Creatures of Yuletide: Krampus, the Christmas Demon
He sees you when you're sleeping
And he knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good FOR YOUR OWN GODDAMNIT SAKE!!!
Christmas season is full of magical beings and creatures that travel through our world. Jolly old men from the north, elves that sleep in our homes, goats that give presents, the holiday season is full of all sorts of weird and wonderful characters. However, Santa Claus tends to me the most famous among them, and the most remembered in popular culture. This was, until some years ago, when a forgotten Christmas character rose in popularity in pop culture as an antithesis of good old St. Nick. I’m talking about Krampus, the Christmas Demon from German and Alpine lore.
One of the reasons why I believe Krampus became so popular recently is because he’s a scarier and less commercial alternative to Santa. In older posts I talked about how people used to tell scary ghost stories during Christmas and how Christmas once had this spooky side to it. Then one day it hit me that, in a way, Krampus is exactly a call back to these traditions. While not a ghost, Krampus brings back the scary atmosphere to the holiday. People tell stories about Krampus, they dress like him, they fright their neighbors in these costumes. People in general like to be scared, and in particular, even though they won’t admit it now, children too. Krampus is celebrated because he brings back the fun that overly commercialized Santa took out from Christmas.
Jeremy Seghers, organizer of the first Krampusnacht festival held in Orlando, said this in an interview to the Smithsonian Magazine:
"The Krampus is the yin to St. Nick's yang. You have the saint, you have the devil. It taps into a subconscious macabre desire that a lot of people have that is the opposite of the saccharine Christmas a lot of us grew up with."
Krampus is mainly a holiday tradition from the Alpine region and Central Europe in general. His name is derives from the German word krampen, meaning claw. On the night of December 5th, the eve of Saint Nicholas Feast, Krampus, and Saint Nicholas himself go out in the streets to punish or reward kids. This makes him one of the Companions of Saint Nicholas, a group of holiday figures that would help him in punishing kids. While they do the punishment, jolly old Nick brings the kids gifts, in a sort of Good Cop, Bad Cop dynamic.
Our friend St. Nick fills the shoes of good children with fruits and sweets. Krampus carries birch branches for senseless beating the misbehaving ones. On his back he is often depicted carrying a sack or a basket. This is to carry the naughty kids to his layer for more torture later. He can also eat them, threw them out in the river to drown, or bring them straight to the depths of Hell. In some parts of Austria, Krampus presents the families with gold-painted twigs that are to be displayed year-round in the house, constantly reminding the kids of his ever-watching presence.
What lovable fellow!
It was common in the 19th century to exchange Gruß vom Krampus, “Greetings from Krampus” cards that contained humorous rhymes and poems. In these Krampus is depicted looming menacingly over children. In others the creature receives sexual undertones, pursuing scantily dressed women.
There is also the Krampuslauf, or, Krampus Run, where people dress up as him and parade through the street dressed in fur suits and carved wooden masks and carrying cowbells. This one is very important for understanding Krampus origins.
Now, no one really know where Krampus comes from. The most popular theory is that he was a fertility god from the Alpine Region before Christianity retconned him as demon. Scholars often link him, Pan, and the satyrs to the archetype of the Horned God. Some claim he’s the son of Hel, but I didn’t find any real or credible source to this.
What we do know is that Krampus has some connections to a goddess in the Alpine region called Frau Perchta.
Now Frau Perchta is a very mysterious figure from the German folklore. She had many different names depending on the era and region. We don’t know a lot about her before Christianization, but what we do know is that in the folklore of Bavaria and Austria, she was a witch said to roam the countryside at midwinter, and to enter homes during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. Good children would find a silver coin in their shoes. Bad children would have their bellies sliced open, their stomach and guts removed, and she would stuff the straw and pebbles in the hole left behind. She had two forms in which she could be encountered, beautiful and white as snow, or elderly and haggard.
Perchten is plural for Perchta. Originally, the word referred to female masks representing her, but the name come to refer to the animal masks worn in parades and festivals in the mountainous regions of Austria.
A Perchten mask
In the 16th century, the Perchten took two main forms: Schönperchten, "beautiful Perchten", or the Schiachperchten, "ugly Perchten”. The beautiful Perchten came during the twelve nights of Christmas and festivals to bring luck and wealth to the people. The ugly Perchten, who had fangs, tusks and horse tails which were used to drive out demons and ghosts. Men dressed as the ugly Perchten during this time and went from house to house driving out bad spirits.
From the Smithsonian Magazine: A man dressed in a traditional Perchten costume and mask performs during a Perchten festival in the western Austrian village of Kappl, November 13, 2015. Each year in November and January, people in the western Austria regions dress up in Perchten (also known in some regions as Krampus or Tuifl) costumes and parade through the streets to perform a 1,500 year-old pagan ritual to disperse the ghosts of winter. (DOMINIC EBENBICHLER/Reuters/Corbis)
People would masquerade as these devilish figures and march in processions known as Perchtenlaufs. The Church didn’t like these creatures and tried many times to ban these practices, but due to the sparse population and the rugged environments within the region, the ban was useless.
In Catholicism, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of children. His saint day falls in early December, which helped strengthen his association with the Yuletide season. A seasonal play that spread throughout the Alpine regions was known as the Nikolausspiel, "Nicholas play". In these plays St. Nick would make questions about morality and reward children for their scholarly efforts. Eventually the Perchtenlauf, in an attempt to pacify the Church, introduced Saint Nicholas and his set of good morals. Krampus, the in-chains helper of Saint Nicholas, was then born.
In 1975, anthropologist John J. Honigmann wrote that:
"The Saint Nicholas festival we are describing incorporates cultural elements widely distributed in Europe, in some cases going back to pre-Christian times. Nicholas himself became popular in Germany around the eleventh century. The feast dedicated to this patron of children is only one winter occasion in which children are the objects of special attention, others being Martinmas, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and New Year's Day. Masked devils acting boisterously and making nuisances of themselves are known in Germany since at least the sixteenth century while animal masked devils combining dreadful-comic (schauriglustig) antics appeared in Medieval church plays. A large literature, much of it by European folklorists, bears on these subjects. ... Austrians in the community we studied are quite aware of "heathen" elements being blended with Christian elements in the Saint Nicholas customs and in other traditional winter ceremonies. They believe Krampus derives from a pagan supernatural who was assimilated to the Christian devil"
Is worth noting that this is exactly what happened to the Yule Goat. He was a pagan symbol, people dressed like him to keep winter spirits at bay, but the Christians demonized him. There are illustrations of Saint Nicholas or of Father Christmas riding the Yule Goat during Christmas and these were meant to represent the power of God over the power of the Devil. Krampus is represented in chains by the same reason. However, the Yule Goat came to become a gift-giver and a more positive force in holiday lore, with people dressing as goats to deliver gifts to their families in the 19th century. Krampus didn’t have the same luck. I really wonder if the Yule Goat and Krampus came from variants from the same or similar cultural traditions, but that took drastically different routes.
I must say that, although I'm more in the team Santa, I learned to love Krampus over the years. It’s undeniable the amount of fun he brought to those who wanted something a little more darker and creepier in the holidays, and as someone who identifies itself as 90% lover of cheesy, cutesy and sappy stuff and 10% lover of everything earie and macabre, the idea of a monstrous boogeyman in the shadows of good old Santa Claus is fun. I personally think there’s enough space for both, the terrifyingly scary and the joyful jolliness.
Fun fact: Krampus, the one people rescued from German obscurity to combat the overly commercialized Christmas, is now being criticized as being too commercialized. C'est la vie
Story time: In my country I once heard the tale of a guy that went as Santa to deliver Christmas presents to children in a poor community. He brought many gifts and toys with him. The children loved them, until there were no more gifts to be delivered. The remaining children and their parents became so angry that they chased away the guy, throwing rocks at him. The guy came to them with free stuff, helped as much as he could, and people still threw rocks at him and chased him away, almost seriously hurting him.
I admit, there are cases where Krampus is truly needed 🤣🤣🤣
Art by Helen Mask
