folklore - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2000 - 6.50 Shilling

The market town of Telfs (Tyrol), at the foot of the 2,661-meter-high "Hohe Munde", is both modern and progressive. On the other hand, the place depends very much on its turbulent history, on its ancient tradition, on its traditional customs. Vibrant carnivals of a similar nature and size, in which 400 to 500 men active, but even more hard-working helpers are involved in the background, there are only a few. The difference between the Telfer and the other big Tyrolean Carnival is mainly in the groups of the "Schleicher" and the "Wilden", which form the core of this local tradition and of which the former gave the name to the spectacular cult. There is a contradictory speculation about the origin and background of the "Telfer Schleicherlaufens" every five years. On the one hand, pre-Christian roots of old fertility rituals, the conjuration of spirits of the dead or a spring cult for winter expulsion and the like are suspected in all these carnivals. Other opinions, which tend more to the "myth of the mask as a means of bridging social and moral barriers," place the emergence of carnival customs, with the help of which the rural population tried to imitate and parody court festivals, into the late Middle Ages.