The story
Laetare of Stavelot in Stavelot
The Laetare of Stavelot centers on the Blancs Moussis, locals in white hooded robes and long red-nosed masks who move through the crowd throwing confetti and swatting bystanders with inflated pig bladders on sticks. Held on the fourth Sunday of Lent, it draws about 35,000 spectators to a small Ardennes town.
According to local legend, the white-robed Blancs Moussis of Stavelot exist because sixteenth-century townspeople wanted to mock a rule barring monks from joining carnival festivities, so in 1502 they dressed as monks themselves, in loose white habits with hoods.