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Hi, my name is Robert Lamb, and this is The Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters and time.

Today is New Year's Eve, of course, or as it's known in many Western Christian traditions, St. Sylvester's Day, or the Feast of St. Sylvester, or simply Sylvester. The day's namesake, Pope

Sylvester I was an historic 4th century individual and bishop of Rome, but much legend

was later attributed to him during the Middle Ages, including the idea that he converted

Emperor Constantine and cured him of leprosy.

As Alexander Reichsteiner discusses in an excellent post for the Switzerland National Museums blog,

titled Sylvester Klausse, both beautiful and ugly,

residents of the Swiss canton of Upinstal-Alcerodin celebrate St. Sylvester's Day with a mummer's parade.

The costumed marchers in this parade are the Klausa, and they come in three different varieties.

First, there are the beautiful Klausa, with costumes consisting of traditional breeches or skirts, doll-like masks, and elaborate glass-beed decorated

headdresses, some of which resemble dioramas of traditional alpine life. They're really spectacular.

Throw in some giant bells for good measure, and you're ready to go.

Next, we have their opposite, the monstrous ugly klausa, featuring fearsome monster masks

and bodies made of hay, straw, moss, or fir-tree trimmings, snarling wild faces and elements

of the wilderness itself made manifest in this humanoid form.

Again, throw in some giant bells bells and you're good to go.

Finally, we have the pretty ugly Klausa. By pretty ugly, they don't mean fairly ugly or even more

ugly, but rather a little bit of the beautiful and a little bit of the ugly. So while they may

boast bodies of moss or straw, their masks are typically more neutral,

...