Late January to early March is a busy time of year for nightmarish traditions. In northern Europe, our ancestors had been cooped up for months and gone a bit odd; they would take any excuse to talk obscene trash about their neighbours and social superiors, scare winter or evil spirits away with a funny hat, kill pretend bears, throw food or set something on fire.
The weird rituals are a grab bag of Catholic, pagan and pure social convenience. Catholic carnival was about enjoying a last hurrah before Lent. There was also a feudal understanding that a brief spell of codified anarchy and semi-official debauchery operates as a useful social pressure valve. Then there’s the OG – paganism. Europe went understandably wild for rites marking the passage from winter into spring, trying to get the spirits on side for a year of good weather and bountiful harvest, throwing around symbols of purification and fertility.
