Anyone who succeeded in touching the barrel with the bat so hard that it burst and the cat could escape, won the main prize. “Anyone who did not get the barrel, but managed to release one or more rings, also received a prize,” says Mooij.
Animal suffering is not folk entertainment
At the end of the nineteenth century, the realization grew that animal suffering could not be a folk entertainment and these games were banned.
Yet cat clubbing has not yet completely disappeared. In Gouwe, municipality of Opmeer, this game is still being played, but then in a civilized manner. The living cat has been replaced by a block of wood. Sandra van der Bel from the Kermiscomité: “It is part of the fair. We organize it every year and the fair is opened with it.”
How do you get fair money?
The West Frisian fairs had more traditions and customs. One is the fair letter. Good use among young people in particular to get fair money when the bottom of the piggy bank was in sight.
The youth from West Friesland climbed into the pen and begged through a handwritten letter to their parents or family for a pocket money for the fair. “A kind of hymn,” explains Martin Bakker of the Aartswoud cultural working group. In 2022 he was involved in an exhibition About the West Frisian Kermiscultuur.
Martin Bakker explains in the video what fairground letters are.