Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 14 - Krampus: The Christmas Devil.

Episode Date: December 19, 2016

In the mountains of central Europe, jolly old St. Nick doesn’t work alone. He leaves the handling of the naughty list to Krampus - a horned, goat-legged, split tongued, whip holding, Christmas demon draped in chains who beats and sometimes kidnaps wicked children. Krampus throws kids in the sack on his back and takes them to Hell and occasionally even eats them. Yup. This is a real tale that has been told to children. Buckle up for this dark holiday edition of Timesuck and get ready to learn all you’ll ever need to know about Krampus, Bavaria’s Christmas Devil.

His name is Krampus. He and his helpers did not come to give or to take Yeah, Krampus motherfuckers Mm-hmm. Remember being worried about being beat with a stick by a face lick and a half goat horned Christmas demon who might throw you in a sack And then take you to hell if you can get your shit together by the holidays Now well then you probably didn't grow up in Austria or Germany or the Czech Republic or somewhere else around the hills of Bavaria I'm sure you know about St. Nick, Jolly Old Soul, bringing holiday joy and cheer and mariment to all the good boys and girls of the world of A Christmas Eve and now by the end of this episode

You're gonna know everything you need to know about Santa's dark, Germanic, demonic, underworld, live in Pell, Krampus. And this dark, strange, even festive edition of Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Now, I hadn't heard about Krampus, Krampus. He gets called both. I'm going to call him crampus, crampus. He gets called both. I'm gonna call him crampus for this episode. And you can say like, well actually, he's shut the fuck up.

He's, you know, he's a, he's folklore. He can be crampus or crampus. But I hadn't heard of crampus. I guess I'll say crampus. Now that I'm saying that out loud, I like the ring of crampus a little better. But I hadn't heard of him until very recently. Listener, Jeremy Judd actually recommended him to me

on Facebook. He also recommended previous episode that I did. But I actually had been thinking about him before. I think I heard about him for some friends or something. And when I was thinking about doing a holiday episode, I wanted to find a fun angle on it. I didn't want to just do the traditional, you know, just the origins of Santa and Christmas like I did with Halloween. And then I remembered

this, this crampus fella. And I was like, I got to find out more about this guy. In the second, I read, you know, the finished like the first paragraph on him. I'm like, okay, this is definitely time suck material. And invite to a quick, quick thank you to all the new time suckers. I'm like, okay, this is definitely time-suck material. And, and by the way, quick, thank you to all the new time-suckers. I put out a little blast on Pandora, and you responded. Thousands of new listeners, so I'm very, very excited about that. I hope you're liking it. And, yeah, I'm just excited to keep this kind of train moving along down the tracks. Hopefully, keep making it better. The more listeners I get, I might actually be to keep this kind of train moving along down the tracks. Hopefully keep making it better. The more listeners I get, I might actually be able to monetize it on some level someday. And the benefit there for you is I can increase the quality.

I don't know. Maybe actually have a studio to record in. You don't get to sound that much better. Maybe having an assistant someday to help with this research. Because I love it, but Jesus Christ, I was up to like one in the morning last night, and I'd already done a bunch of research because I couldn't stop watching fucking Kramas videos

because it's insane, and I just couldn't believe I didn't know anything about this. And I just, I spent for this, you know, roughly half an hour episode, a lot hours, a lot hours this week. You know, my wife's like, what are you doing? This, I'm like, it's a crampus, all right? And then she saw a video and then freaked her out.

And she's like, all right, don't talk to me about it. So she will not be listening to this episode. I don't think, I think she's gonna check out on this one. I didn't realize that three crampus movies came out in 2015 last year. There was, I don't know where I was for all this. There was actually, one was a feature film like major theatrical release.

Just called Crampus, starting Adam Scott, Tony Collette, David Kesner, I love David Kesner. And grossed almost 62 million at the box office, on a $15 million budget, 65% fresh rating from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, which is good for a horror movie. Horror movies usually just get f**king trashed on there. And then there was another one, a Netflix one, a Crampus, the Reckoning, zero critics rated on Rotten Tomatoes. 14% of the audience liked it, produced by Funhouse features instead of Universal, like the previous one in it grows to approximately

zero dollars on how much the executive producer was able to wrangle from manipulated relatives and to give him money for that piece of shit it looks fucking absolutely terrible like I don't mind a low-budget war movie but it looks like you might actually just want to watch if you have Netflix. No, actually just go to YouTube. Check out a clip from it. The CGI is so terrible. Like I don't know anything about CGI. I'm confident given like a two-day weekend seminar,

I could create better special effects than the special effects you use in that particular movie. It's fucking so bad. But then there's a third one that I actually did watch. I want to watch, I want to watch, Krampus, still the main one with Adam Scott and Tony Collette and all that. It looks, it actually looks pretty good to me.

And the clip I played in the cold open, that actually comes from that movie. He comes to take. But it's one of those shitty things, we're like, it's on cinamax I don't have cinamax and so you can't rent it on Amazon Amazon wants to trick like you know It's like hey watch this movie with a 30j fucking free trial to cinamax I'm like no because then that's gonna turn into me pain for cinamax for six months that forgot that the free trial expired and

I haven't watched cinamax You know, but they're I'm sure there's I'm sure there's good programs on there I think like banshee and some stuff that look pretty cool, but I already got Netflix and HBO and plenty to watch I think of I think of skin amax. I think it's getting cinemas. I think of jerk enough to Soft porn at two o'clock in the morning when I was 13, you know, because we had it and my mom didn't realize what kind of shit was on through the middle of the night. Luckily for me, but anyway, I did watch a Christmas horror story, which is an anthology horror movie also in 2015.

William Shatner's in that one, and so it's like four little tails woven together, all about Krampus and Santa, And it features a fantastic fucking showdown, like a fight scene between an old Santa Claus and the demon Krampus. And there's a bunch of other shit that you can find on there. American dad did some Krampus stuff back in 2013. I'm going to reveal later that Anthony Bourdain did a crampus kind of animation thing. It's crazy. There was also another movie in 2014, Crampus, The Christmas Devil, terrible film on Amazon Video. Excuse me. So who are, so what is Krampus? You're probably wondering, I'm talking all these movies.

Okay, here we go. Krampus is traditionally depicted as a goat kind of human hybrid. Like to me, he looks like an evil version of the Greek god of the wild pan. Like, you know, horned human head. So he's got goat horns kind of coming out of his forehead. He's got a human torso. He's got goat legs. Occasionally in some old. He's got a human torso. He's got he's got goat legs Kaisley and some old pictures. He has one human leg one goat leg

But for the most part he's got you know full on full goat. Let's just say full. He's got he went full goat Below the waist Fangs long fork tongue. He likes to kind of like a long a long creepy fork tongue. He likes to roll out And I just like to lick kids faces fucking weirdo and the face of kind of like a long, yeah, like a long creepy fort tongue. He likes to roll out. Sometimes likes to lick kids faces fucking weirdo and the face of kind of Satan is The modern campus. He just looks like yeah, he looks like a fucking demon and he's and he's draped in chains He's almost always draped in chains. He He which I guess comes from like, you know some Christian early Christian symbolism of being you know bound in hell

Like bound to the underworld. That's why the chains come from. So he's dragging chains around. Not scary. You know, thinking about as a kid, you hear some chains being dragged on the hallway. You're like, oh, fucking crampus is coming. And he has a sack on his back, like a wicker basket type thing. And you're going to find out what he puts in there. And then he has like a whip, like a wicker,

kind of like a horse hair, and I'll get to it a little bit. Some kind of stick, birch, there we go, like birch, birch stick. And so what he does, is he shows up on, usually with St. Nick, and we're gonna dig into that. We think of Christmas here in America. I had never even heard of St. Nicholas Day until two years, three years ago, because my wife, her mom is 100% German and Catholic,

and St. Nicholas Day is a Catholic holiday, and kind of where Christmas comes from. If you trace it back, but it's like on December 6th. So in a lot of European countries, when they weren't celebrating Christmas, some places still don't necessarily celebrate Christmas. They celebrate a very similar, like the original kind of Christmas,

if you will, St. Nicholas Day on December 6th. And that's where kids get some toys, if they're good. And on December 5th, the night before, the St. Nick's Eve, that's when St. Nick brings the fucking toys, and in a lot of the Germanic parts of the world, he wasn't alone. He had his helper kind of, I wouldn't say they were friends by whatever,

it's not like they were buddies, but basically like, Cranpas was the yang to St. Nick's yang, where like St. Nick is literally a saint, in they, um, but basically like, uh, Cranpas was the yang to St. Nick's yang where like St. Nick is, is, is, is literally a saint in the Catholic world and he's fucking good. He's the patron saint of kids and, you know, and he's, and he's bringing toys for the good kids, for the good kids. But if you're a bad kid, Cranpas is his counterpart and he, you don't want to fucking,

you don't want to hear his hoofs and the hallway. You don't want to hear those chains because Because he might literally take you to hell. That is part of the crampus legend. Bad kids, he fucking beats him with his birch stick, whips him. And then sometimes he likes to lick his face. That's never really fully explained. I've read a lot of fucking shit about crampus. And there's never like, here's why he would lick people's faces.

There's just pictures of him licking kids' faces. I guess just for the sheer terror of it, to have a demon lick in your face before you're going to get whipped. Or it actually might come because sometimes he eats kids. And some parts of the legend he eats kids. So maybe he's just like, you know, he's getting warmed up. So he wants to lick a little bit of face before he throws him in a sack and takes him back

for anworld snack. So that's the gist of who this guy is. And I'm like, where does this come from? And the origin of Kramppus is Germanic, as is the word. Kramppus comes from the high German word, Krampen, which means claw, probably pronouncing that horribly, Krampen, which means claw, probably pronouncing that horribly, Kronpan, Kronpan, whatever the fuck. But it means claw.

And according to like Norse mythology, Kronpan is the son of Hell, H-E-L-1-L, the goddess who rules the underworld and it's kind of some Norse pagan traditions. And no one knows the exact time or place to miss begin. But we do know it's been told in various forms, this legend of campus, in the Alpine regions of Austria, Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, Czech Republic, the whole Bavarian region for at least a few hundred years, possibly going

back to even pre-Christ, is what some historians believe. And right now on this too, like as I tell the story again, if you're like, I don't know, actually he does this or he does that, well nobody fucking knows cause it was a oral tradition, right? Like there's various versions of Kranpus because it was, the Bavaria was very regionalized in medieval times and pre-Madeevil times.

And so a lot of people didn't like leave their village. So he was kind of like just this boogie man. It's like, you know, word would get around kind of like the telephone game rumors of Krampus. But then, you know, each little village, they kind of those people talk in their little mead hall or whatever the fuck they're hanging out with their families and, you know,

and because no one's writing shit down, the story kind of shifts and stuff. And then each little village kind of comes up with their version of Krampus and then passes that version down. So there's a lot of variations about who this guy was. And because some versions, he's more pagan, some versions, he's more Christian, some people, you know, it's hilarious to me that you go on YouTube

and you watch these Krampus videos and just grownups or like, well, actually, fuck you're wrong. Crampus is not demonic in origin. He is actually part of the Norse mythology of the Bay. And then other people are like, well, Crampus is actually satanic and shut the fuck up. He's made up arguing over, uh, crampus is exact origins, is it stupid, is arguing over like the longevity of leprechauns or the height of Sasquatches, which I'm sure some fucking idiots are out there doing.

Actually, Sasquatch is between six, six, and eight feet, six. If you knew anything about shit that's not real, actually leprechauns do not live, they do not live longer than 150 years. What, you think a leprechaun lives 200 years? What fucking parents basement are you hanging? Cause my mom told me, I don't know,

fucking lot of stupid nerds are gonna overlaid dumb shit on the internet. I don't know. Fucking a lot of stupid nerds are gonna overlaid dumb shit on the internet. So anyway, fucking, crampus, there's various versions. That's what I'm getting at there. I got a little worked up there about all,

I was just reading way too many troll comments on YouTube. They always get me fired up just to shit that people argue about. So anyway, the more I kind of like started to dig in about, you know, crampus, I started to wonder, well, how does this, how did he get like associated with, with, with, with Santa? Like, like these new movies, it's Santa Claus, like in the, um, a Christmas horror story, it's Santa versus Crampus. And so I'm like, well, how did these two get paired up? And so in order to figure that out, I realized I got to learn more about actual

Santa like what the fuck does Santa come from? I don't know I I realized I don't know shit about Santa. I didn't even know about St. Nick The real St. Nick and tell a couple years ago because I wasn't raised Catholic Yeah, so so here's here's Santa. Let's get into Santa and then we'll as we learn about Santa We'll go back into, to Krampus, Krampus. To Krampus, Krampus.

To Krampalopolis, Krampalopolis. I don't know what it's, I don't know how to say words. I do know how to say St. Nick. You can't mispronounce that. And I see K, Nick rhymes with Dick. Can't fuck that one up. I hope. Okay, so the story of Santa can be traced back to an actual dude.

St. Nicholas, he was a real guy. He was born sometime around 280 AD. I say sometime around there, because they didn't have regular hospitals with perfect birth records. But he's born in a patera, Lycia, which was part of the Roman Empire, like modern day Turkey. just a little east, you know, a little south of the Alps region,

where old Krampus got going, where his hoofs were fucking stomping around, torturing kids and shit, what not. Apparently, St. Nicholas fell out, he was born to a wealthy Greek family, and he was the only son of this family, so jackpot, hello, trust fund. And he was set financially.

And his parents died when he was young. And he was raised by his uncle, who was a bishop in the early days of the Roman Catholic church, which at first sounds super sketchy, right? Who wants to be raised by a lone uncle who's also a Catholic priest? Sounds like a good recipe for some diddlin'.

But I think this was an era before the Catholics had found it to be fashionable for priests to molest kids. This was pre when that was fuck, it wasn't cool yet for the priest to stick their fingers in kids' balls. That's probably so many Catholic friends who fingers and kids but holes. Uh, I probably sell me, uh, I sell me Catholic friends who like, fuck, fuck you dude.

Shut the fuck up. There's plenty of priests who don't molest kids. Okay, so, but, but he apparently there's no stories of him being molested. I don't even know why I need to clarify that.

That's just in my head when I hear, sadly, when I hear a priest, I think, man, who are they molesting? It's all like, that's still man ever since, like in what? It was the 2001, 2002, and all that shit came to light. That's all I can think about when I think about, you know, priests raising boys.

But his uncle is a good one. And his uncle kind of, you know, raises him in the church, you know, not surprising, you know, he's a bitch up. He's gonna re-relays and raise in a religious household. And he takes to it and he follows his uncle's footsteps. And St. Nick goes into the church as well and also becomes a priest. He's ordained and then later a bishop himself.

And by all accounts, super cool dude, extremely nice, extremely generous, hard to find a bad word about St. Nick. The only thing I read that was even slightly negative is he punched some dude at the council of Nicaea when they were working some shit out with Constantine about the Bible. Some religious argument and he got so worked up that he punched some quote unquote heretic. So you know, you don't fuck with St. Nick about God or you might get punched in the face. Other than that, couldn't be a nicer guy.

Could not be a nicer guy. And there are numerous stories floating around of him using his family wealth to help those who are less fortunate, especially kids. There was some story, there was like a famine in the cities living in, and he, and this like a ship of grains comes and he wants to give all the grains to the poor

and they're like, yeah, this is our stuff. You got to fucking pay for it, you can't just, and then there was something where he did pay for it and then dispersed it to all the poor, but then also magically the sailors grain was restored. So they were able to give all this grain to the poor people and then still have even more to sell. Some kind of story about that. The most famous deed associated with him is there's a dad in the city he's living in that has three daughters and the dad is very poor.

And apparently in the fourth century, in this part of Lycia and this part of the Roman Empire, if you had girls and you didn't have enough money for a dowry and you couldn't get them married, there was basically one other option, they were gonna be prostitutes. So it was either your wife or prostitute. And even if you were in a prostitute, everyone just thought you were probably,

like if you were a 30 year old woman not married, they're like, wow, she's fucking whore. I mean, that was sadly the reality of that day. Satanic felt bad for this dad. And so the legend has it that he, he tossed three gold bags of purses, you know, of gold coins over the wall of this guy's property. And then one for each girl, a dowry for each girl, so that the dad could then, you know, get a merit. And he did, and he tossed him over because he didn't want,

he didn't want to have the guy feel guilty or have the guy feel indebted to him. He just wanted to do it in secrets. But word got back to St. Nick that the dad had found out that he gave him the money and then St. Nick was with, I guess, apparently like, well, just don't tell anybody, I don't want, you don't need to, you don't owe me anything blah, blah, blah.

Well word does get around that he had secretly, St Nick, or, you know, he's not saying it this time, he hasn't died yet, but the Nicholas had had the bishop had given him this money. And so then the word travels around were basically any time anyone has given a secret gift, they assume that, you know, the bishop Nicholas was the one who did it. And then because he does numerous other generous things, so many things that after he dies, he's put into, he becomes a saint, he's given the title of Saint Nick and he's the patron saint of sailors and of kids. And anytime somebody gets again, a gift and of kids. And anytime somebody gets, again, a gift in secret,

it's like, I think that St. Nick was giving them that gift. And yeah, so if you're a kid, back in medieval times in Christian, in pre-Madevil, the shortly after he died, St. Nick was your dude. If you're a sailor in a kid, St. Nick was definitely your dude. Like if you're a some kid out in the high seas and the waves are getting rocky, St. Nick

is your fucking go-to to pray towards. And then if I can pirate, get a hold of your ship and kill all your crew and then I can rape you and make you walk the plank and you're floating out there in shark and festered waters, you don't hate anyone more than St. Nick. You're like, motherfucker, you really hung me out to dry. But anyway, it's this secret gift-giving thing attributed to St. Nick that leads to the whole Santa Christmas stuff, eventually.

Yeah, because, and actually some other kind of things we do now come from St. Nicholas where there were there's various again These oral traditions back then it becomes various You know versions of how he gave this this dude the money and in one version when he threw one of the bags of gold over the wall It landed in one of the daughter stockings what she was like drying out on a clothesline essentially And so that's where stockings come from. That's fucking pretty cool. I didn't know that. I had to dig deep to find that.

I had no idea that that's from what I gather, the origin of a Christmas stockings. St. Nick tossed in his bag of gold. But it's pretty kind of funny. Some daughter trying to get married. She's washing her stocking out there and hanging out with the dry. And then that becomes like a kid's Christmas stocking

through the years. And also the chimney thing also comes from St. Nick where in another version of the story, he tossed one of the bags of gold down the chimney of this guy's house. And so that's why St. Nick comes down the chimney. But I can pretty crazy. And another weird, I don't know if anybody else has heard of this, maybe email me. I didn't know this was a thing. I couldn't find a lot of info in the web,

but my, apparently I'm into Germans. My ex-wife also have German, just like my wife. And my ex-wife family had a tradition of, they put an orange in the stocking. I don't know if I'd never heard of that one before. Like there would be candy, you know, gifts, whatever, but everyone would get an orange. And apparently that goes back to St. Nick as well,

where there was these paintings or whatever of St. Nick really, and he had three gold orbs that he has in the paintings associated, to symbolize, I'm sorry, the three bags of gold. Well, in some of the paintings, these orbs looked like fucking oranges. People thought, you know, other people were like, ah, that's cool, he's got some oranges.

Look, look at him, with his oranges. I don't know why they would, how they would misconstrue that, but probably because, you know, people didn't see oranges all the time. Maybe the gold paint, you know, took a little bit of an orange tint, you know, it's a ball,

and there's like, ah, look at that fucker with his oranges. That's cool. And then it became like, you know, it's a ball and there's like, oh, look at that fucker with his oranges. That's, that's cool. And then it became like, you know, this magical symbol because people kind of gave him these magical qualities of being a saint. I'm being able to sneak down your chimney and give you secret gifts. And he was also magical enough to get fruit in Northern Europe in the winter, which is, you know, it's not a fucking easy thing to do. They didn't have Trader Joe's or grocery stores shipping that stuff in, keeping it year round. Like, and if you could get an orange in Germany,

in the fifth century, in the winter, you fucking knew some shit. You were a clever motherfucker. And so that's where that also came, it just traced back to St. Nick. So, how did he become Santa? And this is all fascinating to me. I had no idea.

Turns out Santa, as we know him, American in origin, very heavily. So here we go. We're gonna run through this 15th, 16th, 17th centuries. Europeans are bringing there, there are these Catholic Europeans are bringing their St. Nick kind of sell it, you know, versions. And basically St. Nick's, you know, day is like, you know, December 6th their St. Nick kind of sell it versions. And basically St. Nick's day is like December 6th

is St. Nicholas Day and on December 5th, like my wife, you put out shoes. Or instead of some people do stocking, some people do shoes, I don't know exactly why shoes, but you put them out like in front of your door of your bedroom on December 5th that night, and then you get toys and shit on December 6th. My kids hit the fucking jackpot with Lindsay now, because now they get toys on December 5th that night and then you get toys and shit on December 6th. My kids hit the fucking jackpot with Lindsey now because now they get toys on December 6th and

December 25th because they're fucking spoiled. But so they bring over this tradition of St. Nicholas Day and like Columbus named a Haitian port for St. Nicholas on December 6th 1492 and Florida Spaniards named an early settlement St. Nicholas Ferry. That's now Jacksonville. and Florida Spaniards named an early settlement, St. Nicholas Ferry, that's now Jacksonville. And so again, they bring over St. Nicholas Day, this celebration, but also a lot of Protestants are coming over to the New World in America, and especially like in New York City, New Amsterdam,

all that kind of, back in the early days of settling in America. And the Protestants, after, you know, this Martin Luther and John Calvin and the whole Protestant Reformation from, you know, 1517, that pushed away from Catholicism, one of the things that the Protestants did not like was the saints. They felt that took away from the power of Jesus. They didn't like all that mother Mary shit, they didn't like the saint stuff. So they wanted nothing to do with Saint Nicholas Day just on the grounds that it's you

know that almost like idolatry you know like worship in this saint. So they're like nope fuck that we're not doing that. But they did want to recognize the birth of Jesus which was you know December 5th Pope Julius the first was who decided it would be December 5th back or shortly after 336 AD. That's when Constantine started celebrating the birth of Jesus on December 25th. So there was like, some people wanted to recognize the birth of Jesus, some people wanted to recognize

St. Nicholas Day, and there's just kind of a lot of discord over how the holidays or how winter should be celebrated in America. And so, sorry, this is all kind of crazy here. So some people, like the Catholics, they wanted to go and celebrate, have mass. They wanted to have the day off of work, like December 5th, to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Some of the Protestants didn't want, I think that was a regular holiday. They think it should just be Sunday.

And there was all this, you know, fucking back and forth. Well, in 1809, I know I'm kind of being convoluted here. Trying to get to it. In 1809, Washington Irving, I had no idea this was a thing. He's the dude who wrote the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle, among a lot of other works. You know, one of America's first, you know,

authors of note. He joins the New York Historical Society, a society that other works. You know, one of America's first authors of note. He joins the New York Historical Society, a society that named St. Nicholas as the patron saint of the city of New York and the historical society itself. In an honor of St. Nicholas Day, and the society he just joined, Washington Irving published the Nicarbockers' history

of New York on St. Nicholas Day in 1809, a work of satirical fiction, and in this book, there's numerous references to a jolly St. Nick character, who is not a bishop, but a jolly elephant dutch dude who brings toys down the chimney. The seeds of Santa are being sewn. And then, not that long after, in 1821, the first lithographed book to be published in America, first like, you know, illustrated book to be published was called The Children's Friend, a New Year's present to the little ones from five to 12.

It was a booklet containing a poem about Santa, along with eight, you know, hand colored engravings. It was like 25 cents. The author was this Presbyterian minister, the Stansbury, Arthur Stansbury, Isaac Doe, little William Armand, Barnett, with the lithographers, William Gilley was the publisher, and it makes it important, it contains the first known visual representation of Santa Claus and his sleigh and reindeer.

And it's a reminder that in 1821, New Year's was still a popular date for Santa's arrival, New years was still a popular date for Santa's arrival, but then it it moves it over to December 24th So it changed it to it takes it because it's again There's they're kind of like all over the place in early America and then this book is like okay December 24th is when Santa the night before You know Jesus is birthdays when he brings everybody presents And I'm not gonna read anything from the pump that fucking sucks by today's standards and And I'm not going to read anything from the pump because it fucking sucks by today's standards. And he's kind of a Nordic looking dude because the people riding it are of Nordic descent.

And that's how he's got the elves, they're gonna come along shortly because in Scandinavia, where a lot of these people are from, people believe in elves. And sometime around this same era is when people in Scandinavia started like, wonder like, why are these elves living up in the fucking snow?

Oh, because they're working with Santa. All this stuff starts happening around the same time. And then also, okay, here's when it really gets cemented, 1823. Another poem is written widely circulated. It's a visit from St. Nicholas, now better known as the night before Christmas. It's the 1823. The night before Christmas and the previous story I just mentioned, heavily circulated, heavily, heavily circulated. There's not a lot of other books at that time. And because there was no saint, no religious imagery, everyone felt comfortable celebrating this new family holiday. So, you know, in the 1820s is when Christmas, is when the date kind of gets locked down,

is when Santa, as we know him now, gets fucking born, is created, and that's when Christmas, as we know, gets going. What about Crompus? What about him? Why doesn't he show up? You know? Why isn't he, you know, like when did he become associated with Christmas? And the short answer is, fuck never.

You didn't have shit to do with Santa. The way it's commonly known now. In the movies again, he gets thrown in there because it's all kind of confused with St. Nick. And, but in the 17th century, Crampus was tied, again, like I said before, to the Germanic celebration of Saint Nicholas. And he was the one who would come along with him. And now, and now actually, Crampus is being, he's kind of having a resurgence,

not even, I shouldn't say resurgence, because he was never cool in America until recently. Now there's like festivals in December, in Los Angeles, in Philly, New York, Toronto, around North America, celebrating Crown Prince, but really, to me, it's kind of like, it's loosely associated with Christmas because people get it confused because it's actually associated with St. Nick

and really it's just an excuse to have this kind of comic con type atmosphere where, basically it's just people who want to dress up in demon suits, get drunk and whip strangers. I'm not fucking kidding. Watch some YouTube videos on Chrome for celebrations. It's just people scaring kids. The reason it wasn't popular before, the reason it never got associated with you, the

early Santa's stuff is because it's fucking scary. In colonial America, the pure tanical roots, people don't want to hear about a goat monster, fucking whipping kids and taking them to hell, possibly eating them. Throwing them in a fucking sack. Legendously, we hollow. That featured a headless horseman, but that's

about as dark as they got. That's a far cry from a goat demon draped in chains. And so he stayed in Europe. He stayed in the dark woods of a barrier for the most part where he belonged, which just maybe think about like Germans for a second. What the fuck? Last a couple centuries, they just can't get shit right. Now they started two world wars, Holocaust, and they insist on giving Jolly old Satanic a fucking demon sidekick. And there are people that take him seriously over in Europe. I'm making fun of him, but there's an argument kind of for him where it's like, well, you

know, naughty kids should have incentive to be good. You know, Santa should have a counterpart. Shouldn't all just be fun and festive. It should be, you know, if you're a good kid, you get to fun and festive. If you're a bad kid, you get to find an ambassador, if you're a bad kid, you get to whip. So, so there you go. So, let's get into some weird facts. I have some other stuff that doesn't really fit into a narrative.

It's just, should I want to share with you? So, yeah, let's just get into weird facts. Weird facts. Okay, here's the weird, I got four of these. Weird, Crampus, Fact, Number One is, I did mention this earlier, I guess. But some legends say that it's crazy to me that Crampus actually eats the misbehaving kids. There's a postcard from the 19th century that I'll put on TimeSuck Podcast.com.

It shows Crampus with a bunch of human hearts and a wicker-bass kid on his back, and he's roasting three more hearts over an open fire Which I assume are kids hearts How do you like to get that fucking card from your uncle? Hope your kids are being good old crampus is ready to rip your fucking heart out of needed if you're not Just trying to do I was trying to use some kind of Scandinavian accent as if as if life isn't hard enough for kids in 19th century, you know your little brother Timious polio you've got rickets or some other disease that affected people before grocery stores and Vitamins were around your mom died last year and childbirth you know popping out your little sister Greta who almost died of the whooping cough two weeks ago

You know your dad's telling some field he's fucking never plays with you because he's exhausted and now you got to worry about it Goddamn Christmas demon. Fucking taking you to hell, or eating your heart. Ah, crazy, okay. Another thing I learned out, and the second thing, weird fact is, Crampus, I guess I'm using the term facts very loosely because all this stuff is just legend.

Crampus isn't the only Christmas monster. There's also, for example, the funnest, other one I found is the Icelandic Yulkat. I'm not making this up. There is a character tied to Icelandic tradition in which those who finished their work on time received new clothes for Christmas while those who were lazy did not. And to encourage children to work hard, parents told the tale of the Yelcats saying that the Uelcats could tell who the lazy children were because they did not have at least one new item of clothing for Christmas. And then these kids were sacrificed to the Uelcats. So if you're lazy,

you didn't get new clothes and then you were murdered to pay tribute to a fucking Nordic cat. And it looks like a house cat. It looks just like a weird house cat. Fuck that. Ah, like if these were real of Crampus and the Yulkat were both real, I'd be terrified of the chain wielding Crampus. I wouldn't give two shits about Yulkat. I'd stomped a fuck out of Yulkat before getting sacrificed.

Alright, weird fact number three. I watched a video of Crampus Parade when dudes dressed up as Krampuses, which just like randomly grabbed onlookers, and just beat him with a big old birch stick. So if you're thinking about going to these, one of these festivities, make sure you know what you're getting into. It's a lot of drunk dudes carrying sticks and people who have put a lot of work in addressing up like a demon. If that is an recipe for violent trouble,

I don't know what is. Guys who spend in an ordinate amount of time putting together a crampus costume, because it's not like you can just go to the store, and it's not like they're wearing cheesy costumes. These things are like Hollywood level costumes, and now they're drunk roaming the streets with birch sticks. It's pretty funny shit on some of these videos.

They just start beating random people. And also, this is so random to me. There is a stop motion animated crampus carol on YouTube written by none other than the food guy, Anthony Bourdain. Yeah, you can find this. It's just like little cartoon where these two kids are licked by crampus, they're beaten with a stick, and then they're thrown into his crampus back.

It's to be taken to L. I'm going to put a link to that at Timesackpodcast.com and the episode description. And it was supposed to air as part of this travel channel holiday special in 2011, but the travel channel execs found it to be too disturbing. hilarious. So there you go. That was some weird facts. Weird facts. Okay, so yeah, so there we go, there's Krampus.

And again, before I get into the top five takeaways, it's just funny to me, the funniest thing about Krampus that I learned is that a lot of people in the Czech Republic and things really argue, especially on some YouTube videos, they're like in favor of this guy. Like they like this tradition. You know, they think it's good for kids. And I guess there is some argument for that,

because really in a lot of these places, Crampus goes after kids who aren't getting the Christmas spirit. You know, who are not being generous, who just want like the commercial version. They just want toys and stuff. Krampus is like, no, no, this isn't about just fucking toys. You either be good, you be a jolly Christmas kid, and you know, happy with what you get,

and good with your parents, or you get fucking beaten with a stick. And I don't think the modern ones push the hell angle as much. I think it's more just like, Crompus is gonna give you a piece of coal, which is another thing in some traditions, by the way, I forgot to reference earlier, Crompus would be the one to bring the coal.

So, you know, so I know that kind of got brought over to America where you get coal in your stocking. Well, in some places of the world, Crompus was, you had a fucking horned goat devil like coal in your stocking. Well, in some places of the world, the world, the campus was, you had a fucking horned goat devil putting that in your stocking. But you know, I just disagree though, that you need this demon to teach your kids how to be happy about stuff for Christmas.

I feel like if you've gotten to that point, where your kids aren't gonna behave unless they truly believe that they will be taken to hell by a goat demon. I think you fucked up earlier in your parenting. I think you didn't set consistent limits. You didn't have enough open communication about why we're good. You didn't, you know, you didn't spend enough time with them or something. If you've got, yeah, I don't think you need to, you should need a monster to get your kids to behave. That's just me. All right, without further ado,

this episode's running long as they always do. Let's get into some top five takeaways. Time, shock, top five takeaway. All right, number one, sometimes, Krompus would take kids to hell for just a year. And then, I guess, just giving back to their parents. Just really think about that. Think about that was a big part of this legend,

is that Krampus would throw you in his sack and you take you to hell for a year, just like return you the next, you know, St. Nicholas Eve. How, maybe that's, you know, how we got Hitler, you know, he's part of the fucking region where this, the stuff was going on where Krampus stores were being told.

I just don't think spending a year in hell is a good way to work on staying on the good list. Like if you can survive a year in hell as a kid, you're either can't, catatonic when you get back or you're fucking unbreakable. You don't spend a year in hell and then just become like an accountant or loving father or tab in honor

or you know when you grow up or something, you know. Have you met Johann? Ah, good dude. Apparently he was real shit is a kid, but then he went away for a year and he's been in perfect danger ever since. Not, you're gonna be a monster when you come back. Okay, number two.

Check out a Christmas horror store on Netflix, if you haven't, I wouldn't recommend a scene in the theater, but it's a decent holiday movie, a horror holiday movie for sure. Or at least watch the Santa versus Krampus fight scene on YouTube. Number three, Americans made up Santa. USA, USA, who knew?

I thought for sure it'd be Swiss. I don't know why I thought that. I thought for sure it'd be Swiss. Maybe just because he's jolly and he likes chocolate. And he has a big ass fucking beard. Or maybe like Norwegian Scandinavia or something. Nope, New York City. Who? New York City. I would have or something. Nope, New York City. Who, New York City?

I would have never guessed Santa came from New York City. Yeah, and he got to start there because you know people thought Satanic was just too Catholic-y. So there you go. Number four, both Christmas stockings and Santa, if you trace back, tracing back far enough, are Catholic and origin.

So think about that fundamentalist, bitch about the Pope ruining the Bible all you want. But you know, your kids are Catholic and origin. So think about that fundamentalist, bitch about the Pope ruining the Bible all you want. But, you know, your kids are Catholic and it up. Every Christmas mourn. Number five, most importantly, Cranpas is Santa's child-licking, child-beating, kidnapping, demonic sidekick. Never forget that.

Never, ever forget that, especially when you're trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Are those reindeer hooves on the roof? that, especially when you're trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Are those reindeer hooves on the roof? Maybe? Or maybe they're a fucking Christmas demon, right? Coming to take your soul. Time suck, tough five takeaway.

So there you have it. Now, hopefully you know what Crompus is. Probably a lot more about Sen as well. I feel like I got a little meandering and I apologize in the middle of that one. I try to give a slick, I try to give a slicks, I try to give a slick tale, but there's just, there's so much info.

That's what I've learned about doing all these time sucks is I think I can stick to one narrative and there's so much other shit. You just keep getting pulled. As I knew, I guess I as I knew I would, I mean, that's the whole fucking premise of this podcast. It is, I could spend just the rest of my life on some of these episodes.

It feels like, because you know, you start reading about crampus, then you start reading about St. Nick, and then you start reading about San, and then you start reading about fucking Czech Republic, you know. And then you're watching video after video of kids getting scared by people in costumes, and then you're laughing a lot, and then you're having some drinks, and then you're watching more of those videos, because it is pretty funny. But yeah, hopefully though, you did take away some cool stuff. And again, in this warm and fuzzy holiday spirit of campus,

I do wanna thank all of you for continuing to listen. And again, I wanna thank all the new Pandora listeners, so excited about that. Every time I see the numbers bump up, every time I see a new review on iTunes or Stitcher, or wherever you leave it, I just get so happy. And I feel like, you know, this is something that has legs. This is something that can continue on and that you will enjoy.

And just as a reminder, you know, tell your friends and family about it, you know, rate on iTunes if you haven't. And if we get eight more ratings, we're at 92, as I record this, like I said before, on a previous episode, every hundred ratings I get, there is going to be a bonus episode so you get two the following week after a hundred ratings have been reached. So we're very close. So you know, get a holiday spirit. Give me the gift of a rating.

I'll give you the gift of a fucking bonus, horrific episode on something else as evil and despicable as pompous. And finally, thanks for the topic suggestions. The list is really growing long. There's some really good stuff on there. So much good stuff. One of them that I just keep thinking about every time I think about topics is President

Johnson showing his dick in the White House. I got to see if there's enough meat out there on the web to make that a full episode. But apparently, one of our presidents was notorious amongst other things for whipping his dick out. During, you know, around like, you know, senior officials. Just check out my, I apparently had a big dick and he liked it, it showed around. Unbelieveable, lead to the free world.

So anyway, happy holidays everybody. Lock your doors that might not be reindeer that you are hearing. It might be God damn Cropus. His name is Cromus. He and his helpers did not come to give or to take. Oh, shit.