The devil you know

It was a few weeks before Christmas, and in the Austrian alps, a rose-tinted twilight was giving way to long, dark shadows between the powder-coated pines.

- CATHRIN SCHAER

As the white peaks turned grey, two young women walked along a lonely stretch of mountain road between popular ski towns. One was from New Zealand. She'd been here about a month, juggling odd jobs with as much snowboarding as possible.

Without warning, a ute pulled up next to them, headlights dipped. In the back were two demons. Actually, two local guys dressed up as a traditional Christmas devil called the Krampus. But the women didn't know that.

In the twilight, the costumes were terrifying: shaggy, dirty, made of real animal skins, topped by masks with fangs and huge horns. The devils jumped out and began to whip the women. There were no street lights and nobody to hear the women scream, or the devils laugh.

That was my first and utterly disturbing experience with the bizarre but increasingly popular Krampus tradition.

Anybody who didn't know what was going on would probably have called the police, it was that bonkers.