This Paranormal Life - When The Holidays Get Horny The 6 Forms Of Krampus

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Watch us meet Krampus in Phasmophobia LIVE - https://www.youtube.com/live/-n_dQRUBoXo Feeling brave? Try Phasmophobia yourself now - https://yrstru.ly/PhasmoWinter'sJest-TPL 8 years ago, we investigated a Christmas cryptid named KRAMPUS who terrorises children every December. While our investigation talked about who Krampus was and how his story began… We DIDN’T tell you that Krampus comes in many forms, torturing children in countries all over the world. Today we’ve investigating the SIX FORMS of Krampus so that you’ll know how to stay safe this holiday season. Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get access to weekly bonus episodes! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thisparanormallife.com/store⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Intro music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.purple-planet.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Image credits: https://paganmeltingpot.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/knecht-ruprecht-krampus-bullerklaas/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are flying reindeer a type of cryptid? What does Mrs. Clause do every December 25th? All of these questions you can find the answer to on THIS paranormal life! Welcome back everybody to This Paranormal Life. It is the 16th of December. We are only nine days away from Christmas. I'm definitely getting into Christmas spirit over here, Kit. My vacation actually started a little bit early this year because last week I accidentally dropped my work keys down an elevator shaft. Okay, so I was waiting for you to tell us about you were going to a Christmas market, you were doing something Christmassy. No, you just physically logged off.

Because actually, yeah, now we're getting into it, I don't know how possible that is. So, yeah, this is the podcast equivalent of the dog ate my homework. I think that's the 21st century equivalent of being visited by three ghosts, where Scrooge needs to figure out that he needs to change as a person. he needs to stop decentering work in his life and he needs to be about the people. I just, I skipped all that shit. I didn't need the ghosts. I didn't need the whole journey.

I just dropped my keys down an elevator shaft. Now I physically can't get back into the office. That was a few days ago though. And like I feel like they are pretty quick at replacing the keys. Like you could just, I think if you just tell them, they'll probably get you a set. They have a spare set for sure. So they could just get you those pretty much right away. you could still work through.

I tried. They don't. They don't have any spares. Oh, you did try. Okay. I thought I was going to be catching you in 4K right now. Oh, no, because I'm still a bad person. The point of the ghost was that Scrooge changed overnight and he became a better man.

I'm still a toxic, horrible mess. And I'm just shaking the doors of the office trying to get in so I can work on Christmas Eve and ignore my family. But I just don't have the keys. So it's a different kind of a problem. approach. Yeah, you're the movie of Scrooge had been shown the error of his ways, the past, present, the future, and then I've been like, hmm, so you're telling me I need to enjoy my bread while I got it even more. I need to work harder. They're like, no, no, no, no. Because yeah, my life's going to turn to absolute shit in the future. I just found out that ghosts are real. And you want me to think about Christmas? How am I ever going to think about anything other than ghosts ever again? And that's how Kit and myself started this paranormal life. Speaking of us starting this podcast, Kit, I don't know if you remember, but eight years ago, on this show, we investigated a Christmas cryptid that terrorizes children every December named Cranpus. Oh, yeah, yeah, I pretty much do. Hard to forget that one. While our investigation talked about who Cranpus was and how his story began, we didn't tell you the whole story.

And that story is that Crampus, the entity, takes many forms, torturing children in new and cruel ways in countries all over the world. So, Kit, in the spirit of Christmas and in the spirit of Cranpus, I thought it was the perfect time to go back and investigate six forms of Crampus so that you know how to stay safe this Christmas. Because we already know that everyone who listens to this paranormal life is a very non-examination. naughty boy or girl. He's got damn forms like Goku. You're telling me we're going to get to the final form of crampas? The first time we covered him on the podcast, we were just letting people know that he exists. Now that it's eight years later, you need to know he exists in a couple different ways.

Yeah. And probably the elephant in the room also is that eight years ago, our brains were, much like the iPhone 4, our brains were so underdeveloped that I can't imagine we did a good job of even talking about the basics of Crampus? The episode was about 30 minutes long, for sure. Okay. But at least those 30 minutes were high quality, highly researched, kind of to the point factual underpinnings, surely?

It was your episode. You hosted it. I actually thought you did a pretty good job at laying down the basics. Okay, okay, cool. All right, well, maybe if you haven't heard it, cool. I'm sure we'll cover some more of the Crampus basics today. If you have heard it, that's a fun thing to maybe go back and listen to. if you kind of get up screaming from the dinner table this Christmas after your uncle says some distasteful jokes.

Well, this is also a perfect time for us to reopen the case because Crampus is also coming to our favorite paranormal investigating video game, Phasmophobia. Oh, amazing, amazing, amazing. Yeah, they are just about to do their Christmas seasonal event where Crampus himself is turning up in the game. We love phasmophobia. We've streamed it before live with this point. paranormal life. It's a ghost hunting game where you actually play as a paranormal investigator and go check out haunted houses and try and figure out what ghost is causing all the trouble. And now you're telling me that Krampus is going to be there at the party? Hide the kids. Hide the kids. I don't know if

there's kids in the game. We need to hide them immediately. Level one. Krampus at a six-year-old's birthday party. Oh God. Krampus, no. They say that in phasmophobia, the blood rain has been turned to snowfall, there's lit up trees by the fireplace, and a notorious half-goat half-demon is making himself known. I think that alone is a perfect reason to explore crampus today on the podcast and his many, many forms. So I say, let's get straight into a TPL Christmas special titled, The Six Crampuses of Christmas, when the holidays get horny. What? What are we? What? No. What are we getting into? Horns.

Uh-huh. So yeah, you're referring to him having, him having horns? Horns, yes. In most countries in the world, on December 24th, children lay with their heads on their pillows, dreaming of sugar plums, and the man known as jolly old St. Nick. But years ago, children would lie awake in fear, eyes locked on the door, knowing that any moment the creature known as crampus could arrive and beat the ever-loving shit out of the other thing loving shit out of them. But what if I told you that crampus isn't a single monster,

but an entire family of monsters, a formless entity that manifests itself every Christmas to hit children with sticks? Today we're exploring every known version of crampus, the Alpine original, the German hybrid, the version where he's basically just a guy who breaks into your home. So settle in, pour yourself some hot cocoa, and prepare to enter the horrifying world of Cranpus, the evil Santa. It's worrying that the variations of crampus sound like strains of weed at a really high-end weed store. Alpine Original, German hybrid.

The one that will send your ass to sleep is Guy Who Breaks into your house. Yeah, smoking on the pack that took your damn TV. Well, let's start at the very beginning with Crempus Original, a guy known as Perched, or perched. Oh God, I forgot. Yeah. Long ago, before the Alps were known as a charming mountain retreat, they were instead a brutal, icy death trap full of wolves, darkness, and people making cheese.

At this point in time, paganism was all the rage, and every year ended with the winter solstice rituals, a time to engage with the pagan winter spirits known as the Parchton. One of those spirits was the earliest form of Krampus. In these regions, people would dress up as the same. the devilish figures known as perched. A towering, goat-like figure covered in thick, dark fur, with horns curling out from the skull like a demon. This creature's tongue would hang out of its mouth like it just licked a car battery. And interestingly, it's often depicted as having one goat hoof and one human hoof. Really? Damn. Which might be the scariest part of all of that,

Because that either implies it was once a human that's been transformed, or this thing's trying to become a human. Yeah, man, something went wrong there. He got stopped mid-evolution like a Pokemon. His trainer pressed B during the evolution and kept him the way he was, and now he's got a damn peg leg. This is the version of Krampice that most people recognize today. It is the Austrian-Bavarian Krampus.

Now this Kampus comes loaded out with chains and a stick, for beating naughty children. And in dark versions of his lore, he even carries a wicker basket on his back to steal children who misbehave. Where does he take those children, you might ask? Well, in some legends he carries them off to the woods. Some say he eats them.

Others think he carries them off to hell. It really depends on, one, the village, and I guess how bad the child is. Yeah, because this is why vigilanteism is illegal, okay? is because, sure, the idea of taking justice into our own hands sometimes feels right, good. Sometimes the legal system doesn't take care of miscreants in our society, namely, in this case, naughty children. Sure. But you have to, as the crampus, you have to have a flicker of self-awareness that the punishment does not fit the crime whatsoever.

What did the child do? Steal a sweet? Did the child forget to brush his teeth? and now he's being whisked off to the netherworld in a wicker basket to be tortured by an animal. Do something about the men. The man, the adults. What sense of justice does Crampus have that he's like,

you didn't wish your mother a happy birthday on her birthday? I'm going to torture you. You're worse. You're worse, obviously. There's something so insane about Crampus showing up to a house pushing his way past the war criminals and sex offenders to find a child that didn't go to bed on time. And he's like, I'm going to f*** eat you.

Even the kid must be like, for sure, do something about the other bad people in this world. Yeah, pick on someone your own size. Now, as you can imagine, when Christianity swept through Europe, the church looked at all these ancient winter demons and said, Absolutely not. A lot of the pagan festivals were banned. But for some reason, a lot of locals drew the line at Krampus. So, the legendary Krampus lore was merged together.

with Christian beliefs, and that is how the most legendary Christmas partnership of all time was formed. Yes, this is the classic playbook, and I will say it's a goaded playbook. If I knew enough about sports, I would make an analogy here. It's literally goaded playbook, where the church, the Catholic Church, would have hoovered up, like no Luigi's mansion, hoovered up all the local traditions, ghosts and cryptids, and then just blurted them out into kind of the pantheon of Christian kind of mysticism. You know, we've seen that in Ireland, places like, I don't know, probably Poland or something like that, just as an example, you have people in Ireland really worship individual saints in a way that isn't common

in even maybe other places with Catholicism, but specifically Protestantism. And that's partly because in our ancient history, we have thousands of years of worshipping specific gods and then Christians came along and said like, hey, oh yeah, shit. So that river god you were talking about, that's St. Anthony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. St. Anthony, you got to pray to him from now on. And then that's part of why people keep doing it. It is funny, though, if you were the Christians coming in and you were like, okay, look,

we'll do you guys one favor. You're allowed to keep one of the pagan spirits, you know, and we can bring him in and make them part of our cinematic universe. And they're like, we want crampus. And they're like, okay, I can already tell from the name this isn't going to to go well. Yeah. We want the crampos. I guess that sounds a bit like Christmas. Oh, do you guys like worship him? We fear him. Okay. That's why we're too scared to get rid of him because it might make him angrier. I will say on the topic of the winter solstice, this feels incredibly

top of mind for me because I literally just went to a new Grange in Ireland. Have you been, Rory? Oh. This is the extremely famous. That's like Ireland's Stonehenge, a very, very famous neolithic burial site. This is like Ireland's like pyramid or something. It's very, very awesome ancient burial site, about 5,000 years old where like a couple of kings or some shit were buried. And it's one of those famous places where like on the morning that the sun rises on the winter solstice on December 21st, for 17 minutes, light flies through like a kind of roof passage and then illuminates the tomb inside. And if you go visit it, you can, they recreate it for you.

So it's very Indiana Jones. It's extremely trippy and very, very cool. But you see in all the artwork and everything how much it was like, you know, they're like, oh, if you look, they have these famous spirals on the front. And they're like, yeah, if you look, it represents the solstice, the mark of demarcations. It's like they have like these spirals going one way. And then there's a line for the solstice and then the spirals start going another way. And it's like, yeah, because these motherfig were so, they feared.

winter so much that they worshipped the very second that winter started reversing. You know, the moment that the day started getting longer, they were hooting and holler and stamping their feet, drinking beer, having parties because they're like, holy shit, we made it. So it really, it really blows your mind as to how much these people gave a shit about, well, how scary winter was. And clearly what was in it, stuff like Crampus. And then just the possibility of making it through the other side. Were they so terrified of it because this was a difficult time

for humans to exist with horrible weather conditions and essentially no heating during the winter months? Or did a half goat half man run around wild hitting children with sticks? It's really hard to tell.

I think even historians are still debating this topic to this day. That is the annoying thing as well. You just know what historians and archaeologists will be like. You'll be like, damn, those swirls are awesome. What about the goat man wielding a stick? They'll be like, ah, yes, that represents the frailty of the winter harvest.

There was no food around. He seems to be wailing on little children. Like, are you sure this is a metaphor? Yes, yes, we're absolutely certain. The carving of the goat man seems to be getting bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. And then there's some kind of blood splatter over the walls. Is that a hoof in the corner? We did find some hooves.

Yes. Every December 5th during Crampus Noct, The horrific, goat-like creature roams the streets alongside St. Nicholas, hitting and stealing all the children that Santa wants nothing to do with. Kit, I have a clip from the podcast that we recorded eight years ago when we first looked at the pictures and drawings of Crampus and Santa working together. Oh, amazing. Is this not blowing your mind that this is like, through your entire childhood of learning about Santa, his reindeer's,

the sleigh and the sacks of presents and no one mentioned that there's a sidecar with the devil in it all right that's pretty that's a lot of information there's a lot of like old depictions like postcards the devil is literally side by side

with St. Nicholas I mean yeah there's an old like Santa is handing out apples to children in the street while Kremas by his side is putting children into sacks to take away Why is no one stopping him? Why is Santa to do something?

He knows this is happening. He gave him a fucking lift to the house. Santa has never heard of like accomplice to murder. But as I said, this is only one of the many forms that Crampus can take.

It's time for Crampus number two. Check yourself before he wrecks yourself. Is this this straight to DV? I tried to give the crampas' all clever names. This was probably the weakest of the bunch. If you couldn't tell, for this iteration, we are going all the way to the Czech Republic. This is where the crampus figure takes the form of Chert, a demonic humanoid creature with horns and hooves, and he appears every December 6th on the eve of St. Nicholas' day.

But luckily, it's not just him. Chirt is part of a three-man team in the Czech Republic. You've got Mikalas, a bearded bishop, who's basically the Santa figure, and he's joined by an angel named Andel and Chert, which is kind of nice because it means that Chert has two friends to kind of keep him in line if he goes a little too wild. The trio visit the houses of children and judge whether they've been good or bad. If the children are good, the angel gives them sweet.

sweets or candy. But if they're bad, the devil creature, Chert, threatens to put them in his sack and take them to hell. Luckily, children, even the naughty ones, have a chance to escape this fate. Because if they are able to recite a poem or sing a song, they can change Chert's mind. He went to musical theatre school. He's just got a soft spot for the works of Bernstein. I feel like it would be kind of hard to perform under these circumstances. If a demon breaks into your house and he's like, I'm going to drag you to the fiery underworld. Unless you can sing me a little song.

Through tears, like, you gotta be popular. We gotta be popular. He's like, I'm listening. Keep going. He's like whipping your ankles while you're doing it. Hello, my baby, hello, my honey. Hello, my ragtime gal. Now, maybe the most worrying part about this version of Crampus and his pals is that it's kind of real.

These guys really do show up. In a lot of small towns where families know each other, three or four people volunteer to play the roles of Michaelas and his enforcers where they go around the town visiting children. Wow. Which is only extra terrifying because imagine being a kid and hearing these stories of Mickelas and the angel and the demon and you're like, oh, no, no. Okay, yeah, I get it, Mom, I get it, Dad. This is like a metaphor to make sure that I don't misbehave leading up to Christmas. And your mom's like, he'll be here tonight. You're knocking the door.

What do you mean, he's real? Hello. To make this ordeal even more hilarious, Mikolas and his angel and devil are often repaid with food and booze. So by the time that they're finishing off the last few houses, Michaelas and his boys can be pretty toasted. Yeah, Michaelas has been hitting the Mickelope Ultras. Michaelas Ultras.

The angel and the devil is just Michaelas before and after he drinks. It's all just one guy. There's something so cursed about thinking about the name jolly old St. Mick. It's like, don't you mean jolly old St. Nick? Nope. Nope. Different guy. I wish. This one likes a drink.

I have a video here that shows the gang turning up to a house to visit some children, and it might be the funniest video that I've seen all year. Okay. Okay, we got a family. They're all, the videos started and they're cowering in fear. Oh my God. It's bad that the bishop is already scary. Like the guy that's supposed to be good? The bishop has Bitcoin eyes

He has like laser eyes The children are car The children and the adults are carring and beer Oh my goodness This is the best part There's a kid There's a kid hiding under the bed That they reveal he is tucked in the corner

Shaking in fear Bro my daughter can't My daughter can't see Santa let alone a nine-foot hairy nightbeast of the alpine region I will say one of these kids is kind of a little G she like yeah she is hugging her mom but she's like kind of not responding that much she's like I'm the crampus figure is so scary looking

it's like an old Halloween mask of like a shriveled face and he's come in with the sack. The bishop's gone. The bishop's not even in the room anymore. It's just Crampus. Now what makes this version of Crampus interesting is that in most other stories, Crempus is a pretty evil guy, sure,

but he takes his job seriously. Chart, however, is surprisingly negotiable. Children can even bribe him with sweets to avoid punishment. There are stories of Chert threatening to drag a naughty child away, only for a nearby parent to calm him down with a gingerbread cookie. Honestly, Chert might be my favorite of all the crampuses, but there are more to go.

We are moving on to crampus number three, the German Furman. The German what? Furman. Oh, the German Furman. Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. It's all right. Yeah, I put these to pump the brakes on these, yeah. Cool.

Yeah, don't bring you it down because they're going to get progressively worse, the puns and things like that. When it comes to Germany, Crampus takes on a slightly different role. He's not the only sidekick that Santa hires to help him at Christmas. He shares that responsibility with Knechtrupprakht, a suit-covered, staff-wielding grumpy old man who follows Santa around and tests children on their religious knowledge. So did you say soup covered?

Suit-covered. Soup-covered would be more in line with. just being an old man. So to be clear, Cranpus was still the scary evil one, but Ruprecht was there almost to help Crampus find out which kids were the bad ones.

Ruprecht would ask children about religious scripture, and if they recited it correctly, he rewarded them. And if they failed, he hit them with a stick. Great, great. Yeah, I'd love to see. So much more justice being enacted.

This is like political centrism in the Crumpus world. It's like, look, I think we can all agree that crampus has gone a little too far. You know, sometimes some innocent children do get wrapped up in the wicker sack. I think what we're going to do, because it's brutal what he's doing to these kids, we're just going to test the kids slightly more to see if they are evil, but still do all the exact same shit to them. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, yeah. This version is basically the exact same as the last version, except there's not even an angel. It's just another guy with sticks. What is crampus? even therefore at that point. If the guy who's testing the children also hits them,

shouldn't he just be like the judge and then the punishment is dealt by the evil one? It's bad when the evil one isn't even the name of the guy that's hitting the children. That's why over here this part of my life, we've been campaigning for crampuses

to wear body cameras. For too long, crampuses have been switching off their body cameras when kids get this poem wrong. we need to make it illegal for crampuses to turn off their body cameras. We need to defund crampuses. Hey, I've been saying it for years. Acab. All crempuses are bad. Acab with a K. As stories of crempus blended across the regions, he became Ruprex's

supernatural partner. Think of Ruprecht as a judge and jury and Krempp as the execution. Which again isn't a great way to talk about people who visit children. Where is Santa? Why isn't he stopping this? This is, because every version still has like a Santa, but he's just so busy putting presents under a tree and drinking milk and eating cookies that there's just a couple other guys

doing really nasty shit that he's just like, hey, none of my business. I think at this point all the kids would be united and just saying like, I'm starting to think Christmas isn't worth it. I'm starting to think, you know, it's like, no, no, but you need Crumpus because then you know, how do we test who deserves the toys? Okay, I think we all don't need toys.

I think we can just skip Christmas. Let's just all survive winter. Okay? Because last time, Santa gave me a yo-yo, which was pretty cool. But then Ruprecht asked me about Second Corinthians, and I didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. So then he hit me with a stick. He tried to strangle me with the yo-yo.

He wrapped it on my neck. The doctor says I'll never yo-yo again because of the beating. Because it's tangled. You tangled the rope. Kit, I have a picture of Ruprecht here with St. Nicholas, if you want to see what this guy looks like. I don't, but it sounds like you're going to show me anyway. Okay, yep. This image is a tale of two halves, for sure.

We have St. Nicholas on one side looking godlike, saint-like, beautiful, flowing white and red guns. He looks like a cardinal or a pope, in fact, beautiful staff, presumably shepherding the believers through the long winter. and then to his right we have a at best unhoused gentleman from the 12th century carrying a bundle of sticks and a sack I'm worried about what's in the sack he's hunched over in a menacing way you know like you know like how you'd be hunched over if you were going to like really like a hunch that is only reserved for chasing children we also can't stress this enough there is nothing supernatural about this individual. This is just a man with a sack and a stick. All right, we have to move swiftly along because there are more crampuses to cover.

It's time for crampus number four. The Mini from Sloveni Park Elge. I think that's how you pronounce it. P-A-R-K-E-L-G. For this version of the Christmas monster, we're going to Slovenia, where crampus takes the form of Parkkels. This guy is possibly the most intense crampus of all of them.

Are you sure there isn't like a Bahamas crampus? There was a Hawaiian crampus, but he didn't make the cut. We just don't have time today, so we have to talk about parkerge. In terms of appearance, Parkulch is similar to your traditional crampus, but far more energetic and unpredictable. Great, like a velocirapt. or something. Markle's traditions include him running through the streets with enormous crowds of demons

screaming and banging on doors. I don't even know how this is even remotely about Christmas anymore. It's a demon parade. It goes through towns. Children are often warned to behave or, quote, Parkulch will come running. And he's usually accompanied by 20 other Parkulch. Park Gleges, park guy.

Yeah, the running is worrying. You know, we've talked up a little about that in the podcast before. It's never good. You know, this is like, you know, the original Dawn of the Dead movies. You know, people always talk about do the zombies walk? Do they run? Running is scary. They shouldn't be, you know, if you're that evil, you should be at least impeded by acceleration.

It should be impeded by something. So the ability to be that evil and that fast is just concerning. It just shows that he has business. to do. Yeah, there's a reason why Santa visits every house by sleigh and flying reindeer. If the lore was that Santa ran to every house on Christmas Eve, that's so sinister and menacing. Seeing him running through the streets with a sack. Like the T-1000 or whatever, the liquid terminator? He'd be shot dead. Yeah. Kid, I found a video of an event where Parkulge and his demons are putting on a display in the streets. and it looks like hell itself has been split open.

Oh shit. Check this out. What the bloody hell is going on? They're just burning things. They're just burning piles of fire. And like this, I will say this video is cut like the sickest heavy metal video. Or it's like this is a Ramstein music video. For those listening, there are hordes of demons with flares,

and burning flames. So many pyrotechnics. There's no way they have like a health and safety permit to do this. He just tried to hit a kid. Did you see that? One of him ran up to the barrier and almost went to hit a child and the child had to stop him. They're just rough housing the crowd.

Two of the parkals just started fighting with each other. They're absolutely rowding. So many open flames. This looks like a hate crime. They just started rubbing a child's face. It's genuinely insane to think that this is in some way commemorating Christmas time. Okay, no, that's just fun. The crampus stole a guy's baseball hat, tried it on and then put it back on the guy's head the wrong way around.

That was great. All I'm going to say is, thank God this isn't the crampus that we're going to be seeing in phasmophobia. because I can't deal with 30 of them in a room running around lighting fires. Yeah, that would be, that's presumably some kind of higher difficulty level of the game. The park gulch. But don't worry, Kit, there is more Krempus to come. I hope you're hungry for more. It's time for Krampice number five.

Oh no, it's not going to be good and hungry, is it? Well, actually, Kit, get ready for a big 180. I know it seems like every version of Cranpus that we deal with is more twisted and evil than the last, but in Hungary, Crempus, with a Z at the end, is slightly more refined. He's a more human version of the creature. On the night of December 5th, Hungarian children put their clean shoes on the window sill instead of stockings. Good children will wake up to treats, candy, and small gifts, but the bad kids wake up to Verjax, which I'll save you the time Googling.

It's sticks. It really didn't require giving us the local Hungarian word. He could have just said sticks. I'd probably pronounce that wrong as well. Verjax, verjax. Now, the nice thing is that these sticks serve as a warning. It's the implication that the kid could be hit by Krampus rather than actually hitting them.

Right. It's like sending a bullet in an envelope to someone's house. It's a nice little bit of psychological warfare, which, you know, I think is better than actually hitting a child. The best part about Hungarian crampus is that a lot of children actually receive a combination of sweets, gifts, and the sticks. To show that no child is ever truly just good. The problem with kids, though, is that I'm going to go on a limb and guess that 80 to 95% of the children who receive sticks go on. go on to beat their siblings with the sticks mercilessly all Christmas morning. Like, if they weren't on the naughty list already, they're on it for next year.

Now I know what you're thinking. Rory, please make it stop. There is no way that there are more versions of crampus out there in the world. But there are. It's time for crampus number six. We're saying, sayanara to the Alps and heading to Japan. Really? Kit, I want to tell you about the Namahage, also known as the ogre who checks if you've been good. Obviously, while this isn't a one-to-one crampus remake, there are a lot of similarities

that make the Namahage essentially Japanese crampus. Instead of Christmas, he appears on New Year's Eve. He's a tall, scary-looking ogre that threatens to steal naughty children away from their parents. In some towns, adults will dress up. up as horned ogres like the Namahage and visit children in their homes yelling things like, are there any lazy children here? Oh God. Which is an incredibly cool thing to see that while maybe not exactly like Cranpus and containing all that kind of Christmas pagan and Christian imagery, there is essentially still a monster that visits children at the end of the year to check if they've been good.

It's crazy that, like, in medieval times, a good, clean, like, several hundred years before modern corporate culture, people still manage to invent performance reviews. They invented annual performance reviews for kids. And then if you make it through, the bonus is, what, sweets? I can't believe we're doing this to children. Borderline giving them KPIs, crampus sitting them down. It's like, look, you fell down in a couple of areas such as cheerfulness. gratitude towards your parents. But I think with a good Q2, I think we can pull this back and get you back in the nice list by Q4 next year.

Because I'd really hate to hit you with sticks and eat you. But obviously, that is a real possibility. Look, kid. How long you've been in this family? Three years. I'm three. Yeah, three years. So look, you know, I hate to say it, but, you know, last in first out, honestly, here at this family.

So, yeah, we'd hate to see you go, but they will happen. It will happen if you start being kinder. It's funny you talk about performance reviews for children because I was cleaning up my apartment the other day. And I actually found a bunch of old papers that I'd taken from my house that I grew up in when I was a kid. And they were pages from like 1998 and 99 that were the notes from our official monthly family meetings that I used to have as a child. I forgot about this. Hopefully other families did this and it wasn't just us. Complaints and issues were very...

Don't set it up like that. Hopefully other people did this. They didn't. So continue. It was a very formal method of submitting complaints in the home where once a month we would gather a family meeting. We would all sit down. Someone was taking notes and there was proper times to raise complaints,

talk about issues, goals for the next month. and it was very great to see kind of what my issues and priorities were when I was seven years old. A lot of my complaints were things like bedtime, not enough hugs and kisses from mommy and daddy. Other issues were ice cream, specifically a lack of it. And I really wanted to focus on hitting some of my goals for next month, which were, quote, visiting the park. Yep. And getting more ice cream. It was like the G7 summit of your house.

It was like, mother, the ice cream sanctions that have been in place since last winter, since the great vomiting of last Christmas are unfair and unjust. It was one day I'd eaten a lot of McDonald's that day as well. And I sure couldn't handle the McFlurry, but I promise you that we are working towards a sustainable solution where I am able to handle my ice cream. Yeah, me and my siblings had to like create a couple of. coalition and band together just to get enough votes to pass the ice cream laws in the house. Yeah, your parents were the US and Russia, like the vetoing nations.

Like you get the siblings band together. It's like, we submit a unanimous vote for more tins of celebrations at Christmas time. They're like, that is vetoed, vetoed across the board. You can't get anything past this block of nations. Well, one of the coolest parts about this crampus is that he's disdose. as being an Oni, which is a powerful demonic ogre or troll from Japanese folklore. And in Phasmophobia, you can already hunt Oni. It's one of the creatures in the game.

Right. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, Phasmophobia has like, like we've studied the paranormal for many years. I feel like phasmophobia has categories of spirits that maybe it's not that I didn't know they exist, but they feel like so niche to me. It's very cool. I mean, do they have them categorized so strongly? Yeah, yeah.

And it's worrying, too, when you think you know all of them, and then they're like, oh, actually, in this house, it's the twins. And I'm like, who are the twins? I've never even heard of them. Now I know what you're thinking, Kit. Yes, there are a lot of versions of crampus out there, a lot of terrifying versions. But frankly, we've got nothing to worry about.

We might have the minds of children, but we're not children anymore. And on top of that, these are just ancient myths and legends. Well, it may shock you to know that across the 19th and 20th centuries, there have been real-life crampus sightings all over the globe. No, there haven't. Can't be. They just can't. Yes, there has.

Come on, no. I just showed you a video of 40 of them. Taring that place to shreds. One of the earliest comes from Mariezel in 1855, where villagers reported seeing, quote, a horned phantom wandering the outskirts of town late at night. Several families described hearing bells and dragging chains in the snow. Livestock became restless for days,

and one farmer even claimed to find hoof-shaped impressions around his barn that ended abruptly in place where no creature could leap. I don't want to hear about no 1855 siding. these people, you want to tell me a Victorian peasant saw the crampus? Yeah, no shit, they were drunk on schnapps all winter long. I want it, I want, I want, I want GoPro footage of the crampus. Look, we're going here. These are in somewhat chronological order, so bear with me here. Another account from 1923 in Salzburg described a young woman returning from a Christmas market

who claimed to see a tall, furry, horned figure crouched on a rooftop like a gargoyle. She reported glowing yellow eyes and a low rhythmic sound like chains brushing against wood. When she approached to get a better look, the figure leapt down into a snowdrift and vanished without leaving any footprints. A local newspaper ran the story under the headline,

The Uncanny Crampus Shape. Oh, well, that one's a lot cooler. I will say that. I like that one. Yeah. Brave of this young woman to see something like this and try and approach it and get a better view, I would have run for the hills,

being the naughty little boy that I am. I was going to say, she was feeling pretty confident about her kind of charity volunteer work. She was like, this bitch can't touch me. I'm good, yeah. I ain't getting sticks. Whereas Rory sees that shadow,

and you know the way people say your life flashes before your eyes? Rory's Google Chrome browsing history, He's like, no. I'm 180 and turning the other way and going. Me and Crampus, it's like that horror movie, It Follows. He's just always walking towards me for 364 days of the year. Christmas is when he gets me. You know, Kit and I will be like out at the coffee shop, grabbing lunch. Kitt's talking to me. I'm not listening to a single word. My eyes are locked over his shoulder. And I see a goat just walking towards me. I'm like, I have to leave.

I would like to know, actually, if you've been bad all year and then Crampus visits you, hits you with sticks, you know, get you to change your way through punishment, are you then reset for the year? Is it like a fresh slate? Or do you have to like win your way back out of bad? Yeah, I wonder, man, because I will say whenever you were talking about your family like meeting, I did kind of think to myself, I was like, I mean, I can't really say shit because I'm like, that's hilarious. Damn. But I went to, well, we both went to a Catholic secondary school, but I went to a Catholic primary school as well. And every week, we had to get in a closet with a priest, pause, and tell him how naughty a boy we were, pause. And he would give us our punishment. Pause. But we would. It's wild thinking back, but we had to line up down the corridor, like 50 of us, for our confession. and we had to like,

and we'd be standing in that queue, as you say, like seven years old, like, what the fuck have I done wrong? Like, I thought I was, by definition, innocent as a child. Apparently not. So I'm sitting in the queue, like, racking my brain. Like, I guess I smacked the shit out of my sister last night. My older sister, I will say, the power play. She is normally bullying the shit out of me,

so I must have lashed out and hit her back. And then I would go in and tell the priest, so I smack my sister yesterday. And he'd be like, very good, my child, thank you for confessing. Do six Hail Mary's and ten our fathers. And we would all then march back to the classroom and like sit in silence and just pray for like 20 minutes. But I'm not a student of the Lord or the scriptures anymore. I believe the premise is that then you're good after that.

That's the whole point, right? You confess your sins and then it's a clean slate. Yeah, yeah, like wipes it clean. it's such a loaded term to hand to a child. It's like you have to line up for confession. And you'd be like, confess to what? Just confess. Oh, the crimes.

You did it. Yeah. You did. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because at that point when you're a kid, you're like, you think every adult is right about everything. So you'd probably be like, well, shit, damn. Maybe I did do something.

Yeah. And I think that is the idea of where maybe the Catholic guilt comes from. And so that. Right. I'm kind of like, oh, you know, yeah, my schooling was pretty good. I don't think it really affected me. And now as a 34-year-old man when something nice happens to me, I feel bad about it for some reason. You know, this is maybe part of that reason.

I mean, that would have been nice if Crampus went down that path and gave a way for children to just apologize for being bad and forgiven. I think if you went into the confession booth as a child and there was a priest with a bundle of sticks, you'd be like, oh, hell no. Hell no. What does a Buddhist do? Let's try something new. This sucks. I think the crazy thing is that like we think Crampus is a kind of like nuts situation. I think our Catholic secondary school, they only put the sticks in the bin probably 20 years before we got there. Like not that long. Oh, they were still hitting kids. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And that was that you didn't even need to wait till Christmas. That was an all year on treat. You could get beat if you said something wrong. Well, we're jumping forward now to 1953. Two teenagers in Tyrol were walking home when a creature emerged from a drainage tunnel. They described long, curved horns, a hunched and shaggy body and a chain dragging behind it. When they fled and returned the next day with police, the tunnel walls were found scratched and marked with deep gouges.

The mud showed what looked like hoof prints, but far too large to be. match any local livestock. Could we be looking at some kind of teenage mutant ninja turtles crampus variant? Yeah. Where a goat in the sewers of New York City has been trained by a Japanese rat? Anything is possible, I will say. So there you go kit. Not only have we covered all six versions of crampus, of which there are more, but these are six of the best and most well-defined versions that I could find. We've also talked about some crampus sightings over the year. Traditionally, this would be a case that maybe it would feel silly to come down on a yes or no. But I think taking these sightings into consideration and all these different variations from countries all over the world, we got a real paranormal case on our hands.

Yeah, I guess so. You've kind of forced the issue, Rory, in a pretty pertinent, important way we're getting this message out to people just in time, really. You've got, hey, if you're listening on the day of release, you've got nine days. live in Germany, you've got 10 days to sort, or sorry, eight days if you live in Germany, nine days to sort your shit out if you live in other countries. You know, sometimes we have a case on this paranormal life where I say it's time to bring up a little something called Pascal's wager. You know, this was a philosopher called Pascal who wagered that, you know, in the great debate, centuries long debate of was God real or not, was heaven and hell real or not, he said, might as well get praying, because he argued that praying every day and believing God is such a, like, minimal impact to your actual daily life, even if you don't really believe in it, that has such great positive consequences if God is actually real.

Because what if you just confidently believe God isn't real here? And then you get up to the pearly gates and St. Paul is just like smack in his fist, just like, you, motherfucker, you f*** up. Oh, you want to see, are we even going to, are you even going to ask me if your name's on the list? bit of a waste of time, right? To even look, see if your names on the list? I think we all know where you're going. And in this case, you know, for me, it would be easy for me to sit here and say Crampus isn't real.

But would that just be unwise, you know, knowing that he might be out there with a stick? You know, you know, he's adding names like mine to the list. Well, it's maybe even a little bit extra scary for you, Kit, as the father of a young child who's the prime target for Crampus. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, I don't need to freak out. He ain't coming for me.

I can be as bad as I want. I have been pretty much as bad as I legally can be. I see what you're saying. You've made it out the mud. You're gone. He's not coming for you. Whereas he might come to my household. He might.

I think you're going to have to just wait by the chimney with some tinsel wrapped around your hands, getting ready to strangle him as soon as he comes down. Like piano wire. That's a good point. The only problem is if you get. one of the bad versions of him. If it's regular Crampus, I feel like you could take him. If it's Michaelos, the angel and him,

maybe Michaelis and the angel would be like holding him back a little bit, being like, yo, yo, yo, chill, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Cranpuss is like, oh, I'm going to hit the kid. You might be able to win that fight. If it's the one where it's like 40 of them running through the streets, I don't know, I think maybe just move. Yeah.

I'm going to... Just go purge mode. I'm going to buy a taser. I'm going to buy a taser. And then on Christmas night, I'm going to read my daughter a bedtime story. She's going to go to sleep. And then I'm going to stand behind the door

with the lights off all night. With the tinsel. Like every episode of this paranormal life, I think it's important that we do come down on a conclusion. It is Christmas time. you know, I'm feeling festive, but does that mean that I could say on this podcast that I believe that Crempus, in any of these six forms, is real?

It's a no from me this week. Hey, a lot has changed in eight years, but I think the evidence surrounding the existence of Crenpus has not. I think that has remained the same for probably a thousand years. It's a no. That is true. So there you have it, a double note on this week's episode of the podcast. But we might have our minds changed, Kit, because tonight, Tuesday, the 16th of December at 6pm GMT,

you and I are going to live stream ourselves with crampus in phasmophobia. So he is real. So he is real. He's real in the game. Okay, okay. Or live stream with crampus in phasmophobia. We're having them on as a guest. Wow, that is so cool, man.

We had, we did a stream of phasmophobia not that long ago and it was so goddamn fun. Shout out to you if you were on that. We did have hundreds of people watching that live. It was very, very cool. I don't think we even shouted that out in the podcast at the time. Maybe we posted about it. But it's not to be missed. It was a lot of fun to recap.

They made a video game where we can go on location investigating. This is incredibly realistic paranormal investigation. We got the van. We got all the tools. We load out. we head out into a haunted house, me, Rory, Phil, and investigate the supernatural and gather evidence. It is hilarious to watch, I will say. It's so fun.

The last stream ended with all of us gathering evidence in a house and then trying to run out of the house to escape. Phil got out. Kit got out. And then the door slammed shut before I could escape. The spirit got wrong. And I squealed like a baby piglet. running around this living room while a ghost chased me.

It was horrifying. I had the evidence of the beast on like a video camera and he was like, take the evidence, take the evidence! He like threw it through the window. We were like, oh shit, get the camera, run into the van.

Oh, it was so funny. God damn it. So we're going to be doing that today at 6pm. I'll put the link in the description of this podcast. So you can click it and tune in to the live stream.

It's going to be, so much fun. I genuinely can't wait to do that. Hopefully a bunch of you guys can make it. And if you are listening to this a day later, a couple days later, you can still watch the video back. It'll be live streamed, but you can watch it anytime on YouTube. And one exciting reason to tune in is because I didn't mention this at the start of the podcast kit, but we got a letter the other day from Crampus. Is that right? It is addressed to This Paranormal Life. from crampus and the back of the envelope has a horrible demonic crampus skull on it. So I feel like this could have come up during the physical evidence stage of the investigation.

It could kit, but we're not going to open it right now. We're going to open it on stream and figure out what's in this thing. Wow, cliffhanger much. Yeah, there you go. A little incentive to tune in to the live stream tonight and check it out. I can't wait. We've been playing phasmophobia quite a bit this year, and it's been so much fun every time that we've done it. An absolute blast.

So tune in. We're going to meet Krampus, explore some of these Christmas-e themed levels. It's going to be so much fun. And then we have, what, one more episode of the podcast before Christmas is over? Yeah, isn't that insane? The end of year is always fun time for us. We've got some cool stuff coming out, I will say. We've got some kind of VFS.

themed episodes. We're keeping the after parties coming on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life with some behind the scenes. We've had some cool Christmas parties lately. We've been talking about on there. And I think even when you're coming back to Ireland for Christmas, we're even going to do a little

like on the ground festive after party recording. That's pretty cool. Wait a minute. I'm working. Well, it's... Back in Ireland? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just like a few days before Christmas. It's not even... I'm not saying it's like Christmas Day or something. It's like, I don't know, like the 22nd of December or something.

Maybe just hang out for an hour, have a hot chocolate and record. So it's a work trip to be clear? Well, no. I mean, it's like one hour and then like the whole rest of the time you're there. You're like with your family having meetings or whatever those you guys do. I'm going to expense my flights. I'm going to expense my Brathurst at the Christmas markets. I'm going to expense my games.

for my family, all the hot chocolate and Guinness that I want, and I'm about to be soup covered. Yeah. Yeah. Courtesy of TPL Enterprise. I don't think it's how, like, yeah, I just don't think it's how, like, UK tax law works, you know, is that you could expense. What did you say, the Bratversst at the Christmas market that you go to just days apart? The Brat first. Yeah.

Shout out to the time when I was in Freiburg in Germany. and I went up to one of the beer gardens and I wanted a beer, Stein of white beer. And I accidentally asked for some white sausage. And they were like, they were like, yo, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, to chill. Stop glazing, bro.

Stop glazing. I was like, no, I didn't need to say that. I don't know what you think happens at these Christmas markets, but you can't just go around asking people for an extra long white sausage, all right? Kid is right. There is so much amazing fun stuff coming up, not just the after parties, but our best of 2025 episode, which we do every year.

True. And our big end of year bonus Q&A episode where we answer a bunch of community questions in a podcast that takes like two hours and we have a bunch of drinks and get drunk and have fun and celebrate the year. Yeah, we started drinking at like 10 in the morning. We did. We did. So that's going to be a great episode to tune into. I hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the six evil crampuses that you can be visited by this year. Of course, we'll be back next week with another lightly Christmas-themed episode.

We love you. We hope you're having a great Christmas season, and we'll be back next Tuesday with another paranormal tale.