Scheibenschlagen

Scheibenschlagen (Disc beating)

The "disc beating" is a fire ritual in which burning wooden discs are hurled into valleys from hill or mountain sides...The ritual is performed on the eve of the first Sunday of Lent. Here is how it's done...

Boys and men climd to the hill, mountain side above the village, town just before dusk. 

They bring with them circular "discs", as a rule made of beech wood with a hole in the middle, long sticks, torches and firewood...

Once on the summit, they light a fire until a large bonfire is brightly burning...

Men then take a disc and stick it on a tip of a long stick which is as a rule made of hazel...

Then they light the disc in a bonfire...

They then spin the sticks with the disc around to make discs burn and glow brightly. This also looks very very cool...

Then they hit a wooden ramp, specially made for disc beating, with the stick with tangential blow. This dislodges the disc and projects it forward at hight speed. The disc flies away into the darkness below spinning widely...

The launch of each disc is accompanied by a loud shout from the launcher, dedicating the disc to a girl or unmarried woman...

On the village square below, a band plays music for the assembled community, which sings the Scheibenschlagen song. 

When the last disc flies into the valley, the boys and men make their way back home with their burning torches...

In the village, they visit the girls and women to whom their discs were dedicated and enjoy savoury carnival tarts...

This custom was once widespread in and around the southern part of the Upper Rhine Plain, in the Markgräflerland, Black Forest, Breisgau, Basel area and Alsace as well as in Vorarlberg, parts of West and South Tyrol and in the Bündner Oberland and in the Chur Rhine Valley...

I love this bit: The disc beating was first recorded in 1090: On March 21, 1090, an outbuilding of the Lorsch monastery was set on fire by a flying burning disc 🙂

Now considering that this ritual was performed in at the beginning of spring, I would venture to guess that there is some kind of solar symbolism of the "launching burning sun discs into the dark" kind...Most likely related to this: rolling of burning wheels down the side of the mountain. 

I talked about this in my pots "Burning rolling wheel"...

Great short film about the custom in Switzerland can be found on this page...