Fools
The Häs or the Narrenhäs ( etymologically also: the Häß ; plural: the Häser , the Häs ) refers to the fool's costume in the context of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival , which usually consists of a wood-carved face mask, often called a larva , and a completely hand-made fool's dress.
History of the rabbit
A characteristic of the Swabian-Alemannic carnival is that the Häträger do not change their disguise from year to year, but keep it for life. In some areas it is even common to pass the Häs on to generations. Every fool guild has only a few fool figures. The hat of the respective figure is carried by a group in the guild. The oldest fool figures documented as early as the Middle Ages are the devil, the wild man and various animal masks. The Fleckle, Blätzle or Spättle dresses, on the other hand, are mostly linen garments with colored patches of fabric sewn onto them. These include, for example, the Plätzler from Weingarten or the Narrone from Laufenburg . The Hansele, Narros or Weißnarren come from the baroque era . They have a painted linen suit, usually a smooth face mask (smooth larva) with a friendly looking facial expression and often crossed bell straps ( Gschell ) on the chest and back . The carnival witch such as the Gengenbach witch usually wears a jacket (so-called Peter ) and a skirt that is worn over an underskirt and peasant underwear. In addition, there are a large number of local fool figures who cannot be classified into one of the groups mentioned.
Further equipment
The equipment of the fools often includes other attributes that have a symbolic meaning or only serve to play jokes on the fool's leaps with the audience. Examples are the ratchet , the witch's broom, the Saubloder (pig's bladder), the foxtail or the stretching scissors, which can be extended several meters and thus serve the fool to reach for the hats of the spectators during the fool's jump.
The word "Häs" is also used in the Swabian dialect outside of Carnival for garments or suits, one speaks of "Sonndigs-Häs" and "Schaff-Häs" and means Sunday clothes or work clothes. Etymologically it goes back to the Middle High German word haeze (clothing) and the Old High German hâz (dress, robe).
literature
- Wilfried Dold, Roland Wehrle u. a .: On the history of the organized carnival. Association of Swabian-Alemannic fools' guilds. DoldVerlag, Vöhrenbach 1999, ISBN 3-927677-17-5 .
- Werner Mezger: The big book of the Swabian-Alemannic Carnival. Origins, developments and manifestations of organized foolishness in southwest Germany. Theiss, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-8062-1221-X .
- Herbert Schwedt: Painting on fool's clothes. The Häs- and Hanselmaler in southwest Germany. Müller and Gräff, Stuttgart 1975, ISBN 3-87532-063-8 .
