Krampus, The Winter Demon

Krampus, the winter demon is a character from central European folklore. According to some sources, Krampus was the servant of Germanic winter goddess Hulda. In folklore, Krampus is a half-man, half-goat and during the day of St Nicholas, he punishes those who have behaved badly and gives presents to those who have behaved well.

Transcript

Merry meet my fairy souls it is Nina welcome to the last episode of Midmas let's talk about Krampus the Christmas demon I am someone who really likes all kinds of creepy stuff related to different holidays so Krampus is probably one of my favorite Germanic Christmas traditions origins of Krampus at Saint Nick they are both pre-christian and they all date all the way back to the pagan times and the word Krampus that comes from German word Krampen which means to crawl there are several myths told about the origins of Krampus and according to one legend he was the son of Norse goddess Hel the goddess of the underworld and death and diseases and Hel of course was the daughter of Loki the trickster god and then there is also a Germanic myth that Krampus was the son of Perkta who was the goddess of winter and the goddess of witchcraft in the Alpine region. Perkta was described to be the hakares of winter and the ruler of the Alpine region and I think there is possibility that this whole myths about Krampus they might origin from Perkta because in the Alpine region there was a festival that was celebrated all the way to the 17th century it was called Perten and if you google Perten mask or masks they really look like Krampus so there is definitely a connection there and when in the Middle Ages the Christianity spread in the Alpine region and in general in Middle Europe and towards Northern Europe that's when Krampus got this demon like features and this creature was not the only one who went through this kind of transformation from something more neutral to something very evil. Now in the 16th century Austria there was this custom for young men to dress up creatures called Akhilperten and to dress up as a spirit or this particular demon like creature it was a ritual to drive away evil spirits or bad spirits and welcome the new year of course and later on these traditions they got mixed up together with the Christian Christmas traditions. According to the legend if a child would not be at home before midnight between the December 5th and December 6th which was the Krampusmacht, Krampus would come and snatch the child and would beat them up with a bundle of birch twigs. They would whip the child with horsehair and if the child would still not behave they would put the child into a basket or into a sack and throw the sack into Christian hell for a year. This is a classical example how parents scared their children with these invisible creatures to behave and you can find this from different countries and I just recently read how in the 18th century in some American states parents used the guardian angel as a scare factor for the children so that if you don't behave your guardian angel comes and punishes you or something and then here in Finland and in Sweden in the 19th century when we had the first Santa Claus characters he was used as a scary figure that would punish children if they would not behave or it would be elves that would punish the child or or something some other invisible spirit. Many countries in Central Europe it is Saint Nicholas who brings their gifts for the children and he arrives on December 6th and the Krampusnacht is the night before that December 5th. So in this Christian sense the Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas represents all things good and then Krampus there represents all things evil and somehow they're supposed to balance each other so Christmas is a weird holiday. Both of these characters Krampus and Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas whatever you want to call him they both predate Christianity and are from way more older pagan times and in depending on the culture there are different inspirations for these characters and I was just thinking about this the other day how actually both Krampus and Saint Nick they probably wanted the same character in the end and if we think about for example Finland before we had the Father Christmas character we had Nooti Pukki which was like a very very nasty pervert version of Father Christmas and before him we had Gekri Pukki which was this character who arrived around November during the Gekri festival which like finished Halloween or Samain and he was a fertility god and you can find this kind of fertility god with horns or antlers to be part of witchcraft or being something related to Christian devil. In Alpine regions and in Central Europe Krampus is very very popular character you can find him from Austria Hungary Germany Slovenia and Czech Republic there's Krampus parades and I think they're really cool and I haven't seen their Krampus horror film yet but I really want to see that so I hope you have a great time wherever you are and I will see you soon take care muy muy