You domb fell right down that ramm and holesome. Reality is questionable time and you just can't let it. Goldy do right here put it on the show with paring normal overload, with Southern hospitality. Haunt and murder may have him one discussing immortality locations where a short past history that comes to light your village with a knack or happy thing to go to sect night hope, but they get to be by your dealthy too. What has he
turned on the light? Mixing in a little comedy to make sure it all fens is just right?
Well?
Who the hill billy horror story?
Now here's your home, Jerry his freaks.
Paul said, there's dogs issues.
And sometimes they're tent preddy, but never the terrence Tracy is usually we want to thank all of our military and civil servants all over the world, no matter which country you represent. Thanks to all you men and women and service animals for everything you do on a daily basis to keep us safe and protected.
You got that right. We love you guys so much and we pray for you all every single day. Thank you so much for everything that you do for this country. It does not go unnoticed.
Tracy We like to always remind people that if you're going through a tough time and you're struggling from whatever mental situation you might be dealing with right now, and there's so many different ones out there to talk to somebody, and.
If you want to go the other route, you can call the Crisis hotline at nine eight eight. You can also text seven four one, seven four one.
We love you guys.
Yep, And you probably heard it on one of the commerc before, but you can also reach out to better help. Yes, who was a sponsor of the show. Yes, all right, everybody, welcome to episode twenty if he'll Billy Horror Stories. My name is Jerry and I am joined by my wife Tracy.
Hey, guys, Merry Christmas.
Yep. We want to start off with saying Mary Christmas to you guys, and thank you so much for the early Christmas present. We asked you guys to give us some reviews on iTunes and we've gotten nine reviews so far, which is pretty strong for a short show. Was what we've been as far as length, and out of the nine, eight of them are five star reviews and there's one four star reviews. Nothing negative in there, so We're very happy that you guys came out to help us.
That's right.
We really appreciate it because we value your guys' opinions a whole lot, so keep in coming.
I also like to throw out a little thank you to History Goes Bumped, because not only did they mention us on the show, but they actually took the time to give us one of those five star reviews and was very honest in their very long review, and we appreciate that.
We do. Thank you so much.
These guys have been great. In the future, they're going to actually have us on their show, which they rarely have guests like that on the show. But they've asked us to come on the show in February and maybe talk about one of the local haunts around here. So when that time comes, we'll let you guys know so you can give us a listen. I want to say once again, thank you for everything you've done for us
this year. As we close out this year, this would be the last show of the year that we do because the next show will be on New Year's Day, and you know, basically, we're getting to do something that we love doing. We're having fun and you guys are giving us constant feedback, which makes it even more fun and just makes us want to give you the best
shows possible. And I can promise you that as good as you think it's been so far, it's going to get better in twenty seventeen because we've got a lot of good stuff planned.
Yeah, we're excited to get to that and hopefully it has some really good, fun and interesting information for you guys.
I do want to say something. I think it's funny because next week we mentioned New Year's Day. Actually, on New Year's Day, I'm going to be marrying my cousin, which may surprise some of you.
You want to talk to me about something.
I'm sure some of you are thinking, well, you live in Kentucky, it's not really that big of a surprise to marry your cousin. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm actually going to be performing the ceremony. It may surprise some of you to know that I'm actually an ordained minister and can perform weddings. So that's the kind of kind of little what to say. As far as the minister stuff goes, that's as far as it goes
as marrying people. Don't. I don't think there could be too many churches that would be thrilled with having me given their Sunday services.
But let me tell you, he's pretty excited that he can park in the clergy parking spot.
Yeah, that is cool because I do have this. I do have the stuff that hangs from the rear view mirror. So if I go to a hospital or something, I can park in the clergy spot and get good spots.
But he never does so.
No, because usually those spots are already taken by clergy. We wanted to give a couple of shout outs on this Christmas night. Actually meant to do this one last week and I forgot, so I dropped the ball on this one. But Chryl and Riley Peters they live in Nebraska. Hey guys, Philip Johnson and Tennessee.
Hey guys, hey listen. I just want to let you know. I'm what's part of Tennessee? Are they from, honey?
I do not remember.
Well, anyway, we love Tennessee. I don't know if you guys are anywhere near Gatlinburg or anything like that, but just know our prayers are with you guys and everybody in Tennessee.
At this time anyway.
So hopefully y'all everybody's going to come back and recover from all that, and we'll be happy to go up there a spring. It's like our favorite place to go in Gatlinburg.
So yeah, it's where we spend our honeymoon. We go every year there, sometimes twice a year, and we actually spent a fantastic Father's Day up there. We actually took my father and Tracy's father up there for a family get away this past June on Father's Day. So to see all this happened shortly after, it's very disappointing because it is one of the country's most beautiful places and
it sucks they're going through there. We actually got a nice letter from somebody right after the fires thanking us for the show and telling us that the listen to the show actually helped them. Even though they weren't personally affected by the fires, a lot of people they knew were and they were thanking us for the show, and we appreciate it.
Yeah, we really do appreciate that. Our parishure with you guys.
I'd like to give a shout out to Alex Paul. That's actually my son, but he gave us a brand new microphone for Christmas, which we're using for this show, so so cute.
I wish you guys could see it.
If it sucks and it's not as good as the other show, so you can blame him for that. But actually the testing I did on it, I think it's actually going to be a little bit better, So hopefully it comes through that way. As usual, we've got some foreign listeners. I want to bring up MJ. Jeriffe in Bangladesh.
I think it's so funny that if y'all could see his face when he's trying to pronounce this, it's like hilarious.
It looks like ga Ron Shrivastava from India. And then we've got this this is a new country that's popping up Cheryl Rosemary and Catherine Gonzales from the Philippines.
Oh awesome.
So now we got some Philippines listeners.
Yay, we're glad to have you.
Okay, we were going to talk about and still are talking about crompus or crampus, depend on how you pronounce it, because I've heard it pronounce both ways. But I feel like we can't talk about that unless we first talk about Saint Nicholas, and it is Christmas, so let's talk about Saint Nicholas. Are you okay with that?
I love Santa.
Okay about Santa Claus, I said, Saint Nicholas.
I love Saint Nicholas too.
All right, so let's talk a little bit about Saint Nicholas and have this whole Santa Claus thing got started. Saint Nicholas was actually a little boy grew up in Turkey, which Turkey now was in Turkey then, but he grew up in Turkey. He was born in March of two hundred and seventy, so that's a longer seventy and seventy. It's a long time ago.
Oh my gosh.
He had rich parents who died of an epidemic at early age, so he got left all of their money and he chose to do good with their money. Good. He became a bishop at a very early age and was constantly trying to help people out. The problem was when the Roman Empire came in and took over, they weren't real big on Christianity, and they threw him in jail and then kind of kicked him out of the country.
They suck boo.
After he got out of jail, he came back, he defended his religion as best he could, and then he even made it more of a point to help out, you know, as many people as he possibly could. Now, some of the stories that go around, and this is what started the whole Santa Claus thing is if you you know, back in these days, when you had daughters and you married him off, you had to have a dowry, which was basically you had to give them money to
get started on. And if you were poor and you didn't have money for your daughters, they were probably going to be sold into slavery. Well that's not well, I mean, that's just the way it is. Well, you know, you know, what, are you gonna say? It was two hundred and seventy that's true.
That's terrible though, that's terrible.
So what happened There was a really poor gentleman that had three daughters. And the story goes that Saint Nick had a open window and he tossed in a bag of gold and it actually, you know, he did this three times. He did it for all three daughters at different times, but the bag of gold each time either landed in a stocking or it landed in a shoe that was sitting in front of the fireplace drying out
right there. So yeah, so that's how the whole theory of stockings and hanging stockings and having stuff put in them was all because of that tradition back then. So that's that's one of the stories about Saint Nick. He also was the type of person that apparently had these
healing powers. How he had them, I don't know. But one of the stories was that these three kids were going to Athens Grease and they went and somehow another, this innkeeper from a hotel, he killed them, robbed them, and he put them in some kind of a pickling jar. I mean a barrel, not a jar. A barrel drug be kind of small. Well it was a barrel. Well, it's still a feat on his own. This it's a big old barrel.
Well, that's just awful.
And Saint Nicholas actually stopped at on route to wherever he was going, he stopped in the same end. He had a dream about this. He grabbed that the innkeeper and brought him down there, made him confess, and then somehow another he brought these three boys back to life.
Oh wow, yay.
And then another story is from France that these three kids that were actually they ran away from home or something. They were killed by a butcher, and he brought those kids back to life and sent them back home to their parents. So for that reason, he's actually the patron Saint of the safety of children. Oh so that's what Saint Nicholas says. But he also on a voyage back
to his homeland. It was like a really bad storm, choppy seas and everything, and he was able to save some prayers and calm the sea to be able to get the boat where it needed to go safely. So he's also the patent's patron Saint of sailors and voyages.
He is amazing.
He is amazing. And then because of all of his gift giving and all of us karen for charity, he's also the patron's patron Saint of gift giving. So he's a patron saint of three different things. He became a saint about one hundred years after he died, which he died December sixth, three hundred and forty three.
Oh my gosh, that is wild to hear that.
I know, that's like only like six or seven years before you were born.
Okay, it's a Christmas I left Hell and to slide.
But because of the fact that it was December sixth, and a lot of parts over in Germany and Poland and some of the other Eastern Bloc countries over there, their still biggest gift giving day is December sixth. December sixth is recognized by a lot of sailors. They have the Feast of Saint Nicholas, and that's kind of the day that they do that we celebrate him right now. The reason that we tell you that is because we're going to talk about Crampus and Crampis to no.
Wait, you say Crompus and then you say Crampus.
I said it was pronounced both ways. I'm trying to make everybody happy. Oh okay, it's gonna be Crampus for the rest of the show. There's not gonna be wavering. It's Crampus. And unlike Christen thought that last week, he's not the patron saintan of PMS. Now Crampis. Depending on who you talk to, they say that it goes back to pagan beliefe even before Christianity, which would have even
been before Saint Nicholas. So Crampis may have been along before the legend of Santa Claus, because you know, the actual Santa Claus thing. In eighteen twenty three, there was a poem written. It was called a Visit from Saint Nicholas, which is, now, do you know what it is?
Christmas?
E's the night before Christmas.
Oh I'm sorry, yeah, yeah, Oh you know. I guess I'm in my mind thinking that. Honestly, I have never heard of Crampis ever. I guess it's because I love Santa Claus so much I wouldn't allow that to enter into my brain.
Well, when in eighteen twenty three, when this poem came out, it was the first talk of ever talking about sweets and candy and presence and all that. And from that is where Santa Claus came. So the visit from Saint Nicholas, which this guy decided to put a bunch of stuff that Saint Nicholas never did, is what then turned into Santa Claus. Okay, So the Santa Claus we know what today basically came from that poem. Gotcha, So there you go.
I love Santa.
Now back to Crampis. The whole thing of Crampis and the reason we brought up Saint Nicholas Is because a lot of people refer to Crampis as Saint Nicholas's shadow in a lot of the earlier beliefs, Crampus basically is evil brother. No, but but Crampis was actually a way of making your children behave you know how. A lot of times now people are like, you know, Santa Claus, he's watching when you're sleeping, and he's watching it and
he knows if you're naughty. Well, back then they just skipped all that and they just went straight to Crampus, will come beat your ass and he'll just take you because that's what Crampus would do. Crampus would he would stuff you into a you know, a bag basically like a golf bag and zip you up and he would take you to the underbellies of the earth. What Yeah, and he would bring Well, we're getting ahead of us.
I'm sorry, So let's talk about.
Crampus a little bit. Crampis is basically half goat, half demon. That's a good combination. So the bottom half of his body was goat goat hoofs stood straight up, and the top half of his body was covered with hair dark and his head had gold horns, big demon style gold horns coming out of it. He had a long tongue, forked tongue that would often roll out of his mouth. So that's me. That sounds enticing to some people, but she got all excited. I say, a forked tongue. It's Christmas,
for God's sake. Stop it.
I'm sorry, y'all, Okay, stop saying.
So Anyways, what the belief was is, as Saint Nicholas would roam the streets and hand out gifts to the good kids, Crampus would be right beside him and actually, you know, torment the bad kids. And like I said, he would carry you know, every time you saw him, he was he was a demon from the depths of Hell, so he was always in chains. That was one of the signature things about crampis he had the chains on him to signify his you know, bound to Hell basically.
But he also carried a you know, a well, I guess you could say, a bundle of birch sticks, which were basically switches, so he'd just whip your ass with them.
Aren't birch twit sticks?
Wait?
Aren't those of those white things the white branches?
Yeah?
Oh, well, at least they were pretty.
Yeah, I'm sure they were pretty. Did you did you ever have parents or grandparents that.
Made you Oh yeah, yeah, plenty of many of times.
I hate to admit.
Yeah, my grandma used to make us do. I remember one year we were so bad. I didn't even have shade.
I know.
I would always go and get like this little teeny littlest little bitty thing you can.
Find, and then they go out and bring back a whole branch, bring back a pine tree that would beat your ass with a Christmas tree. So this is what Crampus did, and as yours went on, it kind of just went to him just being his own. But they would put out in Germany, in Austria and some of the Eastern Block countries, they would put out greeting cards all year long that just had Crampus on there, like
he knows what you're doing. And if you actually look up the internet, you can see a lot of these original cards, and these cards always depict you know, him and his horns, and he's holding a bag and he's shoving kids down into it, or he's he's holding the kid up and he's pulling it, pulling him by the ears. Or pulling a little girl by her braid of her ponytail.
Oh my lord, that's terrible. I know, it's kind of I'm glad I didn't get one of those cards.
If I'd known about this years ago, my kids would have been terrorized, because up to this point, all we would do is take them to haunted houses at Halloween and then threaten them if they wouldn't good to take them back to there. But I didn't know we could do the same thing for Christmas Medaddy. But that's Crampus. That's that's what he does. And it's, like I said, a lot of people say this goes back before Christianity, goes back to pagan days, but it's uh, it's kind
of a scary thing when you think about it. And now we talked about with Saint Nicholas that December sixth is the day that there's a lot of feasts and there's a lot of festivals and stuff like that. For Saint Nicholas, December fifth, the day before, is Crampus Day. That's there's festivals all over the world that have Crampus Day to where people dress up like it. I mean, hundreds of people in the street with the horns coming out of their head and the forked tongue and all that.
It's it's actually, it's actually pretty graphic.
Yeah, well it's obvious.
It's obvious. You've lady made it clear. But crampis, I think, is a pretty cool situation. There's a there's a movie I came out twenty fifteen. It's kind of half comedy half horror movie. I haven't seen it myself, saw the previews for it. It looked like it was kind of cool.
Don't really look like that. It followed the true meanings and beliefs of what Crampus was, because Crampus was basically, if you were a bad kid, you were getting presents, and not only were you not getting presents, you were getting your ass beat and you were probably getting taken away somewhere.
Oh my gosh, what makes me want to cry?
Well, I know some kids that need that. I know some I know some kids that if they got their ass beat and got taken somewhere and came back, the world be a better place. I'm just saying, well, that's true. Probably, So I'm not just talking about new direction. I'm talking I'm talking about mean kids, mean.
Kids, guys it's Christmas.
We're not gonna do a real long show. We're gonna wrap it up. We just want to do something that was kind of fun in the spirit of the holiday. Tell you a little bit about Saint next, tell you a little bit about Crampus, and thank you guys for giving us such a great year. Like I said, we're gonna work hard. It's it's kind of funny because we're trying to work on episodes to do next year, and it's like we've got so many different ideas and we
just I can't even begin to see. I come up with ideas, Let's do this one, and then another idea sounds better, and then this one sounds better. And I'm working on this wedding at the same time, and he really is marrying his cousin. What's gonna get screwed up is because, like I already know, next week, I'll let you in. Next week, we're gonna do the Bell Witch. I want to do something special for the first episode
of the new year. If you've never heard the story of the Bell Witch, it is truly one of the greatest American horror story type deals because it happened and I think it was the eighteen hundreds. It happened in Tennessee. You get some demon possession, you get some poltergeist activity, you get some witchcraft. It's an awesome thing to do.
My concern is, as I'm writing this wedding for my cousin and I'm trying to prepare for the show at the same time, is that I end up screwing stuff up and mixing stuff that would be awesome and I can't imagine that I'm at the wedding saying something like, Todd, do you take this witch through sickness and in health, demonic possession and some kind of you know, that would be great? Actually, yeah, I don't think that would be great. I think it'd be funny. I don't think he would
have the amusement that we would have out of it. Well, so anyways, we thank you guys. We love you guys. Keep putting those reviews on iTunes. It helps us more than you realize, and be listening for us. We're coming on some other shows in the near future. We'll let
you know when that happens. And we're excited about what the future holds, and we thank you guys for giving us that excitement because we wouldn't have any of it, wouldn't for you guys, So thank you, thank you very much, and Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.
And happy Honukkah and happy Kwanta. And I don't know any other religions. I'm poor, but I don't know when.
That is not happy Crampus, Not happy Crampus, he's out, happy.
Fest of us everybody. They would like to thank you folks for kind of dropping and we're
All invited back next week for this locality to have a heap and helping of their hospitality and kilduy that is, I'll come back now here