Bärbelettrieb
The Bärbele hustle and bustle , also Bärbele jumping or Bärbele running , takes place annually on the evening of December 4th, the day of remembrance of St. Barbara .
regional customs
The "Bärbele" in the Allgäu are exclusively women and girls from the age of 16 who should be unmarried, but this is not always strictly interpreted. They wear ragged robes and are dressed up as old women with masks that are handmade from lichen, moss and similar natural materials. Long skirts are worn, with either an old smock apron or a headscarf. In addition, the women wear a belt with small or large bells ( cowbells ) around their bodies and are armed with brooms made of birch twigs or willow branches. Dressed in this way, the Bärbele (based on the “ Wilde Männle ” and the Klausen driving in some places also called “Wildbärbele” or “Klausenbärbele”) move silently through the villages and town centers. In some places they also go into the houses, symbolically sweep everything dirty and indecent out of every outside door, then also sweep in the courtyard and then in the streets. If someone of the residents dares to leave the house and comes too close, they distribute various, rather gentle, blows to these "bad guys". However, they can also blow their rods with loud noise to men who cross their paths in the village. The blows, especially on the legs, should bring fertility and good luck. They give away apples, nuts, cookies and similar little gifts to the children and their mothers in the house. At midnight the hustle and bustle is over.
After the custom of bears in the Allgäu had been forgotten for many years except in Oberstdorf, it was only revived in the Oberallgäu at the end of the 20th century. The first further Bärbeletreiben took place in 1985 in Sonthofen, today the custom is lived again in numerous other places in the Oberallgäu. There was a similar custom in Upper Franconia , except that lads in ragged disguise ran after young girls, insulted them and beat them with rods if they improperly dared to stay outside after the onset of dusk.