A fluffy creature soars through the air. A forest of outstretched arms reaches to grab it. Blood splatters onto the pavement. In the jostling to catch a flying cat, a grey-haired man has received a blow to the nose instead.
This is the Kattenstoet, a festival held every three years in the haunting town of Ypres, Belgium, in honour – or rather, dishonour – of the cat. And here, in a town famous the rest of the time for First World War battlefields and memorials with names such as Flanders Fields and Passchendaele, spilled blood is nothing new.
About 50,000 people have come to enjoy the festival's highlights: a three-hour cat parade, a cat tossing from the belfry of the tower in the main square, and a witch-burning re-enactment. The result is something of a Middle Ages fairy tale – or a dog's fantasy.
Of course, the cats thrown from the belfry aren't real. At least, not any more. These days, the jester (Brian Claeys, a worker in the city's technical department) tosses stuffed black-and-white cat toys to the delight of children and young-at-heart adults.
The Kattenstoet parade features all kinds of odd-looking floats.— Joy Yokoyama/The Globe and Mail
There's a macabre legend behind this tradition: During the Middle Ages, the city jester would throw live cats to their deaths because the Grote Markt (central market) was overrun with the creatures. The ritual was also supposed to chase away the evil spirits with which cats were said to be allied. Some versions of the story say the cats had been brought in to take care of an infestation of mice that had been eating away at the fabric stored in the Cloth Hall. The last time live cats were tossed was 1817. The tradition was revived briefly with stuffed cats in 1938, but scotched because of the Second World War. In 1946, the tossing began again and added a parade to the fun.
We staked out a sweet spot near the lineup snaking out of Il Gusto d'Italia ice cream and waffle shop for the show of 15 floats and about 2,000 participants. We had a clear view of the town's Cloth Hall, the ancient centre of textiles trade now turned into a charming town hall with its clock tower and infamous belfry. The building also houses the In Flanders Fields Museum and, against that stately background, the winding procession of weirdness would march right past us.
Colourful marching bands fill the square with music, children dressed in feline costumes make clawing gestures, and teenagers twirl flags bearing the shield of arms of Ypres or the Flemish lion. And then it gets weird.
Balloons bundled in the shape of cat heads float by. A tribute to Egyptian cats features a float with a sphinx and young girls dressed like Cleopatra. Children dressed as Egyptian slaves appear to be taking punishment from their masters. In a celebration of Celtic cats, Viking-costumed flutists accompany dancing girls in blond braids pushing a wheeled cart.
Some aspects of the parade seem to have nothing to do with cats, such as knights in chain mail and silver-domed helmets walking by clutching long spears. But that's part of the tribute to the history of Ypres, a town with a rich and bloody past that stretches beyond the Middle Ages.
Two horses draw a wagon of caged “witches” in anticipation of the burning re-enactment that will be the festival's grand finale. The women reach out to the crowd in apparent pleas for mercy. A parade of clergymen and villagers follows them. A line of enslaved children also participate, as mock sounds of whipping echo throughout the march. Another float carries a creature that looks like an elephant with wings, a long devilish tail and fur.
