Christmas Monsters

Not all Christmas creatures are benign like Santa Claus. Krampus looks like a demonic goat who walks on its hind legs like a human. He punishes naughty  children, beating  them with birch branches and  carries a basket on his back so he can carry off a child to eat later.The 5^th of  December is Krampusnacht ,men in homemade Krampus costumes run around Alpine villages causing havoc. These 'Krampus Runs' continue today.

The Karakoncolos looks like a cross between the Devil and a Sasquatch. In Turkey, the legend says he would stand at street corners on winter nights setting riddles for passers-by. If the traveller gave an answer that included the word ‘black’ they were free to go on their way. If not, he would strike them dead .Sometimes the Karakoncolos would just put them in a trance and leave them to roam free. In Serbia, the story says the Karakoncolos   jumps on the victim’s back and uses them as a ride. The exhausted person was only released at dawn.

Jólakötturinn is the Icelandic Yule Cat or Christmas Cat. Jólakötturinn, who first appeared in the 19th century,  a huge, ferocious beast with razor-like whiskers, blazing eyes and terrible claws who consumed any child who did not receive new clothes on Christmas Day.It  is tied into an Icelandic tradition in which those who finish their work on time received new clothes for Christmas, while those who were lazy did not . Jólakötturinn could tell who the lazy children were because they did not have at least one new item of clothing for Christmas and these children would be eaten by the Yule Cat.

Then there is the macabre skeleton mare of Welsh tradition,Mary Lwyd, which  rises from the dead and wanders the streets with her undead attendants, to remind the living of their existence. Mary Lwyd wants to  to get into your  house. To keep the zombie horse out, you must engage in a battle of  rhymes . Usually singing the rhymes to which the zombie horse replies.On New Year’s Eve, the undead mare is represented by a puppeteer parading a horse skull on a pole draped in white cloth around the towns and villages. 

Next there is a creature from Scandinavian folklore who looks like  a gnome and lives among the dead inside burial mounds called the Tomten.He can  act as a caretaker of the household, that is if you keep on his good side. The Tomten has quite the temper and is known for  biting people who upset him. The bites are  poisonous and  deadly. People leave a gift of food out on Christmas Eve for the Tomten.

One of Iceland’s creatures associated with Christmas is  Gryla  a giant troll who is  bad tempered with an  insatiable hunger  for children. Each Christmas, Gryla comes down from her mountain dwelling to hunt for naughty children. She catches  them in a sack and takes  them back to her cave where she boils them alive for her favourite stew.

After that all it remains is for me to wish you a merry Christmas and thank you for reading and following the blog xx