Post by Silwyna on Dec 13, 2007 21:31:50 GMT 1
The Anti-Claus
The Story of the Anti-Claus
Not far away, and not long ago,
there lived a strange man who detested the snow.
Yuletide festivities left him quite cold
despite the fact that he wasn't that old.
Nor was he callous, or evil, or mad.
Just a little bit grim, and a little bit sad.
Why so depressed, in this joyous season?
What caused this sadness? What was the reason?
This is what happened, as legend does tell:
the story of Anti-Claus in a nutshell…
Read more here: supernatural-legends.dreipage.de/link_6067506.html
there lived a strange man who detested the snow.
Yuletide festivities left him quite cold
despite the fact that he wasn't that old.
Nor was he callous, or evil, or mad.
Just a little bit grim, and a little bit sad.
Why so depressed, in this joyous season?
What caused this sadness? What was the reason?
This is what happened, as legend does tell:
the story of Anti-Claus in a nutshell…
Read more here: supernatural-legends.dreipage.de/link_6067506.html
To explain who or what is the Anti-Claus, I’m going to start writing about his counterpart – Santa Claus.
It all started in Greek with a bishop named Nicholas who helped provide some dowries for three sisters so they could get married. He was the bishop of Myra, and had been imprisoned during the reign of Diocletian. He was released when Constantine became the Roman emperor, Rome having jurisdiction over Greek at the time. Saint Nicholas was a widely celebrated favorite of European folklore throughout the Middle ages, but he had the greatest popularity in the Netherlands.
From the Netherlands, the legend of Sinterklaas spread to Belgium, Germany, and Austria. But Sinterklaas was far away from being an old man in a red suit with a slide and reindeers.
So how did the legend of Santa Claus evolved?
Let’s head up to Northern Europe. Thor, God of thunder, son of Odin, was the hero of many passion plays featuring his battle against the race of giants. He was freely shared by Scandinavians who passed him around as kind of their version of the greek Hercules hero-type, and he eventually spread to Germany as well. What has Thor got to do with Santa? Thor traveled by a magic chariot drawn through the sky by a pair of flying goats! Moreover, historic pictures of Thor painted him wearing a red suit. He had red hair and beard, like a Scandinavian, and was muscle-bound rather than rotund, but beside of that he had quite a resemblance to the man we all know as Santa Claus today.
So the legend of Thor, the god, and Nicholas, the bishop, blurred: Nicholas became revered as a Saint, then as the patron Saint of children. It's easy to see where Germanic parents, telling stories of Saint Nicholas to their children, might have glanced up at a painting of Thor brought over from Denmark or perhaps Sweden and decided then and there to weave in elements from Nordic legend and to give Saint Nick a face.
When Santa Claus was brought to American shores by waves of European immigrants, he was already a character with several different elements all kinds of European mythology. The American author Clement Clarke Moore later wrote the famous poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas"( supernatural-legends.dreipage.de/link_17632322.html ), better known by it's partial opening line "The Night Before Christmas". In his work, Santa went from red hair to white hair, became chubby, and replaced his goats with reindeer. Moore also left us a clue to Santa's origins in the naming of these reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.
Some of those names definitely have Scandinavian rings to them. The German influence can also be found in their names. Donner, for instance, is the German name for Thor (or thunder), and blitzen itself is the German word for lightning.
Now that we have that clear, let’s move on to the Anti-Claus.
His name is Krampus. He is supposed to looks just like the devil, and it's his job to punish naughty children just before (or while) Santa comes and rewards the good kids.
Let’s go back to Old Europe again. While Santa was most heavily influenced by Thor, Krampus is associated with the enemy of good in Norse mythology – Loki, a devil-trickster figure with big horns.
The world Krampus itself originates from the Old High German word for claw (Krampen). In the Alpine region the Krampus is represented by an incubus in company of St. Nicholas. Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in the first two weeks of December and particularly in the evening of December, 5th and roam the streets frightening children (and adults) with rusty chains and bells. In some rural areas also slight birching especially of young females by the Krampus is part of tradition.
There are two takes on Krampus, one being a secular humanist approach and the other being a magic tradition angle. The present day Krampus costume consists of red wooden masks or Larve, black sheep's skin and horns. Considerable effort goes into the manufacture of the hand-crafted masks, as many younger adults in rural communities engage competitively in the Krampus events.
In the secular humanist approach, Krampus and the observation of Krampus traditions are pretty much just the antithesis of Santa Claus. While St. Nick makes his rounds on December, 6th, rewarding all the good little children, Krampus has been out the night before, punishing pretty much the same children with a good switching.
In other variations on the theme (and there a lot of them), Krampus is one of Santa's minions, who follows along obediently passing out presents or switches depending on the moral turpitude of the child in question.
The other interpretation of Krampus is more mystical. Under this theory, people dress up in the hideous masks of Krampus in order to scare off evil spirits. If so, this is in keeping with a pretty universal traditional use of masks in religious ritual; the concept of a fearsome visage that wards off cowardly evil spirits has a lot of pedigree. In Hindu mythology, Black Makhala fills the Krampus role, while the Japanese wore masks that were supposed to be lions. And let’s not forget Halloween, in which origins the masks were also used to scare of evil spirits.
Sources:
penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?title=the_origins_of_santa_claus&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
www.rotten.com/library/occult/deviltry/krampus/
www.rotten.com/library/occult/deviltry/krampus/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus#Krampus