Krampus: The Power Of Viral Mythology

Over the weekend, I decided to brave the foul weather and watch the new film about Krampus. It is interesting that a film like this has done so well at the box office considering “The Hunger Games” Mocking Jay has held the title of number one for three weeks.

It is also interesting the film is doing so well considering that Krampus is a relatively new Christmas character here in the United States. My German aunt told me long ago that Krampus was a terrifying demon of the woods that never came over on the boat from Europe.

I first spoke of Krampus at a bar where I was called out on stage during a Christmas party. The band recognized me and asked if I could come up on stage and talk about what ever scary thing I could come up with. I thought the only familiar scary Christmas story was of the four ghosts that visited Ebenezer Scrooge.

I didn’t want to bore the crowd, and I certainly didn’t want to go into detail about how the Nativity was very much like an alien visitation so I dug deep into my past and decided to bring the room to silence as I talked about the menacing demon of Christmas.

Today, Krampus has turned into a viral mythology and I am thinking the internet has something to do with the rise of this very terrifying legend.

Krampus is a horned goat-like creature with fangs and a long tongue. He wears around his waist loud clanking bells and in some legends he wears the skulls of naughty girls and boys.

Krampus, whose name is derived from the German word krampen, meaning claw, is said to be the son of Hel in Norse mythology. The legendary beast also shares characteristics with other scary, demonic creatures in Greek mythology, including satyrs and fauns.

The legend is part of a centuries-old Christmas tradition in Germany, where Christmas celebrations begin in early December.

For most people, before the 1800s, Christmas was not a domestic quiet holiday; it was a holiday characterized by unruliness and irreverence. It was sort of like a combination of Halloween, New Year’s Eve and Mardi Gras.

Krampus was created as a counterpart to kindly St. Nicholas, who rewarded children with sweets and gifts. Krampus, in contrast, would swat “wicked” children, put them in his bag or basket and send them to Hell.

Nearly 400 years ago, it was customary to open the windows and the doors of the household to banish the shadow entities into the howling winds of Winter. A candle was lit in every household to protect it from the Winter demons. Prayers were offered and families would kneel on the cold floors praying that demons of the North would pass over their homes and give them yet another year of life.

It was 456 years ago that the Moon had turned to blood in the night sky. It was the lunar eclipse falling at the time of the Yule. It signified the birth of the unconquered sun, and the power of the Triple Goddess in all of her forms. It opened the metaphysical door way for all of the creatures of twilight, known and unknown to go about their reverent and profane activities.

There were no celebrations of the Christ child’s birthday at this time. This time was a dark time and people were cleansing their homes of anything foul that might enter in. Many knew that as the nights grew longer and colder, the nocturnal creatures would visit and do damage to homes and farms. There were many stories about hobgoblins and gnomes that would crawl down the chimneys at night to smell the shoes and socks of the children. If the socks were clean, they would leave a nugget of gold or silver in the toe of the stocking. If they were not thoroughly clean and there was an odor in the shoe or the stocking, the Gnomes would report to the Belsnickel or Krampus to pay the house a visit.

These entities were the chief demons of the woodland. Krampus and Belsnickel were the demons of the North. Children were warned that they needed to watch out and beware of the furry woodland demon that carried the basket of fruit and a huge sack.

During the time of the solstice eclipse, the Moon cast a blood red shadow on the crest of the fallen snow. From Iceland to Europe, these demons were seen. Children would disappear and some were found drowned in nearby rivers and streams.

Children would tell their parents that dreadful little goblins smelling of sulfur, looked half-human and half-animal. These Gnomes appeared under beds, near chimneys and would hide in woodpiles. The Goblins reportedly walked pigeon-toed and some children claimed that these little demons had a cloven hoof with long tails and goat’s legs.

These tales were not limited to children. A demonic entity known as “Spring Heeled Jack” had been seen in England hundreds of years ago and there were many accounts that are now legendary.

The creature was described as walking upright with pointed ears or horns. The demonic creature could spit blue flame from its mouth and had claws for hands.

One woman who was attacked by the creature also claimed that the monster attempted to sexually assault her. It ripped her clothes off and forced her to kiss its face. She said its hands were extremely cold like that of a corpse. Spring Heeled Jack got his name because he was known to jump 30 feet into the air and some reported that he had wings.

There were also reports of “devil’s” footprints in Devon, England attributed to the Demon of Devon. Prints that appeared to be left in the snow looked like “cloven hoof prints” and were left for hundreds of miles. The prints would then stop as if the creature disappeared however; it was found that some were seen on rooftops and on haystacks.

In the new film about Krampus that is in theaters now, one of the most horrifying things is the sound that he makes while he jumps from house to house. As I watched the dark horned figure move – I was thinking about Spring Heel Jack and whether or not this is a molding of some viral mythology. The horned figure has a face that looks an awful lot like the bearded Dark Father or the mythological good king Saturn or a more horrifying Father Christmas.

It is important to note that as we prepare for the dark solstice there is the tradition of the return of the Dark Father known as Saturn who also is connected to Satan in his many functions. Saturn of course is in another pantheon known as Kronos – the Father of Time.

The Saturnalia festivities are deeply rooted in the festival of the New Year or the new sun. It is the way to take a negative influence and change it into a positive. Saturn was always considered a negative influence and is intrinsically associated with man’s limitations, death, blight and decay.

Father Time has always been depicted as a white haired bearded entity that carries an hour glass and scythe. The bearded Father Time looks like a mirrored version of Santa or Ruebezahl, the entity that would gather the children for the Yule sacrifice. Traditional depictions of the Grim Reaper come from the image of Father Time and are a reminder of man’s mortality. It was written in old mythology that Kronos ate his children, which is metaphoric of how time devours all, and on the day of Saturnalia the king of rings approaches with his scythe at the end of the year, we learn that the time of the harvest is at hand.

In ancient times anxieties that existed when the darkness gathered were released by sacrificing a child to the horned god Molech. Krampus seems to be the mirror image of Molech. What is even more chilling is how Molech and the horned Image of Krampus has evolved over time and how in biblical times that ancients knew of the Saturnalian sacrifices to the horned one.

If you open the Bible to Isaiah chapter 57:5, you read about the ancients placing idols of worship under a tree. They inflame themselves under near the evergreen trees and sacrifice their children in the sanctuaries to horned idols. They did so in valley of Ben Hinnom.

In the 1920’s, an explorer had found 6000 funerary Urns in Carthage. They were sacrificed in the sanctuary of Tanit. It was believed that the children were killed in order to provide safety from evil entities and to insure that the Sun would return. This would bring peace and good will to all men according to the ancients.

Molech in effigy had the head of a horned bull.

The horned god had arms where the child would be placed. Ropes and pulleys would raise the arms to heaven. The child would then fall out of the arms into a pile of burning oak. This was the gift under the trees. The gift to Molech would be an exchange for the birth of the Sun, or “Sol Invictus’ the unconquered sun.

It is a very interesting twinning of the entities and the legend and how it all evolved into Santa Claus.

In the beginning demons like Abyzou, Lmashtu and Molech somehow melded the two personalities of both Santa and the Devil.

Krampus and Santa at one time were molded together in a mischievous Gnome called Ruebezahl who instead of moving back and forth through the open hearth of a fireplace, entered and exited the world through a mirror.

These legends took centuries to evolve over time. Now Krampus has arrived in the United States and his image is either cartoonish, or terrifying like in the new movie.

I believe this is happening because of viral mythologies being passed along through social media and a website called Creepypasta.com

Viral mythologies seem to travel as fast as reindeer in the internet age and many of them have been inspired by old folklore. Many Characters like The Rake, Slenderman, and Laughing Jack have all had their characters based on the ancient entity known as the child eater. Many of these creative scary characters can be found at Creepypasta.com and are spreading throughout cyber space.

Both Slenderman and Laughing Jack have both somehow leaped from the internet and have influenced young children to either kill or harm others.

Last year, two preteen girls in Wisconsin lured a 12 year old friend into a park where they attacked and stabbed her 12 times claiming that they did it as a sacrifice to Slenderman. The girl survived. A young girl in Elkhart, Indiana stabbed her step-mom to death, supposedly at the behest of a Creepypasta character, Laughing Jack.

No one has been influenced to murder on behalf of Krampus however, it has been reported that the so-called anti-Claus has frightened Syrian refuges in Europe. Officials in the Austrian village of Virgen are worried its traditional festival of Christmas Devils where Krampus runs amok playfully trying to snatch children for his Christmas feast, is causing panic among Syrians and Iraqis new to the country. As if running from oppression in Damascus and ISIS terrorists isn’t bad enough.

They have been told that the Krampus run is all for fun, and so the refugees have decided to take part in holding a Christmas cookie baking contest.

All I can say is they better not be baking gingerbread men.

Text – Check out Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis Live Nightly @ http://www.groundzeromedia.org