Every 31 December and 13 January, bizarre and fantastical figures rove the hinterland of the Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden. Some wear ornate headdresses, others grotesque animal faces. These are the «Silvesterkläuse» that usher out the old year and ring in the new.

Since the 15th century, Saint Idda of Toggenburg has been venerated at Fischingen Abbey. Her legend was invented to make the monastery more attractive.

5,000 years ago, people in Europe began erecting stone stelae in the shape of humans. These monuments were likenesses of ancestors that served to unify and nourish the village community through rituals, and legitimised land ownership.

At the Marian shrine of Oberbüren (Canton of Bern), the medieval Catholic Church offered some very special services: children who were stillborn or had died at birth were briefly brought back to life so that they could be baptised and then properly buried.

In 1531, two years after the legendary Milchsuppe (milk soup) incident, a battle took place at Kappel after all. The Protestants suffered a crushing defeat, and were forced to abandon their dreams of an exclusively Protestant Switzerland.

While Zwingli was preaching the Reformed faith in Zurich in the 16th century, the altered circumstances of life led to frictions in the countryside on a greater and lesser scale.

In the Middle Ages, pleas for divine assistance were often incorporated directly into and on the knights’ weapons. So the knights were fighting in the name of the Lord…

A stained-glass work of exceptional artistic quality dating from 1588, on permanent loan from the Swiss National Museum, adds a touch of dramatic beauty to the Ittinger Museum in the Kartause Ittingen.