Masks come out in Swiss 'valley of monsters'

Once a year, as the last icy blasts of winter begin to give way to spring, strange figures start to appear in the remote Swiss valley of the Lötschental.

Clad in animal skins, with huge cowbells round their waists, and wearing fearsome wooden masks, these are the Tschäggättä.

Local man Manuel Blötzer remembers how he felt, as a little boy, when he first saw them. "Frightened… but I wanted to see them. Where did they come from in the night? From above the mountains? Where did they go? I didn't know."