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Oeblarn´s Krampus Play - UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Event

Next performance probably

Saturday, December 2nd, 2023 - 7 pm

A-8960 Oeblarn Main Square

Every year in early december the traditional Krampus play based on 18th century texts and likely much older, is performed in Oeblarn's main square. Children need not be afraid of being beaten with birch whips like in former times. Our guests can bring the whole family and experience the old traditions without fear. Mystic figures like the "Schab" towering ten feet high, clad in straw, snapping their whips rhythmically and "Grasteufel" and "Flechtenmann" with costumes made of bark and moss accompany Lucifer, Cerberus, Death, Krampus and St. Nikolaus in a play about Good and Evil. The quarrel between summer and winter will also be performed. Join us to see one of the last surviving folk theater traditions of this kind in Austria.

The first written mention of the 'Krampusspiel' in Oeblarn was by archduke Johann of Austria, who saw this play while he was guest at the nearby palace Schloss Gstatt in 1816.

Christoph Waltz, the actor, explains "Krampus" to Jimmy Fallon

(link to the interview on the Tonight Show)