Today, as I write this, it is Krampusnacht, so now seems a good time to discuss Krampus, who will be one of the major protagonists in my next novel.
Krampus is one of several bogeymen who orbit Saint Nicholas in the legendarium of the Germanic and Francophone peoples. For whatever reason, Krampus has gained a lot international popularity lately, eclipsing the similar Belsnickel and Knecht Ruprecht, who were, until recently, probably the most popular such characters outside their regions of origin. This is due in part to the internet, but also to the revival of traditions surrounding Krampus in Austria and Bavaria.
If I were to guess, I would suppose that it is his distinctive appearance that makes Krampus popular. The typical “companion” of Saint Nicholas is a bearded and rough-clad character whose dark and shabby appearance contrasts with the saint’s bright and festive one. These figures tend to have similar accoutrements—chains, a wicker basket, and a whip or switch or bag of ashes or some other device to punish naughty kids.
Krampus, however, is a slavering, horned demon-like creature with a long tongue. He still has the switch and basket, but he is considerably more striking and terrifying in appearance than most of his counterparts.
Worth noting, however, is that people outside the areas of Austria and Bavaria frequently confuse Krampus with similar characters called perchten, who are associated with Frau Perchta, a hobgoblin-like witch who comes around at Epiphany (and whom I’ll discuss in another post). The perchten are her minions, similar in appearance to Krampus and celebrated in similar fashion with dress-up and physically intense parades. I am informed that a lot of images or descriptions of krampuslaufen—Krampus runs—that one sees on the internet are actually perchtenlaufen.
Although these two creatures have migrated to different parts of the calendar (Krampus before the Feast of St. Nicholas and Perchta around Epiphany), the similar features suggest similar origins or at least a lot of trading. This is typical of folklore, with concepts dividing and combining and dividing again.
And if we want to get picky, we could also ask whether Krampus and the Buttnmandl, a monster made of straw and wearing huge cowbells, are really the same, or different. The answer is that there’s not really an answer: Trying to define these things is like a fanboy trying to explain away inconsistencies in his favorite franchise. For this reason, too, someone like me who wants to write a novel on all this folklore has to quit at some point, or lump together as many of these characters as possible, lest the cast be overwhelmed with too many, too similar monsters.
In any case, the website SaltzburgerLand explains:
A Percht is not a Krampus, even if similarities certainly exist. Confusing the two is hardly possible, even though the Krampus is on the go only up to 6th December, with the Percht being around only after Christmas. The name is derived from the mythological figure “Perchta”. Both beautiful and ugly Perchten travel around in the harsh nights between Christmas and the Epiphany with the slogan: “To peace, to rhyme and to health”. They should exorcise the dark and cold winter with loud bells and chase away any evil spirits.
The same website helpfully explains the traditional equipment of someone dressed as Krampus:
Tradition dictates the Krampus’ equipment: a fur suit usually made from goat or sheep skin. Large, heavy rumble bells carried on a wide leather belt around the middle of the body. A rod of thin Birch branches or a cow’s tail. And of course the elaborately carved mask. Each Pass has nowadays their own style and sometimes the masks are modern and zombie-like, or, as with the Rauriser Devils, strictly traditional. In the Rauriser Traditional Pass the masks are carved by the members themselves and painted with red, white and black colours. They must meet certain criteria, such as the red fabric tongue and specific arrangement of the horns from a goat or a ram.
The origins of Krampus, like all these characters, are obscure. But they all serve a similar role: They are bogeymen, creatures that threaten children with punishments. The great folklorist Jacob Grimm also saw all these characters as related to household goblins such as kobolds and brownies.
One of the reasons I want to write a novel of Krampus even though Krampus stories have been done (perhaps done to death) a lot lately is because, so it seems to me, nobody who gives these characters a modern take wants to treat them with any respect. Brom in his admittedly entertaining novel Krampus the Yule Lord depicts Krampus and Santa as the last remnants of an ancient rivalry between Norse gods, and the comic book Krampus features a Hellboy-like Krampus unwillingly serving an entire organization of Santa Claus-like characters.
For whatever reason, nobody seems to want to write a story in which Santa Claus is actually St. Nicholas, the St. Nicholas, with all that might imply, or depict Krampus as his servant, reluctant or not, rather than his enemy. Nobody except me, that is.
The reason for this, in Brom’s case at least, probably arises from a decidedly modern hostility toward Christianity, so moderns pit Krampus against St. Nicholas as a supposedly freer, naughtier, less stuffy alternative.
The only problem with that is that Krampus is a decidedly Christian character: The reward/punishment dynamic of the saint and his sidekick developed in a Christian context. In fact, one thing Krampus does, often not mentioned in today’s essays on the subject, is demand that children pray. If they say their prayers, they can escape his wrath. Some of the Krampuskarten, those grotesque but whimsical postcards from the nineteenth century, depict Krampus demanding prayers from children.
Krampus may have some pre-Christian origin (the claims across the internet that he’s the son of Norse goddess Hel have no backing that I know of), but that origin is lost, and even if we could see such a hypothetical pre-Christian Krampus, he would have changed so much that we wouldn’t recognize him.
