Santa Claus not the sole supernatural being visiting the everyday world in winter

Published Dec 21, 2025 • Last updated 29 minutes ago • 7 minute read

Mummering culture is alive and well at the Mummers Festival in St. John’s, Nfld. Joe Gibbons/Postmedia Network

Ah, Christmas, the season of light, or at least of lights. Whether it’s a single string around the eavestrough or a full-on yard display with singing trees and light-up reindeer, old-fashioned incandescent or energy-efficient LEDs, almost everybody puts up some kind of light for the festive season.

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Why all this emphasis on light? Because before there was light, there was dark. The winter solstice is the darkest time in the northern hemisphere’s year. Long before the date of Dec. 25 was established for Christmas (in 337 CE, by the Emperor Constantine), the solstice was celebrated as the rebirth of the sun god. Mithras, the solar god worshipped by the Romans, was also called Sol Invictus, or the Unconquered Sun, and the solstice celebrated his rebirth. When Constantine set the date of Christmas on Dec. 25, he deliberately made it coincide with the solstice celebrations, emphasizing the role of Jesus as the “Light of the World.”

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In theory this layering of the new faith onto the celebrations of the old one would make it easier for the Romans to accept Christianity. It did not work out quite according to plan. Customs from pre-Christian faiths – not just Mithraism, but many others as well – clung on to the new festival.

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Which brings us to the question of light. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, but dark is always faster, because it’s already there when light arrives. Before the solstice became a season of light, it was a season of darkness, a time when the barrier between the worlds was thin and fragile, and monsters roamed the night. People dressed in costumes and masks, hid their faces and went from door to door asking for food, drink and money.

Does any of this sound familiar? In fact, a lot of the customs we now associate with Halloween have counterparts in Christmas lore. In Europe and the British Isles the old monsters still come out for the occasion. Santa Claus isn’t the only supernatural being visiting the everyday world in the winter.

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One of those monsters, Krampus, has experienced something of a resurgence in popularity recently. Since 2013 there have been eight movies made about Krampus, and Amazon has a host of books featuring him. Some of them show a friendly little Krampus, about as threatening as an Ewok, and others show him as a fearsome monster with a sack to carry off naughty children. There are even romantasy novels about him, and a more unlikely romantic lead would be hard to find. His origins are uncertain, although as with many horned and menacing figures, his roots are believed to go back to a pagan horned god. Krampus has goat horns, one hoof and one human foot, and a long, snaky tongue.

Krampus comes around on Dec. 5, St Nicholas’ Eve, to punish children who have not been good. He has a switch to whip those who have been only moderately bad, but very bad children go into his sack and are carried off, never to be seen again. He is paired with St Nicholas because it was deemed unsaintly for Nicholas to punish children. Krampus was banned in Austria following the 1932 elections, and in the 1950s the Austrian government circulated pamphlets saying that Krampus was evil. The concern was, apparently, for children’s mental health. Eventually, government or not, Krampus was brought back into the traditions.

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Salzberg hosts an annual Krampus Run on Dec. 5. Anyone who wishes can dress up as Krampus and run through the old part of town. The Krampuses carry switches and use them to strike people watching the run, usually lightly. Saint Nicholas is here, too – the saint is supposed to be in control of the Krampuses and able to rein them in if things get out of hand.

Krampus’ territory is Austria, Germany and Bavaria; unlike Santa Claus, he doesn’t have to go around the whole world. Not to worry – he has counterparts in lots of places. In France they have Pere Fouttard, Father Whipper. He was once a butcher who murdered three boys, butchered them and pickled them in a barrel. St Nicholas revived the three, and the butcher was sentenced to accompany the saint at Christmas and whip naughty children. In Iceland there is an ogress, Grylla, who makes bad children into stew. Her pet, the Yule Cat, eats any child who hasn’t been given new clothes for Christmas. The Yule cat didn’t originally accompany Grylla, but did his rounds by himself, however by the nineteenth century he had become associated with her.

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There is even a saint, Lucy, whose feast is held on Dec. 13, who has a dark side. Lucy, whose name means “light,” is believed to have been a Christian girl who lived in the fourth century. She refused a noble suitor, preferring to live her life doing deeds of charity. It is said she took food to Christians hiding in the catacombs, and in order to keep her hands free to carry food, she wore a crown of candles to light her way. Her martyrdom involved losing her eyes, and she’s often depicted with her two eyes on a plate, or on a stem like a flower.

St. Lucy’s festivities, on the night of Dec. 13, include a girl playing the saint and crowned with candles (now often battery-operated rather than actual flames). She is accompanied by a court of girls similarly crowned, and the procession takes place at night. There is even a special cake, called a Lucy bun, flavoured with saffron and raisins, made for the occasion.

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After her candlelight procession, however, St. Lucy has another side. She takes to the skies with a cavalcade of the dead and goes from house to house, looking for offerings of food left out for her. She is also particular that all work, especially weaving, should have been finished and laid aside before her night. If all is well – tasks finished, food left out – she bestows good luck and blessings on the house. If not, she brings disorder, bad luck and death. If she meets with good children, she gives them treats. Bad children, however, she guts and stuffs with straw, then sews them up again. She’s sometimes rather disturbingly shown carrying a distaff that holds not flax for spinning, but a child’s intestines.

Another tradition of Christmas is mumming or guising, sometimes called mummering. Groups of people go door to door, masked and in disguise. Some of the disguises are animal hides that completely cover the person, or straw, or strips of cloth, so that the guiser is a frightening, faceless creature. Ever since the fourth century, at the very least, churchmen of various stripes have railed against guising, especially people who dress as stags or bulls. Far from regarding it as a harmless bit of fun, the church saw these practices as devilish. One cleric went so far as to say that anyone dressing as a stag or bull or “transform[ing] themselves into the appearance of a wild animal” must do penance for three years.

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In Wales there is a particularly terrifying member of the mummers’ troupes called the Mari Llwd. This was a man, often completely covered in a hide or other disguise, carrying a horse’s skull on a pole. By pulling a cord the man could make the skull open and close its jaws. The Mari Llwd would be carried from door to door, and the troupe would ask for food and drink. Traditionally the Mari Llwd troupe engaged in a rhyming contest with the householder, rather like the custom of flyting (exchanging insults) among Scandinavian people. If the Mari Llwd won the contest, the troupe came in and might eat and drink everything in sight. If the householder won by answering deftly and wittily the troupe would move on, although often with an offering of food, drink or money to make sure the Mari Llwd didn’t wish ill-luck on the house. While these dark inhabitants of the Christmas season are frightening, they serve the purpose of allowing St. Nicholas to be the good guy who hands out rewards and gifts. He may know when you’ve been bad or good, but he doesn’t have to punish bad children himself, aside from perhaps putting coal in a stocking. He might withhold a gift, but he doesn’t dish out whippings or make children into stew. He has people for that.

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In North America we don’t have a tradition of the dark side’s denizens, but we’ve invented a similar character – the Elf on a Shelf. Unlike most Christmastide monsters, he doesn’t stay outside. This creepy little guy moves around the house spying on children throughout December and, supposedly, reporting to Santa on who has been bad or good. Even if the Elf doesn’t have any power to punish, like St. Lucy or Krampus, just the idea of a supernatural creature sneaking around at night would be enough to scare me. And while you can placate St. Lucy with food, there is no guarantee that any amount of cookies and milk could bribe the Elf into fudging his report. The best you can hope for is that the Yule Cat might catch him by mistake before he can rat you out.

Just remember to ask for socks for Christmas so the Yule Cat has no reason to come after you!

Merry Christmas!

Novelist and Sault Star district correspondent and columnist Elizabeth Creith often writes on the lighter side of rural living

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