On the first of March the children of the Engadin villages process through the streets wearing blue smocks and red caps, swinging cowbells of graded size and singing in Romansh, to drive out winter and call in spring. The bells are borrowed from the farms and the largest are carried by the oldest boys.
The custom is pre-Christian in form and is known far beyond the valley through Schellen-Ursli, the children's book by Selina Chönz and Alois Carigiet about a boy who climbs to a summer hut to fetch the biggest bell.
No attendance figure is published, nor would one mean anything: this is a village rite performed by its own children.
The date is fixed at 1 March. The Engadin villages — Guarda, Ardez, Zuoz — each hold their own, and the sgraffito houses are the setting.
PlanningFixed on 1 March, whatever the weekday — one of the few immovable dates in the Swiss year.