Hello there, happy (and unsuspecting) reader! In lieu of interviewing the big guy (and stepping around reindeer piles) I’ve decided instead to do a little checking in on where exactly the well-known and much beloved Santa Claus comes from (and just who it is who does all that work.) I’d like to thank the American Armed Forces, NORAD and the Offices of Homeland Security for aiding and abetting my research into this mysterious man and the origins (and dark side) that he doesn’t want us to know. Also, I’d like to give a special shout out to my homies at the IRS for their much appreciated financial information…without you boys, I never could have done it…we knew, after all, that the money for all those toys had to come from somewhere didn’t we?

Oh, and sorry, children of the world. In light of some of the abusive practices, criminal misdemeanors and various instances of tax avoidance…well, Christmas is cancelled for the next 15 to 20 years…you see, Santa had to go away for a rather long time, and the reindeer and sleigh have been confiscated due to back taxes and…you know what? You’ll understand it when you’re older. Now go back to sleep, because even though we’ve managed to put Santa behind bars…er…to send him “on vacation” in Leavenworth, some of his shadier associates may still be out there…

Okay Moms and Dads…now that the kids have been safely terrified into bed, on to the good stuff! Who was Santa…really?

1) Odin - Long before the Norsemen became Christians, there was already a tradition of winter gift giving, and one that we would recognise a good deal of. According to the folktales, at midwinter Odin and the fallen warriors of Valhalla would mount a huge hunting party. Children would place their shoes by the chimney or the door stuffed with straw, carrots, sugar and other treats for Odin’s horse Sleipnir. In return, after consuming the children’s gifts, Odin would leave them candies or small gifts. Over time, the tradition evolved into hanging stockings by the fire, and the gifts for Sleipnir are no longer left by children. Too, the appearance of Odin has in parts remained. Odin is most often depicted as a white-bearded old man with one eye. His ravens Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory) sit on his shoulders, and in this instance, he is dressed in hunting clothes (fur trimmed leather jacket, trousers and boots) and carries a spear (which later became a staff). Various arguments can and have been made about the place of Hugin and Munin in the tradition that holds that Odin became Santa, one of the most popular being that Hugin represents the mindfulness of the “good” children, and that Munin represents the remembrance of the “bad” children’s misdeeds. A later addition to this version of Santa’s development is the character, most likely a troll, Krampus.

Krampus first shows up as the Christianization of the Northern Germanic peoples was finally beginning to take hold. Krampus the troll, sometimes represented as one of the Christian demons or as the Devil himself, was going about the countryside spreading terror among the peasantry. He would wait until night, slither down the chimneys of sleeping households and kill the children by various ways, tying them in a sack to smother, stuffing them up the flue to suffocate, disemboweling them, or even eating some whole. A holy man (initially a thinly disguised Odin, later Saint Nicholas,) decided to put a stop to this, and set out to capture and punish Krampus. To do this, he tricked Krampus into putting on a pair of magical shackles (in the St.Nicholas story, the Devil is made to wear the shackles that held Christ prior to the Crucifixion,) and forces him to make amends by delivering gifts to the families of the slaughtered children, which can be seen as an allusion to the old Norse tradition of paying weregeld to the family of a person wrongfully killed.

Krampus is in some stories forced to atone for his early murders by continuing to give gifts to children, in others, the act of paying the weregeld reforms him and he does it voluntarily thereafter. In the Christianized versions, once St.Nicholas has forced the demon/Devil to do this good deed he disgustedly either takes himself back off to hell or demands that he be sent back to hell.

2) Le Pere Noel - Le Pere Noel or Father Christmas is an ill-defined figure known mostly for his appearance. He is dressed in a long and hooded bright red robe, which is edged in white fur. On his back he carries a basket similar to those that grape harvesters use, which is full of gifts for good children. He is said to live in Lapland, which is perhaps the origin of the modern North American Santa being thought to live at the North Pole. Le Pere Noel is commonly accompanied by Le Pere Fouettard, who is similar in appearance, but of a much more sinister aspect. Le Pere Fouettard’s beard is long and unkempt and his hair, skin and clothing are dark, besmirched with either dirt or soot. On his back, he carries an empty wicker basket for carrying off very bad children, and in his hand he carries a switch to whip the naughty children with, instead of a walking staff as Le Pere Noel does. While Le Pere Noel gives out candy and gifts, Le Pere Fouettard gives out lumps of coal and whippings.

Le Pere Fouettard, known in the Alsace as Hans Trapp, has two stories told of his origin. One tells that he was originally a butcher, who captured three children and beat them to death. In this version of the story, Le Pere Noel (showing signs of a syncretization with St.Nicholas,) resurrects the children, and forces Le Pere Fouettard to serve him, after which he repents and serves in such a role voluntarily thereafter. In another, more ill-defined story of Le Pere Fouettard’s origin, he is said to have been a creation of the guild of tanners during the siege of Metz in 1552. While a burning effigy of king Charles was being dragged through the city, the tanners built a “rough man” out of hides and bound with chains who carried a whip and punished children. Somehow in the successive generations, the two “entities” of the burnt effigy and the “rough man” have become the character of Le Pere Fouettard, whose dirty and bestial appearance is not do to his evil acts and forced servitude, but to the means or method of his creation.

3) Saint Nicholas - Saint Nicholas (or in some places, Saint Basil,) doesn’t look like many of the others. In fact, he looks like who he is, Saint Nicholas. He wears his robes of office as a bishop; a mitre, dalmatic, chasuble, pectoral cross, and carries a crosier. (I know that most of you are scratching your heads right now, just think of the Pope’s entourage, I guarantee you, you’ve seen this outfit before.) Of course, Saint Nicholas’ origins as a gift-giver are fairly well-known by the Christian community, but I did a little digging around for the rest of us. Two stories in particular are cited for this function of the saint. The first of them, is that Bishop Nicholas who was well known to be a generous man and to be particularly concerned with the welfare of the poor, once went above and beyond his usual habits of gift giving to provide dowries for the three daughters of very poor (and particularly pious) Christian family so that the three girls would not have to make a living for themselves as prostitutes (incidentally, this is also how he became the patron saint of prostitutes). The second story tells of how Bishop Nicholas found at market a young boy (sometimes specified as an Ethiopian, other times identified simply as “black”,) who was to be sold as a slave. The bishop purchased and immediately freed the boy, whom he named Peter. Out of gratitude for his freedom Peter, who has come to be known as Zwarte Piet (Black Peter), served the Bishop as his page, and does to this day.

Unlike the three girls saved from prostitution, Zwarte Piet is still a part of Saint Nicholas’ annual visits. The traditional Zwarte Piet is dressed in the clothing of a typical Renaissance page, brightly colored pantaloons, ruffles and feathered cap. Often the costume includes painting the faces of the performers black (as the population of the Netherlands is still predominantly Caucasoid) and this has been a source of much debate in recent years. As the story grew with succeeding generations, Saint Nicholas and Zwarte Piet were said to come from Spain (which would make Peter a displaced Moor, dating this story to the Reconquista,) and it came to be told that while Saint Nicholas would give gifts and sweets to good children, Zwarte Piet would give a switching to bad children or (if the child had been bad enough) would stuff them into a dufflebag and take them away to Spain.

Traditionally there was only the one Zwarte Piet, but over the generations the number and function of the Zwarte Piten has increased, and their intelligence has decreased. Originally Saint Nicholas and Zwarte Piet travelled together, gradually they began to separate with Zwarte Piet arriving some days before Saint Nicholas with the candy or the thrashings and the Saint arriving later with the larger presents, then (and this is the tradition as it survives today,) they began to arrive together again. There are parades down to the docks in many cities, to see the arrival of Saint Nicholas and the Zwarte Piten who pilot his boat from Spain. Too, and a large part of the parade are the other Zwarte Piten who serve the function of entertainers, displaying the innocence and mischievousness of the young boy that Zwarte Piten originated as. Often the displays of ignorance (getting the answers to simple questions wrong, for instance) is an incentive to children to give the correct answer, and thereby to get a gift of candy from Zwarte Piet. As it has become more and more politically incorrect to celebrate in this fashion, Zwarte Piet has become less related to the origin tales of the Saint, and is coming to be depicted as a chimneysweep (although still in the costume of a page) and so is coated in soot, rather than simply being a Moorish or African child.

4) Sinterklaas - Sinterklaas is either closely related to, or the pre-Christian version of the gift-giver who became Saint Nicholas. His primary companion and household servant is Black Pete, his other companion is a horse, which is very similar to the Odin tradition. Sinterklaas in this older tale, carries a book containing the names of all the good and bad children and rides a white horse named Slechtweervandaag over the rooftops, dropping presents or coal down the chimneys. In this tale, not knowing what to name the horse he had just bought, Sinterklaas upon returning home asked Black Pete what he thought the horse should be named. Black Pete, who had not been listening answered “Slecht weer vandaag” (“Bad weather today”.) Sinterklaas, displaying a little inattentiveness of his own, promptly named the horse “Bad weather today”! Also resembling the Odinic origins of this version of Sinterklaas, children often put out their shoes to be filled with gifts and candy, the most traditional of these candies are chocolates or sugar candies shaped like the first letter of the child’s name, possibly in reference to Odin’s creation of the runes, and write a poem or sing a song for Sinterklaas, likely referencing Odin’s position as a god of poetry. Of course, if they had been bad, Black Pete would instead crawl down the chimney (thereby staining himself black with soot) in person to leave the offending child a bundle of sticks representative of all the switchings the child had earned throughout the year, and a small bag of salt. Usually (while Black Pete is crawling down the chimney, perhaps) there will be a loud knock on the door, and when the family goes to see who it is, they see no one…but someone has left a large bag of gifts on the doorstep. Traditionally these gifts are identified only by a poem about an aspect of the person it is meant for, and these riddles also are reminiscent of the old Odinic traditions of the Norsemen.

5) Tomte - The tomte, (also Jultomten or Julnisse) were originally pre-Christian Scandinavian sprites who helped around the household and farm. Usually they were pictured as little (about a few inches tall) old men with white beards, dressed in very ordinary farm clothing. Generally a very caring and giving creature, the tomte was also easy to offend, and could be fairly punitive as a result. Punishments could range from a switching to the killing of livestock, but most tomten could be propitiated by leaving a bowl of porridge with a pat of butter on top by the fireside at midwinter (later Christmas) night. If the tomte didn’t get his porridge, he would engage in various prankish behaviours, everything from simply turning various items upside down to tying the cows tails together in the barn.

At some point in his history, the tomte became the Jultomte or Julnisse, and began to deliver gifts to good children in lieu of the traditional Joulupukki, the Yule Goat. Often he rides on the back of the goat, or in a sled pulled by the goat instead of walking about with his sack of gifts slung over his shoulder. His visits are always made in person, the Jultomte gives his gifts to the children directly.

The Joulupukki has his own origins perhaps as far back as the Norse traditions that held that the storm god Thor traveled about in a chariot drawn by massive goats. In this fragmented story tradition, one of Thor’s goats got loose andn lost, wandered from house to house after Christmas eating leftover food. In the actual holiday tradition, people (called nuuttipukki) dressed in goat hides and horns and went from house to house eating all the leftovers from the Christmas feasting. Accordingly, until “tamed” by the tradition of the Jultomte, the Joulupukki was seen as a frightening and ugly creature who demanded gifts from the children. After the tradition of the Jultomte emerged, however, the Joulupukki came to be seen as a magical goat who made the toys for the Jultomte to deliver and who precedes the Jultomte’s entrance by asking at the door “Onkos taalla kiltteja lapsia?” (“Are there nice children here?” As such, the once fearsome Joulupukki has now become a much-beloved figure of the holiday, and is often seen in households as a goat-shaped ornament or small statue made of straw bound together with red ribbons.

6) La Befana - Like the other gift-givers, no one is quite sure of La Befana’s origins. She is a secular Christian character, whose name is a corruption of “Epifania” (Italian for Epiphany,) and who traditionally leaves her gifts on the eve of the feast of the Epiphany. La Befana’s appearance is generally that of a smiling old woman wearing a black shawl, riding a broomstick through the sky and carrying a hamper filled with treats and gifts. Often she is covered in soot because she enters the houses through the chimneys. If the children have been good, she will fill their socks with candy, if they have been bad, she will fill them with coal. Regardless of the behaviour of the children, she will always sweep the floor on her way out.

La Befana takes this responsibility upon herself because originally, when the three astrologers (the Magi) approached her a few days before Christ’s birth to ask for directions, she was unable to guide them. But, being the best housekeeper in the village, she provided them with shelter for the night and was such a good hostess that they begged her to go with them on their journey when they set out the next day. La Befana chose not to go, saying that she had far too much housework to do. Later, she changed her mind and set out to find the three astrologers and join them to witness the birth of Christ, but unable to find them, she returned home. Now she delivers presents to all good children and coal to all children who have been bad, still to this day looking for the Christ-child. And as she doesn’t like it to be seen who is getting candy and who is getting coal, children are warned that if they see La Befana, they just may get a thump on the bottom from her broomstick as she goes about her work.

7) Christkindl - most commonly known in North America as “Kris Kringle” (a mispronunciation that is now a separate character who has come to be syncretized with the pop-cultural image of Santa Claus), Christkindl is literally the Christ-child. He was originally invented by Martin Luther as a sprite like child with blond hair and wings, most people would recognize him as a cherub or putto. The Christkindl was invented largely to discourage the various Saint Nicholas (who has never been officially canonized) traditions. However, the tradition may have been created from or inspired by an early Christian tradition of a little boy taking gifts to the Christ child (also the origin of the nativity character who later became known as the little drummer boy.)

8)Ded Moroz - Ded Moroz, or Grandfather Frost, is another figure that brings his gifts directly to the children. In this, he is helped by his granddaughter Snegurochka the Snow Maiden. Ded Moroz wears a full length red fur-coat, a small round fur hat, and tall white boots with red and silver ornaments. He walks with the aid of a long staff, and drives a troika (a sled drawn by three horses).

9) Tio de Nadal - Tio de Nadal (Christmas guy), has several names, most common are Tio (guy), Tronca (log), Caga tio (pooping guy)or Caga tronca (pooping log). (You kind of have to love the Catalonians, don’t you?) The traditional form of Tio is a hollow log about a foot (30 centimeters) long, with a smiling face painted on it, and held up by four stick legs (longer in the front and shorter in the back creating the illusion that the log is squatting.) Tio usually wears a barretina (a woolen red sack like hat with a black band) and before the family goes to bed, he is given treats to eat and is then covered by a blanket to keep him from getting cold. On Christmas day, he is placed in the fireplace and beaten with sticks until he poops, while the family sings Tio de Nadal songs. Generally Tio poops small treats, larger gifts are left by the Magi. The gifts that Tio commonly drops are candies, dried figs, nuts and torrone (a kind of nougat that is rolled in slivered almonds.) Generally, as a signal that the “gift-giving” is at an end, Tio will drop one last present, usually something smelly like an onion or a bulb of garlic. The gifts from Tio are shared by the entire family, rather than being designated for specific individuals.

10) Olentzero - Olentzero, as is common, is a strange figure with many origins. While he is now a friendly figure who delivers toys to children late at night on the 24th, he was not always limited to that day, and wasn’t always friendly. In one of the oldest of his stories, that of Onentzaro, he is a member of a tribe of Jentillak (giants). One day, the giants all saw a glowing cloud in the sky, a cloud glowing so brightly that they couldn’t really look closely enough at it to see what it was, but they feared that it might be a sign of the impending birth of Christ. The found the very oldest of them, a man who was nearly blind, and held him up as high as they could so that he could look at the cloud and tell them what it was. When he’d had a good look, he confirmed their deepest fears for the demise of their way of life. The only solution the old man saw was suicide, so he asked his tribe to throw him over the cliff. (This is similar to many pre-Christian, commonly Roman traditions where the old year, symbolised as either an old man or old woman is “sacrificed” to make way for the new year, symbolised as an infant.) On the way to the cliff, the people tripped on a log, and all fell over the cliff with him, leaving only Onentzaro to survive them. Maddened by grief, Onentzaro (himself a frequently drunken and irritable glutton) took up a sickle and attacked the villages, slashing the throats of anyone in them who had eaten too much on that day, the day before the arrival of Christ.

In an attempt to turn the violent pagan tradition of Onentzaro to Christian use, the Church turned Olentzero into a human man who worked as a charcoal burner. Because he so loved children, in his spare time he would make wooden toys for them, and when he had filled one of his big charcoal sacks with these toys, he would deliver them to the children of a village and spend the hours of his visit playing with and entertaining them. On one of his visits, he found a house in the village on fire, and the children of the house unable to get out of a locked room upstairs. He ran into the house, and lowered the children from an upstairs window to the waiting villagers below but before he could escape the burning house himself, it collapsed, killing him. As the fire died down, the villagers saw a brilliant white light, and an angel appeared to resurrect Olentzero for his good deed and loving heart. In a more secular version of the same story, Olentzero is an abandoned child himself, found in the woods and thereafter raised by a fairy, in this version of the tale it is she who brings him back to life.

11) Lord of Misrule - The Lord of Misrule has many names, but they all mean the same thing. Party. Party hard. Party very hard. Party til you drop. (Then go to Church.) Not an actual figure of myth, the Lord of Misrule was a commoner appointed to rule over the general riot of partying that took place during the days leading up to the Feast of Asses on January 14th, which celebrated the Flight into Egypt. As part of the festivities of the final day of the Lord of Misrule’s reign, the people (now thoroughly debauched) would follow that year’s Lord (usually a young man) as he made his final rounds through the town, giving out his final orders, while riding backward on an ass. The next day is spent in fasting and prayer, the time of Misrule having come and gone.

The origins of this tradition are very much not Christian. The common traditions of Misrule come from the older Roman festivities of Saturnalia. Most of the traditions didn’t really differ, except for where they directly relate to traditions surrounding the god Saturn, like he unbinding of the ropes that constrained the statue of the god all of the other days of the year. Slaves and servants were still served by their masters, authority was still (very carefully in both cases) flaunted, and the revelry was still…considered unseemly by most of the people who were either too old or too tightly wound to enjoy it themselves.

There was a darker side to the Saturnalia, and it is unknown whether or not such rituals ever actually took place in anything more than an allegorical sense. In many of the oldest traditions of Misrule, the chosen Lord of Misrule rules for thirty days and at the end of his rule he is bound and carried to the altar of Saturn and sacrificed. Given the nature of the festivities, and the possible darker overtones of its origin, it’s no surprise that the Church discouraged it, or that later mistakes, such as Father Christmas gaining the open robe, holly crown and bare chest of the Lord of Misrule earning the Church’s (very discreet) nod of approval.

12) Santaless companions - there are various named companions who have been associated with the holiday and the functions of the companions of the other “Santas”, but who seem to have been syncretized with (or to have lost) their Santas. The two most confounding, who cannot be identified as any of the companions listed above, are Knecht Ruprecht and Beltznickle.

Knecht Ruprecht, much like Black Pete, is a servant and helper to his missing Santa. In some of his stories, he is a farmhand, in others he is a foundling child similar to Olentzero, who was raised by his Santa. Often, Knecht Ruprecht walks with a limp, and is covered in soot. When Knecht Ruprecht and his Santa come to visit, the household children are summoned to the door. To prove that they were good children, they performed simple tricks such as dancing or singing songs. The children who performed badly were beaten, the children who performed well were given gifts. The children who performed badly enough and had been badly behaved throughout the year were taken away in Knecht Ruprecht’s sack and thrown into the river to drown.

Beltznickle, also known as the Christmas woman, is another character who once had a Santa or was perhaps at one time two distinct characters. Beltznickle was a mysterious person, most commonly said to be a terribly strong and frightfully ugly woman, who would appear after dark at the door to the household. She would have over her shoulder a sack full of treats (usually nuts, fruits and cakes,) and in her hand a long hazel switch, which contained a magic charm. When she got to the household, she would dump the treats from the sack, and as the children scrambled to get them, she would whip them all with the charmed hazel switch. The switching is perhaps intended to provide the children with good fortune or protection throughout the coming year, or perhaps it was to serve as a warning to behave.

Well will you look at that? Twelve different Santas and their companions, twelve days of Christmas…I’m seeing a theme here! So Moms and Dads…who’s got a twelve year-old, a lump of coal and a hazel switch?

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Good Yule, Happy Holidays!

Amelia Bosque