The night from 30 April to 1 May was formerly the much feared „Walpurgisnacht’. According to the old beliefs the witches all emerged and celebrated their principal festival. This was the night of their greatest power. In many regions the maids, who cleaned houses farms and stables on that night, stuck brooms, forks, shovels and rakes in the earth with their sharp ends in the air, so that the witches, when they came down the chimney would get caught on them... the first Walpurgis night for many years was held on the Ritten in 2010 and not only witches were invited.

The Walpurgis night was also a „Free Night“. Nice girls put spruce branches bound with ribbons in the windows to attract the boys. It was worse for the scandalmongers and nasty old maids. They got a „Shaming“ (a dry tree top or a straw doll.

After Walpurgis Night the delightful month of May begins and with it we are in the time of the „May trees“. These May trees should still be standing green and fresh in the woods on Walpurgis Night, but by dawn on the 1st May they are cut down. Long before sunrise the lads go into the woods and there, with the permission of the owners, chose the best spruce, fir or larch. The tree is cut down, the bark and branches removed and only a May bush is left on top. Often, in order to have the tallest May tree several trunks are cut down. The girls decorate the tree and on the top a metal cockerel or cock’s feather is placed. This serves to represent strength and power.

Neighbouring lads try to steal the tree or to cut it down, or sometimes instead of the bush at the top to set a dried or otherwise mocking branch in its place. So on the first „Free Night“ watch must be kept. For our ancestors the May tree was a symbol of fertility. It guaranteed the continuity of the genes through fertility in the wider family and economic prosperity through fertility in the fields.

To escape the summer heat – when the Bozen basin is unbearable in the summer, the time of the „Summer holidays“ begins, a tradition that began here on the Ritten. Even today the villages of Maria Himmelfahrt, Oberbozen, Lengmoos and Klobenstein are the closest places for the well-to-do Bozen families to relax. For everybody likes to avail themselves of the region’s capital’s local mountain. It is a target for hikers, families and individuals. Wonderful summer traditions and a range of natural beauties await the admirers of this place blessed with such a good climate that it offers inspiration at all times, not only to artists and philosophers but to everyone.

When the summer on the mountain meadows shows signs of coming to an end, it also brings to an end the solitary life of the „Saltner“ shepherds and their herds. The descent from the meadows was and is an important date in the farmers’ year. On the Ritten the highpoint is „Barthlmastag“ the 24th August, the saint’s day of St. Barthomolew. It is an eagerly anticipated event which needs careful planning. All the animals that have spent the summer on the Ritten mountain meadows are gathered together and the farmers come up to the meadow to see how their animals are.

This Barthomolew Market has been for a very long time a folk festival on the mountain. From 10.o o’clock in the morning the Wangen Band plays, and sends its lively melodies over the Schian meadow. Then come grilled sausages and fritters ... and punctually at noon with the cracking of whips, cries from the shepherds, neighing from the horses and lowing from the cattle begins the entry of the animals. Here in the mustering field the animals that have spent the summer in the meadows will be assessed and discussed by the farmers. The Saltner shepherds must reveal what they know and in the milling throng of grey and brown backs each farmer will recognise his own and ask for an account of the summer...

After this high point on the meadow „Bartlmastag“ is far from being over, for in the afternoon everyone goes down to Pemmern where the mountain festival becomes a festival in the fields.