If you happen to be in Austria or Germany or most of the eastern Alpine region, on the 05 December you most certainly will encounter a rather scary looking Krampus. A pagan tradition that may have started with farmers dressing up in animal skins with wooden demonic masks with horns and making noise with bells and chains to scare away the winter. A pagan tradition that has somehow evolved as the evil counterpart of the good St Nicholas, one would say maybe one of the best examples of the synergy between Christianism and paganism.
Today on Krampusnacht on the eve of St Nicholas, towns have massive parades where the Krampus will scare the misbehaved children, as this Krampus role is only performed by the men of the villages and towns, with the new silicone masks which seem to be even more terrifying than the traditional wooden masks, you can well imagine the mischief that these disguised men get up to.
