Lore - Episode 188: Hide and Seek

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

Some of the darkest stories and traditions are hiding inside one of our most beloved times of the year. Let’s take a fun and frightening journey into the heart of it all. ———————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  All the shows from Grim & Mild: www.grimandmild.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support To advertise on our podcast, please reach out to [e-mail], or visit our listing here.

You've probably eaten one at least once in your life. They're found at most parties and holiday gatherings, usually sitting in a bowl beside some cheese or slices of meat. If you enjoy your crackers thick and woven with shredded wheat, then you probably love Triskets. Now, I didn't grow up in a Trisket home. We were more of a Ritz Cracker family, if you ask me, but they were easy to find at family gatherings.

But even after all these years, I've never stopped to think about what the name actually means, because tri often refers to the number three, and yet these snack treats have four corners. I've also heard that it's a reference to the number of layers in the cracker, but even that has been disproven as the meaning behind the name. No, the truth, it seems, is more than a little shocking. According to the company that makes them, the word Trisket is a mashup of two words, biscuit and electricity.

Apparently back in the early 1900s, Triskets were advertised as the only food on the market that were baked by electricity. Thus the name, Trisket. And these mistakes are really common. We think we know something, or someone, only to discover the truth is something else entirely. Things we take for granted, like phrases or legends, or the honesty of people we know. Sometimes those things can turn out to have an altogether different meaning. But nowhere is this more true than within the world of folklore and belief.

Because when it comes to the traditions we love, it's easy to allow emotional attachment to blind us to the real stories behind it all. And what better way to see this concept in action than by exploring one of the most celebrated times of the year. Christmas I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. There's a lot about Christmas we already know. The typical stuff, like Christmas trees, decorated with colorful ornaments and lights.

Or Santa Claus, a round man dressed in red and white who manages to deliver presents to every house in the world in a single night while also starring in countless Hollywood movies and a few Coca-Cola ads. But how much fun could we really have by just hearing about the things we already experience each year? No, instead, I'd like to give you a brief tour of some of the lesser-known pieces of folklore and tradition that take place around the end of the year, and what better place to begin than South Wales in the UK.

For centuries, the tradition of the Marie-Lewid has been carried out in communities throughout South Wales. It involves the use of a horse's skull mounted on a pole and decorated with a cape, ribbons, and flowers. Long ago, that skull would have been real, but most of the time these days it's a reproduction made of wood or paper. Once the costume has been put on, a group of men will gather around that person and together they will walk through the neighborhood, singing songs while they go door to door.

All the while, they will swap those songs for food and drink. At various houses, though, the group will stop and knock and then ask to be let in. Sometimes the homeowner will put up a fight and give excuses, but usually the moment ends with the entire party moving inside. Then the Marie-Lewid often chases children, while another member of the party whips them to keep them in line. Across the North Sea in Norway, there's another unusual Christmas tradition, and this one goes back quite a ways.

Centuries ago, when the witchcraft panic had much of Europe paralyzed with fear, there were some common beliefs about the behavior of witches. One of the most popular ideas was that witches all attended regular gatherings called Sabbaths. These were usually set far away, in the wilderness or other unreachable locations, so they needed a magical item to get them there. Sometimes that was a salve or oil they rubbed on their body, but most of the time it was a household object everyone had lying around, a broom. As the centuries went by, it became a common belief in Norway that those who weren't properly

prepared for the Christmas celebration might become the target of witches and evil spirits, so people would hide their brooms to keep the witches from finding them, a practice that's still followed by many to this day. And one last lesser known tale. In the region along the border between France and Germany, there are stories of an evil holiday spirit known as Hans Trop. He's sometimes referred to as the Christmas Scarecrow, and is said to work alongside St. Nicholas, persuading naughty children to change their ways, or else they might be eaten or

tortured. And as it turns out, it's a legend based on a real person. In the late 1400s, there was an actual German knight by the name of Hans von Trotha, whose life story has a lot of eerie parallels to the origin story of Hans Trop. But while he might have angered the church by getting into a nasty property dispute with a local abbot, it's assumed that he never really cooked children over a spit. Still, it makes for good story, and a dark sort of Christmas fun. And there are probably a hundred more stories just like those scattered all over the world.

Unusual, rare, and sometimes creepy traditions that are linked, for better or for worse, to the annual celebration of Christmas. And that's part of what makes the holiday so universal. It's really a collection of widely different customs, all united around one central season. But the Christmas time of the year hasn't always been jolly or even accepted. Because for a period of time, there was a good portion of the world that had to suffer through something darker, and much less fun. The real war on Christmas.

To understand this next story, you'll need some tools. Think of them as a historical version of 3D glasses. Without them, the story is alright. But if you use them, everything comes to life. We need to start in England in the 1640s. There were two growing factions of people in the country at the time. Those who supported having a monarchy, and those who wanted the power to be in the hands of parliament.

This is a massive oversimplification of it all, but think of it as the king versus democracy. Inside those two sides, however, was another battle. Folks who supported the monarchy and the king also leaned toward the Anglican church, which was very Catholic in appearance and practice. And on the parliamentarian side, most people were Puritans, a group of Christians who hated the high church pomp and circumstance of Anglicanism. Attention eventually boiled over into a series of conflicts known today as the English Civil War.

King Charles I was defeated, and his body was promptly separated from its head. And then a guy named Oliver Cromwell took over running the country as Lord Protector. But at the same time, Puritans, arguably the most fundamentalist of all Christian groups at the time, found themselves in power. And they did a lot of things, but one of the most controversial actions of the Puritans was to outlaw traditional Christmas celebrations. They didn't believe people should be drinking, gambling, dancing, and partying it up on a holiday that was meant to be respected and revered.

The first thing to arrive was a ban on the performance of plays during Christmas time. It was a time of the year when business was the best for theaters, and now the government was taking that away. It's believed that some theaters even shut down for good, thanks to the loss of business during a key season. Then in 1644, parliament ordered that Christmas should only be celebrated by fasting, not feasting. But that didn't mean a break from work.

Oh no, all businesses should remain open, they said, and nothing superstitious should be practiced, such as the telling of ghost stories around the fire, or community gatherings with alcohol and food. It was basically a government order to stop having fun. All the people, all over England, revolted against it. In 1645, 10,000 people in Kent and Canterbury gathered to make the decision that if the parliament way of life meant no Christmas celebrations, they'd rather put a king back on the throne. Others gathered in markets and played football in the streets to prevent the authorities

from forcing businesses to open up on Christmas Day. And when a handful of businesses caved in and did open, the crowd was said to have harassed them until they closed up again. Within a few years, the government gave up trying to enforce these strict new rules. And when Charles II returned to the throne in 1660, one of his nicknames was the Mary Monarch, because he restored all of the Christmas traditions that the fundamentalists had tried to destroy. And a lot of those beloved Christmas traditions returned, the eating and drinking, the gambling

and dancing, the ancient superstitious practices that families had passed along generation after generation. But one of the traditions that didn't make an immediate return was one that isn't as common today, the telling of spooky stories around the fire. Now it would take nearly two centuries for that idea to return to popular culture, and it was all thanks to an English writer. In the mid-1800s, he started writing a story that dipped into that spooky past, while also using it as a teaching moment for people who might have forgotten what the Christmas spirit

was all about, and he threw in some social commentary on child labor along the way. If the Puritans were responsible for trying to destroy Christmas as people knew it in the 17th century, this author almost single-handedly reversed it all and created a whole new type of holiday story in the process, one that's been loved by millions ever since. And the story? A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens There are few Christmas legends, like this one. How true the story is, well, I'm going to leave that up to you.

But what's certain is that for centuries, this tale has been sending a chill down the spines of people during the Christmas season, just about every other time of the year as well. The legend begins in the grounds of an old Jacobean manor house built in the early years of the 1600s. Known as Brams Hill House, it's been home to all sorts of high society figures over the last four centuries, but it's something that took place early on that seems to have left its mark.

According to the story, guests and family arrived at Brams Hill House for a wedding between Young and Cope and her groom-to-be, Hugh Bethel. I would love to tell you that the garden was in bloom and perfect for an outdoor wedding, but that wasn't the case. In fact, it was Christmas Day, still a memorable day to tie the knot. From everything I've read, the wedding was smooth and problem-free. After the exchange of vows at the end of the ceremony, everyone moved on to a lovely reception. I imagine there was a lot of dancing to whatever the early 17th century equivalent might have

been of the chicken dance and YMCA, and then it was time to bid the bride and groom farewell. Actually, the guests gathered for an important part of the tradition at that time, escorting the new couple to their bed chambers. But new bride Anne proposed a better idea, one that promised a lot of fun for everyone, a simple game of hide and seek. She would do the hiding, and everyone else would try and find her. Imagine this however you want. Maybe the guests all covered their eyes and counted out loud to a hundred.

Perhaps they named a time on the clock as the beginning of the hunt and then settled in for a brandy or some tea until then. I don't know how they structured the game, but I do know that eventually they all headed out into the house to find her. The trouble was, no one could. At first it was a calm casual search with a lot of laughter and smiles, but after a while everyone started to worry. They called out for her and then shouted for her.

Her new husband Hugh started to become anxious and then downright frightened. Anne had wandered off into the house to hide and then simply vanished. And although they searched for hours, Anne was never found. People began to whisper that she had experienced a change of heart and actually escaped, abandoning Hugh at the very beginning of their marriage, and that idea would persist for decades. Hugh didn't handle it well. The legend says that he grieved for her and spent the rest of his life using every spare moment to search new corners and closets in the house, which is why 50 years later he

climbed into the attic for yet one more search, and it was there that a random knock on some wood paneling gave him an answer. They say the panel sounded hollow, and when he inspected it, discovered that it contained a hidden door. Once open, he found a small hidden room that was bare, except for a large wooden trunk, and with fear and trepidation, he cautiously opened it. Anne's body was inside, withered by the many years that had passed since their wedding. In one hand, her bridal bouquet, once white with lily of the valley and a sprig of mistletoe,

was still clutched tightly. Her other, though, was embedded in the lid of the chest, where her fingernails had clawed through most of the wood in an effort to find a way out. If the stories are true, more than just Anne's body remain in the house. Her ghost has been witnessed by many people over the years, leading some to refer to her as the White Lady, thanks to her wedding gown. She's been spotted walking through the main hall, as well as a number of other rooms. In the 1930s, one of the women who lived at Brams Hill House woke up in the middle of

the night on more than one occasion to find the White Lady standing beside her bed. And she wasn't the only one to have that experience, but the most eerie of all might belong to a police officer who visited the house in the 1980s. It said that he was an officer from India, taking part in some training in the area and staying at the Manor House. One day, while walking through the house, he passed into the drawing room and noticed the sweet scent of flowers. After circling the room a few more times to see if he could smell it elsewhere, he realized

the scent was localized to just one location in the corner, so he called for his superintendent to ask for his opinion. Ah, the supervisor replied, I see you've met the White Lady. That must mean she likes you. Oh, and the flower he smelled? According to him, it was clearly one particular variety. Lily of the Valley. For as familiar as the Christmas season might be to many of us, it's also a time of deep

and varied traditions. Thanks to the spread of Christianity throughout Europe and the various pre-Christian traditions that might have influenced it, Christmas has become many things to many people. In fact, for a holiday that feels like it's always been around, there's been a lot of evolution over the last few centuries. Remember the Puritans we talked about earlier? Well, they might have lost control over England back in 1660, but they managed to send their way of life outward, across the Atlantic and into the new world they discovered in North

America. And those early Puritan settlers didn't have a lot of patience for superstitious practices, however persistent they might have been. What changed? Well, it turns out it was a massive influx of immigrants, mostly from Scotland and Ireland, who injected many of the old familiar pieces of the Christmas tradition into the relatively young United States. But early on, things didn't necessarily look like the holidays you might know and love.

For example, variations on Mari Lwyd eventually showed up in America and took place early in the winter each year. Like the original, it involved people in costumes who went door-to-door asking for food and money, and it grew in popularity throughout the 1800s. Folks who celebrated it would put on masks that looked like exotic animals or political leaders while others dressed like sailors or soldiers, then they would march through town in a ragamuffin parade and then knock on doors and beg for treats. It was a tradition that kept up until the early 1930s, when the Great Depression changed

the spirit of generosity in many communities. Children would knock on doors, only to hear the owners inside tell them to go away. And this tradition? It was called Thanksgiving masking. In fact, when people knocked on those doors, they often called out anything for Thanksgiving, but it faded in popularity over time. The closest we have to those old ragamuffin parades today would probably be the Thanksgiving Day parades we see on television.

And at practice of knocking on doors, asking for food while wearing costumes, well as you might have already guessed, that eventually met up with all Hallows Eve, shifted dates, and since the 1940s, has been a popular American activity. It seems that beloved holiday traditions truly are hiding everywhere, assuming, of course, you know where to seek them out. From the brutal and frightening Hans Tropp to the bizarre practice of hiding broomsticks, it seems like Christmas has a lot more hiding than just wrapped presents and pretty trees. But I have one last unusual tradition to share with you that might just take the cake.

Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. One of the unsung qualities of Christmas is just how flexible it is. Over all these centuries, and across so many different cultures, the holiday has taken on a vast array of different expressions. Many of those varied practices have held on through the ages, while others are relatively new. Some are tiny and almost imperceptible, while others really stand out, and one of my favorite Christmas traditions falls into the latter on both spectrums.

It's new and it's big. For a little over five decades, one particular city in Europe has had a strange and unusual practice that's been tied to the Christmas season. It's a goat, and there are a couple of different explanations why that particular animal is featured. Some believe it has something to do with the two goats that are said to pull Thor's chariot in Norse mythology. For a long time, people have handcrafted little yule goats, small figurines made of straw.

They would then hide them in the homes of friends and family. If you were able to find one, your job was to go hide it in someone else's house. And it honestly sounds like a lot of fun. It also might tie back to an older tradition involving dressing up in costumes and singing through the neighborhood in search of food and drink. Just like a lot of other traditions we've already discussed, only these costumes were all goats, which is why the practice is called yule goating. But it seems that those older traditions gave birth to something new in 1966.

It was the brainchild of an advertising consultant in the city of Javla who thought it might be fun to have a gigantic yule goat in the main square, and the tradition has stuck. Each year, beginning on the first day of Advent, a tall goat crafted of wood and straw is erected as a holiday display. And when I say gigantic, I mean it. It's over 40 feet tall and nearly 30 feet from head to tail. But it's also not as simple as that, because the very first year it was set up, someone did the unthinkable.

They burned it to the ground. In fact, over the 54 years that they've been setting it up, the giant yule goat of Javla has been burned down 37 times. It's honestly become something of a running joke, mixed with fun and celebration and a little bit of mystery. Heck, in 1988, the city made it legal to place bets on whether or not the goat would survive until Christmas. More often than not, it doesn't.

Some of the many ways the goat has been destroyed over the years include being struck by a car, smashed to pieces by crowds, and falling over due to poor construction. At least once it was even shot with a flaming arrow, which feels very European to me. But in 2010, one of the most amazing plots in the short history of the yule goats almost took place. The masterminds behind it offered one of the guards assigned to the goat the cool sum of about $6,000 to simply walk away from his post. Their plan was to fly in on a helicopter, tie a rope to the goat, and fly off with it.

As far as I can tell, the plan never worked out, but I kind of wish it had. And can you blame me? You'll be happy to learn that the yule goat survived the holiday season of 2020, its fourth year in a row in fact, all thanks to fewer people on the streets during the global pandemic. But the question of whether or not the giant goat survives each year has given way to something much more certain. The tradition, however new it might be in the grand scheme of all things Christmas, is here to stay.

This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with research by Allie Steed and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast, there is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the

dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com. And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.