Originally published in Spanish in Operacion Marte magazine on December 15, 2017. Was later published here. Translated here with permission from the author. It’s a good article and I think our readers will enjoy it. Without further ado…
The Christmas season arrived, winter arrived and with it came celebrations, holidays and the spirit of the season. For some it is a time of blatant commercialism, others ignore this fact to celebrate it, to spend time with family. It is the season of Christmas carols, turkey, Christmas pine and of course it is the season of Santa Claus.
The character of Santa Claus has existed in Christmas folklore for years, but his most recognized image is in fact modern, a creation of the Coca-Cola company for this season. It is a story that everyone knows and that is not worth telling for the umpteenth time. The Christmas season has its own mythology, its own characters like Santa Claus and also its own monsters.
The most notable of these was Krampus, a being who punished children who misbehaved during the year. Far from being an enemy of Santa Claus, he was his complement. Santa rewarded good children with gifts while Krampus punished them.
The nights of December 5 and 6 are known in Austria as Krampusnatch (Night of the Krampus), in which this being along with Santa Claus walk the streets shaking rusty chains and ringing bells to warn of their arrival and terrify the children. .
Krampus put all the children who were rude, bad or naughty in his basket to take them to hell, whip them and eat them alive on Christmas night.
This tradition continues to be celebrated to this day with young people dressed as Krampus scaring children and whipping chains. It is interesting to see how Santa Claus accompanied this being—his dark twin—on his journey. So while Santa brings joy, his counterpart brings terror.
Both Santa and Krampus are two representative figures of the season, two figures that sometimes become one, in some regions of Eastern Europe children are warned that if they do not behave well Santa will come to eat them.
Possibly they are the same deity, the same god of winter in two different facets as a benevolent being and an implacable punisher.
The figure of Santa Claus takes traits from Odin of the Norse (in some traditions Odin brings gifts to his people at Yule), the Sacred King of the Celts and Father Time Saturn-Cronus, god to whom the Roman Saturnalia were dedicated in this season. This last god is known for having devoured his children while Odin is not a kind deity, he has Trickster traits and usually takes disguises to deceive gods and mortals, one of them may be Santa Claus and Krampus.
Over time and hypocritical political correctness, the figure of Krampus was erased and Santa, the devourer of bad children, was ignored. Instead, children are now traditionally told that Santa only brings coal to children who behave badly.
But outside of the well-known Krampus, the Christmas season has its own bestiary of creepy beings.
In the lands of Finland we find the figure of Joulupukki which literally means "Christmas Goat" which is a more primitive and pagan version of Santa Claus, Joulupukki was a figure dressed in fur and horns who went to houses not to give gifts to children but to demand them as a tribute. With the 20th century and the North American influence, Joulupukki underwent a modification, becoming a Finnish version of the kind Yankee character and forgetting its primitive roots. There is a Finnish horror film that focuses on this character called Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale .
In the magical lands of Iceland, lands of blonde maidens, trolls, gnomes and fairies, we find a great variety of Christmas monsters, starting with Gryla the mother of monsters, a gigantic troll who has an insatiable hunger for the flesh of children and who every Christmas looks for disobedient children to devour them in its stew.
Gryla had three husbands, of which she murdered two because she was bored with them, and with the third husband, the troll Leppaludi, she fathered thirteen children, the Jolasveiner, other Christmas monsters, trolls who during this season are dedicated to making practical jokes, stealing gifts, slamming doors when children are sleeping and steal food.
This horrible family has Jolakottur the Yule Cat as its pet. If the Greeks have Cerberus the guardian of Hades in their myths, the Nordic myths have this evil feline that is its counterpart, it is a giant black cat with eyes of fire that walks around at night in search of its favorite prey, these are, as you may have already guessed, children who do not wear new clothes, the cat considers that if the children did not receive new clothes it is because they were badly behaved all year and eats them .
In Germany we have Knecht Ruprecht translated as Pawn Rupert, a figure similar to Krampus but Christianized, he is Santa Claus's servant who dresses in a black and pointed tunic, accompanies his master mounted on a white horse and his work is almost the same. Same as Krampus, punishing bad children either by spanking them or giving them coal as gifts. Ruprecht is also the name by which the devil was known in Medieval Germany.
It is interesting to see how while Krampus is Santa's dark twin, Rupert's Pawn is his servant, he is also the devil as a Christian allegory: God (Santa Claus) rewards the good while the devil (Knecht Ruprecht) punishes them.
As Knecht mentioned, Ruprecht is a Christianized figure of the Krampus, less evil and with a human appearance in contrast to the wild and bestial appearance of the Krampus.
Similar to Knecht Ruprecht in France we find the Father Scourger or Le Père Fouettard, he appeared for the first time in the year 1150, he was a butcher (or innkeeper in some versions) who with tricks kidnapped three children, killed them and cut them up to devour them, before After eating them, the same Saint Nicholas who resurrected the children appeared. After this he repents and as penance for his crimes he becomes Saint Nicholas' servant who orders him to whip and persecute the bad children.
These two figures have their variations such as the Belsnickel in some regions of Germany or Black Peter in the Netherlands and Flanders, who was Santa's black slave and who has currently been accused of being a “racist stereotype” by the very “ correct” and good human rights and liberal groups.
All of these figures are part of the winter tradition, of ancient stories that go back to a dark, tribal past in which trolls, mischievous goblins, kind and evil spirits lived among humans.
Santa Claus himself is a variation of the old winter god Odin-Saturn-Grandfather Ice-Sacred King and if we go back further in time to the old Bear God of the most primitive peoples, a wild figure, who could transform into a man and a woman, a deity who devoured lost children, other times who disguised himself as a human to associate with mortals, other times he acted as a jester or as a god of fertility.
Krampus, Knecht Ruprecht, Father Scourge and Santa himself seem to be variations of the Boogeyman, the Boogeyman, Uncle Sain, the Mantecaster and currently the creepypasta character Slenderman, characters from children's folklore who punish by taking or eating children. who don't go to sleep early or misbehave. All these myths do not die but are transformed or camouflaged, adopting new identities, new masks to remain among us.
Children are no longer told that Krampus or the Yule Cat will come for them if they misbehave, that political correctness and that ridiculous pedagogy of wanting to overprotect children from everything, keeping them locked in imaginary “safe spaces” of any kind. anything that can cause fear or anxiety, in the end we have children without myths, without imagination and incapable of facing such human emotions as fear or restricting their imagination through that mental prison called “safe space”.
Of course, current merchants are not interested in a Santa who eats bad children or a Krampus who punishes spoiled children; they want an environment of artificial happiness to generate an environment of shopping, more shopping, safe spaces, a good-natured Santa who tells the spoiled and hateful children who are going to give them everything they demand (they don't ask, they demand) just because they are good and special, telling them that the Krampus will come for them or that he would bring them coal would surely cause psychological and traumatic damage or at least That's what a child psychologist would tell you.
But the Christmas season is a time of celebration, of myths, of drinking and eating, as well as of happiness and the old trolls, spirits and elves are more alive than ever.
While political correctness and blatant commercialism prevail, at night the Krampus and all that troop of Christmas monsters take to the streets looking for bad children to punish.
Be good.
December 2017
References.
Icelandic terrors
https://scarylittlechristmas.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/icelandic-terrors/
“The Devil in the Fireplace” by Robert Anton Wilson
http://lamanzanadoradaeris.blogspot.mx/2014/12/el-diablo-en-la-chimenea-por-raw.html
Top 7 Christmas Monsters and Demons / RAPATUSTRA
Christmas monsters
https://almaleonor.wordpress.com/2014/12/24/los-monstruos-de-la-navidad/