*So its 1st December already and I’m attempting #Blogmas however although I will try to blog each day, I won’t beat myself up about missing one or two, I will do my best.*
So to kick off Blogmas, let’s learn something Christmassy.
There is a mythological tale of a monster that appears at Christmas, and no I don’t mean stressed out harrassed parents, an actual beast, a true nightmare! Dating back as far as the 11th century, the legend of Krampus began.
Its said he is goat like, or more accurately satyr like, such as Pan, a pagan god. Or perhaps better described in this day and age as Devil like in his appearance.
A huge mythological supernatural beast, that I thought was St Nicholas’ opposite, however that’s not true, in European folklore he’s more like a dark enforcer for #Santa his mere appearance of cloven feet, long red snakey tongue struck fear into all the children. For he would punish the naughty children until they agreed to be good. (That’s why Santa has a list!!)
And he punishes good too, whipping the children with birch twigs, some hung in cages in trees, some just chained up. With the worse being thrown into first pits ( I see this is where Christians get the Devil/Hell story from)
So you have St Nick. Father Christmas or to use his official name Nikolaus going from house to house giving presents to all the good boys and girls, and those that hadn’t saw the Krampus instead!
So where does #Krampus come from, I believe its Nordic and the son of #Hel (again Christian belief systems being taken from Pagan mythology) Krampen means ‘Claw,’ and his appearance is similar to the Norse god Loki, and Greek god Pan.
With his close connections with pagan times and witches, we can clearly see why he was demonized and made into the bad guy. When really if you were good, you had nothing to worry about. Birch is a sacred wood to witches, one of the mine sacred woods, and its representation is for spirit realm and the dead. And its a wood used in pagan rituals, so it makes sense for Krampus to use it. He also rattles chains and rings bells, most witches know that this too is associated with rituals, but now I think that’s where Sleigh bells came from??
And because he’s goat/satyr like he’s depicted in red, going with his red tongue that snakes about, I definitely think this helps the devil association. Though he predates it. People in Germany. Hungary, Italy etc they have a Krampus Night (Krampunsnacht) which falls on 5th Dec, and Nikolaus day follows on the 6th Dec. The tradition is for men to dress as Krampus and scare the village kids, like Halloween or I should say Samhain. Girls too dress up as the female counterpart the Nordic goddesses such as Freya, Frig, or Germanic goddess Frau Perchta.
So will you be visited by Nikolaus or Krampus? Is it a tradition that’s making a comeback? Did you know about Krampus?
*special thank you to my husband who inspired this post with his Krampus meme this morning!!*