What is the Funken?
On the first Sunday after Ash Wednesday, known as Funken Sunday, people in Vorarlberg, Liechtenstein, eastern Switzerland and southwestern Germany stack wood into tall towers and set them alight. At the very top sits a witch effigy filled with gunpowder, which explodes in the fire. The custom is on Austria’s national list of intangible cultural heritage.
How old is the custom?
The Funken is often said to be an ancient pagan rite meant to drive away the demons of winter. There is no evidence for this. One possible trail leads back to ancient Rome: on March 1, the old Roman New Year, the sacred fire of Vesta was relit. So the fire itself may well be old.
A young witch
The witch, by contrast, is a recent addition. She was added only in the 19th century, when people wanted to revive a fading custom and drew on Romantic ideas like those the Brothers Grimm had helped spread. The historian Manfred Tschaikner has pointed out how badly this effigy fits the history of the region. In the 16th and 17th centuries, more than a hundred people were executed as witches in Vorarlberg, the vast majority of them women.
Episode on this topic
Further reading
- Manfred Tschaikner: „Damit das Böse ausgerottet werde.“ Hexenverfolgungen in Vorarlberg im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Bregenz 1992.
- Manfred Tschaikner: “Die Lust, Hexen zu verbrennen. Bemerkungen zur Brauchtumspflege,” in: Der Bludenzer, 1996.