Europe's Wild Men

French photographer, Charles Fréger toured eighteen countries from Austria to Finland to produce The Wilder Mann project. This fascinating series of photographs, which took Fréger several years to research and shoot, explores the human fascination with myth, ritual and tradition.

Shot amongst nature, Fréger took tradition out of context, portraying his subjects as the mythological figures in which their traditions are based upon. Celebrating the seasonal cycle; fertility, life and death, Fréger's subjects become Boes on the Eve of St. Anthony, frightening St. Nicholas and the Burryman. Equal parts mesmerizing, comical, and scary, these wild beings come to life in his art.

Extraordinarily beautiful and incredibly detailed, these photographs will delight you.

The Wilder Mann exhibition showed at The Gallery at Hermès in New York earlier this year and is now available as a book to buy here.

Photography by

Charles Fréger

FRANCE

Spring festivals in the Pyrenees feature local men playing the role of bears awakening from hibernation.

PORTUGAL

During Carnival in Lazarim characters called “caretos” parade through the village in hand-carved masks to a bonfire where effigies known as thecomadre and compadre are burned.

AUSTRIA

Every five years the men of Telfs collect lichen to create Wilder Mann, or Wild Man, costumes for the town’s Carnival festival. Tradition dictates that they nibble on a piece of this lichen before the festivities.

ITALY

Schnappviecher (snapping beast) on Shrove Tuesday

CZECH REPUBLIC

When jolly St. Nicholas visits the villages of Vysočina, he is joined by someone dressed as Smrt, or Death, whose scythe catches sinners.

ROMANIA

Stag on New Year’s Day

FRANCE

Bear at the Festival of the Bears

POLAND

Macidulas on New Year’s Day

SPAIN

Zezengorri at Carnival

SWITZERLAND

Sauvage at Carnival

GERMANY

Strohmann at Carnival

ITALY

Boes on the Eve of St. Anthony

AUSTRIA

Krampus on St. Nicholas’s Eve

CZECH REPUBLIC

In the village of Nedašov, devils join the retinue of St. Nicholas to frighten children into being good.

SCOTLAND

Thousands of burrs adorn the Burryman. The man who plays the role at the Ferry Fair in Queensferry must collect all the burrs himself. Once dressed, he walks the town, accepting offers of money and whiskey and bestowing good luck.

GERMANY

On Christmas Eve Pelzmärtle appears in the village of Bad Herrenalb with the Christkind (Baby Jesus) to scold naughty children and rap them with a stick. The straw costume is sewn on to the wearer.

BULGARIA

On New Year’s Day men cover themselves with goatskins to impersonate the Kukeri, who both embody and chase away evil spirits. In the past they’d brush against women to bestow fertility.