Keferloher Monday
The Keferloher Montag is a traditional horse market in the Upper Bavarian hamlet of Keferloh . It takes place annually on the first Monday in September.
The origin of the event dates back to 955 . After the battle on the Lechfeld , the victorious Count Eberhard von Ebersberg allowed the brave captains Niklas and Baldhauser to round up and sell the abandoned horses of the defeated Hungarians. According to tradition, 17,531 animals are said to have been captured. Through an edict of King Otto the Great , the Keferloher received the right to hold a horse market on Laurentius Day in the following years , which from then on took place annually as a horse and cattle market.
The heyday of the Keferloher Montage was in the 17th and 18th centuries. The market and the folk festival that developed around it attracted up to 30,000 people to Keferloh every year. It was only with the regular staging of the Munich Oktoberfest that the event lost its appeal. Nevertheless, the market, where the beer was traditionally served in the Keferloher , remained one of the largest cattle markets in the German Empire until the Second World War.
After the end of the war, the advancing mechanization of agriculture was accompanied by a further loss of importance. In the mid-1990s, the event almost came to a standstill. It was only through an initiative of the farmers 'association and some Keferloh citizens that Keferloh Monday could be revived as a farmers' festival.
Traditionally, a (mostly Bavarian) politician appears every year as the keynote speaker. They wear a straw hat that reminds of the farmers who used to visit Keferloh Monday. It was considered an honor to have been there, which is why the farmers in the inn kept their hats on as proof of their presence there.