Credit: © FooTToo, Shutterstock

When thinking of the Christmas holiday, many think of Saint Nicholas. Did you know he had a beastlike companion who disciplines naughty children? The Krampus is a figure in the Christmas folklore of the central European nation of Austria. Krampus didn’t dole out coal, it often threatened ‘bad’ kids with physical punishment. Krampus was modeled after the Christian Devil, also known as Satan, and northern European gods whose worship predated the introduction of Christianity in the region. The name Krampus comes from the old German word krampen, meaning claw.

Krampus originated in the Middle Ages (about the 400′s through the 1400′s), when the famous bishop St. Nicholas became a popular gift-giving figure. Traditionally, St. Nicholas brought presents to well-behaved children on December 5 or December 6, his feast day. Medieval Christians also created a companion for St. Nicholas to discipline badly behaved children, as they pictured the Devil punishing sinners. The companion served as a sort of alter ego of St. Nicholas—that is, another aspect of his nature, or a close associate. This tradition was especially popular in central and eastern Europe. The companion was known as Knecht Ruprecht (Servant Rupert) or Belsnickel (also spelled Pelznickel or Belsnichol) in parts of Germany, Schmutzli in Switzerland, Zwarte Piet (Black Peter) in what is now the Netherlands, and Krampus in Austria.

An illustration of Krampus
Credit: © darko m, Shutterstock

Among the different versions of St. Nicholas’s companion, Krampus was especially frightening. Images of Krampus show him with large, goatlike horns; a long tongue and sharp teeth; and hooves on one or both legs. Some accounts describe Krampus with an empty basket on his back, for carrying away naughty children. In some descriptions, Krampus carries chains, and holds a whip or birch twigs for beating children.

The purpose of Krampus was to scare children into being good. Accounts about St. Nicholas describe the bishop as intervening on behalf of naughty children so that Krampus did not actually harm them. St. Nicholas would scold a naughty child, usually a boy, and tell him that he had to change his ways and obey his parents. Over time, Krampus became a less frightening figure. In the 1800′s in Austria, accounts described Krampus as accompanying St. Nicholas through village streets and to children’s homes, suggesting that he was not really all that dangerous.

In some parts of the world, St. Nicholas developed to become the jolly figure of Santa Claus. Santa’s only associates are elves who make toys and visit with children in department stores at Christmastime. However, the Krampus tradition has survived. Some communities in Europe hold Krampus events on December 5, known as Krampusnacht (Krampus night). People dress up as Krampus and celebrate in the streets. Krampus also has been the subject of novels, television programs, video games, and even a motion picture called Krampus (2015).

Jack-o’-lanterns are hollowed-out pumpkins with a face cut into one side. Most jack-o’-lanterns contain a candle or some other light. Many people display jack-o’-lanterns on Halloween.
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Pumpkins with toothy smiles on porches are a tell-tale sign of autumn and a common decoration for Halloween. Pumpkins transform into jack-o’-lanterns when the seeds are scraped out, faces are carved into the fruit on one side, and a candle or other light is set inside the pumpkin. Why do we hollow out these fruits and set them outside to rot? Why do we call them jack-o’-lanterns? While jack-o’-lanterns have become a well-known tradition, the origin of the jack-o’-lantern is still disputed (argued). 

Irish folklore features a story about a man named Stingy Jack. Stingy Jack makes several deals with the devil, including that the devil cannot claim his soul when he dies. After years of tricking the devil, Stingy Jack dies. Heaven rejects him and the devil maintains his word and does not accept him in hell either. Stingy Jack is given one piece of coal which he puts in a carved-out turnip to light his way as he wanders the land forever.

Many people in Ireland believed they saw Stingy Jack when they saw ghost lights, or ignis fatuus, at night. Ignis fatuus, also known as foolish fire, jack-o’-lantern, and will-o’-the-wisp, is a phenomenon where decaying plants in marshes (swamps) produce methane and other compounds which burn and emit a blue glow. This process is called oxidation. People said ignis fatuus was Stingy Jack walking through the night. The term Jack of the lantern was shortened to jack-o’-lantern over time. The story of Stingy Jack explains ignis fatuus just like many myths and folktales explain natural phenomena. 

On Halloween, many people decorate their homes with jack-o’-lanterns, hollowed-out pumpkins with a face cut into one side. A candle or other light illuminates the face from within, as seen in this photograph.
© V. J. Matthew, Shutterstock

In Ireland and Scotland, people began carving faces into turnips and potatoes. They would set them in windows and outside houses to ward off Stingy Jack and other ghosts. In England, people often used beets. These root vegetables with ghoulish faces are usually set out on All Hallow’s Eve. All Hallow’s Eve was eventually shortened to Halloween. Halloween developed from a Celtic festival over 2,000 years ago in the area that is now the United Kingdom, Ireland, and northwestern France. The festival was called Samhain, which means summer’s end. It was celebrated around November 1. In the 800′s, the Christian church established All Saints’ Day on this date. All Saints’ Day was also called All Hallows’. Hallow means saint, or one who is holy.

When many Irish immigrants established themselves in the United States, they brought along the tradition of jack-o’-lanterns. Seeing there were not as many turnips in the United States as there were in Ireland, pumpkins quickly became a perfect alternative for the tradition. Jack-o’-lanterns were also popularized by Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1848), in which a headless horseman throws a pumpkin at a man who believes the pumpkin is the horseman’s head. Now jack-o’-lanterns are illuminated on Halloween, the last night of October, continuing a long tradition of warding off ghosts in festive, fall fashion. 

October 16, 2017

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a legendary character in German folklore. According to a folk story, in 1284 the German town of Hamelin (Hameln in German) was suffering from a plague of rats. One day, a mysterious stranger dressed in a pied (many-colored) suit walked into Hamelin and offered to rid the town of the pests for a sum of money. After the mayor agreed, the man drew out a pipe and walked along the streets playing a haunting tune. All the rats came tumbling out of the houses and followed the Piper to the Weser River, where they drowned. When the Piper—known in German as der Rattenfänger (the rat catcher)—came to collect his fee, the mayor refused to pay him. The Piper swore vengeance. Once more he walked along the streets playing his strange melody. This time, the town’s children ran from their homes and followed him to a cave in nearby Koppen Hill. The cave closed upon them, and the children were never seen again.

A bronze statue of the Pied Piper stands in Hameln, Germany. Credit: © Axel Bueckert, Shutterstock

The legend seems to be based at least in part on fact. Old writings on the walls of several houses in Hamelin say that on July 26, 1284, a Piper led 130 children out of town and that they were lost in Koppen Hill. Some believe that the Piper was an agent of the Bishop of Olmutz, who in the late 1200′s took many Hamelin children to Moravia, where they were resettled. Others claim robbers kidnapped the children. It is also possible that the legend came from the disastrous Children’s Crusade of 1212. The story of the Piper was popularized in modern times by a famous poem by the English poet Robert Browning.

The story of the Pied Piper has made the picturesque Hameln a major tourist attraction. Along the cobblestone streets of the Pied Piper Trail, every few feet there is an imprinted white rat in a bronze plate pointing the way to the main attractions of the town. The Pied Piper House (1602) is one of the town’s largest and prettiest buildings. Several times a day, a clockwork display of figures in the Wedding House (1610-1617) appears in a window and acts out the Pied Piper story. Chimes in the building play what is said to be the Piper’s haunting melody. Every Sunday from mid-May to mid-September about 80 actors in historical costumes recreate the story of how the children of the town went missing.

November 9, 2012

An ancient skeleton discovered with metal spikes driven through its shoulders, heart, and ankles may be the earliest known vampire burial in Europe, according to a new report released by British archaeologist Matthew Beresford this month. The unusual burial, which dates to between 550 and 700 A.D., was originally excavated in 1959 in the town of Southwell, near Nottingham in the United Kingdom. While archaeologists considered the burial odd, they did not investigate it at the time, and the skeleton was placed in storage and forgotten until now. Recently, Beresford re-examined the skeleton and the site of the burial. He has concluded that it shows an ancient belief in vampires and provides real evidence of the steps people once took to protect themselves from the undead.

Bela Lugosi was a Hungarian actor who gained fame on the stage and in motion pictures as the vampire Count Dracula. As the count in the 1931 horror film Dracula, Lugosi attacked one of the vampire's victims, played by Helen Chandler. (Shooting Star)

According to European legends, a vampire is a corpse that supposedly returns to life and feeds upon the blood of the living.  Stories of similar creatures come from many parts of the world. Most vampire tales originated in Eastern European and Balkan countries, such as Hungary and Romania, but were widespread in Europe. People who committed suicide, died violently, or were condemned by their church supposedly could become vampires. Traditional burial practices in many places developed out of fear that the dead would emerge from the grave as vampires.

Many aspects of the Southwell burial strongly suggested people feared the occupant of the grave might be a vampire. The location of the burial at the fringes of what was a late Roman-era settlement was one indication. Beresford knew that in the past, certain people were buried away from the town or village, along roadsides or near road intersections. This was thought to be far enough away from town to keep vampires from coming back or to confuse them so they would become lost and not return to the town. As an extra precaution, some bodies were staked or pinned into the grave, as was the case in the Southwell burial.

Beresford stated that such treatment was usually reserved for people who were “thieves, murderers or traitors or later for those deviants who did not conform to society’s rules, including adulterers, disrupters of the peace, the unpious or oath breakers.”  Such people were considered especially more likely to return from the dead as vampires. Whether the person in the grave was an actual vampire or simply a social outcast who violated the rules of his society cannot be known. An initial examination of the skeleton’s teeth, however, showed only normal dentition.

Additional World Book articles:

• Dracula
• Folklore
• Rice, Anne
• Meyer, Stephenie
• Transylvania