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We were talking about Christmas in the darker side of Christmas traditions and I am kind of wondering, let's start here. Let's start with why we are so fascinating. I guess we have been since a Christmas Carol. What is it that connects to us about the ghosts of Christmas past and future and maybe the maybe it's the end of the year, some of what you've done and where it can go. What do you think fascinates us with that, that that keeps on sticking to our guts?
Yeah, it really does. I think a lot of it comes from I mean, it's literally in our genetics, it's in our DNA. For centuries, there has been traditions of pretty much we're going into the darkest time of the year. You know. Again, the timing of this show is very serendipitous because winter Solstice started on the at least on the West coast. Y'all are still in the first day
of the winter solstice over here. It's a little bit after now, but we're entering into you know, really long nights, very short days, and I and during you know, this time, our ancestors, uh, they were staying inside, you know, because it was cold. It was cold, you know, you had a fire roaring with candles. It was the perfect time to dive into ghost stories and you know, spooky stories.
And you know, some of these stories were did have a bit of a grim's fairy tale vibe to it, because you know, they were lessons to be learned and and whatnot. But but in a lot of in a lot of different traditions, especially like pagan traditions, especially in Norse paganisms, like this was the time when uh, the you know, you know, those who have who who were who were dead, their spirits would be released from their bodies and then Odin of the Wild Hunt which come
and collect their souls. So you didn't want to be outside during this time because then you could be swept away by Odin and the wild Hunt. And so this idea and this belief that you know, the veil is thinner, you know, spirits are wandering about. This is this is a very old concept and I think that really inspired a lot of the ghost stories, and that fascination has continued since and I think in our modern day too, you know, Christmas is very much this, you know, festive, joyful,
lots of colors and light, this event. But then you have the almost like a juxtaposition of it with the ghost stories that's a little bit darker. And then of course Charles Dickens managed to who's who is responsible for our current state of Christmas? And I, yeah, I think so. And you have Charles Dickens who comes in and integrates this darker side of winter with the joyfulness of the holidays and puts it all together and does it quite successfully.
I don't know, I don't know at what age group you are, but when I'm thinking about a Christmas Carol, I'm thinking about all these seventies and eighties sitcoms that had a version of a Christmas Carol that you know, growing up, you would see that and then you would see him on repeats over and over and over against So that basic story seems like it permeated our worlds, like sort of the be careful what you do in this round, because all the ghosts are going to come
haunt you and sort of show you your bleak future if you don't get it together. Now, it's sort of a well, it is a cautionary tale right, but when you were talking about ghost stories, I'm gonna put you on the spot here, I know. But you should have been ready for this because we haven't done anything on our list of questions yet. Will you tell us a scary ghost story that maybe somebody might have told around that fire back in the day. Can you give us one,
and then we'll talk about the monsters. But let's do storytime first.
Yeah. So, actually, one of the one of the most believe it or not, one of the most famous ghost stories that were told that was told around Christmas time is the Turn of the Screw. And if you if you've watched The Haunting of Blind Manner, debt is what that is based on the Turn of the Screw it is.
So that's actually one of my favorite Netflix shows. Yeah, I'm so good.
Yeah, so it's it was written by Henry James in eighteen ninety eight, so it was told a little bit after Christmas Carol came out, so the whole telling of ghost stories at Christmas was very much well established by this time. But yeah, so you have this in the Turn of the Screw. You have a governess who was hired to take care of his niece and nephew. And while she is, you know, taking care of the kids and in the house, she starts noticing some really weird things,
like the children's behaviors very odd. She starts to see ghosts around the house and they look strange, they have like they just don't look right, and she's finally able to identify them as ghosts. But while she's trying to take care of these children, she's realizing that these children are also seeing the ghosts as well, and they're being
influenced by these uh by these ghosts. And then finally, in like the pinnacle of it, the governess Uh ends up having to save the little girl, the niece uh because the niece has been talking to a ghost by the name of Miss Jessel, almost surrounded and then finally
is able to save her. But yeah, but then it comes to fruition that these children were possessed by these ghosts because they are because the other the other son, Miles Uh, he's saying that he remembers he he knows he was expelled from from school, but he doesn't know why. So there's like that story of possession. So there's this whole thing of Unfortunately, turn the screw does have a little bit of sadder ending. I don't want to spoil it for anyone. It is a little different from the
Haunting of Blind manner. But yeah, so there's there's so that whole idea of like, you know, you have a governess coming in and take care of children and there's something weird in the house to children aren't acting right, and then it just comes to this comes to fruition with this finale of like there's ghosts and they're possessing the children. But this is a very popular story, uh, during during the holidays.
There's something too, I think about when when you're telling that, I'm kind of visualizing things in my head and you get like sort of a snow covered landscape where it's sort of cold. It almost feels like, well, there's no escape from the ghost either. You're sort of snow bound and you're trapped in this this sort of icy kind of purgatory. That feels like it's a little extra MacB to me too.
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's the thing, you know, being trapped in being unable to go out, especially as a Victorian age like you did not girally go outside in the winter unless you absolutely had to, and if you were out in the country, you're not You're not going to see anybody until spring, So like you were stuck.
What inspired you to kind of explore the darker side of Christmas traditions?
You know? So for me, you know, growing up and having Christmas, you know, with my family and everything, you know, always very positive, very you know, mule tie joy filled events. And then you know, my grandmother died in two thousand and then my mother passed in twenty fifteen, so kind of like the glue that both elements of the glue
that kind of held my family together was gone. And you know, then the holidays ended up not being like the happiest times for me because you know, between grieving and I'm also an only child and the rest of my families on the other side of the country, it was very much like, you know, the holidays were nice, but you know, they weren't what they used to be, and it actually sent me into a little bit of a depression of it. And as I have more so
accepted and embraced them. And plus you know, the trauma of surviving a horrific accident, you know, that's that's the sticks with you for the rest of your life looking into Christmas monsters and ghost stories. It gave me a way to lean into the holidays still and you know,
have some and have some fun with it. And I'm a big history person too, so being able to research these different figures and Christmas war and realizing like Christmas wasn't always or Mule or you know, the holidays weren't necessarily always this like really positive festive time of years, and in some periods of time and in some countries, it was probably one of the most horrific times a year, especially if you were.
A child in your Okay, because.
Let's just say, one of the most notable, I think one of the most famous holiday figures that has crossed the across the pond into our popular and dark culture today is Crompus.
Yeah, oh yeah, I was going to bring that up before you get going. It was interesting because I was talking to the Coast crew here and I was talking about Christmas monsters. They're like Christmas monsters, there's Christmas monsters. I'm like, oh yeah, like Crampis And they haven't even heard of Crampis. So I know about Crampis because of the movie and beyond that nothing, So can you give us a little history of that.
Yeah, so Crampis or Crompus, however you know, anyone wants to pronounce it if you're German, probably Crompus is pretty much the companion to Saint Nick. Some people will say Santa Claus, but uh, it's it's very specific to Saint Nick's. So Saint the theets of Saint Nicholas is on December sixth and the night before Saint Nicholas. And this is very much in central and Eastern Alpine tradition. You know, Saint Nicholas would go around to the different homes well
behaved children got small gifts. However, he had a he had a buddy with them. He has a buddy named Crampis with him. And Crampis is this anthromorphic horned humanoid figure. He has horns, he's got a very long tongue. Sometimes he has hooks. He's had, you know, covered in skins, and so as Saint Nicholas is giving uh, you know, rewards and gifts with to the good children, Crampis is punishing the naughty kids by either hitting them with birch rods.
He has a basket a lot of the vintage art with Crampis has him putting the in the baskets and taking them down to hell.
Well, yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad that only morphed into a lump of coal, right, right? Is that where we got that from them? Of cole is from Crampis?
Uh? You know, there's It's interesting you mentioned that because the lump of coal does come up in a couple of different especially Scandinavian folklore with the holidays. Crampis is not even the most terrifying figure.
By the way, what a much more terrifying than taking little children the hell oh people trying to go to sleep? Sorry, go ahead, Oh yeah.
So there is a female figure. Her name is brow Parstaff. So she is the upholder of tradition. So during the what we would know as the twelve days of Christmas or the twelve days of Yule, so between December twenty fifth and January second Epiphany, she wanders the she wanders the countryside, the very snowy country side, and she goes into your home. So a lot of people will describe her as like a witch. She goes into your home, she waits to see, she looks to see if one
your house is clean. Two you've had her traditional feast of fish and gruel, so delicious. And also if you had spun your flax, so spinning flas that you know in the older days was very important. If you didn't have those elements done, she would slit open your belly and di value and stuffy was straw and garbage instead.
Whoa oh yeah.
And she also has a little group of demons one we could say demons with her. They're known as the straggle. And while she's doing her business, if you don't leave your leftovers out for the straggle, they look very similar to cramfis. They will either rob the children or they will tear your children to pieces if you all leave out your leftover.
Why why are we so mean to kids? Like with all of our our fairy tales and all the even Disney movies where they always kill off the understanding parents. This is like it's almost like the traditions continued where it's like it's the happiest day of the year, but there's a dark side.
It's amazing motivation to behave.
What's her name again? Did you say frau?
What fraw pershta?
And is there a, is there a more Anglo version of that that I've never heard of. I've never heard of Frau Psta before, but I am terrified, and I will always clean my house and flax and spin my flax.
I know, right, I've never spun flax before, but I'm gonna go.
I'm gonna spend it.
In terms of Anglo versions, a lot of the I haven't found any, mostly because you know, Catholicism and Protestantism, you know, did come in fairly uh fairly early, so a lot of the its traditions were pre Christian But then, you know, as Christianity was starting to make its way uh into more into the deeper parts of Europe, you know, there seems to be that a lot of the especially the Catholic figures at the time, really trying to integrate
pagan practices into uh with Christianity, and some of it, you know, some of it worked and some of it didn't. But there's there's some stories that they were able to like mix up and integrate that I was like, oh wow, they actually did it and it seemed to go well.
But in terms of an Anglo version version, I've actually been trying to dig deeper into that because I'm like, I'm sure British children were acting up just as bad as the European and they were, well, Britain's part of Europe, but as like the Germanic children and the Italian children, I'm sure like they were cutting up just as bad.
I mean, that would keep me in line, that's for sure, right, right, yeah, for sure. And Crampas is not that's been around, right, that's not. That's not just an invention of the movies like in two thousand and five, right, That's been around for centuries.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So Crampis has been around probably since I want to say, fourth, third or fourth century. There's there's indications that Crampis may have made some rounds as early as that, so around the time like the Romans were celebrating Saturnalia, you know, Yule, And it's fairly accepted why it's widely accepted that he predates Christianity.
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