W.Va. festival is the country cousin to Mardi Gras

In the hamlet of Helvetia, the descendants of Swiss and German immigrants joined hundreds of people from across the state on Saturday, celebrating Old World traditions dating back to the Druids and carried on through generations.

They square-danced and indulged in drink, just like the Louisiana revelers. They donned costumes and masks. They saw old friends and played music until the wee hours of Sunday morning.

But the fiddle- and guitar-driven music is distinctly Appalachian, not jazz. And with temperatures at the freezing mark, the costumes don't show any skin. The masks aren't sexy, either. They're deliberately scary.

"The whole idea is to scare away Old Man Winter," who hangs in effigy above the dance floor until he meets his fate on a bonfire, said Aaron Williams, a native who returns every year for the festival.

Pat Johns of Morgantown has been making the 2 1/2-hour trek over narrow, twisty mountain roads for 23 years and has made just as many intricate masks, often winning the felt Swiss flags the judges hand out as prizes.

"It's definitely a labor of love, and over the years, it's been something that kind of consumes your life for a couple of weeks, at least, before the festival," she said. "Everyone in your family knows it, and everyone excuses everything that you've done during those two weeks."