These figures, with their learing eyes, demonic fangs, and peculiar rolled-up beards, act as a sort of perverse royal guard and security force in the stately processions of thousands of maskers that characterize Rottweil's Fasnet (Fastnacht) processions. They take delight in vaulting on long poles and tickling bystanders with large, dangling feather dusters, a practice that gives them their name of "Feather Hans."