Fabric of Folklore
Folktales can be strange, mystical, macabre and intriguing. Join us as we explore the stories, culture and people behind the folklore. We go beyond retelling the legends, myths and fairy tales of old. We look at the story behind the lore, behind the songs and traditions to understand more about what they mean, and their importance. These stories, many originating as oral histories, inform us of what it means to be human; what it means to be an integral part of this Earth. Stories of magic and wonder bind us. They connect us through invisible strands, like the gossamer fibers of a spiders web. Folktales have the power to demonstrate how, although we live in drastically different locals, our hearts and minds beat as one human race. We are weaving the fabrics of our past and present stories, to help us better understand ourselves and to awaken us to a more compassionate and caring world community. As we explore the meaning of existence through folklore we hope to inspire future generations to lead with love and understanding.
Fabric of Folklore
Ep 68: Krampus and Other Frightening Christmas Monsters with Jeff Belanger
Is Krampus a villain we should fear, or is he Santa's sidekick?
In episode 68, we speak with Jeff Belanger—author, podcaster, storyteller, and explorer of the unexplained who specializes in paranormal phenomena, folklore, and legends. His latest book, The Fright Before Christmas: Surviving Krampus and Other Yuletide Monsters, Witches, and Ghosts, explores the darker aspects of Christmas folklore.
We delve into various mythical creatures associated with the holiday season, such as Krampus, Belsnickel, and the Yule Lads, examining their origins and roles in different cultures. Jeff reflects on societal values and the human psyche tied to these traditions as we uncover the macabre side of Christmas and winter customs.
The Fright Before Christmas Book
Introduction and Background(00:00 - 10:31)
- Guest Jeff Ballinger, author and expert on folklore and legends
- Discussion on the importance of folklore and its relevance to modern life
- Jeff's journey into researching Christmas monsters, particularly Krampus
Santa Claus and St. Nicholas(10:31 - 21:43)
- Explanation of the difference between Santa Claus and St. Nicholas
- History of Christmas celebrations and their pagan roots
- The influence of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' on modern Christmas
- The commercialization of Christmas and Santa Claus's role
Krampus and Other Christmas Monsters(21:43 - 31:54)
- Detailed description of Krampus, the Christmas devil
- Introduction to Belsnickel, another Christmas character
- Discussion on the purpose and significance of these monsters in folklore
Origins of Christmas Traditions(31:54 - 41:16)
- Explanation of winter solstice and its connection to Christmas
- Discussion on the assignment of Jesus' birth to December 25th
- The inclusivity of solstice celebrations across different cultures
Wassailing and Other Traditions(41:16 - 51:50)
- Explanation of wassailing and its evolution
- Discussion on the tradition of going door-to-door during holidays
- The connection between holiday traditions and economic conditions
Symbolic Meanings in Christmas Traditions(51:51 - 01:01:34)
- The significance of evergreen trees and wreaths
- Discussion on the Yule Lads and other Icelandic folklore
- Explanation of various Christmas monsters from different cultures
The Magic and Meaning of Christmas(01:01:34 - 01:13:56)
- Jeff's live show about Christmas monsters and traditions
- The importance of understanding and preserving holiday traditions
- The universal appeal of Christmas beyond religious boundaries
- Closing remarks and podcast information
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Vanessa Rogers:Welcome folksy folks. Welcome to Fabric of Folklore. I am Vanessa Y. Rogers, your hostess of the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of folklore. And this is a show about leaning into our past in the hopes that we can inform our present. When we dig into our history, our stories, our lore and our traditions, we can forge a better future through a stronger understanding of where we came from. I always encourage our listeners to hit that subscribe button whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on your favorite podcasting platform like Apple or Spotify. So you get notifications every week when our podcast comes out. And if you are a longtime subscriber, thank you so much and please consider writing us review. It's so helpful for any podcast like ourselves. Today we have a really fun, creepy holiday show for you. We'll be discussing the Fright Before Christmas, Surviving Krampus and other Yuletide Monsters. We'll delve into the folklore of Krampus and his other Christmassy holiday monster friends and explore the darker, shadowy side of winter holidays. Our guest is Jeff Ballinger. He's an author, podcaster, storyteller, adventurer, and explorer of the unexplained. He's written more than a dozen books that have been published in six languages. He's the Emmy nominated host, writer and producer of the New England Legend series on PBS and Amazon Prime. He provides programs and lectures to audiences all over the world. And he's been the writer and researcher for every episode of Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. So thanks so much for joining us, Jeff.
Jeff Belanger :Thanks for having me. Vanessa. I like your intro. No, I agree. I've been preaching that for years. I always thought that legends and lore are really just sermons from the past. And the reason they stick around is because we keep them around collectively. That we have something we're still grappling with, we're still trying to learn. And so we keep telling these stories until we get it.
Vanessa Rogers:And sometimes it's unclear what we're getting from them. But when I read fairy tales to my kids, sometimes I get to the end of the fairy tale and I'm like, I don't get this. But for some reason it's important for us to continue to tell these stories. And there's something that's telling us that these stories are important to us. Even if it's like a subliminal message or a subconscious message, there's a book.
Jeff Belanger :You simply must read. It's old, it's out of print, you'd have to. It's like the 1970s Bruno Bettelheim, the Power of Enchantment. And it's all about how, like the old Grimm fairy tales, the originals, the dark ones, not. Not what Disney did to them. These old, grim fairy tales are so important because children understand, you know, good and evil, and they understand alive and dead, and they understand danger. And just a quick example is the story Jack and the Beans Talk, right? That. That story is so obvious. The giant is us adults. And. And what we're teaching our kids is you are not stronger than us. You never will be stronger than us, but you can outsmart us. And secretly, we want our kids to be able to outsmart us. Not us as parents, but dangerous adults that might be dangerous to our children. And so these stories serve as such powerful metaphors, and there's no better metaphors when it comes to monsters and dastardly creatures, I think, than the ones surrounding Christmas.
Vanessa Rogers:Yes, And I am quite giddy about your book, because I know about Krampus, but I didn't realize that there were a lot more Christmasy monsters or winter holiday monsters. So I was excited to find your book, and I love that you broke it down into multiple parts so that we can understand the history of where these monsters come from. But before we do that, let's talk about how you learned about these monsters. How did you get onto this journey of writing this book?
Jeff Belanger :So for the last 25 years, I've been exploring, like, ghost stories, haunted legends, and then that spiraled off into monsters, aliens, anything weird. I love the outlying weird stuff, the stuff that sticks out. And so doing what you do, you become a magnet. People say, hey, have you heard about this place? Have you heard about this monster or this creature or whatever? And you write it down, and sometimes they resonate with you. You start looking into it. It was probably 12 years ago where a friend of mine from Texas, ironically, only ironically, because this isn't where Krampus comes from, he said, have you heard of Krampus? I said I had not. And so I started to look into it, and I went, this is kind of amazing. How did I not grow up with Krampus? I mean, how did. I mean. Well, the answer is because I'm not German or Austrian, right? But. But at the same time, I was like this. I love this monster. I couldn't love him anymore. And then, you know, as years go by, I started to learn about other monsters. The Krampus movie came out, which I loved. I thought it was great, even though, I mean, I get as a piece of art, it was Just okay. But I loved seeing Krampus on the screen. And someone asked me to give a talk. I give talks all throughout October on Halloween and stuff. They said, could you do something more Christmas based? And I said I could. I got something. I got Krampus. So for years I started developing this Christmas show and I would talk about Krampus and then some other monsters and then people in the audience like, have you heard of this? Have you heard of that? And I'm just writing it all down. And eventually I developed this show and I'm like, this is a book. And so this was actually the easiest book I ever wrote because I worked on it for 12 years, right? Like, the backstory of it was about 12 years of just telling the stories, learning about them, performing them in front of audiences. And then I had so many notes, I basically had my outline done and I was able to just put it down and. And the publisher just really made it come to life full color with all the old great artwork of all the various monsters and stuff. And it was such a fun project. And ultimately it saved Christmas for me because I'm a grown up, I've got a kid, I'm humbugging it as much as the next person. And it all started, really, the impetus, the thing that triggered me to write the book was literally hanging my wreath on the front door one cold December day. And I. I was like, why am I doing this? Why? Why the wreath? Why the lights? Why all this commercialism? Why Santa? Why December 25th? Why do we spend so much money? Why do I go through so much trouble? And I'm hanging the wreath and the stupid thing broke and hung to the, you know, dropped to the ground, and I just went, you know, humbug. Yeah, I didn't say humbug. It was a way more colorful word. But this is a family show, I assume. But I was just furious. And then I said. And then a line from a song popped into my head. Andy Williams, right? There'll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long ago. And I went, ghost stories. That's my wheelhouse. How did I not have ghost stories growing up? And then I just sat down and the story pretty much unfolded from there. And I now adore the holiday more than I ever did.
Vanessa Rogers:Well, that's wonderful. But in your acknowledgments, you did talk about how your. Your parents did make it a magical holiday for you. Was there anything that you remembered from what your parents did that made it.
Jeff Belanger :Magical for you total magic, right? Like, from, you know, we left Christmas cookies out for Santa, and that's not unusual, but there'd be, like, crumbs left or cookies with bites out of them, and the milk was mostly gone. The attention to detail, Vanessa, was unsurpassed. We would hype it up. We would go see Santa wherever he was. We would, you know, have candy canes. We would watch the movies. We would just talk about it. It was a very big deal in my house. It was. It was huge. And my parents loved to give us a lot of. My sister and I, a lot of presents. And in our house, like, we didn't get stuff throughout the year. We got stuff at birthday and Christmas. That was it. But my mom wanted us to unwrap a lot of presents. So, like, I literally unwrap, like, four. Four different pairs of socks, you know, but. So we'd have, like, tons and tons of presents, but they weren't, like, you know, expensive things. They were just. We were just thrilled to have it, and were. It was so much fun. I just remember my mom went all out, and then my dad was forced to as well, so it was a very big deal. But we didn't really acknowledge the real roots of the holiday. I was raised Catholic, so went to church. And I knew the religious story, but as I started digging into it, I learned, oh, my goodness, the religious story really has almost nothing to do with Christmas. Nothing at all. It was just attached to it much later.
Vanessa Rogers:And what kind of traditions. You mentioned that you continue traditions with your daughter? Are you including some traditions with Yuletide monsters now with your daughter?
Jeff Belanger :Yeah. Well, for sure. So we've got. I've amassed quite a collection of. You know, I should. I should point out my daughter's now a senior in high school, so she's not young. No. So when I started working on this, I had only, like, a few ornaments, you know, of some of the monsters and stuff like that. But. But we would talk about them. And now. Now that I'm full. Bored into it, she's. She's pretty much grown to the point where she understands every bit of the holiday, but she also understands the magic of it. And there is still magic in it. And. But now. Now it's just more meaningful when you know the roots of it. And I assume we'll be. We'll be talking about that, but when, you know. When you know how deep it runs, you realize the things you're doing are connecting you to ancestors from thousands of years ago across continents. And it's so much more meaningful than just going through the process, Right. I hung a wreath on my front door because my dad did and my dad's dad did. I don't know why it looks pretty enough, but my wreath was plastic, you know, I mean, plastic berries, plastic everything. It was. It was. You know, whatever. I mean, I'm like, why am I even doing this? Now I know why I'm doing it. And we'll get to that.
Vanessa Rogers:Yes, absolutely. So how did you perform this research that you did? Because these are kind of obscure today, right? These are obscure monsters that we are not very familiar with.
Jeff Belanger :Well, I got to talk to people in other countries, and I get to. I mean, I travel pretty frequently. And so I remember, you know, I was. I was in England talking to some friends from Amsterdam about some of their, you know, their yuletide traditions and stuff, and you just network, you know, once you start down a rabbit hole, it just. You just keep going. It's. That's the fun of it. And Google Translate's a wonderful thing, you know, so, you know, because you're looking stuff up that's completely in a foreign language, and then you. You find websites and stuff, and you're able to just paste it over and translate it into Google, and you're like, this is great. I'm learning the roots of it. And I talked to professors and at foreign universities, folklore professors, and when. When you look into a subject, you just ask anyone and everyone and you read all you can and you look at all you can. And I thought, this is really amazing. I love. I love exploring how we get to right now. You know what I mean? Because everything has a backstory, you know, like, why December 25th? Why Santa? Why the wreath? Why? Why, why? Why? You can. You can literally go back in time step by step by step, and go, oh, oh, that's. And that came from that. And that came from that, and that came from that. And you go back far enough, and you end up in Rome, centuries B.C. And you go, oh. And you can. You can keep going further back. And I did. I went back billions of years, Vanessa, before there were humans, right? And I went, oh. It's literally the movement of the planet that decided this, you know, and its rotation around the sun. And the thing is that the Christmas holiday has always, always been centered on the winter solstice. And I know it sounds obvious, but if you look all over the world, there's four major holidays, right? It's in most cultures, it's Winter, spring, summer, and fall. And those aren't arbitrary days, they're exact moments. So if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is when the North Pole leans closest to the top, the. To the sun. The winter solstice is when it leans furthest from the sun. And fall and spring are the halfway points, the equinoxes. And then, of course, halfway between each of those are the minor holidays, the four minor holidays, the Celtic New Year, Samhain, or we know it better as Halloween, is halfway between, you know, the fall equinox and the winter solstice. Halloween, everybody thinks of as the scary holiday because of ghosts. But sure, I guess ghosts are scary. But I think of Halloween as the sun setting on the year. And if the sunset is Halloween, midnight is yule, midnight is the winter solstice. It's when the day is very short, the night is very long. In some parts of the world, the sun doesn't even come up anymore, and you got to wonder if it'll ever return. And you've got this scary season ahead of you where everything freezes. And you look out at the landscape and you see that winter kills everything, right? It kills the flowers, it kills the trees, it kills the grass, it kills the ponds and lakes. They freeze solid. It kills everything. And if you're stuck outside in the cold darkness, without food, without shelter, without heat, it'll kill you, too. And there are monsters lurking out there ready to kill us if we venture out where we don't belong in a season where we don't belong. And from all that this, all this fuss was born this. This season of death and despair. Because when we're looking down the barrel of that gun, that awful frozen winter gun, we. There's a few things we could do. We could just scream and cry, or we can party. And humans have chosen the latter for millennia. We said, you know what? We should party. We should get together. We should eat the harvest that. That's just a few months old. We should drink the beer and wine that we made. We should make amends, because this season is really tough to get through, and we're going to need each other. So we'll go back to hating each other in the spring. But for now, let's get together. Let's party down and get through this thing together.
Vanessa Rogers:Yes, I resonate with that so much. I live in Texas now, where we don't really have a ton of seasons. We have summer and less summer or hot and less hot. Yesterday was cool, but today I had to Put the air conditioning back on so it floods fluctuates in the winter, whether or not it's going to be cold or if it's going to be hot. But I have lived in places that had all four seasons, and I do love the changing of the leaves. But I always. I don't love cold weather, maybe because I don't have very good circulation. And so it really strongly affects me. And I get. I get chill blains very easily. So, like, my feet, my fingertips go numb really easily, even when I'm fully dressed. But every time I would see the changing of the leaves and I would enjoy it, but I would also say to myself, this is the harbinger of death. This is the sign that everything around us is dying and winter is coming. And to me, it was frightening in a way, because in wintertime, I hibernate because I hate the cold. It hurts my face. And so. Yeah, and so I definitely resonate with. With that idea and. Which is one reason I live in the south, because I don't really enjoy being cold six months of the year.
Jeff Belanger :Yeah, I get it. Yeah. No, but it's a thing. It's a thing. And when you see those leaves turn brown and fall and die. Now, we know today the trees aren't dead, but they're going to sleep. But they look dead. They look like skeletons. And. And we hear sounds, too, when all those leaves are gone, sounds that you don't hear. Right. Like when it's dark and cold and you hear these shrieking cries outside. I mean, is that just the wind whipping through those naked trees or is that the, you know, the screams of spirits crying out as the Norse God Odin chases them down on his midnight hunt, you know, and, and we're pet. Oh, my God. There's literally a slaughter happening out there on this frozen tundra. And we're scared, and we're scared. But within all that fear, there's also hope. And. And you can look out on the landscape and you can see the hope. That's the beauty of it. You look out and you say, all right, winter kills everything. But wait a minute. What about that tree? That tree over there? It's still green. It's a green conical tree. It doesn't kill that. It doesn't kill the holly bush. What's with these trees that they're so powerful that they can stand up to winter? They must have magic in them. And so we take their branches and boughs and we put them over our doors and windows. So those prickly Needles will keep out those scary spirits during this dangerous holiday. There's a reason we do it. Sometimes we bring the tree inside as a symbol that if this thing gets through winter, I can get through winter. I need its magic. I need its power. And. And so it's become a symbol of standing up to the most fierce, you know, devastating season of them all.
Vanessa Rogers:I love that. I love that. Now, are you someone who, after the Halloween, puts up Christmas stuff, or do you do Thanksgiving things, decoration in between?
Jeff Belanger :I don't do much for Thanksgiving decorations, although my mom. Here's a pro tip. Everyone out there, my mom has these plastic pumpkins with light bulbs in them, Jack O lanterns that she puts out at Halloween. And so they're all spooky Halloween. And then once Halloween's over, she turns them around so they're just pumpkins, and they become Thanksgiving decorations. Pro tip. You can all have that. You could take it. She puts a few of the leave decorations around, and suddenly it looks like Thanksgiving. I prefer to let each holiday and season come before, you know, before I move on to the next one, because I don't want to think. I want to live in the present as much as possible. So. But at the same time, doing what I do now, I'm doing so many Christmas stories that November has become pretty full of Christmasy stuff for me. I'm doing live shows and podcasts and stuff like that. But I love it. I love that we're gearing up for this thing that's coming whether you like it or not, right? The winter solstice is not negotiable. You don't have to celebrate it. I don't care what you do. I don't care what you believe or don't believe. But that solstice is coming no matter what, and it affects all of us, 100% of people, right? Believers, nonbelievers, everyone in between. Especially if you live in a harsh northern climate, that solstice affects you, and we have to be prepared.
Vanessa Rogers:Now, one of the people that you acknowledged was the Krampus Society of New England, which I had no idea that was even a society.
Jeff Belanger :What do they do, by the way? There's Krampus societies. I'm certain there's one or more in Texas, I promise. Just. You just haven't googled it, is what I'm guessing. So Krampus runs and Krampus walks are getting really popular the world over, though it started in Austria and Germany because that's where Krampus hails from. And for those who don't know Krampus is. They call him the Christmas devil. He's covered in fur. Fur. He's got horns. He's got hooves for feet. He carries a switch of sticks, a giant long red forked tongue. And he's covered in chains. So you can hear him coming, you can hear the rattling of the chains. And he carries a basket or a satchel with him where he comes around. On December 5, Krampus knocked and he snatches up naughty children, stuffs them into his bag and takes them back to his mountain lair where he kills them. Now in lighter versions of the story, he just takes his switch of sticks and he hits the naughty children and beats them so they can behave better and still get some presents from St. Nicholas. But he's a monster. And he's become so wildly popular in Europe. He spread, you know, the idea spread because it's just so much fun. So the Krampus Society of New England holds a Krampus ball every early December where people, I mean, and let's face it, a lot of these folks are cosplayers that do other stuff throughout the rest of the year. And this is their December gig. And some of the costumes are amazing. Like I, I know a guy, he's not in New England, but I know a guy who spent literally like fourteen hundred dollars on his Krampus costume. And it's incredible. And he does Krampus events now with, you know, Saint Nicholas and Krampus is making a comeback. Not only was he featured in the movie Krampus and he's in the new movie Red One with the Rock. Right? I mean that movie's coming out in mid November. I don't know how good it is, but Krampus is in it. I've seen the trailer. So Krampus is showing up in like Christmas parades and little towns and stuff. I was giving my Christmas talk at my parents town in Connecticut and I was wearing my Krampus T shirt and someone walked up to me and she said, who is that? I was at the Christmas parade today and I saw this monst walking. What, what is that? And I said, well, I'm glad you're here tonight. By the end you'll know. And afterwards she's like, this is great. I love that he was there. I'm like, of course you do. He should be there. Krampus is the consequence. That's the thing. When I was a kid, the threat was be good or you'll get less presence. And if you're really not good at all. You're going to get colon sticks in your stocking. Colon sticks? Who cares, right? For being naughty for a whole year? Oh, fine, I'll take it. But, Krampus, imagine if I was told, hey, be good. You'll get presents and rewarded. If you're bad, this monster's gonna come and drag you out of your soft, little cozy bed and beat you. Or worse. I would have been like, oh, that's a consequence.
Vanessa Rogers:Yeah.
Jeff Belanger :Getting back to your fairy tales that you read to your kids, right? Cinderella. Remember what Disney and Cinderella. Oh, my foot won't fit in the glass slipper. In the original Grimm tale, she cut her toes off and fel filled it with blood. That's the original, right?
Vanessa Rogers:Right.
Jeff Belanger :That's Krampus. Let's go old school.
Vanessa Rogers:Well, I was watching, and now I can't even remember what it's called. I think it's called Legends or Legend. It was a spin off of the vampire series, the Vampire Diary series. I can't remember what the series was called, but there was an episode where Krampus comes town and he does something to everybody. And St. Nicholas comes in, and they have this epic battle. And I watched this when my children. I was watching it when my children were going to sleep, but my oldest son, who is 7, came in and saw that what I was watching, and he was like, can I watch this with you? And I was like, I guess. I don't really know if this is a good choice for you.
Jeff Belanger :It's a great choice.
Vanessa Rogers:But they have this epic battle, and St. Nicholas ends up, like, reaching into Krampus's chest cavity and, like, pulling out Krampus heart. And, like, now that's all my older son. He thinks that's the most amazing thing he's ever seen. I'm like, yes. I mean, that was pretty cool.
Jeff Belanger :Okay, here's the thing, though. You got it. You got to correct the record on this one, okay? People assume Krampus and St Nicholas are enemies. They are not. They are not enemies whatsoever. They are cohorts. They are the original good cop, bad cop. They're buddies. They work together. They would never fight each other. They're on the same team. So that's been fictionalized and changed in more modern times. But Krampus shows up with St Nicholas on Krampusnacht on December 5, and they work together. St Nicholas rewards the good kids, and Krampus deals with the bad kids so St. Nicholas can keep his hands clean. That's. That's the Original story. And if you look at some of the old postcards from. From Germany and Austria from the late 1800s, you'll see them together. You'll see them walk into the house together. They're not. They're not enemies at all. They're. They're cohorts. And Krampus is the most famous. I mean, he's got the movie deals, right? He rides in limousines and he eats at really exclusive restaurants. At this point, he's gone totally commercial. But he's not alone. There's others who are much worse. He's just the most famous.
Vanessa Rogers:Interesting. Besides the Grinch, who you. You did say was related or ripped.
Jeff Belanger :Off is what I said. Let's call it what it is. Am I accusing Mr. Theodore Geisel, Dr. Seuss himself, of ripping off Krampus? Yes, I am. The Grinch is basically Krampus. There's a scene, if you remember the original animated short, right, where the Grinch.
Vanessa Rogers:Has got his green.
Jeff Belanger :Yeah, it's great. He's in the mountain lair and his little green hair goes whoop into horns, right? And that's Krampus covered in fur, comes down the mountain, tries to wreck Christmas. I mean, whatever. It's a great. It's a great piece of art. It truly is. I mean, it's a classic, and it endures for a really good reason. But I am saying, like, come on, that's Krampus, you know?
Vanessa Rogers:Right, Exactly. Okay. And earlier you mentioned that this saved Christmas for you. And because it's more inclusive. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Jeff Belanger :Yes. So at some point, the birth of Jesus was assigned to the winter solstice. And you have to understand, in the Bible, the birth of Jesus gets very little ink. There's not much of the story because it's not important. And I can't stress that enough. I'm not saying it's not important, but it's not important to the story of Jesus or Christianity. From a historic, folkloric, biblical, religious perspective, the birth of Jesus does not define Christianity. The Easter story, that's the thing that it all hinges on, right? The death and resurrection. And that gets tons of ink in the Bible. If Jesus's birthday was important, you'd think the Bible would have told you what it was. But instead, in Luke, the book of Luke, you get one clue, and that is he was born. While the shepherds lay sleeping, keeping watch over their flock by night, the angel of the Lord appeared before them, and they were terrified. And in that area of the world, shepherds would sleep out with their flock basically in spring, summer and fall, which means the only season you can rule out is winter. It'd be too cold, they wouldn't be out there. So and Jesus was born a commoner, which is really important to the Jesus narrative and story. Right? A commoner. And then he rose up to become, you know, the savior. That is the story of Christianity. Which is why when I say the birth of Jesus isn't important to the story, that's what I mean. Now centuries later, the Emperor Constantine in Rome converted to Christianity. Christianity was outlawed in Rome for the longest time. He repealed that and he said, look, we're going to unify Rome under one God, didn't ban the others. He wasn't going to ban Saturnalia. Saturnalia was a raging like, you know, week long party that had been going for centuries. It's, it was too popular. And Saturnalia took place between December 17th and the 23rd. So huge day. And in the Julian calendar, the winter solstice was December 25th. Saul Invictus Day, the Sun God. Because the sun starts to return on the solstice, right? It's, yes, it's the shortest day but after that the sun returns. And so Constantine knew if he was going to sell Jesus and Christianity to the masses, that Jesus needed to be a king. And royalty did keep track of their birthdays back then. And he's not just a king, he's a king of kings. So kings need birthdays. He said December 25, Sol Invictus Day will be the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus. The raging week long party of Saturnalia, we're going to tack on another day, you know, and people could get on board with that. And though it wasn't out though he didn't outlaw the other religions. Christianity was then legalized and it became the official religion of Rome. And that's, that was the first time and it was, that was in the 3,330ad that was the first time that December 25th was acknowledged as the celebration of the birth of Jesus. But it has nothing to do with the Jesus story. And they were trying to convert people. So they said look, we already have this huge festival called Yule up north, Saturnalia down south and like the Rome era area. So this is, Christianity has done this forever, right? They just, they just sanctify something and say, well that's Christian too. The goddess Esther, the fertility goddess represented by the bunny and the egg, right? Became Easter, you know, and that's yeah, so you've got. And that's the rebirth, the born again, the. The resurrection of Jesus. So anyway, so they were trying to just basically attach their, their, you know, their guy to this huge holiday. And it worked. Now today we think of it's like, oh, it's about Christmas, but it's not. It's only about the solstice. And, and those winter, like in Yule, up north, you know, they would pass around, the Vikings would pass around the drinking horn and everybody would drink from the same cup, signifying that we're all equal right now. In Rome, during Saturnalia, the masters would become the servants. Servants could play the masters. Everybody was equal. They closed the schools, they closed the businesses, the courts, and we partied and we gave gifts to each other and we just, we lived as one because we know we want to celebrate the harvest we had, and we also want to make sure we get each other through this difficult season. So it included everybody. Whatever you believed or didn't believe, it didn't matter. The winter solstice affected everyone. And so up north with Yule, they had those similar parties with a similar idea, like, let's all get through this together, let's make amends, let's give each other gifts, let's feast. And same in the south with Saturnalia. And once you understand that is the significance and importance of the holiday, you do realize that, yeah, it's everybody. Jewish people, atheists, everyone in between, you know, Muslims, Hindus, like, you can have it and you can call it whatever you want, call it Midwinter, call it Yule, call it Saturnalia, call it anything, and it's all yours. And because, I mean, I had a Jewish friend when I was a little kid, and I remember being like, oh my God, Santa's anti Semite, right? Like, he doesn't like Jewish kids. It's so terrible he doesn't come to visit you, but Santa's the greatest guy ever, right? And I was just so. I was so struggling with that. And now I realize, like, hey, to my Jewish friends out there or whoever, you can have Santa too, because Santa, by the way, ready to. This. This blows many Americans minds. In most of the world, Santa Claus and Saint Nicholas are two different people. They're two different people.
Vanessa Rogers:Okay, let's talk about this. Let's. Who are they?
Jeff Belanger :So if they weren't two people in your mind before, please, I'm asking you now to separate them, okay? St. Nicholas is a real man. His name was Nicholas of Myra. He was the bishop of Myra, which is modern day Turkey. He lived in the 3000 AD and a lot of miracles were attributed to him. He became like the every person's saint. And not only that, the church didn't make him a saint at first. It was the people that called him St. Nicholas. So many miracles, like for example, ships in a storm. And he knelt down and prayed that the storm would clear and it cleared. And he became the patron saint for sailors and the patron saint for pawn brokers. And he was born a wealthy guy who was orphaned. And he gave his wealth away his whole life because that brought him joy. He gave dowries to women that didn't have them. He threw money through windows so people could have food. He left gifts and so on and was just beloved by everybody. And so upon his death, he became Saint Nicholas. More churches were named after Saint Nicholas than any of the apostles. Right? Like this. He was a huge figure. And his day is December 6th, St. Nicholas Day. That's when he brings the presence over in Europe and did for many centuries. That's, that's the. The guy that shows up, which makes December 5th, Krampus knock. The night before when he and Krampus would show up together. That is St. Nicholas.
Vanessa Rogers:Okay?
Jeff Belanger :Santa Claus really doesn't come onto the scene until the late 1800s. And he's much more of an American invention, obviously, heavily influenced by St. Nicholas. But over here, he became the gift giver on December 25, which was not really a very big holiday whatsoever. Not until the latter half of the 1800s and early 1900s did Christmas start to become. You had to go to work. You had to freaking go to work. Right. For most of time. And that's because, you know, it wasn't really a big deal. In fact, Massachusetts, where I lived, the Puritans banned Christmas. You'd be fined, like, basically like three days pay because they knew it was pagan. This is pagan. We shouldn't be drinking and making merry and dressing festive and overeating. It's wrong, wrong. And they banned Christmas for years because. Yeah, because it was pagan. And that they didn't want people celebrating it.
Vanessa Rogers:Wow. So wait, so when did Santa Claus. So how did the 25th start becoming a gift giving time then?
Jeff Belanger :So really, this guy wrote this ghost story, an absolute masterpiece. A masterpiece beyond masterpieces. Charles Dickens, Chuck D, as I call him, he wrote this book called A Christmas Carol. And that man literally invented Christmas. Right? It was not a big holiday before Charles Dickens. It was A time for ghost stories, people like that. And it was a night for, like, you know, making merry. And it was sort of like a holy day. It was a day of reverence. But it was not a huge thing until his ghost story, his scary ghost story embodied what this, what the holiday is supposed to feel like. Help one another, help the poor, give to charity, get together with family, give gifts and so on. And that book took off to such a degree that it really redefined the holiday. Santa Claus. But, but that was Europe first, right? Charles Dickens wouldn't come to America because slavery was still legal. And he thought it was just the ugliest thing ever. He was over here, he loved America, but he was served dinner by a slave. And it disgusted him. He said, I can't abide going to the United States while slavery is still legal. After the Civil War ended and it was abolished, America was hurting, trying to put itself back together again. And Charles Dickens came over, starting first in Boston, and he started reading his story. And then the book took off. And then Christmas became a bigger day. And then, you know, Congress stepped in and made a federal holiday. Finally. You don't have to go to work or school anymore. This is all the latter half of the 1800s. And then it was also around the time of the Civil War that Harper's Bazaar started. Harper's Magazine started drawing this little jolly old elf figure that was on the Union side giving gifts to the soldiers around Christmas time so we could remember them, you know, when they're out there fighting. And that figure is the one that evolved into this more, you know, Santa like figure. But the, he really came into his own when a, a soft drink company called Coca Cola used him to sell soda, to sell, you know, soft drinks. And that was, that's the game changer. That's, that's what did it. You know, that ad Charles Dickens.
Vanessa Rogers:And Coca Cola is who we make completely commercial, right?
Jeff Belanger :And so at that point, so America was struggling financially, you know, during the Great Depression. And Coca Cola came up with this. When you, when you picture Santa Claus in your mind right now, you're picturing what Coca Cola originally drew. Everything since has been a derivative of that. And so they used them to sell Coke. And it worked. People bought more Coke and suddenly other businesses were like, wait a minute, Coca Cola doesn't own Santa Claus. We could use them too. And so suddenly, imagine if you could get the world's biggest celebrity to endorse your product. Or service for free. Right. What a deal. And at that point, people realized the only way out of an economic depression, ironically, is to spend money. That's the only way you get out of an economic downturn. And so all of retail started really pushing Santa Claus. And you got to give toys to your kids, and you got to be good, and you got to. You gotta. You gotta. And from there, it exploded. We got out of the Great Depression partially on the back of Santa Claus. Right. And from there, Santa and Christmas became synonymous. It became heavily commercialized. It became the most important economic holiday of the year to the point where they moved Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was always the last Thursday of November. And at some point, retailers said, gee, that sometimes doesn't give us a lot of time to sell stuff for Christmas. So it was moved to the fourth Thursday in November. And that was all during the time. The rise of Santa. So. So we. We switched our whole economy and. And mindset really, during the Great Depression, centered on Santa Claus and commercialism around the holiday. That's when it started, and that's when he blew up.
Vanessa Rogers:And wasn't he originally blue? Didn't he have a. Harper's had him blue?
Jeff Belanger :Yeah, yeah, Harper's. He was. He was drawn in blue, but. But. But he hadn't really been defined yet. And also. And then there was the. The. The poem by Thomas Nast. Right. Twas the night before Christmas that. That really defined him as well. And that. That poem was a throwaway. He didn't like it when he wrote it, but, you know. Right. Jolly old elf. Elf with a. Like a bowl full of jelly, a big old belly. Right. Like so. So he had reindeer. Right. That. That. We didn't know about that until that poem. I mean, so much of his, you know, his canon was written, you know, back then between Harper's, between the poem, between Coca Cola and so on. This legend formed, creating this figure called Santa Claus, based on St. Nicholas, who's a real guy and still kept separate in many parts of the world. Over in Europe, St. Nicholas Day is still December 6th, and Santa will come on December 25th.
Vanessa Rogers:How fascinating. And this is all really important for us to understand the hordes of monsters around this time as well, because it kind of feeds into where they came in our imaginations. Is that right?
Jeff Belanger :So the monsters, by the way, as with any monster, they're ultimately, they're frightening. They could kill us. They could kill our children. But they're here to serve us. We need them. We need them. They never went away. That's the beauty of it right. They got. They got. So once Santa blew up on the scene, all those monsters were pushed back into the far dark corners of our psyche. But they didn't go away. They waited. They were biting their time until we summoned them forth again. And I'm here to tell you, we are summoning them again in the last 15, 20 years because they're leaking into pop culture again and we're talking about them again. And they're ready. They're so eager to get back to work. And in some parts of the world, they never went away. But we're just hearing about them now. For example, I was in Iceland this past summer. Iceland has the scariest monsters. Krampus is the least of your concerns. Krampus, Just be good. Just be good and you don't have to worry about Krampus. Iceland. Iceland has the Grila. And good, bad, it doesn't matter. She's coming for your kids and she's a beast. I bought this. Look at. There she is.
Vanessa Rogers:Okay, for those who are listening, he's holding up a sculpture of a kind of witch like character with a long nose and. Oh, she's a troll. Okay, and what does she hold? There's children that she has in a bag that she's dragging behind her.
Jeff Belanger :Oh, my goodness, she's amazing. I even. I got this over there. Isn't that cute? So here's the thing about Grilla, right? So she. When Iceland was first settled in the late 800s, there were no people on the island. When, when, you know, when the Danish people and the Nordic people first arrived there, because it was covered by ice, the ice retreated, it became an island and there were no people there. But there were trolls and elves and imps and fairies and all manner of magical creatures. And as the Europeans started to settle and build farms and communities, those creatures got pushed back up into the mountains. I was there on the summer solstice when the sun didn't set in Iceland. And if you go there during the winter solstice, the sun doesn't rise, right? You just get a little sliver on the horizon. And in Iceland, that's when you tell your children, like, look, during the winter solstice, the darkest, longest, you know, nights of the year, when it's cold and dangerous, especially out there in the mountains, we stay inside because those creatures that have been pushed up there come down to collect their dew. Grila is the queen pen, right? She's, she's got 11 tails. She's in charge of the ulads, the 13 yule lads, she's got. She's, you know, she's got horns. She's an ogre. She has 13 tails. Excuse me. So she. She comes down from the mountain and she's. She's not looking for good or bad kids. She's looking for any kids that are out there, and she'll snatch them up, she'll bring them back to her mountain lair, cut them into pieces, cook them in a stew and eat them. That's the plan. And you tell that story to your kids and you tell it well because you want them to be afraid, because what's the difference if they go out there in the mountains and die from exposure or from the gorilla? So you tell the story because it's important, right? And.
Vanessa Rogers:And.
Jeff Belanger :And trolls and elves are part of the culture over there. So this one is lethal and makes. And it makes sense and it rings true to. To kids that grew up, you know, hearing about that stuff. So she's. She's a beast. She's the worst. And she's amazing. And when you go to the. The Keflavic airport in December, if you land there, you know how we have Santa in the mall? You can pose for a picture. They've got Gryla with this giant pot. And you can get in the pot and get your picture taken inside Gryla's pot, which is amazing.
Vanessa Rogers:That's awesome. So there was a movie a while back that happened in Alaska, and I don't think it was a particularly good movie, but it was a vampire movie and it took place during midwinter, when the Alaskan sun also does not come up. It's during the same time period. And the vampires basically take over the town during this time because, you know, they're afraid of the sun and there's no sun to be had for, what is it, several weeks. How long is it that. And so they basically takes how far.
Jeff Belanger :North you are, but. Yeah, yeah.
Vanessa Rogers:Are there any stories about vampires as well? Or. Or is that just like completely a. An Americanized version of our.
Jeff Belanger :Oh, God. I've worked on a ton of stories about vampires. Vampires in Europe and England, anyway. Before Bram Stoker, right. Were walking corpses. They fed on the lifeblood of the living. And so we have a number of. Here in New England, we have a bunch of vampire stories of people who were exhumed and their bodies, their corpses were mutilated in some way, either burned or their hearts pulled. Pulled out and burned, or they're brick put in their mouth or something to disrupt the corpse because it was believed they were Spreading tuberculosis. And it didn't happen once or twice. It happened a dozen times that we know about. So there were people who were accused of being vampires and exhumed for it. So I don't know any specific tied to the Christmas holiday.
Vanessa Rogers:Yeah, it just made me think of it when you were talking about how in Iceland, they have a period of time when they have no son, and that movie took place during that exact time. And so their monster was vampires running amok.
Jeff Belanger :Sorry, Vanessa, the grill is not enough for you. You got to worry about vampires, too. And the new lads and the cat, like, they're scared enough. Can you give them a break? Right? There's only so many monsters they can avoid in one season, you know? Give them a break.
Vanessa Rogers:Okay. And then there's another monster that you mentioned is Belsnickel.
Jeff Belanger :Bel Schnickel. Belsnickel's awesome. He's. He's also making a comeback because he's showing up in pop culture as well. Bel schnickel. It means Nicholas and furs and Belsnickels, like Krampus Light. If Krampus is a little too brutal for you and your family, Belchnickel is. He wears a patchwork of furs, and he carries a switch of sticks, and his face is covered in soot. He's dirty. And he'll show up at your house, and every village would have one, right? So he'll show up at your house a couple weeks before the holidays, and he'll knock on the door and you'll let him in, and he'll say, hey, any naughty children around here? And you might say, well, hey, my daughter's been angel all year, but my son, not so much. And what the Belsnickel will do for you is he'll take your son out back, tie him to a tree, and beat his ass. Just beat him mercilessly. And he'll cry and scream, and then he'll come back in, and he can get right and fly straight in time for. For Christmas and get some presents. And so one year could be my turn to be the Bel Schnickel in our village. And next year, it could be your turn, and you could come beat my kids. So that's how it works. And he's making a comeback because if you've ever watched the show the Office, there's a scene where Dwight Schrute comes in as the Belchnickel covered in furs, holding a switch of sticks. And I think it was called Dwight the Dwight Christmas episode.
Vanessa Rogers:Yes.
Jeff Belanger :And if You've seen. Yeah. Well, that's Belsnickel suddenly showing up in pop culture three years ago. Four years ago, Christmas Chronicles 2 on Netflix with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, real life husband and wife playing Santa and Mrs. Claus. The. The antagonist was a kid with, like, a black leather jacket and black hair and black hat, and his name was Belchnickel. Like, that was the antagonist of the movie. And so he was there to try to destroy Christmas. Again, not accurate, because he's not the enemy of Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas. He's a cohort. They work together. Except Belchnickel works alone. He doesn't show up with St. Nicholas like Krampus does.
Vanessa Rogers:But unlike Krampus, Belchnickel is an actual human who's dressed up. And this is actually something that someone would do and go around villages and beat children for the other parents so that they didn't have to do it themselves.
Jeff Belanger :That's right. And not only that, like, you consented to it. You would say, this one. This one right here needs your services. Belichickel. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Please have a whiskey before you go. Right, so, yeah, no, you. You consented to it. I first heard about Belsnickel maybe, like, six or seven years ago. I was working on my PBS series, and we heard about this historic home in Niantic, Connecticut, that instead of bringing in Santa Claus for the children, they brought in Belchnickel. And we're like, we gotta get our cameras and see this. It was amazing. So they started this tradition. Now, as I interviewed the director of the museum, and I said, does he actually beat the children? Because I feel like that would have made national news, you know? And she's like, no, no. Yeah, right. She's like, no, our Bel Schnickel doesn't beat kids. He just tells the story. He carries a stick, though, and his face has got the dirt and he's got the furs on and everything else. And he. He just talks about, you know, his Germanic roots and how, you know, he shows up around Christmas time to make sure people behave because it's important. And I went, oh, that's great. I said, I prefer the beating, but that's me, you know, I get it. So, yeah, so Bel Schnickel making a comeback, showing up in various, you know, pop culture things now. And I love that. The thing is, I don't even think it's a cultural appropriation. I think these monsters belong to all of us and they serve us. And if you need to summon Belsnickel into your home. If you need to summon Krampus into your home, then so be it. Then you do it. You know, you're allowed. I give you permission.
Vanessa Rogers:Now, are there places where this is actually still happening, where there is a Belsnickel that is still actively going from house to house, or is this more just a historical event that used to occur?
Jeff Belanger :Nayantha, Connecticut. I think they're still doing their Bel schnickel. So you're looking for places with heavy German influence and so in Germany, absolutely. And in Austria, sure. I mean, bel schnickel still comes around. He's, he's a figure. He'll show up in parades and things like that. You know, he's more of a minor star now because Krampus just eclipsed everybody because of all the movie deals. It's really gone to his head. He's impossible to hang out with now because it's just, you know, my Rolex this and my Ben's that, you know, but he's not alone. He's just the most famous.
Vanessa Rogers:Huh. And then in your monster chapter, you also mention wassailing, which I thought. Wasselling. Is that how you say it?
Jeff Belanger :Here we come a wassling?
Vanessa Rogers:Yeah, I always mispronounce it. It looks like wassailing to me because there's a drink called wassail. Is it, is it wassail or is.
Jeff Belanger :It, you know, wassail punch? It was, it was the toast that they made. Right, like so wassling. I always thought because that here we come a wassling. And the Here we come. I. But I grew up hearing that song. But then you also heard it, Here we come a caroling. And then, you know, it's the same song. And I thought, oh, wassling and caroling are the same thing. It's not, it's not the same thing at all. Over in Europe, wassailing, These folks would come around the time, you know, the cold months of the solstice, and they would offer to sing blessings to your fruit trees in your orchard or sing blessings to the animals in your barn that they would have a prosperous season next year. And you would give these folks money or food, but also a boozy punch with alcohol in it to keep them warm. Nothing too strong. You don't want them totally drunk, but you'd give them this boozy punch in a big wassling bowl that they would pass around and they would each sip from. And so you would literally Hire their services. It was a. It was like performance art, but also like a beggar's night kind of thing. And so that's where the tradition comes from. Going door to door, offering a blessing. And you don't dare turn it away, Right? Because what if you're like, oh, no, thank you, and then something goes wrong with your crop next year, you're going to regret that. You take no chances. So you invite them to give that blessing.
Vanessa Rogers:But then it changed.
Jeff Belanger :It changed because it's very pagan, right? And as Christian influence got stronger and stronger, it was, hey, you know, whoa, whoa. Don't sing to our trees. That's weird. You could sing Christmas songs and now bring us some figgy pudding. Bring it right here. They're still begging, but it's not. Didn't quite have the pagan charm that it did before.
Vanessa Rogers:But I think at some point. You said after the Industrial Revolution, it became a little bit more violent.
Jeff Belanger :Yes. So during the Industrial Revolution, you have to remember, people were mainly furloughed or laid off for the winter because factories could only operate during the sunlight hours. Right. They didn't have artificial light. So. And if the factory was run by a water wheel, the streams sometimes froze and the water wheel wouldn't work. You could just. Couldn't work. And so you would lay everybody off. And so those employees would come around to employers and be looking for handouts. So they would sing and they would ask for, you know, blessings, and you gave them the good stuff or else. Right. It became. It became a steam valve if you took care of them. Now we call it holiday bonuses. It hasn't changed. It's just today we expect a holiday bonus if we work for an employer and if you. If you take care of the people at the holidays. This is true today. It was true 400 years ago. If you take care of your employees at the holidays, they'll often forgive you for a whole year of abuse. Right? Like suddenly someone hands you a check or back then some meat or some food or some ale or some wine, and you'd be like, you're all right. Okay. I'm going to go be homeless for the next two months until we can work again. But thanks so much. Right? I'm gonna have a darn good night tonight.
Vanessa Rogers:So, of course my wife and my children are at home. Free things. But, you know.
Jeff Belanger :Yeah. Hey, how does it go? Right? That's how it goes. So. So. So, yeah, it turned into, you know, you would sing for your supper. You would. That's how you got through that season where you couldn't work and your employers gave generously or else, I mean, or you left or you quit or you broke their stuff or whatever, so they had to take care of you in some way. And that was a really inexpensive way to do it.
Vanessa Rogers:Interesting. So I'm getting this sense that. So we did this episode recently about the girl who danced with fairies, and we talked a little bit about Halloween and how the Catholic Church changed it some and included Souls Day, which is on November 2nd. And people went door to door begging for what was called soul cakes. And I'm not really even clear what soul cakes are, but it seems like this tradition of people going door to door was more common and happened for multiple holidays. Is that. Do you have any sense of that?
Jeff Belanger :Well, sure. So, beggars Night. Right. So Samhain, Halloween. Right. All Hallows Eve. Samhain was the Celtic New Year. And it was a time when the veil between the world of the living and world of the dead was at its thinnest. And that ghosts and monsters and imps and fairies could come into our world and meddle in our affairs. So we'd light bonfires, we'd leave out food offerings for the dead. We would dress up our kids as these beastly monsters in the hopes they wouldn't get snatched up and dragged back down into the underworld. And so when we offer food to someone who comes to our door, we're not sure if it's a kid dressed up or an adult dressed up or if it's really some beast from the underworld, but we take no chances. Here, here's some food. Please don't kill me, right? Please don't. Don't mess with me and Dia de los Muertos, right, The Day of the dead, which is November 1st and 2nd, and you literally go and you commune with your ancestors. You sit in the graveyard and you eat their favorite foods and you remember them, and you eat candies and so on. So this notion of a time to commune with the dead and also get a handout, a free handout, is super old. It predates Christianity for sure. So really, any excuse to go out and get free booze and treats, like, we're on board, you know, you don't have to ask me twice. I'm there. Let's go.
Vanessa Rogers:Yeah, absolutely. I want to taste these soul cakes. I hope they're good.
Jeff Belanger :Well, if they're not good, you're going to be in trouble, aren't you? Yeah, so they better be good. You can't hand out junk, people be like, oh, this soul cake sucks. Watch your back tomorrow, you know?
Vanessa Rogers:Yeah, yeah. Or I'm coming back tomorrow and it better better. Yeah, right, okay, so. But there are lots more monsters in your chapters and I couldn't go through every single one. So can you just give us highlights of some of your favorites?
Jeff Belanger :I love the. I love the Tomten from, like, the area around Sweden and Norway and so on. The Tompton is a helper elf that will help you with your house chores and with your animals and things like that, but also there to keep you in line. So if, like, if you're not. If you're. If you're slacking on your duties with your chores or whatever might slap you around a little bit. And all they ask for in return is that on Christmas Eve you leave out a bowl of Reason Grat, which is this sticky sweet rice pudding. That's a treat that they love. And if you do that, they'll serve you for another year. If you don't do that, they might leave you. And that's the worst thing they could do to you because then you would have absolutely no help. And from there. And if that. If you've ever. So if you've ever. You've seen a Thompson, I promise you I have one right here. He's basically all hat and beard and, like, no feet.
Vanessa Rogers:So he looks like a little gnome.
Jeff Belanger :Exactly. That's. So you see these all around Christmas, the Tompton. And so they disappear, you know, after they're well taken care of. So I love that one. And really, if you think about the story and the description we basically just described, Elf on a shelf. Who we kidding? Right? I mean, that's. Am I accusing them of ripping it off? Yes, I am. Again, right, that's another ripoff. In Wales, we have the Marilod, which is. It means gray mare. And around the holidays, she rises from the grave. She's a ghost horse and she has handlers. So she's depicted. It'd be a literal horse's skull with a jaw that claps. And she'll have a sheet over her. And don't mind those human legs you see below the sheet. Ignore those. She's going door to door with handlers. And there's a call and response very much like a wassling element. So there's a call, a rhyming call and response where we're trying to get in your house and you let us in and we're going to pull some mischief. We're not going to be Too destructive. But you are going to give us treats and booze. This is so important, right? So you give us treats and booze, we say a little blessing and then we go to the next house where we get more treats and booze and more call and response and more. This made a comeback. This, this got really obscure. It was only celebrated in a few towns in southern Wales, but now there's Marilot festivals again and, you know, Krampus shows up and, and people, there's websites that'll teach you how to build a skull where the jaw clacks just right. People are putting like electric light bulbs into the eye sockets of the horse skull and it's just become a bigger thing and it's something that started in Wales but, you know, has, has spread a little bit. Not as much here in the us but you know, it'll come. Yeah. Give it time. Anything that's cool and leads to free booze and like dressing weird. Like, I don't know, it's, that's just fun. Why wouldn't you do it?
Vanessa Rogers:That's right, yeah.
Jeff Belanger :Yeah. So, so that's the Welsh. What else do we have? Oh, gosh, there's so many. Oh, Iceland also has the Yule lads. They show up for two weeks each and so like on day one, it's just the first one. And then like, for example, day one on December 12, he's called the sheep coat Claude and he comes and he's just going to mess with your sheep. So watch your sheep for two weeks. I know, yeah, I know. And then the next one that comes is the gully gock and the gully gok is going to come to try to steal your cow's milk. So, you know, watch out for that. And then there's another one who's called Spoon Licker. He gets into your kitchen and he's going to lick your dirty spoons and get the food off of them.
Vanessa Rogers:Another one sounds like a free dishwasher.
Jeff Belanger :You say that, but do you want to use a spoon that's been licked by a troll?
Vanessa Rogers:Like I can wash it off a little bit afterwards, but you know, there's grime and food on it.
Jeff Belanger :You do you know. And then another one's the pot scraper. Another one's a door slammer. He's just going to slam your doors. And they all show up over the span of like 2 weeks until all 13 are there and then they all sort of go away and they're the children of Grila. They're the. You know, they're kind of like one big happy dysfunctional family. And then also Iceland has the Yule cat. And the Yule cat, you need to lay out your new clothes on Christmas Day. So. So the Yule cat sees that you have new clothes. If you don't have new clothes, the Yule cat will kill you. That's right.
Vanessa Rogers:Quite the consequence.
Jeff Belanger :You die. You're gonna die if you don't have new clothes.
Vanessa Rogers:So you gotta make some new clothes.
Jeff Belanger :That's right. You better have your new clothes or you're gonna die, which is great. Which is totally great. So, yeah. So there's. I mean, there's so many. Right. There's so many various creatures and variations of those creatures that show up. Italy has La Bafana, the Christmas witch, which is, you know, she comes on Epiphany Eve, which is January, and she's the best. I'm not Italian, but I would like to adopt this one. She shows up and she will leave a couple of little treats in your shoes on the eve of epiphany, which really marks the end of the Christmas season. But the very best part about the Befana is that before she leaves your house, she cleans it.
Vanessa Rogers:Where are these creatures?
Jeff Belanger :Sign me up. Right, Right.
Vanessa Rogers:I need some creatures who are cleaning my house for me. I mean, that's half of the headache of Christmas, is you make a giant mess and then there's no one else to clean it up except for you. So it's just. I love Christmas. It's a magical time, but it's exhausting as a parent, just entirely draining.
Jeff Belanger :Of course it is, but you do it because someone made magic for you. And it's fun to make that magic. And that magic is real and tangible. And I think the thing about a legend, right, is a legend is a living, breathing thing. It literally can be born, it can move, it can marry, it can relocate, and it can die. And a legend dies when we stop talking about it. There's no other way. There's no other way to kill a legend. And it's a collective thing. It's not just one person. And so every part of Christmas is very real and very tangible, especially to young children. And I would be so sad to have raised my kid without that magic, because I had it. And I appreciate it so much that I couldn't dream of doing anything else for my kid. And I know there's parents that choose not to do this kind of stuff, and that's okay. But I think there. There are mysteries in the world. There is magic in the world. And I think that the tales and legends connect us to not just our parents and our grandparents who started these things in our own family, our own little quirky things that we all. The traditions that we all have in our own families, but it connects us back to our. The deepest parts of our roots so far back that you may not even realize, you know, what you're doing when you're hanging that. At this point, when I hang a wreath on my front door, I'm not doing it because my dad did it. I'm doing it because I want those prickly pine needles to keep the bad spirits out and the good cheer in it. Really, it's. It has meaning other than, well, my neighbor does it, and my dad did it, so I better do it, too. It's. It's December. It has meaning. And now I even make my own wreath. It's. It's not pretty. It's not great, but it's real. And I go into the woods and I cut the branches and I put them in a circle, and I. I tie them up and I make my own wreath. And it works. It keeps the bad spirits out, right? I, I light. I put lights on my house because it's a long, dark night, and if you get lost, I need you to be able to find your way to my house, because I'll give you shelter because I know you do it for me, right? And I, I. I give gifts and I make merry with. With my friends and with my neighbors because I know we've got this brutal season ahead, and we're going to have to see each other through it. And when you understand the meaning of it takes on a whole new thing and the idea of redemption, that we can be redeemed in a single night. Well, I learned that from a ghost story, right? I learned that from Scrooge and being haunted by four ghosts. The first, of course, was his old partner, Jacob Marley, who told him, look, man, you see these chains around me? You see these. These cash boxes? Yours was just as long seven years ago, but you've been working on it since. And it's. It's a ponderous chain, right? But if you face this gauntlet, if you're haunted by the ghost of Christmas past and present and yet to come, if you go through all this, there's hope that you can change. And Scrooge wakes up a different person after going through that gauntlet, after facing his ghosts his monsters, his demons from his past, he comes out changed on the other side. And that is the beauty of the holiday, that we can change in a single night and be different. Only. Only if we're haunted by ghosts and monsters. Only if we run that gauntlet. You don't get it just by eating cookies and drinking eggnog. You get it from going through something.
Vanessa Rogers:There's no light without the darkness.
Jeff Belanger :That's right. You've got to face it down. And when you face it down, you come out on the other side. And then, of course, by the end of. Of A Christmas Carol, when you're. Whether you're reading it or watching it as a play or a movie or even the Muppets or whatever.
Vanessa Rogers:And Muppets is my favorite.
Jeff Belanger :Yeah, you can have it. It's fine. But there's that moment near the very end of the story where you go, oh, no, I just realized who Scrooge is. Oh, no, Scrooge is me. I'm Scrooge. I'm getting older and more miserly and grumpy and raw humbuggy and, oh, no again, I gotta check myself before I wreck myself. That is what that story teaches us year after year, and that's why we consume it year after year. But you gotta go through the gauntlet. You've gotta face down the monsters, and then you can come out better for it on the other side. And that's all of us. All people. No matter what religion, race, color or creed that you are, you have that opportunity at this time of renewal, at this time when the sun disappears, but it comes back. And that's hope, right? That's hope that we will make it through the winter, we will make it to spring, and we'll get through it together.
Vanessa Rogers:Yeah. And that's such a beautiful message that Christmas can be for everyone. Even if you don't necessarily follow Christianity in America, even though in America it's very Christian oriented. But there are so many other ways that you can celebrate this beautiful holiday, for sure. Well, thank you so much. Are there any last thoughts that we didn't cover? I feel like we covered so much, but is there anything that we missed?
Jeff Belanger :No. I mean, well, there's always more, right? There's always more. And that's the beauty of these subjects, is that if it calls to you'll go find more. You'll dive deeper and you'll find the meaning, and you'll find. You'll find what resonates with you. But, I mean, I just appreciate the opportunity to share the story. Because I know for me, it changed me. It made me really love this time of year. And I never really disliked it, but I did definitely get a little grinchy somewhere along the way. But when you take a moment to understand that hanging that wreath is connecting you to thousands of years of history and legend and lore and cultures that span different beliefs and so on, when you understand all that, it's. It's really there. There is magic, and there's magic for adults, too. It's not just for the kids. You can. You can have the magic and you can have redemption, and you can have hope if you let it in.
Vanessa Rogers:As you were describing all of these monsters and how a lot of times people are going door to door, I just kept thinking, this is trick or treating for adults. Why did we get rid of trick or treating for adults? Because I love trick or treating with my children, you know, and it's a good excuse to go trick or treating. And now people are passing out alcohol for the adults as. As you're going along, at least in our neighborhoods, people are passing out beer and jello shots and things for the adults to also enjoy. But this is something that adults should be, you know, enjoying as well, not just at Halloween, but at other times of the year. So I love that. And so you wrote a book, and so I'll post the link on our website of your book. But you also do a live show, and you're gearing up. We're recording this in November, but we'll be airing this in December, closer to Christmas time. But can you tell folks a little bit about your show and maybe where they can see it? Because you are doing it not just where you're located. You're traveling around, right?
Jeff Belanger :Yeah. So mostly in the Northeast. I've got one in Missouri, one in New York, two in Massachusetts, two in New Hampshire, you know, but it's something I did last year. I'll do it again next year. It's growing. I'm doing, you know, small theaters and stuff like that. It's a. It's a performance. It's a performance of this story for the holiday. We break it down into its original pieces. We put it back together again, and we get to see a lot of the visuals, the great old art, and just talk about how we got to right now and how these monsters are here to. To serve us, to scare us, but also to ultimately bring us together. And. And. And so it's, you know, we book it as like, hey, this isn't a place to bring your young kids this is for grown ups who, who have maybe lost their way and don't want to sit through like some sappy Christmas thing. It's, it's an alternative and it's been so well received. I mean, it was so well received I turned it into a book. And it's just, it's really fun to perform in front of audiences because most people just don't, didn't think about or didn't know the lineage of so many holiday traditions. And it's fun to sort of break it down and put it back together. And I'm not disparaging any belief system. If you're a Christian, let it mean something even more than it did before. Like you can celebrate the birth of Jesus any day you like. December 25th is as good a day as any other. Have at it. You know, you're, of course you can keep that as part of the tradition. Do it, but you're also allowed to allow others in too. You know, it doesn't exclusively belong to one religious group. It belongs to all of us.
Vanessa Rogers:And your show, it's a one man show. Did you do costume changes and nothing like that?
Jeff Belanger :I try to keep it simple. It's, it's just storytelling. It's me and visuals and a little bit of audio. But you know, you get to see the old art as I just sort of spin the tails and you know, I tell it in a narrative that's pretty similar to the book. But you know, like I said, it's just, it's such a fun thing to perform because I've watched audiences change in the course of an hour. You know, like it's really cool to see people sit down not having any clue what they're going to get incredulous at times and then by the end go, oh my gosh, I get it now. And that's magical.
Vanessa Rogers:Awesome. And then they find the magic of the Christmas season.
Jeff Belanger :Well, hey, if nothing else, it'll be a few laughs and a few yucks, you know, for the night. But can't promise a catalytic change for everybody.
Vanessa Rogers:But not everyone can be Ebenezer Scrooge.
Jeff Belanger :No, no, but I do think that we should understand our traditions and the better we understand them, the better we understand ourselves.
Vanessa Rogers:That was beautiful. All right, well, thanks so much for joining us, Jeff.
Jeff Belanger :Thank you, Vanessa.
Vanessa Rogers:And thanks folksy folks, for joining us on this Christmas Yuletide winter mid winter holiday creepy monster episode. I hope that this was a new and exciting episode for you. I personally learned a lot. And like I said before, everything, all of his books and his website will be up on our website, which is www.fabricoffolklore.com. And you can find the links to he's written multiple books, not just about Christmas. So you can find those as well. And I did find your book on the library. It's a long wait, but I am getting I'm going to read it in its entirety before Christmas, hopefully. And so, like I said in the intro, make sure that you hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. We are on social media. You can find us on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, X, on LinkedIn a little bit. And until next time, keep the folk alive.
Jeff Belanger :I.
Vanessa Rogers:Don'T.
