On Berchtl Nights, the goddess’s Austrian servants take to the streets and create a din by ringing cowbells and playing tuneless music on their fiddles. These activities were not always confined to Advent Thursdays or to Austria. A fortnight before St. Andrew’s Day (November 30) 1572, one Hans Buchmann claimed that he had been transported by a supernatural agency from the forest near
Rothenburg, Germany, to Milan, Italy. When he was first set upon, he thought he was under attack by a swarm of bees, but the buzzing then resolved itself into a terrifying scraping of bows on fiddle strings. We don’t know what really happened to Hans—just before his disappearance he had borrowed some money
without asking, so he had plenty of reason to fabricate the tale—but it is interesting that he should have thought to mention how the buzzing of bees had preceded his being lifted up and carried over the treetops. After that, he had to make his own way back to Rothenburg, finally arriving on Candlemas (February 2).
