go. But before they got dressed, there was exhibition whipping. Again, you think whipping, you think Christmas, right? The guys stand in a circle and do this percussive thing with the whips, the sound is loud and sharp and rhythmic. From what I could gather — and information is rather thin on the ground when your source is a lot of punsch and gluhwein slurping Austrians – their job is to clear the town of leftover bad spirits. I’m not sure if it’s the giant cockroach thing or the noise, but if a big old haystack swinging a whip comes after you, you hightail it out of the way, that’s for sure.

Anyway, once the whole whipping circle thing has concluded, the boys get suited up in their Strohschabe outfits. The whole bundle weighs about 25 kilos, it is a packet to carry around, that’s for sure. There are two grass skirts and they are topped by the headpiece with the massive antennae sticking out of them. Getting into it is a project, it takes a handful of strapping farmers to enclose a willing victim in the entire get-up.

In the Mitterndorf area and surrounds, the Strohschabe are part of the Krampusspiele. Folks have gone Krampus crazy in this part of the world. The Krampus (pronounced grampus) is a wooly monster with a somewhat satanic visage and great big horns. The Krampus run through town wielding broomsticks with which to whack the legs of passers-by. You can tell they are coming because they are wearing giant bells, but you can’t get away fast enough, and frankly, you are transfixed by these creatures from Where the Wild Things Are. In our town of Aigen, the Krampusspiele is small, there are six or eight of these creatures accompanying St. Niklaus on his rounds, but up the road in Krungl, they were having a full-on Krampusfest, with 30 or 40 of them running the streets, terrorizing little kids, mauling the adults, and generally creating a ruckus.

In addition to the Krampus and the Strohschab, there were a whole lot of supporting cast members including a bishop, a night watchman, a blacksmith, a handful of angels, Death, the Kaiser, the half-goat, something that looked like a cross between a bear and a giraffe, and the aforementioned Strohschabe.

Here is how the whole thing goes down. The nightwatchman blows his horn. Then there is a procession through town of all the likely and unlikely characters accompanying St. Niklaus on his rounds. They followed by the total chaos of the Krampus rampage. Finally, after enough little kids have been traumatized with nightmares that will last the next ten years, the Strohschabe come through and clear the streets, swinging their whips as they go. Meanwhile, back at the inn, there is a whole routine going on where St. Niklaus interrogates any kids left standing. He asks them if they have been good, they recite a little poem, and they get some small treats for their participation, oranges, peanuts, maybe some chocolates. We watched a bit of it through the gasthaus windows and headed home.

A few days after the Krampuslauf I talked to a friend of mine in Germany and told him about what I’d seen. He mentioned that just a few days earlier, he’d heard a story on the radio where they asked a bunch of kids where St. Nick came from. 80% of them said that he came down the chimney. Here in our little village, Nt. Nick comes through the front door with an entourage. For now. I know that I am a wide-eyed foreigner who gawks and points when I see these odd things take place, but there’s no way I’d want to trade it for the bland Santa of the West. There are some advantages to being “hinter dem bergen” – behind the mountains – and the liveliness of Alpine tradition is easily one of the greatest.

There’s a photo album from the event here.