This Paranormal Life - #015 Is Santa Claus a Goblin?

Episode Date: June 27, 2017

As professional paranormal investigators, Rory and Kit will never shy away from difficult questions. Are the legendary Christmas goblins real? Is Santa himself a goblin? Find out all the answers in todays podcast! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do time travelers exist and do they walk among us? Are magicians hiding the ultimate secret that magic is real? These questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life. Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host for today, Roy Powers, joined by Kit Greer. Namaste, fellow adventurers. If you haven't listened to the podcast before, what we do is every week we examine a new paranormal case study and we come to a conclusion as to whether or not it is in fact real we do the hard work so you don't have to that's right

you can go to bed at night and sleep silently to bed knowing that the uh the devil the jersey there the jersey devil is nibbling your toes as we speak. I mean, we've covered a lot of mythological creatures on this podcast. We've covered the Frogman. We recently covered the Beast of Bladenborough. The Bladenborough. But we're yet to cover a select group of mythological creatures. And I think it's time that we do that today.

So today we're going to be talking about goblins. Are goblins real? You'll notice I'm laughing. That's only because I'm just managing my fear. Right, you're trying to channel it out of humor. That's it. I can't sleep at night, dude. I honestly, I swear to God.

Now, there's a lot of different types of goblins their appearance and mannerisms and their abilities all change obviously depending on their country of origin oh is that right yeah it's like races of goblins exactly it's kind of like in folklore one culture will view zombies in one way and another culture will view them in another way what i'm basically saying is you can't cover all the goblin lore in just one episode of a podcast. This is a six-part series. Time to announce our spin-off podcast,

This Goblin Life. Goblin Talk. I swear to God, we're going to have King Goblin on episode two. It's launching next week. So instead, today we're going to be looking at one particular group of goblins. Now this is a Greek breed called the Kelekanzaro. Wow, that's an incredible pronunciation.

I'm going to hopefully do like a Spanish guitar lick in there. Kelekanzaro. I don't know why it's not even Spanish. It just sounds very Spanish. The Kelekanzaros, also known as the Christmas Goblins. Wow. And these aren't mixed up with the infamous

elves of Christmas that constructed it. Can we please hold all questions to the end of the presentation, please? Okay. Now I know what you're thinking, Kit. What do goblins have to do with Christmas? We're on the same page here already. That was the only possible question that could have been asked from the statement christmas goblins well you know you got elves you got flying reindeer which is actually insane yeah when you think about it why why are people still looking for bigfoot if there are every year on

they know where they're gonna be the this guy on the 25th of December? Why are we not raiding Lapland with goddamn Navy SEALs and AK-47s flashing? Spraying bullets wildly into the sky. Odds are one of them is going to nick Saint Nick. And that's just the probability factor. You think his outfit is red because because he likes the color no dude it's it's red with the blood is santa goblin is santa goblin this is what this podcast is for we have to ask the big questions is santa claus is nicholas question

since i was five granted they put me in a special needs class because of it god damn it also he can squeeze down a chimney oh no a man is not squeezing down those tiny little chimneys goblins perhaps pretty slight perhaps let's find out let's investigate that's what we're here to do basically the conclusion is don't leave out milk and cookies cut out the middleman milk and goblin food i don't know what goblins eat just drop just drop by you know um the the pet food place and i assume that's like pellets dry pellets is what they yeah yeah and then there's like there's like the cheap stuff that's in the tin but then if you want to look after your goblins you get them like the high high the stuff that's on the top shelf oh always, always. Always. Yeah. Got to look after those goblin teeth.

Those tender goblin teeth. So in order to understand the Kila Kanzaros and how they fit into Christmas, what we have to do is understand their lore, their backstory, their history. Take us there. I'm going to take us back. So in many early religions, there was belief that the heavens and the world were supported by a giant tree called the World Tree. Now, it's believed that these goblins would stay hidden underground, sawing at the World Tree. Look, it's going to get a little weird.

You got to just hear me out. What dicks? I can't believe they did the World Tree. The thing that just... What do they have to gain from sawing down the world tree? That's like lighting your tie on fire. It's like being born and then just immediately trying to throttle your mother So self sabotage So they spend all their time underground sawing at the world tree in the hopes that it will a collapse

along with the entire earth they're little little dicks these goblins what they have to gain from this i don't know i generally i just think goblins are little shitsters yeah okay because what we're going to go on to discuss later on is that goblins in general don't really ever seem to have a motive they're just evil little deities they're not they're like not usually portrayed as that smart yeah like a little subhuman like not that menacing they're just little dicks yeah little assholes yeah like like you're not necessarily well i don't know you'll probably get there but like i don't think it's number one um on the on the list of paranormal threats is like death by goblin i could beat up a goblin

yeah i reckon i feel like i feel like they're like two foot goblin. I could beat up a goblin. Yeah. I reckon. I feel like they're like two foot high. Put me in a ring with a goblin. We'll see who comes out alive. Well, Rory, I open the door. Santa walks in. What? Ho, ho, ho, bitch. It starts like he's got the world saw wailing on me.

Now, it is well known that the only time the Kilikensaros can rise from underground and roam the earth is in the lead up to Christmas. Whoa. And that's because in Serbian Christmas traditions, the 12 days of Christmas were referred to as the unbaptized days. Well, don't quote. It's not very romantic, is it? And this was known as a time when demons and forces of evil were believed to be more active and dangerous. So what these goblins do is they stay underground and they saw the world tree, which I assume is just a massive tree because it essentially takes them an entire year to almost chop it down.

But what happens is, this is what the legends say that every time they get close it reaches christmas again meaning the goblins temporarily forget the tree and go with the humans above the ground i mean even goblins have priorities yeah i mean we've talked like goblins are not the smartest creatures i reckon within 365 days they've forgotten that yeah like they've forgotten what happens when they leave the tree so it's like oh we're so close we're all so close is that Christmas let's go boys and then they like just drop the saw and like rise to the earth and just like push people over pumpkin spice lattes which is a shame because I don't know what would it be like if they cut down

the world tree i know presumably that's the end of the world i guess right if that's holding up the heavens and the earth yeah god damn it's a good thing that they're so dumb yeah now as i said depending on culture there's a lot of differences a lot of different descriptions of the kilikenzaro type goblins the most popular being that they're small blackish creatures humanoid apart from their long black tails apparently they look essentially like little black devils wow okay okay roaming about in the in the nighttime causing trouble messing with people yeah may or may not still have the saw maybe they'll leave that there so they remember to come back for the world street i like the idea that there's just like a big you know i don't know in a local

b and q there's like a big uh okay so like uh this friday we got a big special offer on we're gonna have a lot of goblins come through here we got a special offer on saws two for one so uh you know don't look them directly in the eyes just Just get them in and out of here, okay? Working for big saws. You guys aren't going to be cutting down the world tree, are you? No. What's a world tree? While they're having this conversation,

12 goblins are like stealing saws from the background. Which one of these would you recommend for cutting a large tree holding up the world? We wouldn't be talking about the world tree, would you? No, no, no. This is why I think it's fun to talk about goblins.

Because we talk about a lot of creatures that are scary. The vampire beast that played in Borah. Draining goats of their blood. Legit murdering people. The goat man who just carries around an axe. These are scary creatures. The description of the goblins goes even further uh apparently they're also mostly blind speak with a lisp and love to eat frogs worms and other small creatures so at this point it's just how it's just a person

i feel like this is just based on one person just one loser one dumbass how do you know if you're seeing like a goblin or just like a little brick a little blind brick like eating worms and frogs yeah it's a little like kid all covered in like coal just like running around kicking cats like i guess that's a goblin it could be so these goblins every christmas would rise to earth and they've been working hard on the world tree for months so you'd think being devilish creatures they'd pop up kill some people haunt some people do some like really horrible murder yeah yeah yeah no right they're not even really considered truly malevolent creatures but actually quite stupid and impish okay so what we've got is

every christmas a horde of little shit stirring dumb asses show up in a city just with people i mean what like what are we talking about yeah i was gonna say just like what like stealing stealing milk like like pushing over children in the street just like minor inconveniences i'm a goblin no you're not steve i like to think as well there's like they're all really stupid except for like one scholar goblin who's just like trying to rally them all he's like this year we're not going above ground we're just gonna stay under here work on the tree we're just gonna stay down here and keep to the task at hand is that jingle bells no no and no this happens every year oh my god drop the sauce

every year so they spend all christmas messing with people having a fun time wrecking up the Drop the sauce! Every year. So they spend all Christmas messing with people, having a fun time, wrecking up the place, get some pumpkin spice lattes maybe. But when Christmas, aka the unbaptized days, were over, the goblins would go back to wrecking the world tree. Only to find that while they were away, the tree had healed up entirely entirely meaning they have to start all over again so this is a vicious cycle these little goblin dicks are caught up in wow back to sawing the tree they're gonna go again go again they get close they get close but then as soon as it gets close to cutting down that tree wow christmas time every year it's not time to be unbaptized so you go back to the top of the earth it's a vicious cycle damn they're stuck in the rat race i mean i could see why you would be a prick if that was your day-to-day that was your

life yeah kidding me sawing oh just sawing all day long that's horrible because you know you'd get to that point as well you know when you're like sawing a log and you reach that point where you're pretty deep in but then the teeth the teeth go wrong in the sawing and then it kind of jags a bit and then you don't remember what angle you were sawing and then it kind of jags a bit and then you don't remember what angle you were cutting at and it's just stuck in there and then eventually like the longer you go like you think after the course of a year like that saw is getting pretty like dull dull as hell harder i mean everyone wants to rage at christmas a little and you're hell who hasn't kicked a cat has that made me a goblin sure yeah i'm a goblin sir yeah i know you're under the ground there's not even

like 3g down there no not even 4g down there only 100 g's g's being goblins best goblin coverage in the uk imagine you signed up for a phone contract and that was the deal. Like you signed up, you just like, it's like, oh yeah, 24 month contract sounds good. And just you get home and your house is just inundated with goblins. So let's recap. We know who they are, what they do. Now let's look at the apparent ways in which you can stop these goblins.

Whoa, okay. Which I actually like to believe is a nice testimony to their existence. Because why do you need to stop a creature that doesn't exist? Right. Why have people put in place methods of stopping a creature if they haven't had to stop that creature? That's kind of interesting, yeah. You know? That's very true.

Are they real? It's not just like a unicorn that it's like it's this cool thing. Yeah, no one knows how to stop a unicorn. it's like it's this cool thing yeah no one knows how to stop a unicorn yeah one of those things shows up and starts spearing humans yeah we're gone because people in medieval times just wore full suits of armor at all times less a unicorn barge into their house and spear them i would love to see a jurassic park style movie where we find a way to bring um imaginary creatures or mythological creatures to life wow but find out that we as a species are completely incapable of coexisting with them

unicorns for example literally just shoot like face melting rainbow beams from their eyes yeah and it's like why do we not see this coming i know i know what else would be like a bad mythological creature to bring back. Minotaur. Minotaur is pretty up there. Because they're angry in the myths. Yeah. Like that's, that really sucks to be a mythological creature, but also like an asshole in just

your legends. Yeah, I know. I mean, I think they were kind of pissed though, because weren't they, it wasn't a thing that they were relegated to living in mazes. That's a pretty infuriating existence. Really? Yeah, that was a whole thing. Oh my god, that would be horrible.

In a maze. That would just drive you crazy. Yeah, dude. So it's not even the fact that they're a monster. Like, horrible. I think another bad one to bring back would be the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. I mean, they're pretty much goblins. That's close as you can get to goblins but goblins with

wings which is just the worst combination of all time yeah missed like monkeys are really mischievous and kind of like they throw poop at people and stuff like that but like you give them wings and they are unstoppable and waistcoats so they can get into fancy restaurants he's serious imagine that go out to dinner with your girlfriend, have a relaxed time. Next thing you know, waist-coated flying goblins come in and start flinging shit at all the guests. So let's look at how to stop

these little bastards. Please do. So there's a couple different ways in which you can stop the Killa Kanzaros goblins. Number one. And this is the best one of all of them. Leave a colander at your doorstep. Now, you see, the Kilikonzaros could only count to two. Because at the time, three was regarded as a holy number.

And if the goblin said three, then it would allegedly kill itself. Jesus Christ. then it would allegedly kill itself jesus christ which i assume is just like burst into flames not like take out a glock and just be like three yeah yeah they don't really like sadly like jump off like the golden gate bridge or something like that so the idea you leave a colander out and they have to they try they try to count the holes in it is that the idea yes so they would try and count all the holes in the colander they'd spend all night trying to count the holes in it. Is that the idea? Yes. So they would try and count all the holes in the colander. They'd spend all night trying to count the holes. And because they're unable to reach above two,

finally what would happen is the sun would rise and they'd have to scamper away. So they couldn't actually come into your house. So they're somewhat like vampires. They don't like daylight. Yes, don't like daylight. Very much like black skin, big eyed. I think they'd be blinded or burnt or something.

Yeah. I guess if you live underground all year. That's true yeah yeah i basically live underground and i barely like sunlight you open the door and just like goblins wearing ray bands yeah surprise uh so number two now apparently the goblins would try and enter your house through any open entrance oh which think about, that's very interesting because the most popular entrance was the chimney. Ooh, this is very interesting. Now look, am I going to sit here and say that Santa's elves are goblins?

Or that Santa himself is a giant goblin? Yeah, probably, but I have to. I'm saying it. We'll go on record right now then. There is a possibility that if Santa existed, he is a goblin. Yeah, just like a nice one. Yeah, well, that's what you said. Maybe there was one nice goblin.

Scholar goblin. The goblin who kind of grew up and formed like a horde of them. He was the one that maybe through the years managed to tame them. And be like, how about we use some of this wood from the world tree to build toys for the from for the children for a while yeah they twisted his neck immediately at him alive no i really hope that's that's not true um so in order to ward them off families were advised to keep fires burning all night so the goblins couldn't get down the chimneys also burning horrible things like shoes would create a stench of course ward off the goblins jesus but i mean if you're not sure

that a creature exists so the way to ward it off is to make your house smell like burnt shoes yeah for all of the unbaptized days yeah not to mention the expense burning a pair of shoes a freaking day because i guess well i assume they're old shoes right they're not buying new shoes to burn i mean i guess because why would you just burn anything why does it have to be like new nike sbs we are so broke we cannot keep burning shoes shouldn't we burn wood no No, they said shoes. They insisted shoes. We need to divert these funds

into money, into, we need to spend this money on food. And the goblins will take the food. Yeah, great idea, Greg. Great idea. Great idea.

Oh, sure. Why don't you just invite the goblins in and they can have everything. Let's just leave out a cheese board for the goblins. They love that.

Either we burn the shoes to keep them out, or the goblins take the shoes. Which would you rather have, Craig? I know, just like some husband's, like, all these shoes. It's like wife's collection of shoes, really hoping goblins come and steal them all. He secretly leaves, like, the door open, puts out the fire at night, hoping the goblins come in. Free shoes for goblins. Ties his goblin zero to goblin five. It's like the fire at night, hoping the goblins are coming. Free shoes for goblins. It's Goblin 0 to Goblin 5.

So number three is a bit more normal. It's a bit more boring as well, really. Just mark your door with a black cross and they'd be able to enter. I mean, lead with that. Lead with the cross. Stop burning shoes and leaving colanders out for suicidal goblins. The cross is very biblical. This is very sort of plague stuff. Right.

Like marking your door so you don't get effed up by the plagues. Exactly. Slash goblins. And I find it weird because they're kind of just being described as an evil creature, an evil entity. They're not specifically related to demons or demonic presence as just like paranormal little shits yeah so to be i guess a lot of things are annoyed by crosses vampires right don't like crosses maybe unicorns we don't know we can only speculate yeah a little unholy shit i would pay money to see a unicorn recoil in fear as i hold a cross to its face i do feel because unicorns seem so

like majestic and smart see that's it i feel like they might be a little bit like dolphins i think everyone has heard of like you know these like dolphin rape caves that dolphins mess people up have you ever heard of this i'm about to blow your mind the dolphins have like abducted people taking them to caves and freaking rape them dude humans yes that's not real it is real that's not real google it dude dolphins have molested humans uh-huh in dolphin uh-huh rape caves uh-huh ow turn off the podcast dolphin yeah how do grab them? How do they get the humans? See, I think the idea is that humans are lost at sea. I can't believe I'm discussing this.

This is bizarre. Humans are lost at sea. You know, you hear these stories of like dolphins. No, never. Took me to shore. No. I was in a boat wreck. No.

So people get lost at sea. Like they get boat capsizes, something like that. I will tell you the point of the story when I drop off. Please continue. So, people get lost at sea. Their boat capsizes. Yep. And then they don't know what way land is.

They think they're done for. Plausible. And there are cases. Dolphins come and carry them to shore. I'm gone. I'm done. No. So, what the odds are

That then you might just like Meet the wrong gang of goblins Yes Of goblins Of goblins Imagine that you're at sea And a goblin swims out And goes

Come with me I'm in a cave You're like I don't really have too many options here You make it sound like The goblin as well Is on like a jet ski Because obviously

They can't really swim I jet ski because obviously they can't really swim i don't i don't assume but they can steal jet skis that's mad all right so uh the cases of dolphin molestation i guess we'll have to cover in another that's a whole other thing i mean that's not even really paranormal that's just kind of sad and horrible quite disillusioning because i thought the dolphins were supposed to be smart they're like mammal like quite yeah intelligent smart because humans are smart as hell and they do the worst shit ever hey fair play we're the real monsters that's it we're the real goblins that's how you that's how you know how smart an animal is because like dogs they're not very smart and that's why they're so lovely yeah that's how you

know how smart an animal is is how much of a dickhead it is monkeys really smart that's why they steal watches and shit at people and set up hedge fund schemes they tank the economy on the daily well this is why this is a weird case because goblins are idiots but they're assholes so it's the first time that we're really seeing a creature that breaks that pattern they're stupid but they're they're dicks true, yeah. That's an interesting thing to take into account. But crosses. Crosses on the windowsill. No goblins enter. Yeah.

Definitely recommend doing that before the shoe thing. And maybe just doing that... Why doesn't everyone just do that all the time? It doesn't matter if it's the unbaptized days or if you're living in Transylvania. If it works. Just do it.

Just do the cross. You'll save a bunch of time. Maybe scare off a whole bunch of people. So now, let's take some things off our list. We know what they look like. That's a tick. We know what they do. Tick.

And we know how to stop them. So what are our thoughts? What are we thinking? Obviously, this is a long time ago. This is, you know, early Greece. There's a lot of myths from around that time a lot of legends that get passed down do you think this could be a real plausible thing that there are goblins i doubt the existence of a world tree so that throws into question a lot of the story yeah i mean the world tree is it definitely... I think we're working with a couple of moving parts here.

I feel like this is like myths colliding. Exactly. It's like the World Tree is a very popular myth, the World Rond, and I feel like that has... The goblin thing has been kind of layered on top of that. But they do sound like they're just kind of archetypal dickish little beings um

so i i don't know my my inclination is that you know something's inspired these it's like something's inspired i'm not sure what that is what do you think is this like inspired by little kids running around like messing with people well that's it you know it's like the world tree is kind of a uh an image like a symbolism that's been created to represent the structures of the world yeah so who's to say that these goblins uh weren't created to symbolize little assholes that lived in a village that would just piss on your shop windows absolutely it could very much be that case yeah one thing that i found very interesting was uh in greek the term uh kilikonzaros is used am i saying that right kilikonzaros god i hope i am kilikonzaros so in greek the term kilikonzaros

is also used to describe a number of short ugly and unusually mischievous beings so it's all that collective is described as kilikanzaros and in other contexts it seems to express the collective sense for the equivalent of the irish word for leprechaun or the english words gnome okay so these are potentially all very similar things definitely i don't know about gnomes i don't know much about the history of gnomes but certainly leprechauns small yeah annoying kind of mischievous yeah they try to trick the pot of gold shenanigans yeah trying to mess with people yeah i just wonder all right we've got these little creatures yeah they only show up at christmas

time they come down your chimney they can be described as gnomes could this be early elves could our theories be true that santa was maybe a born goblin turned leader of the goblins and decided to spread joy rather than terrorize. So every time it's Christmas, maybe they don't saw down the world tree anymore. Maybe they said maybe it's a goddamn Christmas tree at this point. Whoa. Have we just cracked something open? I feel like we're making progress here. Yeah, I really feel like we do.

All right. You put on the pot of coffee. I'll get a pack of cigarettes. I'll call Santa. What? Yeah, yeah, I've got his number, dude. I mean, is that a viable thing? Do we think that parts of this legend

could have passed on to the myth of Santa? The origins of Santa? What's the... You said this goes back to Greece. Yeah. Are we talking a long time ago? Long, long time ago. Long, long time ago. Long, long time ago.

Okay, this goes back a long way. Yeah. Yeah, because I think... About... Coincidentally, I think it was about the time when Santa was born. Coincidence? Coincidence? I think not.

I think Santa's a goblin. I don't... So is that where we're landing today? Is it... It's not... I think we're past the point of, are goblins real? Right. Is Santa a goblin?

I love that we've moved past all that irrelevant stuff, all that boring stuff. Are goblins real? I mean... Is the world tree real? Could a goblin kill a man? Or would I be able to kill the goblin? We've moved on to the big question here.

Is Santa himself a goblin? Yes. And I think that's a really important question to answer and i think gotta be real careful about this one let santa strike me don i i think i don't think santa exists uh-huh i think if he did exist he could be a goblin that's how I'm gonna decide to word my conclusion I think you're a fence sitting little goblin loving pussy okay

Santa's a goblin hell I'm a goblin give me your shoes give me your shoes I'm just trying to set fire to them now and brush you out. Should have put a cross in your door, bitch. This podcast is the long con to steal your milk. I think in terms of a conclusion, there's no such thing as in this case as the Killikanzara's goblins that's fair but we still

have many other goblins there's many other goblins out there we haven't even looked into i mean santa is a whole episode in himself it really is we've got to look at that i'm sure there's people testimonies from people who have seen santa maybe we could tie that in did he have a long tail perhaps or was he caught stealing any shoes while he was eating the cookies and milk and i would uh further that request if you've had experiences with this type of goblin if you've had experience with other type of goblins we don't want to know about it just keep that shit to yourself but if you had experience shut up please because no everyone's sick and tired hearing about you go on and on why would we want to hear that why would we want to

hear that but if you have experienced this if you've been to the world tree if you've seen them if you're hung out with them if you are a goblin then do get in touch yeah same with dolphins if you were by a dolphin please email into the podcast very insensitive that's there's a dob the ultimate combo they had a baby the dolphins Jesus Christ the intelligence of a dolphin the canal walk on land oh my Christ if you are an illustrator that is

capable of drawing a police sketch-esque drawing of a doblen please email that sketch into thisparanormallifepodcast at gmail.com we're wrapping up

I'm saying they're not real but thank you for joining us hopefully next week we will have a new paranormal story and come to the conclusion that it is in fact true but until then stay spooky keep watching the World Tree.