130. The Ros Beiaard parade, Dendermonde, Belgium
The mostly unremarkable Flemish city of Dendermonde, half way between Brussels and Antwerp, is not somewhere tourists normally bother with. But every 10 years (Covid permitting), over 80,000 people descend on Dendermonde for the Ros Beiaard parade. This gloriously bonkers and very Belgian phenomenon involves a gigantic red horse called Beyard cavorting through the city, escorted by a considerable retinue of dancing giants and others. Occasionally the huge horse rears up, the four boys riding it dressed as knights raise their swords in the air, and the crowd goes wild!
The Ros Beiaard originates in the chivalric romance The Four Sons of Aymon, a French-language work sung by the earliest of the proto-troubadours and first written down around 1300. It was an international bestseller in manuscript form before the age of printing, appearing in French, Dutch, German, English and Italian versions. A printed Dutch translation – Historie van den Vier Heemskinderen – appeared in 1508. William Caxton, who started England’s first printing press, produced several English editions of The Four Sons of Aymon, but the story never seems to have caught on here.
Most of the action takes place around Dordogne and the Ardennes. Aymon of Dordogne is a loyal vassal of a fantasy version of the Emperor Charlemagne. Each of Aymon’s sons – Ritsaert, Writsaert, Adelaert, and Reinout – receives a horse from him. Reinout is the strongest – so strong he accidentally kills one horse and maims another just by riding them. So Aymon takes Reinout to a castle where the much feared reddishagain and “after a heroic battle” tames Beyard. Beyard is strong enough to carry all four sons on his back.
