Today is the day before the Feast of Saint Nicholas, and that means it’s Krampusnacht!
For those of you who may not know, jolly old Saint Nick was a bishop of Smyrna, located in what is now Turkey. Originally, he was known for being magnanimous but not especially jolly. His role as gift-giver originates from his having saved young girls from prostitution by covertly giving gold to their parents. This tale cannot be verified, though there is no particular reason to doubt it. But in any case, because his saint’s day is in December, he became attached to Christmas and took on the role of Christmas gift-giver. Although known as “cruel in correcting,” many have seen fit to give him a companion to hand out punishments while he hands out presents.
At present, the most popular and famous of those companions (though he has several in many different countries) is Krampus, who comes primarily from Austria. Hairy, horned, and long-tongued, with one cloven hoof, Krampus whips naughty children or carts them to hell in his wicker basket. His official day is that immediately proceeding the saint’s day of St. Nicholas, his job being to get the bad kids out of the way before the saint comes through to reward the good ones. It is currently fashionable to speculate that Krampus has some pagan, pre-Christian origin, but the evidence for that, as far as I have been able to discern, is zip, zilch, nada. He appears instead to have cropped up simultaneously with various other companions of St. Nicholas such as Belsnickel and Hans Trapp.
Anyway, as Christmas has steadily drawn nearer, I find that my post on the various interpretations of the ending of the movie Krampus is doing a lot of traffic. I won’t repeat my thoughts from there but will encourage you to read that post if you are interested.
In any case, happy Krampusnacht!
