They are a bizarre sight: half comical, half nightmarish, like a cross between the Wombles and Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. Each stands eight feet high. Mottled horns curl from their temples. Snaggletooth grins leer under straw moustaches and snouts pierced with noserings. Beady eyes peek from fleecy faces and a grotesquely long tongue lolls out down to their waist. On their legs, they sport green woollen socks; on their feet, stout boots tied with green laces. Around their midriffs hang cowbells which clang every time they move. And each carries a jezevka club, with a head covered in hedgehog spikes.