| New Year | early January |
| Carnevale | late February |
| Lent | from Carnevale to Easter |
| Holy Week | late March or early April |
| Mayday (the feast of St. Philip and St. James) | May 1st |
| Midsummer's Eve (the feast of St. John) | June 23rd |
| Feast of St. Bridgit (Lugnasad) | August 1st |
| Michaelmas/Steirischer Herbst | September 29th |
| St. Florian's Feast | late October |
| All Hallow's Day | November 1st |
| Martinmas | Late November |
| Christmas | December 24th to January 4th |
The Monday following the Twelfth Day (of Christmas) marks a celebration of the new year, a time for drinking, gaming, and dancing.
The night before Lent, called "the putting away of the flesh," in which great feasts are held and troupes of performers tour rural areas with plays preaching the virtues of Christianity, often in the form of old epic heroes. A parade of costumes, often shamelessly showing skin, is accompanied by drinking much wine and beer, while straw figures are burned on huge evening bonfires. Men whose wives have been unfaithful are often humiliated by their neighbors, presented with horns and antlers and carried around town on a mattress. The more daring folk occupy the church and evict the priest for the occasion, often indulging in blasphemous mockeries of the mass. This day generally falls near the end of February, the Tuesday night before Ash Wednesday. This fesitval is thought to drive away evil spirits.
The 40 days prior to Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday. No meats but fish, nor milk, cheese, or eggs may be consumed. No food may be eaten before noon, and no marriages are performed. It is begun by celebrations, and the lighting of the Paschal Candle - a tall fat candle which burns the entirety of Lent. This is a popular time for pilgrimages. On the first sunday of Lent, large bonfires are lit on mountaintops.
Week prior to Easter, in which alms are given and feasting. A pig is often shot but not eaten, in memory of Christ's suffering. Its flesh is burnt. Ashes are swept out of the hearth on Easter Sunday, and the Maypole is often brought into the village - a wooden column set upright in the center of town. Good Friday through Easter Sunday is a time of fasting for many Christians, and on Sunday a feast is held. The week following Easter is often a time for no work, marking the end of spring.
The feast of Saint Philip and Saint James, this festive holiday has had pagan connotations ever since the missionaries introduced Christianity to the Germans. The night before, men and women roam the village in bizarre masks as devils and animals, demanding food, drink, and mocking their hosts. Pretty girls are adorned with colorful ribbons and games abound.
On the day itself, women wear clothes with decorative flowers in their hair, and one is selected the Queen of May - crowned with greenery and blossom. She choses a partner as her lover, and leads a dance around the maypole. The village itself is decorated with greenery and flowers. This is probably the most magical of holidays of the year.
June 21st, the night of the summer solstace, a festive celebration of the beginning of the sun's descent into winter. Although it is also called the Feast of St. John by the Church, this is perhaps the most blatant pagan holiday surviving into modern times. Great bonfires are lit and often villagers march bearing torches to the tops of nearby hills or mountains.
Popular activites include marking field boundaries with torches, rolling flaming wooden wheels, jumping fires (called St. John's fires), burning animals bones on the devil's side of the church (the north side) to drive away spirits, and wrestling matches. Peasants also ring bells, sprinkle holy water and wear masks of dragons.
On August 1st (also Lugnasad), after all the crops have been harvested, this marks the last day of reaping, a time for contests of strength, games, dancing. A single beanstalk (or other suitable crop) that is the last remaining is ceremonially cut, wrapped with ribbons, and buried in the village green.
September 29th, the official beginning of the winter, when livestock are sent to the harvested fields to graze on the stubble. A few days thereafter, and before the first freeze, the ground is plowed and harrowed for the winter crops. A feast of meat and roast apples is held.
This holiday is confluent with Michaelmas in Styria, celebrated largely in Graz with drinking, dancing, a market, and contests. In other parts of Germany (Bavaria particularly) this is known as Fasching.
The Monday preceeding All-Hallow's Eve (or the previous Monday if October 31st falls on a Monday or Tuesday). This day honors the patron saint of Austria, St. Florian, and is marked by prayers to him for the safety of villages for protection from fire. Sometimes swimming or boating contests are held.
A night when the ghosts of ancestors return to walk the earth, candles stay lit all night long in most villages, and prayers are said for the dead. The last day of October (31st), often fires are lit surrounding villages or fields to ward away the evil spirits that appear. Legends of dragons soaring above the Alps to mate and devils walking the earth this night abound.
Called "All-Hallow's Day" by the local folk, a day for remembrance of the dead, visiting loved one's graves, and a time for storytelling. Extra seats are placed at the tables for ghosts who visit this day, November 1st, and an additional Mass is held. Food is even left in churchyards for the dead.
Also called the feast of the Plowman, this occurs two days after the winter plowing is completed, sometime in late November. Livestock which was slaughtered and salted or smoked is eaten for the first time this night.
Beginning on Christmas Eve (December 24) and and lasting until January 4th, all duties are waived in honor of the birth of Christ. Different villages have differing customs of course, but most are characterized by feasts, prayers, gifts, permission from nobles to gather extra firewood, passion plays, games, drinking, and dancing. Specific days of the twelve often involve unique events varying from region to region. In Steiermark and Austria, these include the Feast of St. Stephen (12/26) in which a fox is torn apart by dogs tied to a pole, Childermas (12/27) in which children are beaten to commemorate the massacre of the innocents, and the Feast of Circumcision (1/1) when nobles exchange gifts between families. The Epiphany (1/4) elects a male King of Bean and a Queen of Pea, who place crucifixes in rafters before they are doused in a river or pond and given wine.
This page last modified 8/16/97.
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