The story
Ypres Cat Parade in Ypres
A large historical procession in Ypres built around cat folklore, staged only about every three years rather than annually. Costumed groups, giants, brass bands and floats move through the town center, ending with a jester tossing toy cats from the Cloth Hall belfry -- a symbolic echo of a medieval practice that ended around 1817.
In Ypres, a jester climbs the Cloth Hall belfry and throws stuffed toy cats down to a crowd waiting with open arms below, a staged reversal of a documented medieval practice in which live cats were once thrown from that same tower, reportedly to control the vermin that had gathered among stored wool.