Wodzenie niedzwiedzia, Suchodaniec

Do not be alarmed. We're not celebrating Halloween early here on the blog, we're commemorating the annual Polish Silesian tradition of “Leading the Bear.”

For our uncultured readers, Leading the Bear is a carnival tradition that involves old Polish people dressing up in festive garb to bring good luck to the village. I'm assuming this is where the Village People stole their look from.

From what I gather, a "hunter" leads someone in a bear costume around by leash door-to-door. And as we all know, adults who dress up in bear costumes symbolize bad luck (likely because there's a chance they may use said costume to lure young children into unknown vehicles), so they can't be let off the leash.

This is where it gets a little confusing; this motley crew of costumed folk parade around town in hopes of beckoning a year of good luck. And in order for that to happen, every housewife in the village must dance with the bear. And, all farmers are encouraged to dance with the bear (if he does, he will in return receive many pigs and cows).

To thank the group for visiting a home/office/farm, you're supposed to offer up vodka to the traveling crew. Could this also be how bar crawls got their start???

At the end of the parade, the real show starts with the“killing of the bear." Back in the day, they slaughtered a bear, but now-a-days, they have some weird fake-killing where in the end, a teddy bear emerges from the big bear's belly and then they tell all the kids that it will grow up and return for next year's carnival.

Moral of this whole story: People in costume + vodka + dancing = Silesians know how to have a good time.

For video coverage, click here