Day Out in Oeteldonk

On Sunday we alight our train at Den Bosch at 10.11am, just as HRH Prince Amadeiro XXV, Lord and Master of Oeteldonk, and his entourage were arriving on another platform. The station was heaving with crowds of Oeteldonkers. The most conservative wore black coats covered in Oeteldonk badges and red and white striped scarves. The more flamboyant were wearing makeup and wigs and medieval tunics or lampshades on their heads or shower curtains. Babies were dressed as bumblebees or ladybirds. We are the only people in civilian dress. 

We follow the crowd who are following the royal entourage who are following the Prince on a parade through the town from the train station to the town square. The cavalry on their wooden and calico horses stop intermittently to drink beer. Disorderly amateur marching bands follow a cluster of chefs carrying a papier mâché ox through the town. Several generous folk with bottles of jenever (Dutch gin) hand out free shots. Sean and I lose each other for about an hour in the tightly packed throng of Oeteldonk's winding old streets. A man with a Salvador Dali moustache hands me a flyer with print that is not English or Dutch. I ask him to translate it for me. “I can’t,” he said. “It’s in Oeteldonk and I don’t speak Oeteldonk, do you?” It’s a medieval upside down world.

It’s Carnival in Den Bosch and for three days, the city changes its name to "Oeteldonk," which means "Frog Hill." The elected Prince Amadeiro opens Carnival and Oeteldonk goes crazy. The Oeteldonk traditions have been around since 1883 (they are up to their 25th Prince Amadeiro, a Monarch elected for life); but the North Brabant city of Den Bosch has been celebrating Carnival since 1385. 

Carnival is really only celebrated in the southern Catholic regions of The Netherlands. Traditionally a festival where people celebrated the lengthening of the days and new growth in nature, the Roman Catholic Church later linked it to the ecclesiastical calendar. Just before Lent and forty days of pious denial, people could enjoy a good party. Oeteldonkers know how to party.