Emil Bartoš

“The first one is laufr, then three dancers and then an old woman with a chimney sweeper, then two Jews and then a bear with…” “Bear keeper?“ “He is blue.“ “And someone else behind them? Is anyone going behind the bear?” “No, no, there is a bear and a keeper. And no one else. But you know, sometimes there were so many people following the mascaraed. But only a few today, people don’t keep it anymore. Sometimes there was a whole procession.” “And how did it begin in the morning?” “Well, in the morning, Zdenka knows that, she used to go and can describe it better. Zdenka!“ “Yeah, in the morning we used to dress up the girls in their masks, here in (the Czech – editor´s note) the house we met, and dressed them up. From the house they went to the upper corner, then down to the street, later they met here in the house, where we danced, then went on all through the village. And in the evening there was a laufr and there were many old women in the dancing place and us girls, we sat behind the table. And the laufr was carrying a liquor on a tray offering to women. Some threw a coin at him, some did not. And we also sat behind the table and gave coins to the masks and danced and all. It was nice.”