Bushy Busós, Scary Sheepmen

What do you do when a huge fluffy monster in a terrifying mask jumps on you to give you a hug, stroke your face, ruffle your hair, or jump around you maniacally? (or possibly all of the above?)

One of these terrifying creatures.

Well, on March 3, Carnival Sunday, in Mohács, Hungary, I would learn the answer to that question. It was the Busó Festival (which, if you've been reading along, you should know is pronounced "boo-sho"), an annual celebration, as I would quickly learn, of fertility and beating those damn Turks. But mostly fertility.

Wikipedia had told me the legend of the festival far before I stepped onto the cobbled streets: when the Turks occupied the village in the 16th and 17th centuries (read about Eger for more about these nasty Ottomans), the villagers hid out in the woods, and, on the advice of an old Slovak man, waited until a thunderstorm to dress up in terrifying costumes, make as much noise as possible, and march back into town. Those cowardly Turks thought the busós were literally demons and allegedly ran out of town. In some more boring versions of the legend, it's winter that the villagers beat back, but what fun is that?

A sample of some of the kinds of masks that we saw. They're really big and wooden, and combined with the giant fur coat make the wearer look like a literal Yeti.

Anyway, ever since then, the people of Mohács celebrate that glorious victory by dressing up in the costumes of their ancestors (the women dressing either in traditional garb or as witches with carrot noses), making a lot of noise (with strange wooden contraptions that make your eardrums feel like they're rattling out of your head), getting rip-roaring drunk (can't speak for every villager but that was generally my impression) and generally embracing their fertile sides by accosting unsuspecting women tourists.

In the beginning of the morning, before I realized that the hugging and the ruffling of hair was going to get real old real fast, I was so thrilled with being accosted by the sheepmen that I insisted on a selfie.

That wooden thing he's holding is a loud clacker. Also notice how huge he is in comparison!

Mohács is a small place. Eric (friend I came with) and I spent the first half of the day walking the length and breadth of the town multiple times, stopping every so often to admire the ubiquitous street shows, folk performances, and spontaneous busó processions happening on the crowded streets, and jumping (or at least I did) every time they fired a cannon (blanks, I hope) about once every two hours.

We snagged a picture with a busó who was otherwise unoccupied with finding a woman to busó around.

Ohoho, what is THIS for? We would soon find out.

This iconic guy on the right was "playing" a stringless violin with a spoon and whistling the notes all day.

LOTS of processions like this one with LOTS of cars and busós and women processed down the streets that day.

For food it was definitely a heavy Hungarian kind of day. We stopped at a stand for lunch that had giant iron cauldrons full of all manner of Hungarian foods and essentially picked the two that looked the most delicious. What we ended up getting (to share... it's a lot of food) was my absolute favorite Hungarian dish Toltott Kaposzta (cabbage stuffed with pork and rice) and another dish... which we assumed was beef. It was not beef, and when we cut into it and realized it was less fibrous and more porous than expected, we asked the woman next to us what it could be. She responded "blood."

Hungarian specialties for sale.

Our lunch. On the right, we have some lovely Toltott Kaposzta and on the left... a mystery...

Aha, we rationalized, the kidneys filter blood. Maybe we are eating kidney.   

Since then, after consulting two Hungarians and doing some Internet research, I have come to the conclusion that what we were eating was actually congealed pig's blood fried with onions and spices... called sült vér, it's a traditional breakfast dish at Disznótor, a kind of Hungarian pig feast where a giant pig is slaughtered and eaten all day and nothing is wasted.

So after fueling up with the blood of my pig-enemies (I guess?) it was back on the road for more busó madness. We headed to the river along with a giant procession hauling along an ornately-decorated coffin, which was put on a barge and then allowed to float gently down a river (one of the witches, I assume she was part of the act, followed the coffin and screeched and carried on about letting it float down the river).

Eric posing from our vantage point (a stone wall we had to clamber up) of the coffin floating away (that speck in the back)

It was late afternoon at this point, and I had decided after one particularly aggressive busó chased me around the square in order to give me a big bear hug that I was going to avoid eye contact and fast-walk whenever the busós were around. It was all in good fun, but at a certain point you get a little tired of the face-stroking and hair-ruffling.

THIS guy respected my boundaries.

Want to add a disclaimer that we DID see some monogamous busós, which really made my day.

For dinner we decided to top off our cholesterol-heavy day with a nice load of grilled meat, including some fatty, tender grilled pork and an enormous spicy sausage (notice a theme here, anyone?).

My camera didn't have the range to capture the sheer amount of meat at this meat stand.

Mmm, meat.

As evening fell, Eric and I (along with the entire crowd) gathered in the town square to watch a gaggle of busós light a giant bonfire (along with a man (Turk? Winter?) made of straw) on fire. Some cheerful folk music played in the background as the fire roared in the twilight countless embers flying into the sky and falling into the thrilled crowd. After watching the bonfire burn for around ten minutes, us (and the other day trippers) marched out of the town to catch the 6:40 buses, lined up like ducks in a row at the station, back to Budapest.

Behind us, I like to imagine that the witches and busós were dancing around the bonfire as their town slowly emptied of tourists and they could reclaim the night.