On January 26th, 1667 it was proclaimed in Vienna that it
was strictly forbidden to drive a sleigh after ten o’clock at night.
This should keep the town safety and should assure that the inhabitants
weren’t disturbed in their sleeping hours.
But still -
there moved a sleigh with loud ringing and rattling through the streets
between eleven and twelve o’clock every night. That sleigh made as much
noise as a hundred sleighs would have made. And soon people knew – the
coachman of that sleigh was the devil himself.
Winter in Vienna, Rudolf von Alt
People
who had seen it reported that the devil in his bodily shape had a big
head of a boar and that he spit out fire as if he had twelve storm lamps
inside.
They also told that he had a woman at his side. On
her head she wore a diadem which glowed red and was covered with golden
lice and fleas. Instead of curly hair, ribbons and feather ornaments
snakes and lizards crawled on the head of the devil’s companion. An ugly
toad sat on her chest where a medallion is usually placed. And two big
snakes gnawed at the upper part of her body.
Once a dutiful night-watchman dared to stop that sleigh and asked the devil to obey the law.
The satanic figure answered with a devilish laughter. Then the bogey blew at the poor man till the one dropped dead.
Tonight I share a piece of Austrian folklore with you.
Tomorrow is December 6th and therefore the day of Saint Nicolas.
Saint Nicolas has a companion, a satanic figure called Krampus. While Nicolas gives presents to the good children, Krampus is the one who punishes the naughty ones.
Nikolaus and Krampus in Austria Newspaper-illustration from 1896
And just as it is in real life theevil doesn't comealone-Krampusseusually occurin packs.
Today I know that these figures are just young men dressed up as Krampus to roam through the streets with their rusty chains and their bells. But when I was I child - imagine that - I met the real ones and this was quite frightening.
But we couldn't keep away from that procession - I wanted to see Saint Nicolas. Very close to my mother I stood in the line to get one of the golden colored walnuts from Saint Nicolas.
Anyway if you like to see how a pack of Krampusse behaves nowadays then please enjoy this clip shot in the 7th district of Vienna ...
If you like to get more historical information then please switch over to "The Vienna Review" and enjoy the nicely written article there: "Krampus? Who's that?"
Vienna, June 24th, 1709 - It was very big tumult yesterday morning
approximately at nine o'clock. Everyone was alerted, the streets were
full of people and the ones who were not in the streets stood at their
windows. Everyone was asking what to do but noone knew an answer. Some
people ran around crying the last day would be near, others felt a big
earthquake to come, and some supposed that a large army of enemy
besiegers stood before the gates of Vienna.
Finally more and more arms showed towards the sky and one saw an
indescribable amount of bigger and smaller birds flying around a very
big bird and it looked like as if the flock had a fight with this very
big bird.
Then this odd flock moved further down and closer to earth. It turned
out that the alerged big bird was an object in the form of a ship with
expanded sails. The people could figure out a man on the ship dressed
like a monk who announced his arrival with several gun shots.
The air ship moved in circles several times. It was now obviously that the air rider was looking for a suitable place to land.
Unfortunately an unexpected wind arose and prevented the man from his
undertaking. It came even worse. The wind led him to the spire of Saint
Stephen’s Cathedral; the sails got tangled up at the tower top, so that
the machine got stuck in it.
This incident caused a recent uproar among the common people, who all
ran to St. Stephen’s square now. It is reported that twenty people were
crushed to death in the huge crowd.
The man arrested in the air wasn’t helped by the staring people, he
cried for helping hands. But the air ship was so unluckily entangeled
that it wasn’t reachable.
After a couple of hours the man in the ship lost his patience. He took a
hammer and some other tools he had with him and started to demolate the
tip of the spire. He worked till the uppermost part of the tip fell to
the ground. Thus he came back into flight and after some panning around
he skilfully brought his airship to a halt at a place near the Imperial
Palace.
Protected by a company of soldiers – otherwise he possibly would have
been scrunched by the crowd of people – the pilot was brought to the
tavern “The black Eagle”. There he rested for a couple of hours.
Then he told his story. On June 22nd at six o’clock in the morning he
left Lisbon in his newly-invented air machine in order to bring some
letters to the here resident Portuguese ambassador.
His travel was a big challenge and he had many fights with eagles,
storks, paradise birds and many other unknown birds. He said if he
hadn’t had his two double hooks and the four shotguns with him he would
have lost his life without any doubt.
