Falcons and Sword Fighters / Greifvögel und Schwertkämpfer

Today we headed back to Werfen Castle to see the falconry show that we missed when we went in September. Peter had visited the castle with his students a few weeks ago on a very windy day and was only mildly impressed with the show. Today was a whole different story with perfect weather conditions and hungry falcons and a whole lot of enormous birds (with wing spans of up to eight feet!) flying around.

It was an amazing performance. Five falconers were involved, some down in the courtyard performing with the birds while the others were stationed up the hill by the falcon roosts (roosts?), releasing them and calling them back depending on what bird was needed when as the show progressed. How they communicated with the birds was not completely obvious to me. Sometimes it seemed like a slight hand motion was enough to bring the bird from souring high over the castle wall, to dive bombing the crowd, and then landing calmly on the falconer's arm. Some reacted to swinging sack-like things, dive-bombing the crowd back and forth between a pair of falconer's swinging these things around their heads. Other birds received raw meat (baby chicks!) thrown high in the air and caught mid-flight (or not caught, the meat crashing to the ground among the audience much to the horror and delight of the children sitting near by).

After the show we headed up a very steep pathway to the upper courtyard (How did they make it up and down that pathway during the winter in the middle ages???) where a festival was going on with sword fighters and jugglers and a number of craftsmen hard at work as if it still were the middle ages. Nikolas was interested in the sword fighters, though a little bit fearful at the same time, and ultimately decided they were actually mean people because they liked to fight even though they never really hurt each other.

And despite his trepidation of the sword fighters, it didn't stop him from taking part in the children's knight tournament. After putting on their tunics, the kids caught rings on their swords, toppled monsters with their jousting poles, and threw balls through rings of (wooden) fire. Competing against another four year old, a five year old, and two six year olds, "Dragon Knight" Nikolas, as he was called, brought home the champion's certificate!