Swiss clauses ring in the New Year – again

Clauses ring in the New Year – again – in Appenzell. Keystone-SDA

From dawn on Tuesday, Silvesterchläuse (New Year’s Eve Clauses) travelled from farm to farm in canton Appenzell Outer Rhodes, northeastern Switzerland. They wished the residents a Happy New Year, ringing and singing according to the Julian calendar.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The groups of Clauses visited homes and farms on secret routes. There they stood in a circle, rang their bells and sang a wordless natural yodel, a Zäuerli.

In the hinterland of Appenzell Outer Rhodes in particular, the turn of the year is celebrated twice: on December 31 and again on “Old New Year’s Eve” on January 13. This has its origins in the confessional dispute of the 16th century, when Pope Gregory XIII adapted the Julian calendar. The Protestant people of Outer Rhodes refused to recognise this.

The custom is known far beyond the canton’s borders. On Tuesday, the fire brigade and police in Urnäsch worked to direct the onlookers arriving in the early hours to car parks.

Appenzellerland Tourism called on people to observe the New Year’s Eve Clauses from a “respectful distance”. Especially in front of private houses, it is important to keep your distance and behave calmly and discreetly, it said. Applause and mobile phone lights would distract from the mystical, sensuous and sonorous atmosphere.

Adapted from German by AI/ts

How we work 

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]