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[Emp edit: Thought it worth having a separate thread for this apart from the Seasonla one:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11985

I've now megred a few threads and posts together to make this one.]

An ancient tradition mentioned in the article on the Fortean homepage - Last of the Wild Men, is alive and well in Newfoundland!

The tradition of costumed folk going door to door, demanding gifts at Christmas, is still practiced by many in Newfoundland, Canada. I'm from the Maritime region myself and have often heard friends from "the Rock" tell of how they get the visitors each year.

I wonder if there is still such a tradition alive across the pond, perhaps in more Celtic spots?

I wish I had more detail, perhaps a Fortean Newfie can help out. ;p
 
From this website:
Link is dead. No archived version found.


You probably already know about Coca-Cola's claim to have invented Santa's red and white coat in a 1931 advert, but there are also some red and white mushrooms which retain their mind-expanding properties after being passed through the human body. Now it seems that reindeer became quite fond of drinking the resulting urine, and flying, so to speak! And people have been known to indulge in it too... hence the expression: "to get pissed"! (Isn't trivia fun?!)

I thought there was a discussion of this Coca Cola angle on this board, but I can't find it. (other Xmas stuff on that site too.)

Dicken's Ghost of Christmas Present was a jovial Santa-like figure, but he wore a green coat. (Christmas Carol, 1843.)

Here's the image to which the dead link led:

original_carol_ghost_present.jpg

So the flayed animal skin may be a pseudo-interpretation of a modern invention.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I was wondering the very same thing today as I wandered around the elfin grotto in the garden centre :p There were red coated santas and green ones too. Didn't the green come before the red? If so, how can it relate to the shaman's flayed hide?
 
There is a book called something like "Santa-claus - last of the wild men" at least partially about christmas traditions. It looked pretty good, has anyone read it?
 
Will the real Santa Claus please stand up? please stand up?

December 12, 2004
Revealed: the real Santa, a saint with a broken nose
Maurice Chittenden

BEHOLD the olive-skinned man with the broken nose and shock of white hair. Find him in your front room at 4am in 13 days’ time and you might be forgiven for hitting him over the head with the sherry bottle.

Don’t. It is Father Christmas as you have never seen him before.
Scientists have reconstructed the face of Santa Claus. The three-dimensional image of St Nicholas, the 4th century Turkish saint who became Father Christmas, has been produced by an anthropologist at Manchester University who is more used to reconstructing the faces of murder victims.

Caroline Wilkinson created a simulated clay model of the saint on her computer, using x-rays and measurements taken from his skull and bones in the 1950s.

An anatomist was given access to his tomb by the Vatican half a century ago when repairs were being carried out to the crypt in the church at Bari, southern Italy, where his remains are kept.

Computer technology was used to build the image of the saint’s face. Experts then studied paintings of religious leaders on Orthodox icons and decided to add a white beard trimmed to 4th century fashion. What emerges is the face of a man aged 60, 5ft 6in tall and with a heavy jaw.

Wilkinson said yesterday: “We used clay on the screen that you can feel but not physically touch. It was very exciting. We did not have the physical skull, so we had to recreate it from two-dimensional data.”

She added: “We are bound to have lost some of the level of detail you would get by working from photographs, but we believe this is the closest we are ever going to get to him.

“He has an interesting face. It is quite masculine-looking and the broken nose gives him character. He is not like the Santa Claus I grew up with as a child, but then that was an image given to us by Coca-Cola.”

The saint’s bones are now becoming the subject of a dispute. The Santa Claus Foundation, based in Turkey, is demanding their return to St Nicholas Church in Demre, southern Turkey, where Nicholas was the Orthodox bishop.

In 1087 a band of Italian sailors smashed their way into his shrine in the town and took the bones as a holy relic.

Muammer Karabulut, chairman of the foundation, said this weekend: “We are just trying to close a page in history. What happened in 1087 was a theft. We are trying to put that right.” The Italians say the Turks want the bones back only to boost tourism.

The row took a new twist last week when Greek Orthodox priests claimed that they were banned from holding mass in the church in Demre. Karabulut denied there had been religious persecution. “Santa Claus belongs to everyone,” he said. “There aren’t any Greek Orthodox priests here. Saint Nicholas is not an active church. We want it to be open to all religions and denominations, as well as Orthodox.”

BBC2 will screen a documentary, The Real Face of Santa, on December 18.

Additional reporting: Gareth Jenkins in Istanbul

Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.

Times Online
 
Re: York clergy in sense-of-humour bypass shocker!

Emperor said:
Quixote: I saw the reconstruction in the paper and to be honest it doesn't look that different from Santa ;)

Yeah but he's not white is he. :hmm:
 
Father Christmas lives -- and that's official

Fri Dec 17, 7:59 PM ET


BERLIN (AFP) - "Jawohl Viktoria," there is a Santa Claus.



That's what a couple of German state parliaments have said after being asked to consider a motion that the American-style is "nothing more than a fraud without any historical significance."

Peter Hahne, the curmudgeon who asked the state parliaments to ban the American-style Christmas icon -- a "Coca-Cola product" -- in favor of the old Saint Nicholas of German legend is clearly in the second of the three ages of man, in which:

He believes in Santa Claus.

He doesn't believe in Santa Claus.

He is Santa Claus.

The parliament in the state of Hesse said it was impossible to debate the subject in "an objective manner" and that it would be impossible to banish the old gentleman in a realistic fashion.

"I'd have to hide from my four-and-a-half year-old daughter if she found out that I had voted for the abolition of Father Christmas," said deputy Peter Beuth.

The deputies of the city state of Berlin said they "refused to participate in the exclusion of Father Christmas from public life, or to interrupt him in the exercise of his mission."

By the way, the American-style father Christmas was invented by a German, the Landau-born Thomas Nast, who was also responsible for the elephant and donkey symbols of the US political parties.

Source
 
There is a great article in FT192:44-49 covering the Scandinavian wildman and St. Nicholas himself.

This is pretty similar to the main thrust of the article (although the article is more detailled:

Scary Santa lurks in Finland's past

Mon Dec 20, 2004 04:16 AM GMT


By Laura Vinha

ARCTIC CIRCLE, Finland (Reuters) - The song goes that Santa "knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!".

But have we ever sought to find out if Santa's been naughty or nice?

In Finland at least, the unthinkable is true -- the jolly old man has a dark past.

The forefather of the portly, bearded man, known in Finland as Joulupukki, was not dressed in red, did not greet children with smiles and he certainly brought no gifts.

Instead Joulupukki, literally "yule goat", donned horns and an animal hide and covered his face with soot or a bark mask. He travelled from house to house frightening children with his wild dancing and singing, and expected offerings of food and booze.

The form this Christmas-time character took varied greatly in different parts of the country. According to some versions of the legend he also brought sticks with which to whip naughty children. Stingy households suffered the goat's insults.

No one knows exactly how or when, but as cultural influences from elsewhere spread into Finland, this beast transformed into the smiling Santa Claus that now meets children from around the world at his log cabin in Finland's Arctic Circle.

"The history of Santa Claus is an interwoven cultural braid. Santa Claus, like other cultural phenomena, is a reflection of its time," says Ahti Ahonen, regional Christmas coordinator in Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland.

The name is all that now remains of the nasty old goat, and the man himself says much of his past is exaggerated.

"In much the same way as time makes good memories better, it can also make frightening memories worse," Santa Claus said, rocking in his chair and sipping tea during a break from replying to the half a million letters he receives every year.

PRESENTS FOR BABY REINDEER

Santa's modern look is often attributed to Coca-Cola's Christmas advertisements from the 1930s by U.S.-born artist Haddon Sundblom, whose family roots stretch to Finland's autonomous Aland islands.

"It is often claimed that Santa's red outfit comes from Coca-Cola, but I would argue that Coca-Cola got the red from Scandinavian elf mythology," says Ahonen, citing pictures of bearded, red-clad, rosy-cheeked elves from the early 1900s.

Either way, a red-robed Father Christmas is arguably one of the most popular images used by companies to advertise their wares at Christmas, the modern celebration of mass consumption.

Santa himself is not concerned about multiple, pricey presents taking the limelight, and says his most important role remains "to make the child living in every person smile".

The best thing about Christmas continues to be that it brings families together, he says. This was the case already in the times of the naughty old yule goat when families celebrated the darkest time of the winter with feasts and homemade candles.

"Many people buy lots of presents to compensate for their busy schedules, but my observation is that there is also a countertrend. A lot of families agree that everyone gets one present at Christmas and that's it," Santa said.

Many of the 500,000-odd visitors to his Arctic Circle cabin in Rovaniemi every year also bring Father Christmas gifts.

Among the most common are pacifiers kids have grown out of and want to donate to Santa's baby reindeer. A clear, plastic bin at his post office is filled to the brim with these.

SMILE, SAYS SANTA

At Santa's cabin, age is not an indication of status. While in the days of the yule goat the focus was on the adult pleasures for the often virile young "Santa", children are now at centre stage.

"The world's big problems are caused by children growing up and becoming too grown up and taking themselves too seriously," Santa says, furrowing his brow.

A wall near his rocking chair is lined with pictures of fans young and old, including mobile phone group Nokia Chief Executive Jorma Ollila and mid-1990s girl band The Spice Girls.

The wide grins suggest wisdom in the old man's words: "Whether you're a child or just young at heart, if everyone smiled at each other life would be easier for all of us."

His attitude towards niceness is also more lenient than one might imagine.

"I've thought about this a lot, and I don't think it's so important to emphasise that if you're naughty you'll get sticks, that if you're not nice you won't get any presents," Santa said.

"This isn't the core of my being. Children themselves know, although they sometimes forget, what's wrong and what's right, what's naughty, what's nice. Why should we be so severe with kids when even those who make the rules sometimes forget them?"

More important than threatening children with no presents is providing responsible adult role models, he said.

"I sometimes ask kids who come to see me whether mum and dad have been nice. This makes parents hurry their kids away."

---------------------
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

Source
 
Actually the author of the FT piece also wrote this and some of the smae illustartions are used (and some different ones):

DECEMBER 20 - 26, 2002

Santa is a Wildman!

Jeffrey Vallance in The Land of Hoarfrost




IN 1961, WHEN I WAS 6 YEARS old, my parents took me to Santa's Village, a rundown alpine-theme amusement park near Lake Arrowhead. We also took special trips to the "town" of Santa Claus, near Santa Barbara, to have the family Christmas cards stamped with the special Santa Claus postmark. I remember the wonderfully kitsch giant Santa statue sitting atop the roof there — lately destroyed thanks to a battle waged by uptight Santa Barbara residents. My memories of those days are as faded as the family snapshots, but nevertheless they had a great impact on my life.

Like most children, I took for granted the traditional Santa trappings: the jolly round elf in the furry red suit with the long white beard; the festive sleigh pulled by unearthly reindeer; the elves in weirdly colorful costumes who worked in Santa's workshop far away at the North Pole. But because of my grandfather, who hailed from Trondheim, Norway, and who painted and sculpted nisse (gnomes) that looked like mini Santas, the Christmas arcana held a special value.

Never would I have dreamed that one day I would live in Lapland, the only portion of Europe that extends above the Arctic Circle, and the traditional home of Santa Claus. But in 1999, I was offered a three-year job as professor in international contemporary art at Umeå University in northern Sweden. Lapland (or Sàpmi) extends across northern Sweden, Finland, Norway and the Kola Peninsula in Russia, and is the homeland of the Lapps, more political correctly called the Saami. In Lapland, I regularly wore a fur-trimmed coat while traveling through the snow in the Arctic wilderness by way of a reindeer sleigh. I frequently dined on huge reindeer steaks, and, like Santa, I became rounder and jollier while my beard turned hoarier.

When I first arrived in the Land of Hoarfrost, I was puzzled by the enigmatic heraldic symbol of Lapland, the wildman — a hairy, reddish, bestial character dressed in leaves, wielding a gnarled club. To me he looked like a typical prehistoric caveman or the Jolly Green Giant. I collected vague reports of an actual Swedish wildman (Snömannen), a yeti-like creature believed to inhabit the remote areas of the forest. One day when wandering through the wilds of Lapland, I beheld an astonishing thing: a colossal statue of the wildman painted bright red with a snowy white beard. From a distance it looked like Santa Claus. As I stood at the base, staring up at the Herculean statue, it hit me like a hunk of red-hot ejecta from Mount Hekla: Santa Claus, the wildman and Snömannen must spring from the same ancient source. I determined to find the connections between these enigmatic characters.

The Wildman

THE WILDMAN OF THE MIDDLE AGES WAS described as a grotesque, bestial, ape-like creature, dark, filthy and bearded. Its body was covered in thick, matted hair and gave off a foul odor. (In later depictions of the wildman, his fur was often replaced by leaves.) Sometimes horned, with a prominent sex organ or wielding a club, he was considered frenzied and insane, and was the personification of lust and debauchery. He was known to mate with humans. The habitat of the wildman was the northern woods where he lived in a cave or den. His traditional beast of burden was the reindeer. The wildman shares all these traits with the yeti as well as the devil. (Satan would often appear to Martin Luther as an ape-like entity with filthy, matted hair exuding a heinous odor.) In the 17th century, Pope Gregory I set the specifications of Satan, describing him as dark in color, with horns, hooves and a terrible stench. The devil is also known as Nikolas, or Old Nick for short, while nickel is a term for a demon. In various regions, the wildman is known as Chläus, Div, Djadek, Jass, Kinderfresser (child eater), Klapperbok, Old Scratch, Thomasniklo and Schrat. Over the ages, the brutal wildman figure evolved into a character more like a clown or holiday fool. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss follows a classic wildman scenario: The Grinch is a hairy, Bigfoot-like creature that lives in an alpine cave in a mountain similar to the Matterhorn.

St. Nicholas


ACCORDING TO ECCLESIASTICAL LEGENDS, Santa Claus or St. Nicholas (A.D. 280­343) was born in Patara, Lycia (Turkey today). Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was known for performing many miracles. One story tells how Nicholas preserved the chastity of three young girls. The saint discovered that a poverty-stricken man was about to sell his three virgin daughters into child prostitution. In the night, Nicholas threw three orbs of gold down the man's chimney, thus saving the girls from their unspeakable plight. From this source we now have Santa going down the chimney as well as the gleaming, orb-like Christmas-tree ornament.

In A.D. 540, an ornate basilica was constructed over St. Nicholas' humble tomb in Myra. In A.D. 800, the saint's legend was brought to Scandinavia by the Vikings, where it merged with much older pagan myths of trolls and elves. In 1087, Italian merchants broke into Santa's crypt in Myra, stole his remains and spirited them off to Italy. The relics of St. Nicholas were then preserved in the Basilica of St. Nicola in Bari, Italy. In 1823, Clement Moore published A Visit From Saint Nicholas, which was to become the holy scriptures of Santa Claus: "He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,/And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot." In the 1940s the Coca-Cola Company adopted Santa as their mascot in a popular ad campaign for their drink made from the kola nut. Santa in a cleaned-up and stylized costume (in red and white — the company's colors) was used in the promotional graphics and became the standard Santa look.

Snowman


A TYPE OF WILDMAN, THE SNÄMANNEN (snowman) purportedly inhabits northern Scandinavia in Lapland, including the Arctic regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as Russian Lapland (the Kola Peninsula) and Siberia. The Lapp Snowman is not to be confused with the Christmas character Frosty the Snowman, a huge snowball with coal (soot) for eyes and mouth, a carrot for a nose, holding a broom like a chimney sweep. The Snömannen is described as a dark, ape-like creature covered in thick, dirty, stinky hair — more like the abominable snowman. His face is broad with prominent brow ridges, nose pressed flat, and a mouth that juts out from a huge jaw. His arms are larger than a man's, and his feet are enormous, with hairless soles. In mountainous regions, the Snömannen's coat turns silver or snow-white in winter. Snömannen's favorite food is cranberries.

Lapp Yuletide


CHRISTMAS IS A FESTIVE HOLIDAY in Sàpmi, the Saami homeland. The Saami await a Yuletide visit from a giant, horned and hairy wildman named Stallo. In Lappish, stallo means "metal man." Sometimes Stallo is dressed in stylish, all-black clothes like an MIB (man in black) or in a metallic suit (as conspiracy theorists conjecture, a robot or ancient astronaut in a space suit). Most likely the metal suit was the chain-mail armor of the berserker Vikings. The amoral Stallo delights in macabre acts of genital mutilation of his innocent victims. (Stallo pokes his staff up the skirts of young girls.) On Christmas Eve, Stallo rides around in his sleigh looking for something to drink. Traditionally, the Saami drive a stake into the ground near a fresh-water supply so Stallo can tie up his sled while having a refreshing gulp of water. If Stallo cannot find anything to drink, he will bash in a child's skull, sucking out the brains and blood to satiate his thirst. The most dangerous night for Lapp children is Christmas Eve, when Stallo lurks about looking for naughty victims to cram into his sack.

Santa World

IN SWEDEN, SANTA (JULTOMTEN) lives in Tomteland, also known as Santa World. Three hundred sixty million years ago, a gigantic meteor struck central Sweden with the impact of a thousand atomic detonations, blasting out a crater that eventually filled with water, becoming Lake Siljan. The high mountains around the lake are actually sides of the crater, and here at the base of Mount Gesunda, Swedish Santa built his workshop. Jultomten is akin to the King of the Forest­type wildman: stout, bearded, dressed in furs. He cares for animals and has shamanistic powers over the elements. According to legend, Jultomten lived deep in the forest long before he showed himself to humans. It is said that Santa used to roam around the Swedes' farms during the night. He would creepy-crawl into children's rooms, touching them to bestow prophetic dreams. To this day, on Christmas Eve Swedes still leave porridge, milk or tobacco to appease the mischievous little elf, similar to Americans leaving milk and cookies for Santa.

Flying Reindeer

AT FIRST I WAS PUZZLED BY THE LINE in Clement Moore's poem concerning the miniature sleigh and tiny reindeer. Then, as I was researching the Saami shaman drum, it became crystal clear. The shaman beats his drum until he reaches the specific rhythm and tone that sends him into a trancelike state of ecstasy. In this altered state called gievvot, his soul travels to the spirit world to converse with the dead. But first, the drum must be granted "life" by means of a particular ritual, and possessed by a guardian spirit — most commonly a reindeer. The shaman, with the help of his reindeer guide (or basseváresarves), can take his spiritual journey. On the drum skin are painted (in alder bark mixed with spit) various blood-red symbols that help guide the shaman on his "reindeer vision" across the cosmic road (the Milky Way) to Jábmeájmoo, the Land of the Dead.

One symbol is a miniature sleigh pulled by a tiny reindeer. This image is used by the shaman to "ride into the sky," calling to mind Santa's Christmas Eve flight. On the other hand, Siberian shamans feed psychedelic mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) to their reindeer. The animals' metabolism removes the toxins from the mushrooms but leaves the hallucinogenic properties intact in the urine. The shamans then drink the reindeer pee to "fly high." In the American drug subculture, the slang term "sleigh riding" refers to a drugged-out state, while "reindeer dust" is another word for cocaine.

Flying Santa


HOW DID SANTA GET THE POWER TO fly like the wind? In A Visit From Saint Nicholas, the saint's aerial acrobatics are described thus: "He sprang to his sleigh, to the team gave a whistle,/And away they all flew like the down from a thistle." In Lapland, the Saami shaman (called the Magi of the North) is believed to have the power to raise the wind and storms. In olden times, Lapp sorcerers sold "wind knots" to sailors in the form of three knots tied in a handkerchief. As the knots are untied, the winds would increase. Sailors beware — the loosening of the third knot can cause a maelstrom.

The power of the air (including miraculous flight) is either controlled by evil (Satan) or good (Santa). In A.D. 1087, by sacred decree of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, Nicholas achieved sainthood and was granted power over the air and ordained Supreme Controller of the Winds. Often, relics of St. Nick are carried aboard ships to appease stormy seas. (Alternatively, when it was believed that a Lapp shaman was bewitching a ship off its course, a virgin's shit smeared on the inner seams of the vessel would annul the curse.) In Finland, Santa Claus rides a flying goat named Ukko. In Finnish mythology, Ukko is the supreme god and king of the air. In the West, Santa takes wing by way of a team of enchanted reindeer. An age-old Lapp poem, Haste My Rain-Deer, reads: "Fly my Rain-Deer, fly swifter than the Wind."

North Pole Hell


WHY DOES SANTA LIVE IN THE FROZEN hell of the North? Traditionally, the North was considered to be the abode of devils, shamans, sorcerers, witches, fairies, trolls and wildmen. Dante envisioned Satan in a frigid hell frozen up to his asshole in ice. In Inferno, the flapping of Satan's wings produces the polar winds. In Norse mythology, Niflheim is a place of eternal cold, darkness and fog ruled over by the goddess Hel. One of the Earth's portals of hell (located in Västerbotten County, Sweden) is called Devil's Crater (Djävulskratern), a bottomless pit similar to Devil's Hole near Las Vegas.

The Saami shaman, or noid (also spelled nojd, noyde and noajdde), was believed to have the gift of second sight, invisibility, shape-shifting, weird visions and the capability to create false apparitions. Because of this power, Martin Luther called Lapland the home of the devil. Missionaries to Lapland believed that the noid were literally possessed by demons, and the shaman's drum was a powerful "instrument and tool of the devil." The regions and peoples of the extreme North have always held a special fascination for peoples in the temperate zones. The excessive cold, the winter darkness and the reputed mystical powers of the Hyperborean people have long attracted the imagination of writers, adventurers and seekers of mystic powers. Surely, Santa Claus lives in the North because, like a holy Magi, he holds the great supernatural power of the noid.

Source
 
An interesting collection of thoughts about "Santa Claus: Last of the Wild Men":

[Emp edit: threads duly merged]
 
Article Last Updated: 12/25/2004 02:43:16 AM

Santa sleuth: Naughty or nice?

By Lori Buttars
The Salt Lake Tribune

An Ohio man's search for Santa Claus has brought him to the redrocks of southern Utah.

Lloyd Darrow says he has just returned from some caves in Ten-Mile Canyon, near Lake Powell, where he claims to have found ancient petroglyphs - rock carvings that he believes date back to A.D. 650 - containing references to a sleigh-driving bearded man.

"Alongside carvings of turtles and horses is clearly depicted a bearded man, wearing a hat and driving a sleigh as he follows the North Star," Darrow, a bald, typically nerdy, bespectacled man, says of his very unorthodox "research."

"These are items that would not likely have any meaning to American Indians, so the only explanation for this is that he was some sort of [ancient] visitor or part of their folklore," he says, his face straight and betraying nary a wink.

Darrow, who has a degree in meteorology, says his lifelong fascination with "unexplainable phenomena" led him to establish the Tangible Evidence, Real Discoveries Organization - or TERD, which he insists on pronouncing "tea-ard" in spite of what its acronym looks like.

He has studied all the details behind the legends and rumored sightings of Big Foot, Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster and found them all to be "a bunch of hooey."

But the Santa theory, he maintains, is "unexplored territory."

Darrow claims no agenda and says he will be pleased no matter if his research bears out in favor of the existence of Santa Claus or finds it to be one of the world's longest-held hoaxes.

"I'm a skeptic, by nature," he says, dismissing the fact that he, himself, may have many skeptics.

"But I, like a lot of people, want to believe there is a human form from the North Pole that travels the world bestowing gifts on young children. "

As proof of his supposition, Darrow claims he recently obtained some "top-secret" footage of two Arctic-bound explorers that he says has been under government lock-and-key for the past 40 years.

The grainy images on the film, which he says reportedly was found alongside some human

remains, a rotting handle from a snow shovel and a frozen diary, show one of the men hiking along in the frozen tundra .

Suddenly, off in the distance, the man notices a figure in a long coat, trimmed in white, wearing a hat and black boots. The black-and-white footage fades out before the image comes into focus.

"Once again, we can't say for certain, but it looks a lot like Santa Claus," Darrow says.

The father of two planned to spend Christmas Eve with his own family at home where he has installed what he calls the "Reindeer 5000," a collection of seismic and other sensory equipment designed to detect any movement on the roof or in the house. As an added measure, he and his wife agreed to handcuff themselves to the bed.

"That sounds kind of bad, but it's all part of the research" he says. "We've cleared our home of all presents and toys, so if we arise in the morning to find presents under the tree, we will know there is some truth to the matter of Santa Claus."


Clarence Onstatt, Darrow's intern on the project, has been assigned to come to the Darrow home on Christmas morning with the key to the handcuffs. Darrow calls it one of the most "important pieces of research" in his two-year long study.

A two-man film crew from Utah - Chris Clark and Daryn Tufts, both graduates of Brigham Young University's film-studies program - has been documenting Darrow's "research." Clark and Tufts, however, declined to be interviewed for this story.

Darrow say he is well aware of running into the same controversy that surrounds those who have tried to research UFOs, Big Foot and other "unexplained phenomena." But he is not worried.

"Should I be?" he says.

Source

And TERD:

www.terd.org

Sorry - I thought it was funny and might give people a laugh.
 
And I thought this worth throwing in too:

Christmas trees rooted in tradition

Saturday, December 18, 2004
Timothy Harper
Religion News Service

The Christmas tree remains a powerful symbol for many of us, a mandala of sorts, evoking emotions that can be traced through thousands of years of humankind and across many different faiths.

"Christmas trees probably add more to mark the period of 'peace on earth, goodwill toward men' than any other product of the soil," says Ann Kirk-Davis, who has written books about Christmas trees and whose family has been raising and selling them for generations. "This enduring tree symbol - which is even older than Christianity and not exclusive to any one religion - remains a firmly established part of our holiday customs, engaging not only our senses of sight, touch and smell, but also our sense of tradition."

The Christmas tree has evolved from centuries-old traditions.

Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Chinese and other cultures used evergreens to mark the winter solstice, celebrate the end of the harvest year and symbolize the spirit of renewal. Druids used holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life.

In the seventh century in Germany, St. Boniface used the triangular shape of the tree to symbolize the Holy Trinity. In the Middle Ages, evergreens were decorated with red apples - the paradise tree - to mark the pagan festival of Adam and Eve. In Riga, Latvia, in 1510, Martin Luther, inspired by the stars shimmering through the trees as he walked through the woods one wintry night, cut down a small tree, took it home and decorated it with candles for his children.

One of the first documented reports of Christmas trees in America was in 1747 among the German Moravian immigrants in Bethlehem, Pa. In 1825, the Saturday Evening Post noted the decorated trees in Philadelphia, and in 1842, candles, popcorn, nuts and homemade paper ornaments were used to decorate Christmas trees in Williamsburg, Va.

In 1851, a New York farmer, Mark Carr, cut a load of evergreens from the Catskills, hauled them to Manhattan and set up the first street-corner Christmas tree lot in Greenwich Village. Franklin Pierce put the first tree in the White House in the 1850s, and every president embraced the practice - except for Theodore Roosevelt, the noted conservationist, who objected to cut ting down perfectly good trees from the forest.

By 1900, one in five American families had a Christmas tree, and over the next 20 years the popularity of Christmas trees spread rapidly. A farmer planted 25,000 Norway spruces outside Trenton, N.J., and allowed the public to come and cut down a tree for a dollar.

Americans buy about 25 million trees each December, though that number has been decreasing as aging baby boomers use artificial trees or don't put up a tree at all.

Most trees come from six states: Oregon, Michigan, North Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin and California. Among the most popular species are Scotch pine, Douglas fir, white pine, balsam fir and white spruce.

-------------------
© 2004 The Plain Dealer.

Source
 
There was an excellent article about the origins of Santa/Father Christmas in FT 118 and it's also in the archive -
Phyllis Siefker - 'The Last Wild Man'
Link is dead. See later post for the MIA article's content.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Discovering the truth about Santa Claus

The travellers' tale

Dec 20th 2005 | BARI AND BETHLEHEM
From The Economist print edition

Most people know very little about St Nicholas, even after 1,500 years


Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus
By Jeremy Seal

Bloomsbury; 236 pages; $24.95.
Published in Britain as “Santa: A Life”. Picador; £14.99

IN 1892, Crown Prince Nicholas of Russia travelled to Bari, in south-eastern Italy, to visit the basement of a medieval basilica. There he prayed over the remains of his saintly namesake, a Christian bishop who had ruled, 15 centuries earlier, over part of present-day Turkey. The crypt's marble floor, a gift from the royal pilgrim, is one legacy of that visit.

The future tsar made other acts of homage. A year earlier, he had gone to Vladivostok to bless the building of a trans-Siberian railway by installing an image of St Nicholas at its Pacific extreme. A saint whose prayers had long protected travellers by water—first the merchants of the east Mediterranean, and then the boatmen who carried his name up-river to the Slavic heartland—would now be asked to watch over those who journeyed by train.

The power of St Nicholas to stimulate unusual journeys seems undiminished. On December 19th, his feast-day in the old Orthodox calendar, the crypt of the Bari basilica was thick with incense and resounding with Slavonic chant. Boosting the winter tourist trade of this shabby, rain-swept Italian port came Russian visitors of every description, jostling, bargaining and chanting. There were nuns from Yekaterinburg, the city where Tsar Nicholas and his family (later recognised as “passion-bearers”, a rather special category of saint) were slain in 1918. Seminarians, barely old enough to shave but already endowed with terrifying bass voices, came from deep in central Russia. There were London Russians and Dublin Russians. There were two bishops and half a dozen priests; all of them drawn to Italy's heel by the man whom Russians call Nikolai Ugodnik, Nicholas the Helper: a saint so beloved that images of Christ, Mary and Nicholas (often sold as threesomes) are a recurrent feature of Russian homes and cars, even among the non-devout.

In a speech in Bari in May, Pope Benedict called for a rapprochement between the Catholics and the Orthodox; but observing the surging confidence of this week's Russian visitors, it seemed unclear who—in any such transaction—might take over whom.

In Bethlehem, Christians have their own claim to Nicholas as a local man—“our great-great-grandfather” as one Palestinian priest puts it—on the strength of a cave where the young Nicholas is said to have rested during his own pilgrimage to the birthplace of Jesus Christ. A church built over the cave is the rallying-point, every December 19th, for an exuberant parade by scouts, as well as prayers for the neighbourhood's protection. The church, along with many homes, bears the scars of the recent fighting between Palestinians and the Israeli army. There are many townspeople who believe things would have been worse without the intercession of their favourite saint, who has, they believe, a soft spot for the place where he first heard the call to become a bishop in his native Asia Minor.

It is, of course, a long way from the olive groves of Bethlehem to Vladivostok (whence the Nicholas tradition migrated to Japan and, thanks to a missionary-bishop who bore the saint's name, gave rise to a flourishing Japanese Orthodox church). An even greater distance divides the shadowy father of the early Christian church from the homes and department stores of America and northern Europe, where Santa now occupies centre-stage in the Christmas narrative, edging out the Nativity.

This metamorphosis provides the theme for Jeremy Seal's jaunty, readable travelogue-cum-biography. He juxtaposes scenes from his home in England—where his daughters, aged two and six, have a keen interest in anyone who brings them presents—with some enjoyable accounts of “Nicholas” country. This includes the saint's original home, a ruined basilica in Turkey where Christian services are occasionally permitted; and of course Bari, where he observes the summer-time festival commemorating the arrival of the saint's relics in 1087.

Mr Seal's purpose is to trace the holy man's transformation—from eastern Christian saint, scudding over the Adriatic (as much loved in Montenegro and Albania as he is on the Italian side)—to an icon, in the modern sense, of commercialism and kitsch. Mr Seal takes his elder daughter to visit a “shop Father Christmas” at an exhibition centre in Birmingham and she pronounces that “it wasn't the real Santa.” That becomes a cue for a journey to Turkey where—in the absence of any other physical relics—visitors on the Santa trail are eagerly offered soil from the ruined basilica.

The book is an attractive entry-point to some aspects of early medieval history for those with no specialist interest in the subject. It also raises—without providing answers—some quite serious questions about religious history and geography.

Holiness—any person, story, physical feature or shrine, to which holiness is ascribed—always inspires travel. Either people go to the site of holiness, or else the holiness is somehow disseminated over great distances. And as it migrates, holiness metamorphoses in odd ways, absorbing the concerns of every place it reaches.

Sometimes ideas, or forms of worship, are disseminated; sometimes architectural styles, such as the replicas of Christ's tomb that were built all over Europe. But in early medieval times, the most tangible form of dissemination was the export of relics: the remains of individuals whose bodies had glowed with divine grace during their lifetimes and retained part of that grace after death. The trade in relics became a vast international marketplace, recognisable to any Economist reader and easy to lampoon. But at its heart was an elaborate doctrine which believed that the whole human person—body as well as spirit—could be saved. That, in turn, rested on the other event that is commemorated in Bethlehem in December: only because God had taken human flesh was it possible for other human beings to seek the redemption of their bodies and souls alike.

It is not necessary to believe this teaching to appreciate its sophistication. Glenn Bowman, a social anthropologist at Britain's University of Kent, has made some insightful observations about the psychology of pilgrimage, both modern and medieval, from a strictly secular viewpoint. High theology has no place in Mr Seal's jolly narrative; to that extent his Nicholas is closer to the Santa-lite of department stores than to the protector who is remembered by rough-tongued Greek deckhands as they battle Aegean squalls—or to the mysterious figure who can still coax nervous Russian nuns out of the Ural forests and bring them down to a crypt thousands of miles away.

Nicholas: The Epic Journey from Saint to Santa Claus.
By Jeremy Seal.
Bloomsbury; 236 pages; $24.95.
Published in Britain as “Santa: A Life”. Picador; £14.99
 
ratboy~ said:
An ancient tradition mentioned in the article on the Fortean homepage - Last of the Wild Men, is alive and well in Newfoundland!

And another festive FT article is online:

Lapp of the Gods - The dark side of Christmas - a realm of brain-eating wildmen and sinister elves:

forteantimes.com/articles/192_lapp1.shtml
Link is dead. See later post(s) for the MIA web article's content.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
To paraphrase an old Easter joke ...

No Xmas this year - they found the body!

Archaeologists in Turkey believe they have discovered Santa Claus's tomb
Archaeologists in Turkey have made a discovery which could settle a century-old debate … and disappoint millions of children around the world.

They have unearthed what they say is likely the tomb of the original Santa Claus, or Saint Nicholas, beneath an ancient church in Demre, southern Turkey.

Demre, previously known as Myra, in Antalya province, is believed to be the birthplace of the 4th century bishop.

Cemil Karabayram, the head of Antalya’s Monument Authority, said the shrine was discovered during electronic surveys that showed gaps beneath the church.

“We believe this shrine has not been damaged at all, but it is quite difficult to get to it as there are mosaics on the floor,” Mr Karabayram told the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News. ...

At the time of his death in 343 A.D., Saint Nicholas was interred at the church in Demre, where he lay undisturbed until the 11th century.

Previously, the remains were believed to have then been smuggled to the Italian city of Bari by merchants in the year 1087. Christians visit the site of what was thought to be his final resting place in Bari's Basilica di San Nicola.

However, Turkish experts are now claiming the wrong bones were removed and those taken abroad belong to another, local priest, rather than the legendary bishop.

SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

 
That means that the facial reconstruction work referred to in the third post to this thread is wrong. They got the wrong Santa!!
 
Here is the full text of the Phyllis Siefker article from FT118 (January 2000).
The Last Wild Man

BEHIND SANTA'S GENIAL SMILE LIES A 70,000 YEAR OLD ANIMIST TRADITION OF A BEAST MAN PHYLLIS SIEFKER UNMASKS THE ULTIMATE BEDROOM INVADER.

As the Christmas season engulfs us, Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and their international counterparts beam at us from every medium, hawking earthly treasures to delight our loved ones.

As we watch this portly figure entice us with baubles, we are witnessing the last remnant of the oldest sacred figure that exists, for Santa's past is full of ancient mysteries, with a depth few imagined. In the Middle Ages he was a Wild Man, a beast-man who jousted with knights in Merrie Olde England and dashed through Germanic streets during Carnival, frightening children and adults alike. In the Sixth Century, he was a beast-god so powerful that Pope Gregory the Great chose him to be Christianity's poster child for evil – the cloven-hoofed, goatish devil figure that persists even today. For millennia before that, he was worshiped as a god whose annual death was a necessity for life on earth itself.

Tracking the elusive Jolly Old Elf's history involved a labyrinthine journey that would make Daedalus proud. The search began with 19th century gift givers in America, Britain, and Germany. These gift givers appeared at end-of-year celebrations, but didn't travel alone; they were accompanied by a predictable entourage, no matter what country they trod. Santa's companions invariably included a Bessy – a man dressed as a woman – and assorted merrymakers dressed in goat or bear skins or wearing goat or bear masks. The other characters varied; usually there was a comic doctor and often an archer. Of course, America's Christmas Man wasn't called Santa at the time; he gained that name in the mid-1800s. First, he was Pelznichol, or Nicholas in Furs; in Nova Scotia he was the Janney; in Trinidad he was Papa Bois; in Great Britain he was Yule until Ben Johnson christened him Father Christmas in his 1616 Christmas Masque. His names were as varied as the communities he both terrorized and blessed.

The Wild Man's motley crew went door-to-door, demanding entry. After the raucous group was welcomed, they acted out an odd play – the leader, who dressed in goat or bear skins, argued with another character or with the woman figure. He was killed, the woman lamented, and the doctor comically resuscitated him, or he spontaneously revived, declaring he wasn't dead after all. Before the troupe left to visit the next house, they demanded gifts. This might sound somewhat familiar; today's Halloween trick-or-treaters carry on a juvenile version of the original visit – going house to house, demanding gifts and treats. In the bygone adult festival, the troupe gave its blessing and shared fruits of the land with the inhabitants, or wreaked havoc and cursed the homes if they weren't well received.

This invasion didn't take place at only at Yuletide; in Germany, Carnival signaled the Wild Man's wild rush into town in the Schembartlauf (run of bearded men). In other countries, the wild run usually ended winter's reign, but no matter what the time of year or what country, there were arresting similarities. In the 18th century, an emerging breed of "folklorists" noted these similarities and began to record these festivals and theorize about their origins. Jacob Grimm made a herculean effort to record Germany's folk customs before they disappeared, and scholars in Great Britain managed to accumulate some of the most extensive collection of local rituals. These rituals encompass a wide range of mumming activities with the ever-present Fool, an offspring of the Wild Man and precursor of Father Christmas.

Those who study and categorize Britain's mumming rituals sort them into three main types – the wooing ceremony, which includes Plough Monday peregrinations, the sword play, and the Saint George Play. All have a death and resurrection; of course this death and resurrection in historical festivals is a comic one, but these activities are remnants of a more serious death – the death of the Wild Man, the beast-god who was responsible for life on earth.

Richard Bernheimer pieced together the basic fertility ritual from which these plays derive in his book Wild Men in the Middle Ages. In that ritual, a town's young unmarried men went to the woods to hunt the Wild Man or stir him from his cave. The largest and strongest of the men dressed in animal skins and horns to play the role of the Wild Man. He was captured, chained, and dragged back to the village. Since he was, after all, a Wild Man, he had torn up a tree or two to drag with him, showing his power; in the village these trees became the May Pole and the Yule Log. Because he was a god of the elements of nature – thunder and lightning – the villagers fired guns and beat drums to herald his arrival.

Chains dangling from his body, the Wild Man and his companions made a mad dash into town, frightening and beating bystanders; one of the devices he used to beat villagers was a giant phallus, his symbol as a fertility god. In the village square, he mated with a village wench (or wild woman, if one was available), then was killed by an archer. He revived or was replaced by a son. The mood was bedlam; the humor as course as it comes; and everyone was both excited and terrified.

Folklorists who debated the origins of these holiday activities were delighted when world traveler and Renaissance man R. M. Dawkins happened upon a fairly untouched version of this ritual in the Balkans in 1906. In this festival, large, blackened, humpbacked goat-men shambled through the village with bells around their waists and ankles. The leader carried a huge phallus; another carried a crossbow. An old woman carried a doll in a basket. As they went from house to house, the phallic goat-man pounded the phallus on the door and demanded money. In the course of the parade, the baby grew to manhood quite suddenly and demanded a bride. When she was supplied, the pair copulated, the archer shot the newly satisfied groom, the bride grieved, and the goat man revived. After receiving a gift from the homes where they performed, the paraders dragged a plough through the village.

This discovery was Nirvana for folklorists – they found all the elements of the mumming plays; the Fool was in his original beast form; the death and execution were enacted amorally. In later plays, the Fool or beast-man is often killed by a young groom because he "makes a pass at" the Woman, and narrators explain the behavior with a comic script. In the Balkan version, the inhabitants didn't need a verbal explanation; the ritual had been part of their lives for centuries. Only in more recent times did the master of ceremonies or narrator emerge.

This Balkan festival was the finest modern discovery yet of the ancient rite of the god's birth, sacred marriage, death, and sacrifice for his people. Better yet, it was found in Greece. Scholars concluded that the hundreds of versions peppering Europe could be traced to the great goat-god Dionysus. After all, the Dionysian rites gave birth to modern theater; even the word tragedy means goat song. Under this diffusionist scenario, Dionysus and his counterparts Adonis and Bacchus spread throughout Europe with spread of the Roman Empire.

This conclusion reflected a myopic flaw in many prehistorians' thinking–that everything emanated from the Mediterranean, the "cradle of civilization." But we find these rituals in the Arctic Circle among people neither the Romans nor the Catholics found worth their time to conquer or even visit in those days. There, among the Lapps, the Vogul, and the Gilyaks some of the purist, most ancient rituals continued. We also find the ceremonies among the enigmatic Ainu, the aboriginal Japanese.

Among these Arctic peoples and the Ainu we discover the original "storyline" of the ritual that found its way to ancient Japan, Russia, Western and Northern Europe, and the Mediterranean. In these ceremonies, the Master of the Mountain sends his gods to his people as a bear to keep them from starving. In the ceremony, the people rouse the hibernating beast in its cave, and the best marksman ritually executes it with an arrow. They prepare and mount the skin and skull in a certain manner, then share the god's bounty in a feast.

In a ceremony of gratitude and honor the hunters re-enact a tale of the bear's life – how it found a mate and bore an offspring, then was killed by an archer. The people thank the bear for its gift of life and send the emissary's spirit back to the gods, until it returns next year. Here we find the arrow, the mating, the sacrifice and rebirth, and the other accouterments we find in today's mumming plays – even the ivy-crowned head.

How old is this ritual of bear and goat worship that found its way to areas as widespread as the Mediterranean and the Arctic Circle? There is evidence this bear sacrifice was carried out more than 50,000 years ago; early 20th-century German excavatons of the Wild Man's Cave and other caves in the High Alps discovered altars to the bear with bearskins and skulls ritually treated exactly as the Arctic peoples treated them.

Anthropologist Josepn Campbell and invesfigating anthropologists made the connection between these ancient finds and the arctic rituals and dated them to about 70,000 BC.

Of course. Homo sapiens sapiens - modern humans - weren’t around then; Neanderthals performed these ancient rituals. Later archaeological excavations reveal Neanderthas sacrificed in the same manner as the bears. The question inevitably arises whether the original Wild Man was a Neanderthal, perhaps performing a bear ritual.

The history of the death and resurrection of the beast-god that sired Santa is older than Greece, even older than modern humans. It was a ceremony of death and resurrection, of life and fertility, carried on by an ancient aboriginal people - called elves or fairies by later settlers - and adopted by these settlers, who replaced them and continued the sacred rituals throughout Europe.

Of course, burgeoning Christianity vigorously fought to suppress this widespread "pagan" ritual, but it persisted. In response, the church used the Wild Man’s form to depict its Satan. Under pressure from Christianity, villagers, holding to their old festivals while adopting the new Christian religion, managed to keep the old Wild Man alive by transforming him. In village festivals he became the Fool; in this role he strode at the front of his old troupe as master of ceremonies, the outspoken comic who introduced the troupe and made fun of local citizens and mores. In this role he evolved into the symbol of Christmas in America, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, and Germany. This fur-clad fool and social commentator took yet another direction in Italy, where, as Harlequin, he evolved from Medieval Devil to a primary figure in the commedia dell’arte and became a standard character in French and British Christmases. In all, the Wild Man adapted in almost infinite ways under pressures from Church, State, and the varying influences of civilisation.

In many areas, the beast-man changed little, and today the ancient festivals persist in places the great past tides of civilisation barely lapped. The hair-covered Chlaus yodel in Urnasch, Switzerland; the beast-masked Narren leap through Black Forest villages; the King of the Puck Fair is hoisted in Killorglin, Ireland; the blackened, goat-bearded berika romp in Georgia; the Perchta runners re-enact a death and resurrection ritual on the fields of Austria. The Ainu ritually enact their sacred ritual for tourists. The Paper Boys romp in Marshfield, Gloucestershire, and Crookham, and, in Grenoside, the sword dancing team ritually "executes" their captain.

Germany’s carnival elements also live on in the well-known Christmas poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas, which begins: "‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house..." There we see the old troupe preserved as reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, and Prancer are the raucous, high-stepping, hair-clad dancers that signalled the start of Carnival; Vixen is the Wild Woman; Cupid is the archer who ended the god’s life; Comet the sleigh of one of the Wild Man’s versions - the Wild Hunter; Donder and Blitzen (thunder and lightning) are the hallmarks of the Wild Man’s dominion over nature.

In some instances the Wild Man survives as a famous folk figure - in fact, some of our best known folk characters trace their origin to this original mystery. In Britain, he became Robin Goodfellow or Puck, celebrated by Shakespeare; Goodfellow’s cousin Robin Hood began life as Wood, a name for the Wild Man. In the Black Forest, the Pied Piper of Hamelin re-enacts poet Robert Browning’s version of the ancient mystery.

And, of course, there’s Santa Claus. As the ancient beast-god of old, he continues to bring bounty and promise to us each year, despite seemingly insurmountable odds. Gods, religions, nations and even hominid species have risen and fallen while he somehow persists. No wonder he winks as he sips his Coca-Cola.

SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060109024005/http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/118_santan.shtml
 
Here is the content of the FT 192 (January 2005) article Lapp of the Gods ...
NOTE: The accompanying illustrations were not archived.

Lapp of the Gods

When JEFFREY VALLANCE relocated to the land of Santa Claus, he discovered the dark side of Christmas; a realm of brain-eating wildmen and sinister elves. All illustrations by the author.

I never dreamed that one day I would live in Lapland, the traditional home of Santa Claus; but in 1999 I accepted a three-year contract as Professor in International Contemporary Art to teach at Umeå University in northern Sweden. Lapland (or Sàpmi) extends across northern Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. It is the homeland of the Lapps, more correctly called the Saami. In Lapland, I regularly wore a fur-trimmed coat while travelling through the snow in the Arctic wilderness by way of a reindeer sleigh. I frequently dined on huge reindeer steaks and, like Santa, I became rounder and jollier while my beard turned hoarier with each passing day.

When I first arrived in the Land of Hoarfrost, I was puzzled by the enigmatic heraldic symbol of Lapland, the Wildman, a hairy, reddish, bestial character dressed in leaves, wielding a gnarled club. I collected vague reports of an actual Swedish Wildman (Snömannen), a yeti-like creature believed to inhabit the remote areas of the forest. One day when wandering through the wilds of Lapland I beheld an astonishing thing: a colossal statue of the Wildman painted bright red with a snowy white beard (opposite page). From a distance it looked like Santa Claus. As I stood at the base, staring up at the Herculean statue, it hit me like a hunk of red-hot ejecta from Mount Hekla: Santa Claus, the Wildman, and Snömannen must spring from the same ancient source.

The mediæval Wildman or Wodewose was described as a grotesque, bestial, ape-like creature – dark, filthy, and bearded. His body was covered in thick matted hair (later often replaced by leaves) and gave off a foul odour. He was sometimes depicted as horned, with a prominent penis or wielding a club. He was considered frenzied and insane, the personification of lust and debauchery. He was known to mate with humans. His habitat was the northern woods where he lived in a cave or den. His traditional beast of burden was the reindeer.

The Wildman is known in various regions as Chläus, Div, Djadek, Jass, Kinderfresser (child eater), Klapperbok, Old Scratch, Thomasniklo, and Schrat. Over the ages, the brutal Wildman figure evolved into a character more like a clown or holiday fool. The progenitors of Santa Claus like Aschenklas (ash) were likewise depicted as wildmen: hoary, bearded, and filthy with ash or soot.

Santa’s original helpers (before he got the elves) are dark, devilish, reprobate wildmen covered in soot such as the Dark One, Dark Helper, Krampus, Julgubben, Zwarte Piet, Black Peter, Cinder Cläus, Fool Claus, Klawes, Claws, Pelzmarte, Pelz Nickel, and Ru Klas. The word “ru” means “rough clothes,” calling to mind cross-dresser RuPaul, known for his renditions of Christmas classics such as “RuPaul the Red-Nosed Drag Queen” from his Rhino Records album, Ho, Ho, Ho.

THE SNOWMAN

A type of wildman, the Snömannen or snowman (left) purportedly inhabits northern Scandinavia in Lapland including the arctic regions of Norway, Sweden, and Finland as well as Russian Lapland (the Kola Peninsula) and Siberia. The Lapp Snowman is more like the Abominable Snowman than the domesticated snowman of Christmas iconography. He is described as a dark, ape-like creature covered in thick, dirty, stinky hair. His face is broad with prominent brow ridges, nose pressed flat, with a mouth that juts out from a huge jaw.

His arms are larger than a man’s and his feet are enormous with hairless soles. His buttocks are light in colour, with a sparse covering of hair. In mountainous regions, his coat turns silver or snow-white in winter. He lives in a den or cave in the forest in hard-to-reach polar regions. His favourite food is cranberries. The term “yeti” is pronounced remarkably similar to the Swedish word for giant, jätte. In Sweden, a yeti called the “Honey Monster” is the mascot for a popular puffed wheat breakfast cereal, Kalas Puffar.

A reindeer breeder from eastern Siberia named Tatyana Zakharova saw a Snowman while she was out berry picking: “He was also picking berries and stuffing them into his mouth with both hands.” Snowman fæcal matter has been found to consist of the remains of berries. The snowman also hunts reindeer, eating the meat raw and tearing off the skin to wear.

SANTA PARK

It is widely agreed that Santa Claus is based in Lapland, but exactly where is a matter of national pride. The Finns claim he lives under a mountain in Rovaniemi, Finland, and the Swedes insist he lives in a meteor crater near Mora, Sweden. I decided to see firsthand where Santa lives, so I made a pilgrimage to the Santa Park complex in Rovaniemi. The Santa Village is what you would expect: alpine-type gingerbread cottages, elf workshops, wedding chapel, Arctic Circle Post Office, and an extensive gift shop mall (with an exhaustive supply of fake Saami handicrafts and berry preserves).

In Santa’s Office, one can have an audience with the enthroned Santa (Joulupukki or Yule pixie) himself. The Office features a library with huge books labelled for each continent where Santa keeps precise records of all who have been naughty or nice – like The Lamb’s Book of Life: “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:15) Instead of a reindeer sleigh, Joulupukki rides a surly goat named Ukko.

From the Village I rode a cheerful little train through the forest and disembarked at the foot of a peculiar hill called Mount Ear, where I beheld an arched, red lacquered pagoda-like portal – the sublime entrance to subterranean Santa Park. Like Dante, I descended a passageway hewn from solid rock for what seemed to be miles into the very bowels of the Earth. In my head played “The Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg. The walls of the tunnel (or ear canal) slowly turned from stone to galvanised steel. At last I entered the central chamber occupied by a towering Reindeer Carousel, topped off with a gigantic Bavarian cuckoo clock.

I noticed that the walls and ceiling of the chamber were trimmed with Christmas tinsel – a little like Vegas, but somehow all wrong. Upon closer inspection, the walls were too high-tech for just an amusement park. I inspected the inner doors to the cuckoo-carousel room (in badly painted imitation woodgrain). The semicircular door mechanism was made of solid steel, heavier than vault doors I had seen in Swiss banks or Austrian treasure chambers. They were freaking nuclear blast doors! I theorised that the whole damn Santa Complex was a massive camouflaged atomic bomb shelter.

No wonder, since nearby on the Kola Peninsula is the network of missile silos forming Moscow’s Forward Land Defence System. In addition, Lapland was ground zero for the Chernobyl fallout, causing the reindeer to be radioactive for some years. The reindeer’s main food source, a type of lichen (Cladonia rangiferina), is still contaminated in some areas. I pestered one of the Santa Village elves, who finally admitted that the entire population of Rovaniemi could be housed safely in the structure within 24 hours notice of nuclear war. Obviously, the Finns had built themselves one hell of a fallout shelter. It is comforting to know that after worldwide nuclear devastation, Santa will step forward, alive and safe, to greet the post-apocalyptic world.

SANTA WORLD

In Sweden, Santa (Jultomten) lives in Tomteland, also known as Santa World. A gigantic meteor struck central Sweden 360,000,000 years ago, with the impact of 1,000 atomic bombs. It blasted out a crater that eventually filled with water, becoming Lake Siljan. The high mountains around the lake are actually sides of the crater, and here at the base of Mount Gesunda, Swedish Santa built his workshop. Jultomten is akin to the King-of-the-Forest-type wildman: stout, bearded, dressed in furs. He cares for animals and has shamanistic powers over the elements.
According to legend, Jultomten lived deep in the forest long before he showed himself to humans. It is said that Santa used to roam around the Swedes’ farms during the night. He would creepy-crawl into children’s rooms, touching them to bestow prophetic dreams. To this day, on Christmas Eve, Swedes still leave porridge, milk, or tobacco to appease the mischievous old elf, similar to Americans leaving milk and cookies for Santa.

In Tomteland, Santa lives with his helpers: trolls, a witch, and the Snow Queen. The Scandinavian Lutheran Church has replaced the pagan fairy queens of yore (disir) with Christian holy figures such as the Christkind, Christpuppe (Christ elf), and Santa Lucia, a young blonde girl in a white flowing gown, wearing a golden crown with burning candles. In Sweden, Santa Lucia (from lux, meaning “light”) arrives on the shortest and darkest day of winter as the symbol of victory over darkness. She is the Queen of Light.

Lucia’s assistants are the Star Boys, who were originally, like the Wildman, dressed in furs with blackened faces. They now wear pointed wizards’ hats and wave magic wands with a star on the end. In other Scandinavian areas, St Lussi (more like Lucifer), is a man dressed in goat skins (like Julbok, the Christmas goat) with a devil mask and horns. Lussi threatens to disembowel children who have been naughty.

LAPP YULETIDE

Christmas is a festive holiday in Sàpmi (the Saami homeland). The Saami await a Yuletide visit from a giant horned and hairy wildman named Stallo. In Lappish, “stallo” means “metal-man.” Sometimes Stallo is dressed in stylish, all-black clothes like an MIB (Man in Black) or in a metallic suit, reminiscent of a robot or ancient astronaut in a spacesuit. Most likely the metal suit was the chain mail armour of the berserker Vikings.

The amoral Stallo delights in macabre acts of genital mutilation of his innocent victims. He pokes his staff up the skirts of young girls. On Christmas Eve, he rides around in his sleigh looking for something to drink.

Traditionally, the Saami drive a stake into the ground near a fresh water supply so Stallo can tie up his sled while having a refreshing gulp of water. If Stallo cannot find anything to drink, he will bash in a child’s skull, sucking out the brains and blood to satiate his ravenous thirst.

Stallo’s sleigh is not pulled by reindeer but by a pack of lemmings. Arctic lemmings (Lemmus lemmus) are common in Lapland and are detested by the Lapps, as they are known to have a nasty bite. In 1555, Olaus Magnus, the last Catholic Primate of Sweden (who was in the north selling indulgences to the sinful Swedes) recorded reports of lemmings raining from the sky over Lapland. He believed that the lemmings spontaneously generated in the clouds over Lapland as a punishment from God for the people’s idolatrous ways.

Christmas Eve is the most dangerous night for Lapp children. Stallo lurks about looking for naughty children to cram into his sack. A Saami legend tells of one scary Christmas: three brothers decided to play games instead of going to church. They wanted to have some fun gutting a reindeer, but as none was to be found, the youngest brother volunteered instead. After the boy was slaughtered and disembowelled, and the sparkling white snow spattered with blood, the two remaining brothers began to cook his flesh.

Stallo smelled the savoury aroma of roasting human flesh and leapt into action, killing one boy instantly. The other brother tried to escape. He hid in a locked chest, but clever Stallo blew red-hot embers through the keyhole, burning the child alive. (The Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest have a similar character named Steta’l, a Bigfoot-like mountain giant who also kidnaps children.) In northern Sweden, archæological evidence of Stallo can be found, called Stallo Graves (also Stallo-sites or stalotomter). They are in fact the remains of ancient circular hut foundations.

Six teenage boys, out berry-picking along Lake Lovozero on the Kola Peninsula, reportedly encountered the Snowman, which they named Afonya. In the evening, sitting around the campfire, they were bombarded with large stones and took shelter in the cabin. Before going to bed, one of the boys went outside to relieve himself, saw the Snowman crouched in some berry bushes, and ran back to the cabin terrified. Later in the night, the Snowman turned up on the roof, and like a deranged Santa Claus he tried to enter the hut through the chimney. Luckily a fire was burning, so the Snowman must have severely burned himself. He yelped, jumped off the roof, and ran away. The next day, large tracks were found as well as sizeable piles of excrement.

REINDEER SLAUGHTER

According the famous poem An Account of a Visit from St Nicholas (1823), Santa’s means of transportation is “a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.” Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) are well adapted to the arctic climate. Their hooves form a broad, flat pad – ideal for walking in deep snow. Their feet also contain scent glands which enable them to find nourishment buried in the snow. Their furry coats keep them warm in weather conditions reaching –60ºF (–51ºC). Traditionally, the Saami use reindeer to pull a sleigh (pulka). It is said that the Wildman, Snowman, and Bigfoot all consume raw deer flesh.

Deer are also associated with elves and fairies. Satan himself has been known to shape-shift into a black stag. The legendary Deer Shaman, Stag-man and Reindeer Girl all wear costumes with antlers. In Sàpmi, at Winter Solstice, reindeer slaughter celebrations take place – a culling of the herds, as there is not enough fodder to maintain all the animals through the extreme winter. Similar is the festival day of St Hubert (Jägermeister), the glowing deer-horned patron Saint of the Hunt. Likewise, the Saami mythical reindeer Mandash-pyrre has golden antlers that shine like the sun.

I went to a Saami reindeer slaughter in Åsele, Sweden. It was not as ritualistic as I’d imagined. The reindeer are all nestled in their corrals when a huge semi truck (a literal slaughterhouse on wheels) pulls up to the gate. One by one, live reindeer prance through one end of the mobile meat processing plant, and carcasses dangling on meat hooks come flying out the other end. Near the truck, a man occasionally stirs buckets of blood for making blood sausage. Soup made from reindeer blood cures constipation. To cure juvenile stuttering, fresh and bloody reindeer lungs used to be flung at the stammering child. (That would have worked on me!) Boiled reindeer antler is a remedy for diarrhoea. Reindeer horns are exported to Asia, fetching exorbitant prices as a potent aphrodisiac. Associated is the slang term “horny,” denoting sexual arousal.

At the Slaughter, piles of severed reindeer heads festooned the snowy landscape like demonic Christmas decorations. Large dogs gnawed at them occasionally. Dazzling lakes of bright red frozen reindeer blood created Pollockesque patterns on the glittering snow. But alas, there was no ritual feasting. In innocent children’s Christmas stories, reindeer are the symbol of joyous holiday merriment – it was bizarre to see them rendered into piles of gore.

FLYING REINDEER

At first, the line in the poem concerning the miniature sleigh and tiny reindeer puzzled me. What was the meaning of the mini reindeer sled? Then, as I was researching the Saami shaman drum, it became crystal clear. The shaman beats his drum until he reaches the specific rhythm and tone that sends him into a trancelike state of ecstasy. The rhythmic beats affect the central nervous system, producing a hypnotic condition. In this altered state called gievvot, his soul travels in extra-corporeal form to the spirit world to converse with the dead.
But first, the drum must be granted “life” by means of a particular ritual, and possessed by a guardian spirit – most commonly a reindeer. The shaman, with the help of his reindeer guide (or basseváresarves), can make his spiritual journey. On the drum skin are painted (in alder bark mixed with spit) various blood-red symbols that help guide the shaman on his “reindeer vision” across the cosmic road (Milky Way) to Jábmeájmoo, the Land of the Dead.

One symbol on the drum is a miniature sleigh pulled by a tiny reindeer. This image is used by the shaman to “ride into the sky”, calling to mind Santa’s Christmas Eve flight. On the other hand, Siberian shamans feed psychedelic mushrooms (Amanita muscaria) to their reindeer. The animal’s metabolism removes the toxins from the mushrooms but leaves the hallucinogenic properties intact in the urine. The shamans then drink the reindeer pee to “fly high”. In the drug subculture, the slang term “sleigh riding” refers to a drugged-out state, while “reindeer dust” is another term for cocaine.

FLYING SANTA

How did Santa get the power to fly like the wind? In An Account of a Visit from St Nicholas, his aerial acrobatics are described thus: “He sprang to his sleigh, to the team gave a whistle, / And away they all flew like the down from a thistle.” In Lapland, the Saami shaman (called the Magi of the North) is believed to have the power to raise the wind and storms. In olden times, Lapp sorcerers sold “wind-knots” to sailors in the form of three knots tied in a handkerchief. As the knots are untied the winds would increase. Sailors beware – the loosening of the third knot can cause an accursed mælstrom. It is said that the sorcerers of Lapland learned their accursed art from Zoroaster the Persian. Yet power over the wind comes from the Devil himself, “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2).

In Lapland, sorcery was a craft preserved for male shamans, but there have been documented reports of female practitioners. Throughout the ages, Lapland has had the sinister reputation for being a place for witches’ orgies. On Lapp witches, Cotton Mather (infamous for his role in the Salem Witch Trials) wrote in his book Wonders of the Invisible World: “Undoubtedly the Devil understands as well the way to make a Tempest as to turn Winds at the Solicitation of a Laplander.” He went on to write that they “can with looks or words bewitch other people, or sell Winds to Mariners… and by their Enchanted Kettle Drums can learn things done a Thousand Leagues off.”

The Saami shaman or noid (also spelled nojd, noyde, and noajdde), besides having power over the wind, was believed to have the gift of second sight, invisibility, shapeshifting, weird visions, and the capability to create false apparitions. Because of the awesome supernatural power thought to be wielded by the noid, Martin Luther believed that Lapland was the home of the Devil. Missionaries to Lapland believed that the noid were literally possessed by demons, and the shaman’s drum was a powerful “instrument and tool of the Devil”. The regions and peoples of the extreme north have always held a special fascination for inhabitants of the temperate zones. The excessive cold, the winter darkness, and the reputed mystical powers of the Hyperborean people have long attracted the imagination of writers, adventurers, and seekers of mystic powers. Surely, Santa Claus lives in the north because, like a Holy Magus, he seeks the great supernatural power of the noid.
End

SOURCES

Tore Ahlbäck and Jan Bergman, Eds, The Saami Shaman Drum, Donner Institute for Research in Religious and Cultural History, Finland, 1991.
Dmitri Bayanov, In the Footsteps of the Russian Snowman, Hancock House, USA, 2004.
Jan Bondeson, The Feejee Mermaid, Cornell University Press, 1999.
Odd Mathis Hætta, The Ancient Religion and Folk-Beliefs of the Sámi, Alta Museum.
Clement Clarke Moore (attributed), An Account of a Visit from St Nicholas, 1823.
Ernest J Moyne, Raising the Wind: The legend of Lapland and Finland Wizards in Literature, University of Delaware Press, 1981.
Tony van Renterghem, When Santa Was a Shaman, LLewellyn, 1996.
The Magic of Lapland and Christmas Every Day - On the Arctic Circle, Santa Village, Rovaniemi, Finland.
Phyllis Siefker, Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men, McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1997.
Stanislav Szukalski, Behold!!! The Protong, Last Gasp, San Francisco, California, 2001.

SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060516195833/http://www.forteantimes.com:80/articles/192_lapp1.shtml
(In 3 parts; the first page linked above, plus 2 additional pages)

Edit to Add: (UPDATE)

Page 2 of 3 can be accessed at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060105215412/http://www.forteantimes.com:80/articles/192_lapp2.shtml

Page 3 of 3 seems to no longer be accessible.
 
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@EnolaGaia - many thanks for having resurrected the excellent 'Lapp Of The Gods' article, from FT142 (as a last-year's Xmas present to the forum).

I remember reading it at the time, and finding it disturbingly-evocative....as it still is.
 
Santa Claus seems to have been a fairly recent import in the countries where people actually did worship Odin. I'd also be interested to see the workings for the raven/Zwarte Piet connection.
 
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