The simple Kurent costume consists of sheep skins girded with leather belts or chains that hold huge cow bells and handkerchiefs. Mounted on top are cow horns and two slender sticks decorated with feathers. Kurenti still perform the ancient function ascribed to carnival time - chasing away winter - so they run around the fields ringing their cow bells to call in spring.

The origins of the figure and Kurentovanje festivities are obscure, and may have come from earlier Slavic, Celtic or Illyrian customs. Traditionally, the Kurenti were not supposed to ever leave the Ptuj area, but nowadays they annually visit major Slovenian towns, and even venture abroad to cheer Slovenia's best winter athletes.

But Kurenti are only the most famous of the multitude of traditional masks and carnival figures that have survived until today. Ethnologists estimate that about 170 distinct costumes have been preserved - a lot for a country the size of Slovenia.

Similarly, Kurentovanje is not the only large carnival Slovenia boasts. Cerknica, for example, is home to the traditional animal procession featuring groups of dormice, frogs, boars, devils and witches, and two especially popular figures: the giant witch ancestress Uršula and the lake monster Jezerko. Cerkno, meanwhile, hosts perhaps the most "bloody" carnival, the Laufarija. The central carnival figure, the pust, personifies winter and is guilty for all the bad deeds in the town during the last year, so it is executed according to a precisely defined script.