A couple of weekends ago I went to Geraardsbergen (Grammont for French-speakers), which is a town about fifty kilometres from Brussels, with it's own unique dual celebration of Krakelingen and Tonnekensbrand, protected by UNESCO as âIntangible Cultural Heritage of Humanityâ as they were very keen to point out. So, as a member of humanity, you should probably know about this intangible cultural heritage of yours..
Essentially the day broke down into a few different elements:
1.the parade
2.the krakelingenworp (krakelingen-throw in English)
3.lighting the tonnekensbrand
4.taking torches down into the town.
The parade was fairly self-explanatory, and reminded me of bonfire night with all the marching bands, historical costumes. It covers the city's long history each year, but there's also a specific theme each year. This year they were fairly niche, focussing on two '15 anniversaries: 1515 and 1815. In the former, according to the event programme, a local Lord signed an agreement with a monastery to âtransfer Saint Bartholomew's relics from Lierde to Geraardsbergen.â This is apparently still celebrated every summer, when the relics are processes through the streets, accompanied by all the city's associations/guilds. He must have been a big local cheese â or it's possible the relics are supposed to belong to Bartholomew, the apostle, which makes him bigger than a local cheese.. I'm not entirely clear on any of that though.
1815 was during the Napoleonic wars, when English cavalry paraded in the surrounding countryside, three weeks before going to defeat Napoleon (who was depicted, slumping nonchalantly in the parade) at Waterloo. After that Louis XVIII apparently stayed in Geraardsbergen on his way back from exile in Ghent.
Trumpeters and their long trumpets..
Some French (?) knights
Napoleon!
No idea what these guys are meant to be, but they deserve to be appreciated..
Anyway, that's all the detail â how far it came across in the parade is a different matter, and less important than that the parade was good fun with lots of clearly very time-consuming costumes and sets. A particular favourite were the huge wicker figures (not sure who of, sorry) which had to be carried on the shoulders of a single individual â meaning that a team took it in turns to totter into the wind..
The hole in the fabric is so the guy carrying it can see where heâs going...
After the end of the parade, it was time for us all to go up the hill â which was a pretty impressive hill for an area that forms part of the low countries. With it's cobbled streets and unforgiving gradient, it was also rather reminiscent of Lewes, feeding into bonfire analogies in my mind.
But why did we all climb this impressive hill? So we could watch Geraardsbergen's town council and other officials (far too many of them if you ask me) drink some wine âto swallow a tiny living fish from a 16th-century silver gobletâ. Please don't ask me why, I'm not really sure and the programme offers nothing..
Some of the fish that didnât get drunk/eaten
Then it's time for the krakelingenworp, when the aforementioned city officials lob around 10,000 bagel-like rolls, called krakelingen, which have been allowed to harden for a while (some said a week) at the assembled masses. Some people were very keen on collecting as many krakelingen as possible. I saw quite a few people afterwards with bags full. Kids scrambling round for them I can understand, but the grown-man in front of me shoving people out the way to pick up krakelingen from the muddy ground should feel at least a little bit silly. I spose the fact that one of them contains âa small official document confirming [that] you win the âgolden krakelingâ, a unique jewel created by a local jeweller might account for their fervour, but I was quite happy to only try to catch them if they were coming right for me (which wasn't that many given how far away I was. A couple bounced off my outstretched hands â they were like cricket balls!
Krakelingen in a shop window
Look at them all..
And what's the reason for that bit? Again, not entirely sure â the programme has some guff about the âpre-Christian elementsâ (live fish, bread, wine and fire â the fire comes later). But the actual worp seems to come from an occasion in 1381 when the city was under siege, and so, in order to show how much food they had (and therefore how long they could withstand a siege) they threw out  bread and fish (they have recently dispensed with the fish. At one time they apparently threw fruit out too, but stopped that practice when people started throwing it back!). This gambit supposedly worked, as the siege was called off, and the innovative show of bravado continues to be commemorated. The reality is slightly less stirring â the besiegers quickly came back and overwhelmed the city anyway...
Flying bread!
Two elements in one!
After all that madness there was a little break giving people the chance to enjoy the entirely authentic funfair that has sprung up round the festivities in the town centre.
Yay, funfair!
In the evening came the more clearly pagan festival of Tonnekensbrand â to mark the beginning of spring, and the end of winter. Some locals performed folk dance and folk music back on top of the hill, including a number where they all set fire to a small straw man in the middle of the stage.
Burning straw man, surrounded by dancers with torches
Around 8, a large straw-covered stake was set ablaze, and we all watched transfixed, in the way that people watch fire. Again, this was unsurprisingly very reminiscent of bonfire.. After a while, it burned itself out, and we were all given the opportunity to carry a torch down the hill into the town. This was pretty cool â not just because I got to carry a torch. The symbolism of lighting the big fire, and then taking multiple little fires down to the town is nice and clear, and the whole ceremony felt very primal and pagan in a good way. I hope it brings a good spring to Geraardsbergen this year.
Fire!
Some of the torches before theyâd got down the hill..
So that was my day (more or less.. there was a little issue with the fact that all the transport from Geraardsbergen had finished by the time we got to the train station) It was really cool to experience an entirely unique celebration â krakelingen/tonnekensbrand is literally only celebrated in Geraardsbergen, and it's extremely impressive that there's record of it (in one form or another) going back to 1393 â that's over 600 years.
Ik ben zoân type dat niet graag veel koekjes in huis heeft. Als ik koekjes in huis heb, dan zijn ze ten dode opgeschreven. Alleen, als je bezoek krijgt, is het wel heel prettig om iets in huis te hebben. Een oplossing zou kunnen zijn om kokosmakronen of iets in die richting te kopen, ik houd namelijk niet van kokos. Maar âk ben ze nog niet notenvrijâŚ
