Dreckschweinfest Hergisdorf

A Custom with Germanic Roots

If you travel to the eastern foothills of the Harz Mountains at Pentecost, you'll discover one of Germany's most unusual folk festivals in Hergisdorf — a small village in the Mansfeld-Südharz district of Saxony-Anhalt. The Dreckschweinfest is more than a folkloric spectacle: it's a ritual staging of the transition from winter to summer, over 400 years old, with clearly recognizable pre-Christian, Germanic roots. The custom was first documented in 1620, but its actual history likely goes back even further. Both the church and the GDR authorities tried to suppress it — in vain.

In 2018, the Pfingstgesellschaft Hergisdorf e.V. and its Dreckschweinfest were included in the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage. An acknowledgment that this Mansfeld village rightly deserves: here, a custom is not just reenacted, but lived — by a society that introduces its members to the rituals over generations.

The Play of the "Dreckschweine"

The focus of the event is Whit Monday: Two groups of young men compete against each other. One group — the Dreckschweine — roll around in a specially prepared wild game enclosure, a mud pit, until they are covered head to toe in clay and earth. The others — colorfully dressed, armed with whips — embody summer and drive the Dreckschweine out of the mud pit with loud cracks. Symbolically, winter is driven out and summer is ushered in.

The image is raw, archaic, almost alien — and that's precisely its appeal. Here, you won't see a polished folklore competition, but a ceremony that has shaped the Mansfeld region since the 17th century. Surrounding this are the Pentecost procession on Sunday afternoon, the Pentecost egg collection on Tuesday, and the Apron Ball on the Friday after Pentecost. The whole event only concludes on the Saturday of the following week with the traditional "Pfingsttanz vergraben" (Pentecost dance burial) — the ritual funeral of the festival week, so to speak.

A Pentecost Society, Not Just Any Association

The Pfingstgesellschaft Hergisdorf e.V. is the patron and guardian of the festival. Its members are primarily men from the village, whose families have often been members for several generations. The roles — Dreckschwein, Sommerläufer (summer runner), Wirt (host), Birkenschneider (birch cutter) — are passed down like an inheritance. The Pfingstgesellschaft is responsible for preparing the wild game enclosure, collecting the birches for Pentecost decoration, and organizing the entire festive framework.

Where the Mansfeld Region Lives Its Customs

Hergisdorf belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde Mansfelder Grund-Helbra in the Mansfeld-Südharz district. Nestled between Eisleben — the Luther City — and the Harz foothills, you'll experience a part of Saxony-Anhalt that is little developed for tourism but exceptionally rich in cultural history. Mining shaped the region for centuries, the religious Reformation began not far away, and the Dreckschweinfest recalls even older layers — the pagan roots over which Christianity was laid, without completely covering them.