It certainly feels like the world is getting smaller as we lose parts of older traditions to homogenization.
You can still see some wonderful diversity in the Austrian traditions surrounding the Perchten and related beings though, where there are a bunch of quite weird creatures that might be particular to just one geographical area, while being totally unknown in others.
For example in some areas of Styria, a traditional part of the Krampus runs are the
"Schab", whose name probably comes from an old German word for straw bundle. They look like huge walking bundles of straw with meter-long antennae, and they have whips that they crack to make a lot of noise. The Schab are not supposed to go near people's houses, let alone go inside, and they may even try to stay away from the light coming out of any windows and doors.
It's probably not very hard to see a connection to harvest-related work in this tradition, but the exact origins are unknown.
In the Rauris valley, there's the
"Schnabelperchten", who look like old women with huge white beaks instead of a face, carrying brooms and oversized scissors and making low "gah gah gah" sounds as they go around. The tradition says that they check all the houses to see if everything is clean and tidy, and should they find any dirt in your home, they will cut open your belly with their huge scissors and sweep all the dirt and dust inside.
The idea behind this is probably related to the fact that the Rauris valley used to be one of the strongholds of European gold mining, and therefore always had a big population of male workers there to do all the hard mining and gold panning work. Lacking proper female supervision, they sometimes needed a not-so-gentle reminder to keep their abodes tidy, or else. That's the story anyways.
