To many on the tiny German island of Borkum, the Christmas festival of Klaasohm is a harmless nod to their pagan roots.
But the annual chasing of women down the streets with cow horns is facing cancellation after a television expose revealed violent beatings.
Borkum Lads Club, which has organised the festivities since the 1830s on the North Sea Frisian island, was forced to apologise for “historical actions of past years” and said it distanced itself from “any form of violence against women”.
During the festival, six members of the club – who have to be unmarried men born in Borkum with at least one island-born parent – dress up as the “Klaasohm” monster wearing woollen costumes and rampage through the town to hunt women.
The members are then tasked with beating the women’s backsides with a bull’s horn, all while being accompanied by a man in milkmaid-style clothes known as the Wiefke.
Of course, every woman on the island knows of this and plans their forays outside around it. Some, no doubt, in order to get bottom beaten.
Sir Pterry and the Megapode is, in fact, documentary.
That all sounds a bit like this …
https://youtu.be/LHMmqeVWXTg?si=8JzfqoPmyHNgHSMb
@BiND – Have you taken in Borkum on your tours of the Islands? Sounds livelier than Fehmarn and with added Erskine Childers charm!
Something similar here on Ameland called “Sunneklaas”.
The islanders aren’t bothering anyone with it. In fact, it’s extremely private and Outsiders are not welcome..
Doesn’t stop the Wokemedia and various gravelcvnts “of a certain age” to try and get it Cancelled.
The “agressive island youth” obviously didn’t do a good enough job kicking some very much uninvited “Journalists” off the island last year.
Given the Huffings and Puffings of The Press™ this year, the more excitable island youf will have… a target-rich environment. And rightly so…
Maybe some of the “Journalist” gutter rats will finally learn that a press card is not a passe-partout.
There is a carry-on up the Rhine, Weiberfastnacht, on which males only wear ties they want to have sliced up.
The habit of declaring the village idiot mayor for a day has been cancelled for the last 19-ish years.
Because they couldn’t tell the difference from the other 364 days?
I’m even more glad we left the EU if that’s their level of amateurism.
In 2019, a woman was killed in Padstow, probably by the Obby Oss.
And we had to brand that “Wicker Man” documentary as fiction because it was so shocking.
TMB,
Not there, but we were in that general area on the mainland earlier this year and it was quite boring and depressingly flat. I can see why they’d get up to such fun and am surprised its only once a year.
BiG,
When I was in the army in Germany in the early ’80s the claim was that if a woman cut your tie she was after a quick shag and furthermore what happened on Weiberfastnacht couldn’t be used in divorce proceedings.
I filed that one in the same folio as “there’s a coach load of nurse coming to the NAAFI disco tonight”.
Assuming the “beatings” aren’t hard enough to cause injury and any woman who clearly doesn’t want to play along isn’t bothered, this sounds like a quaint & fun tradition.
Well they banned Wet T-shirt Nite didn’t they?
(See Frank Zappa-Joe’s Garage but play it LOUD)
The bit that had me snorting tea down my nose was “And afterwards the women are given a gingerbread cake”.
A cow’s horn seems to be an odd choice for a spanking implement. Aren’t they usually either something broad and flat or thin and whippy?
Are the horns still attached to the cows ?
Metaphor, Stonyground… Metaphor…
May help to realise that in these parts the only proper horns on moobeasties are on the bull… 😉
Grikath, have people stopped getting their knickers in a twist over Zwarte Piet yet? Have enough people watered down the tradition for the neurotic left to get distracted?
So bored of the witch hunts for purely hypothetical offences.
Sounds like a great new reality show in the making to me – we could get Gregg Wallace to compere!
@NielsR Nope.. Hasn’t died down yet. Because for the grifters behind it ( now joined by the Reparations!! crowd…) it’s never enough.
And as you can expect, there’s a rather firm countermovement now..
But mostly people are sick and tired of the whole “discussion”, and many an activist has found that Papa’s Patience has worn thin when it comes to Shouty Skittles scaring their kids.
BiG in Japan said:
“The habit of declaring the village idiot mayor for a day has been cancelled for the last 19-ish years.”
Cancelled, or made permanent?
Grikath, there’s still hope then. Glad to hear it, amazing how much tolerance the activists of tolerance demand from others.
May have to nick ‘Shouty Skittles’.
It’s all vaguely reminiscent of Derek and Clive:
https://derekandclive.uk/ad-nauseam/the-horn/