Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. It's beginning to look a lot like Grampus.
Speaker 2: Spoiler off campus.
Speaker 1: Shout out to our shout out to our super producer,
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams. You are Noel Brown. I am Ben
Speaker 1: Bollen and no. Once upon a time, as you often say,
Speaker 1: you were a wee German boy, I.
Speaker 3: Was young, a young German boy, and I lived my
Speaker 3: young German life and fear of crampus and raining down
Speaker 3: holiday retribution on my small German frame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, Gary guy, you can tell, you
Speaker 1: can tell from our vibe, folks that this is a
Speaker 1: holiday episode. It is that time of year again. For
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of years, people across the planet have
Speaker 1: celebrated the end of seasons, the end of the winter
Speaker 1: season in one way or another, and as we all know,
Speaker 1: in the cultural West, the most popular modern celebration of
Speaker 1: this is by far Christmas, right, the celebration of the
Speaker 1: birth of Jesus Christ. In the US, I would say
Speaker 1: it's an increasingly secular thing.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean, it's like a shopping holiday, that's
Speaker 4: what it is. But hey, it gives the much needed
Speaker 4: cash injection to the old economy, which I guess is
Speaker 4: not the worst thing in the world. But boy, hottie,
Speaker 4: has ever become just kind of sickeningly commercial?
Speaker 2: And you know, it's certainly if you are.
Speaker 4: One who practices a faith, you know there are like
Speaker 4: nice Christmas Eve services and you know, more kind of
Speaker 4: moments of let's say, reflection that can come around Christmas.
Speaker 4: But we also know that it can be a little
Speaker 4: bit of a difficult time for some folks. Dealing with
Speaker 4: family can often be tough, especially if you have completely
Speaker 4: different views, which is becoming more and more of the case.
Speaker 4: And this are polarizing political climate that I think we
Speaker 4: all live in. But one thing that really brings us
Speaker 4: all together or tears us all apart, depending on how
Speaker 4: you want to look at it, is Crampis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hates everybody.
Speaker 1: Well, he's kind of I would argue that he's sort
Speaker 1: of the Batman to the Superman of Santa. They're attempting
Speaker 1: to accomplish the same things but different ways, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole I really appreciate that point because even if
Speaker 1: you don't get along with your family. The holidays can
Speaker 1: be tough for other reasons. There are people that you miss,
Speaker 1: people who've passed on. You know, there's a moment of
Speaker 1: self reflection that I would argue goes beyond specific spiritual values.
Speaker 1: And there's fun. You know, you see a ton of
Speaker 1: people going out to parties, decorating trees here in the
Speaker 1: US and abroad, giving gifts just because they enjoy the community.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with that. We do know that Christmas
Speaker 1: celebrations can differ widely depending on the country or the
Speaker 1: community you visit. Like you guys, know you see it
Speaker 1: in Mitchell Webb or Peep Show or any of those
Speaker 1: other UK shows where they have a Christmas holiday and
Speaker 1: they've got like the hats, you.
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, a little paper crowns kind of and they
Speaker 4: have those weird little paper they look like an oversized
Speaker 4: like piece of candy, sort of like a little present
Speaker 4: wrapped on both ends and you pull it and it
Speaker 4: sort of pops Christmas press.
Speaker 2: Isn't that what it's called.
Speaker 4: Isn't it sort of like a little popper like it
Speaker 4: sort of makes it it shoots confetti out and all
Speaker 4: that stuff, just you know, festive fun.
Speaker 1: Tom Fooler, and it gets a little metal, a little
Speaker 1: heavy metal the further east to coast.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and and crampoos Is is definitely a very metal
Speaker 4: type figure. We're gonna get into some various depictions of them,
Speaker 4: but you're right in Norway, Uh, you've got you gotta
Speaker 4: hide your brooms before you go to sleep so that
Speaker 4: witches and evil spirits don't carry them away. Of course,
Speaker 4: we have like the Mule Lads, which is a thing
Speaker 4: that we've talked about previously on Regulus History. Like they're
Speaker 4: basically this macabre, sort of seven Dwarf type situation. Like
Speaker 4: I think there's like window Liquor. No, that's that's an
Speaker 4: Aphex Twin song, but there definitely was like windows Sniffer,
Speaker 4: doorway Sniffer.
Speaker 1: They're named after weirdly sausage sack.
Speaker 5: I think it is doorway sniffer. I remember making a
Speaker 5: sound cue for all of them, and I remember combining
Speaker 5: a doorway and someone sniffing stuff.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, yeah, Window Liquor should well be one of
Speaker 4: the yule as. That is, in fact a really awesome
Speaker 4: Effects Twins song.
Speaker 2: And then there was like cream Curdler Goat.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, it was a goat enthusiast.
Speaker 2: There was something to do with livestock, though.
Speaker 1: There was a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 1: Named for specific actions, which is so weird. It's kind
Speaker 1: of the equivalent of no offense to the hunters and
Speaker 1: tanners in the audience. But it's like verb or occupation
Speaker 1: as a name.
Speaker 2: That's Iceland. I got them, I got them up.
Speaker 5: Okay, so we got sheep coat Claude who harasses sheep.
Speaker 2: We have harasses quote unquote.
Speaker 5: Golie Doc who hides in the gullies to sneak in
Speaker 5: and steal milk.
Speaker 2: We have that's a gully. We have Stubby, who.
Speaker 5: Is abnormally short and steals pants to eat the crust
Speaker 5: left on them in situations. We have a spoon liquor.
Speaker 5: He was a liquor pot scraper. I don't think that
Speaker 5: needs to be explained to either.
Speaker 1: We also don't have to do the whole paper.
Speaker 2: We have bowl liquor. We have door slammer, a bunch.
Speaker 5: Of the sky gobbler, sauce, swiper, window pee for.
Speaker 2: That's the one you think there it is. I'm almost
Speaker 2: not I promise, okay, I'm not almost done. Oh I
Speaker 2: am all right. Doorway sniffer.
Speaker 5: So the doorway slam door slammer and a doorway sniffer.
Speaker 4: Okay, you could combine them like when they adapt movies.
Speaker 1: You know, well, they love franchises to the point commercialization
Speaker 1: and spin offs.
Speaker 5: And candle steelers, because the whole thing was to educate
Speaker 5: children to not be wasteful.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got Norway and Iceland. What about Japan.
Speaker 4: There's very oddly americanized traditions in Japan that we don't
Speaker 4: even consider a holiday tradition over here.
Speaker 2: It's very odd.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought this up in Japan. I've
Speaker 1: never been. I've spent time in Japan, but I've never
Speaker 1: been during their Christmas season.
Speaker 4: You gotta get KFC. It's a holiday bundle like jushed up.
Speaker 4: It's a whole what's the word like a promotional thing. Right,
Speaker 4: it comes with a Christmas cake. It's some of the
Speaker 4: most effective marketing in recent history, to the point where
Speaker 4: the because you know, I just got back a little
Speaker 4: while ago around the Halloween season, and already people were
Speaker 4: placing their orders for their KFC no other except no substitutions,
Speaker 4: their KFC Christmas meal, which comes with a Christmas cake
Speaker 4: and even it like, I didn't know this. In Caracas.
Speaker 4: In Venezuela, you're supposed to use roller skates to travel
Speaker 4: to early morning Mass on Christmas Day, which is kind
Speaker 4: of cool. They shut down the city streets.
Speaker 1: Weller.
Speaker 2: Skating is hard, it's.
Speaker 1: More difficult that it looks bekind to your skating enthusiast friends.
Speaker 4: Sure, but we're not talking backwards. Really quick question that
Speaker 4: the backtrack ever so slightly been. Is KFC popular year
Speaker 4: round in Japan or just around the holidays?
Speaker 1: It is popular in Japan. It has similar to turkey, right,
Speaker 1: people eat turkey deli meat all the year round in
Speaker 1: the United States, but fifty percent of the turkey's consumed
Speaker 1: are consumed on Thanksgiving. So KFC has successfully commercialized this
Speaker 1: and that's going to be again. Commercialization is going to
Speaker 1: be a big, big part of this episode. As we're saying,
Speaker 1: the further east you go closer to central Europe, you
Speaker 1: see a more sinister, somewhat Christmas season.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's less about treats and more about being punished
Speaker 4: and beaten into submission for your evil sins. No good kids.
Speaker 4: Germany and Austria specifically is kind of where we're going
Speaker 4: to focus today Saint Nicholas. You know, I believe he
Speaker 4: was a bishop. You know, he was definitely like a
Speaker 4: like a like a religious leader. You know, like a
Speaker 4: lot of images of him have like wearing like a
Speaker 4: pope hat kind of situation. So he is, of course
Speaker 4: the purveyor of treats and gifts for a well behaved
Speaker 4: year if you're a kid. But you know, we have
Speaker 4: our Santa Claus, who I guess. You know, a lot
Speaker 4: of these myths get mushed together. But the whole idea
Speaker 4: of a coal in the stocking and no presence and
Speaker 4: all of that stuff, I don't think anybody actually does that,
Speaker 4: but it's part of the mythos. But Saint Nick doesn't
Speaker 4: really have that. So he kind of needed a more
Speaker 4: let's say, retribution wielding counterpart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he outsourced his dirty work in Central European legends
Speaker 1: and folklore. Old Nick hires out a guy called Crampis.
Speaker 1: Crampis is a half goat, half demon monster that punishes,
Speaker 1: as you said, misbehaving children when the Karmic bill comes
Speaker 1: due at Christmas time. The descriptions very regent region but
Speaker 1: pretty consistently. He looks like a devil, which is a
Speaker 1: satyr the devil. Yeah, he looks like Satan basically.
Speaker 4: He's got kind of curved rams horns kind of or
Speaker 4: like goat type horns, and like you said, cloven hooves,
Speaker 4: the sort of what do you call it, like a
Speaker 4: like a satyr, like like the pan you know, sort
Speaker 4: of angled legs, you know, the kind of a bend.
Speaker 2: In the middle weirdly outward.
Speaker 4: Uh, yeah, like like pan pans, labyrinth kind of that vibe.
Speaker 4: He often carries seen carrying like a sack, uh, and
Speaker 4: a pitchfork sometimes or some other weapon like a whip
Speaker 4: or is very sen my, honestly, he's he's a lot.
Speaker 1: Like that guy who beat the snot out of that
Speaker 1: other dude in Congress. He carries around a birch branch.
Speaker 1: In some regions he's always covered in course for uh.
Speaker 1: He often has chains or sometimes bells or sometimes chains
Speaker 1: with bells wrapped around his upper torso in his arms.
Speaker 1: And so he comes to town the night before the
Speaker 1: feast of Saint Nicholas. This is not a Christmas eve guy.
Speaker 1: This is an early December guy. And if you were
Speaker 1: hearing this today, ridiculous historians, congratulations, you have escaped Crampus.
Speaker 1: If you are in I Love you, point out the
Speaker 1: sack and sometimes it's like a backpack or a basket
Speaker 1: on his back, and he has a series of punishments
Speaker 1: like if you're bad, he might just spank you with
Speaker 1: his birch branch. If you're super bad, if you're like
Speaker 1: felonious level bad, you might end up in the sack.
Speaker 1: What happens to those kids, anybody's guests. Rumor on the
Speaker 1: street is he's either going to eat you or drown
Speaker 1: you in a river or cart you off to hell.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Like it's very much. If you've ever seen
Speaker 4: the movie, Uh, Drag Me to Hell, it's that kind
Speaker 4: of thing where he might actually literally come up from
Speaker 4: the underworld and grab you by the ends pull you
Speaker 4: down into the fiery abyss.
Speaker 1: For sniffing all those doorways.
Speaker 2: Oh exactly.
Speaker 1: So we don't know exactly where old Crampis originates from,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to that in a second, but we
Speaker 1: do know a little bit of the etymology. The two
Speaker 1: big guesses are a German word and then a specific
Speaker 1: Bavarian term.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the German word crumping' which means claw, or the
Speaker 2: Bavarian version, which would be crumping'. It's the spelled the same,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't have the E at the end because
Speaker 2: it's k r a m p n, which is a
Speaker 2: word that loosely translates to dead or rotten, which I wasn'
Speaker 2: familiar with.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's essentially Saint Nick and his pal the
Speaker 4: rotten claw monster with his satchel and boy birch birch
Speaker 4: branch clawboy.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 4: Remember, it reminds me of of a night before Christmas.
Speaker 4: You know how the kids think he's named the Sandy Claus.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: He's also like, because there is this ven diagram, isn't there,
Speaker 1: especially in Western culture, between the holiday Christmas and the
Speaker 1: idea of death right or the underworld, and and that's
Speaker 1: that's where Crampus comes into play. You'll you'll see folks
Speaker 1: arguing that he is the son of the Norse god
Speaker 1: of the underworld and that he only became as hell.
Speaker 4: By the way, it was kind of just right, and
Speaker 4: he became associated with Christmas retroactively.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The Catholic Church was not happy about this for quite
Speaker 1: some time.
Speaker 4: No, they actually thought that he was kind of encroaching
Speaker 4: on their territory. They honest, you know, we know so
Speaker 4: many holidays that we know of or think of as being,
Speaker 4: you know, religion just in nature, like Easter for example,
Speaker 4: have payan roots.
Speaker 2: You know, and the Catholic Church does not care for that.
Speaker 4: They find that to be totally blasphemous, you know, and
Speaker 4: they want to do anything they can to get rid
Speaker 4: of those connections. So they did attempt to ban the
Speaker 4: creature entirely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like covering up a couple other crimes.
Speaker 2: They failed.
Speaker 1: I mean, this feels like scary stuff for a kid, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, why does.
Speaker 2: Christmas Church of scary stuff for a kid? Right?
Speaker 1: Why does Christmas in Central Europe have such an edge
Speaker 1: to it? It goes back to what we're alluding to,
Speaker 1: religious syncretism. We've talked about this extensively on stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. It's the phenomenon through which
Speaker 1: different cultures, via accident or design, take previously distinct religious
Speaker 1: beliefs and just sort of squadch them together, squatches for
Speaker 1: rick and mortar fans, into something new, And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: adopting a new practice. In other cases it's because they
Speaker 1: couldn't like the Catholic Church totally erase previously existing beliefs.
Speaker 4: Or it's like the invention of black metal, you know,
Speaker 4: or like extreme types of music that you often find
Speaker 4: in this part of the world because of pretty brutal
Speaker 4: climates and you know, harsh conditions and also religious oppression,
Speaker 4: you know, and just the nature of those places, in
Speaker 4: the existence of all of these relics and these you know,
Speaker 4: old churches and just that kind of the remnants of
Speaker 4: this history, I think it really leads to a certain
Speaker 4: type of almost rebellion, you know.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting.
Speaker 5: Also, I just want to kind of jump in here
Speaker 5: real quick just to note that I have a friend
Speaker 5: who name's Laura Cortesy and we've changed her name to Squatch.
Speaker 1: That's all great, well, congratulations Squatch fka Laura. Also, we
Speaker 1: have to point out this part of Europe right in general.
Speaker 1: Now it's regarded as solidly Christian, which it has been
Speaker 1: for thousands of years, but this was not always the case.
Speaker 1: Human spitation in Europe dates back far far before the
Speaker 1: arrival of Christian theology. So this is why experts will
Speaker 1: argue that crampus and things like crampis are vestiges of
Speaker 1: pre existing pagan pantheons, ideologies and rituals, all meant to
Speaker 1: commemorate the winter solstice. And you know you can go
Speaker 1: into detail with this, like in nineteen seventy five anthropologist
Speaker 1: John J. Honigbaden. How am I dealing with that nonik
Speaker 1: very well? Yeah, okay, this guy probably has the best
Speaker 1: summation of what happened and how Crampis got to Christianity.
Speaker 2: Indeed, this is what he says.
Speaker 4: The Saint Nicholas festival we are describing incorporates cultural elements
Speaker 4: widely distributed in Europe, in some cases going back to
Speaker 4: pre Christian times. Nicholas himself became popular in Germany around
Speaker 4: the eleventh century. The feast dedicated to this patron of
Speaker 4: children is only one winter occasion which children are the
Speaker 4: objects of special attention, others being Marten Mass Class East
Speaker 4: of the Holy Innocence. And I'm sorry, this is a
Speaker 4: really intense sounding feast and New Year's Day. Masked devils
Speaker 4: acting boisterously and making nuisances of themselves are known in
Speaker 4: Germany since at least the sixteenth century. While animal masked
Speaker 4: devils combining dreadful comic this is a German word for this.
Speaker 4: I guess it's sort of like tragic comedy. But I
Speaker 4: guess dreadful comedy is sort of like maybe a little
Speaker 4: bit tongue in cheek, a little bit gram gignon kind
Speaker 4: of stuff.
Speaker 2: In The German word for this is sharickx lustik. Well,
Speaker 2: I think lustik.
Speaker 4: Refers to laughing or comedy, I believe, and shush, yeah,
Speaker 4: shahrich is like yeah, fear or like, you know, being
Speaker 4: afraid of something.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 4: So dreadful comic antics appeared in medieval church plays. A
Speaker 4: large literature, much of it by European folklorists, bears on
Speaker 4: the these subjects. Austrians in the community we studied are quite
Speaker 4: aware of Heathen quote unquote elements being blended with Christian
Speaker 4: elements in the Saint Nicholas customs and in other traditional
Speaker 4: winter ceremonies. They believe Carampus derives from a pagan supernatural
Speaker 4: who is assimilated to the Christian devil.
Speaker 1: And it's a.
Speaker 4: Long whote, but I think it's it spells it out
Speaker 4: beautifully because crampis in and of itself, is a branding play,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. But like these types of
Speaker 4: deities and these types of mischievous spirits. And like he's
Speaker 4: to your point, Ben, and you found in the research
Speaker 4: this masking and you know, all of these these things
Speaker 4: are way back to you.
Speaker 2: Know, Greek and Roman times.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean the satyr again, Pan, all of
Speaker 4: these characters are kind of light demons.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: When Christians replace these pagan winter festivals with Christmas, the
Speaker 1: way they did it is they said, oh, you were
Speaker 1: already celebrating Christianity. You just didn't know what you were doing.
Speaker 1: It's a propaganda war. It's heart and minds. And so
Speaker 1: Crampis undergoes this rebranding, this transformation. He's associated with the devil.
Speaker 1: He is placed in this subservient position to Saint Nicholas
Speaker 1: based on an apocryphal story about the guy battling the devil.
Speaker 1: And that's why Crampis wears chains to show that he
Speaker 1: has been contained. And later these become bells because you know,
Speaker 1: he jures it up a little, want to keep it festive.
Speaker 1: And like we said, you've seen things similar folks, with
Speaker 1: Greco Roman mythology being subsumed by Christianity. Shout out to
Speaker 1: one of the best short horror stories ever, The Great
Speaker 1: God Pan and then you see it in Satyrs, you
Speaker 1: see it in Poseidon. That's the reason why the devil
Speaker 1: holds a trident in a lot of things. And in
Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, yeah, as you mentioned, the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: and a couple of affiliates in policy try to ban Crampis.
Speaker 1: They made it illegal for this guy to show up
Speaker 1: at Christmas or during the advent season. And fascinatingly enough,
Speaker 1: in World War Two, fascists did something similar. They thought
Speaker 1: Crampis was a quote creation of the social democrats. It
Speaker 1: was a culture war, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Get rid of him.
Speaker 4: But then by the sixties, you know, it's interesting, like
Speaker 4: how how relatively recently that is Crampis kind of made
Speaker 4: a big old comeback in Germany and Austria. He was
Speaker 4: once again allowed to come back, and he did so
Speaker 4: in full force as sort of a I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's sort of like a gimmicky kind of kitsch piece,
Speaker 4: you know, folklore hottering kind of folklore and tradition, and
Speaker 4: of course, understandably the public really dug it. On the
Speaker 4: one hand, it was, you know, a way of connecting
Speaker 4: with their history.
Speaker 2: But also it's like Halloween in December.
Speaker 4: Man, it's so cool. They do these crampus crawls or
Speaker 4: whatever they're called. We do them here in Atlanta, very
Speaker 4: very popular events, and people dress up in the most
Speaker 4: elaborate demonic you know, crampis garb and it's super fun
Speaker 4: and creepy.
Speaker 2: And who doesn't love Halloween? Christmas is fine. Mash them together.
Speaker 2: You got yourself a fine holiday.
Speaker 1: Right, And they're still never going to be as cool
Speaker 1: as the most famous holiday, Arbor Day. Kidding, moving on,
Speaker 1: so next, got the double hoards for Arbor Day.
Speaker 2: I see trees are so metal, bro, they really are.
Speaker 2: I love the amazing amazing so uh jumping quick.
Speaker 5: Have you guys seen the SNL sketch with Pete Davidson
Speaker 5: and Chris Red where they rest the trees one of
Speaker 5: the best sl sketches.
Speaker 2: It's really truly, truly good. I think trees are very metal.
Speaker 4: They just they make me think of like something from
Speaker 4: like a like a token book, Like they're just these
Speaker 4: wizened creatures that just are somehow and like they know
Speaker 4: more than you and they're not telling you.
Speaker 1: Man, check out our earlier episode. Can plants communicate on
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want? You to know, the answer is
Speaker 1: mind blowing. And also, you know, this reminds me too
Speaker 1: of Christmas markets, like when I've been to Christmas market,
Speaker 1: and yeah, in Europe, in various countries there's always still,
Speaker 1: especially now, there's always kind of a Crampian element. And
Speaker 1: it's because, yeah, it's the thing. It's because people dig
Speaker 1: this vibe. And you know, most of the folks, most
Speaker 1: of the kids growing up, when you hear these stories
Speaker 1: about old Saint Nick and Crampis, you're not gonna think
Speaker 1: of the long fraud religious history leading to this. Instead,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see him as like, you know, part of
Speaker 1: the thing, part of the KFC meal that you would
Speaker 1: have where you in Japan and December. And there's a guy,
Speaker 1: James Deutsch, who is a Smithsonian folk Life curator, and
Speaker 1: he portrays it as Crampis as a way for the authorities,
Speaker 1: the powers that be, to promote the idea of good behavior,
Speaker 1: of social morays, not violating taboos, not again peeping through windows,
Speaker 1: stealing milk or what was it, sniffing doorways.
Speaker 4: Can't quite understand the benefit of that, one sees. It
Speaker 4: also seems like a pretty victimless crime, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, I don't think there's ever.
Speaker 2: Been sniff that would be much more egregious.
Speaker 1: Who in the thirteen hundreds walked into their cottage and
Speaker 1: stopped at the threshold and said, hang on, this doorway's
Speaker 1: been sniffed.
Speaker 2: Frankly, it's probably a good bit of reconnaissance.
Speaker 4: You know, you sniff at someone's doorway, you could tell
Speaker 4: if they're like cooking meth in there or something, you know,
Speaker 4: huge missing, yeah, a whiff of natural gas.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a safety thing. Really.
Speaker 1: I also love that you're pointing out to the notes
Speaker 1: about safety and the notes about celebration, which you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: the crampist crawls here in Atlanta. How do we go
Speaker 1: about celebrating Crampis today?
Speaker 4: Mainly devil worship type stuff, you know, sacrificing goats and uh,
Speaker 4: what is it called? Walking witter shins around black mirror
Speaker 4: at midnight, you know, writing sigils on the wall and
Speaker 4: blood things like that, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, super chill hallmark stuff. Yeah, it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's usually going to occur on December sixth, which is
Speaker 1: known as cramp or Crampis.
Speaker 2: Can you do it? Yeah? Knot?
Speaker 1: Yeah, knocked crampis note, uh, the the night of Crampis
Speaker 1: and festivities involve exactly what you've been describing the Cramps run,
Speaker 1: which is the cramps loaf or Crampis.
Speaker 2: Loaf louf is to run. That's right, l a U s. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's funny.
Speaker 4: I believe here we I do call it the Crampus crawl,
Speaker 4: which presumably would be a little slower than the Crampus Run.
Speaker 1: Well, I would imagine in these things, which you can
Speaker 1: find throughout central Europe and now to your point in
Speaker 1: the United States, you'll see people dressed up. They're doing cosplay,
Speaker 1: they're doing their own kind of very specific dragon con
Speaker 1: or anime meet up, and they parade through the streets
Speaker 1: and they try to scare civilians, try to scare bystanderds.
Speaker 1: More and more often they get in trouble because a
Speaker 1: lot of these folks doing this are New Orleans style drunk.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, have you heard of Santa Con? I have, yes, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it just happened here the other day. And apparently that
Speaker 4: involves getting really really wasted as well.
Speaker 1: Great, that will always end up good.
Speaker 5: Actually, if I remember correctly. In New York they said
Speaker 5: one of the best things about the COVID nineteen pandemic.
Speaker 5: Is Santa Con couldn't happen?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: No, apparently in New York it's it's an absolute menace
Speaker 4: whole friends of mine who've lived there say, it's like,
Speaker 4: you don't want to go outside during Santa Con.
Speaker 1: I'm putting it on the list for a future episode.
Speaker 4: It's a good idea. You will get puked on by
Speaker 4: a large man in a red suit. But yeah, no,
Speaker 4: it's it's really cool. And a lot of these drunken
Speaker 4: people too, potentially are like wearing really elaborate costumes, like
Speaker 4: sometimes on stilts, you know, to try to kind of
Speaker 4: emulate the crooked like leg thing of the of the
Speaker 4: goat like demon figure.
Speaker 2: I mean, here Atlanta, people take it really seriously.
Speaker 4: Also, of course we're at home with Dragon Con, so
Speaker 4: there's a lot of cosplay, you know, hardcore folks around here.
Speaker 4: But in Gross on December first, the Crampus Run was
Speaker 4: attended by more than thirty thousand people. And starting in
Speaker 4: the late twentieth century, Crampus Run started to become super
Speaker 4: popular in Germany and Austria and then it kind of
Speaker 4: spread right, it spread especially you can see the inflow.
Speaker 4: It's in pop culture. There's actually I was watching a
Speaker 4: few YouTube videos it's about the history of Grampus earlier,
Speaker 4: and there was one that listed off way more Crampus
Speaker 4: movies than I was aware of.
Speaker 2: There's one called The Mother Crampis and.
Speaker 4: It really looks like a really schlocky, you know, just
Speaker 4: just slasher kind of gore fest. But the movie Crampus,
Speaker 4: to me, is like a modern day Gremlins. I think
Speaker 4: it's really cool. And Ben you pointed out another sort
Speaker 4: of Crampus esque movie out of I want.
Speaker 2: To say, Norway watch it? Did you haven't seen him?
Speaker 4: But putting in on my list for for Christmas viewing
Speaker 4: along with Crampus, which I think really is a kind
Speaker 4: of along with Home Alone and Gremlins. One is technically
Speaker 4: a Christmas movie that's places during Christmas. It's really really good,
Speaker 4: you know, back in the days of really good practical effects.
Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4: Crampis the movie largely uses practical effects except when there's
Speaker 4: wide shots of him, like bounding over buildings, but it's
Speaker 4: he's always in the shadows, which I think is the
Speaker 4: best way to use CGI is when you don't like
Speaker 4: show it too and that's always the best way to
Speaker 4: kind of have a monster when you don't have to
Speaker 4: look at it and get tired of it.
Speaker 1: Hitchcock was right, you know, it's the monster off the screen.
Speaker 1: Let people's imaginations do the special effect.
Speaker 4: Even in Jaws, the fact that Shark wouldn't freaking work
Speaker 4: ended up being a feature and not a bug because
Speaker 4: it forced Spielberg to have to like be really creative
Speaker 4: about how he shot it. And I think the Shark
Speaker 4: is only on screen for like four minutes.
Speaker 1: Similar to Hannibal Lecter in the Silence of the Labs,
Speaker 1: both of which clearly are based on the pre Christian
Speaker 1: traditions that led to Crampis.
Speaker 2: Think about it, yeah.
Speaker 1: Question, don't think about it too much, but so okay,
Speaker 1: December sixth, the morning after Crampis Night is Saint Nicholas Day,
Speaker 1: And if you're a kid in places that celebrate this,
Speaker 1: this is the morning where you go outside of your door,
Speaker 1: whether that's your front door or the door to your bedroom,
Speaker 1: and you check your shoe or your boot that you
Speaker 1: left out previously, and that's like you or that. That
Speaker 1: is the moment where you get your grade for the year.
Speaker 1: Did you get presents in your shoe or did you
Speaker 1: get a rod?
Speaker 2: What kind of rod are we talking here?
Speaker 1: Like they kind of would beat people with, like in
Speaker 1: a shoe. I guess they just I guess as soon
Speaker 1: as you open the door would.
Speaker 2: Isn't the person who's gonna use the rod to beat crampis?
Speaker 1: I think it's like a horsehead and the bed thing
Speaker 1: from Godfather.
Speaker 4: It's threat a portent of things to come, even though
Speaker 4: I think that might be a little redundant.
Speaker 2: It's funny though.
Speaker 4: We were talking off air about Bell Schnickel, which is
Speaker 4: another sort of punitive Christmas imp I guess, And I
Speaker 4: just remember in the scene in the office where Dwight
Speaker 4: portrays Best Schnickel and he's all about whipping you with
Speaker 4: reeds as well, but he goes, have you been impish
Speaker 4: or admirable? And then like Jim's like you mean like
Speaker 4: naughty or an ie? Like, no, this is Best Snickel,
Speaker 4: nothing like said.
Speaker 1: Right, right, and neither is Pierre Noel, neither is uh
Speaker 1: Sa Pete and the various things.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Santa has a lot of companions, and they're more edgy
Speaker 1: than the Coca Cola company led us to believe when
Speaker 1: they created the modern vision.
Speaker 4: Of Santa Say, marketing sanitizes history Ben santaitizes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so thank you, Max, thank you. I am going
Speaker 1: to pretend those are two thumbs up. Thank you, sir,
Speaker 1: thank you. So here's the riverside. Emojis don't work for me.
Speaker 1: We don't have the right os for it.
Speaker 2: Man, it worked for everybody else.
Speaker 1: So we got to note that in general, just to
Speaker 1: be clear, the majority of the population is not concerned.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't think anybody's actually going to get
Speaker 1: kidnapped or eaten or drowned in a river or sent
Speaker 1: to the nether world. It's a fun tradition. And so
Speaker 1: now we have to ask why why did crampis survive
Speaker 1: ancient pre Christian days, transform into a controversial Christmas cameo,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly become super popular. Were Nola's not blowing
Speaker 1: smoke here? There's a big crampus event every year in Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and no one's like, well, here's what happened when Christianity
Speaker 1: expanded into Central Europe. They're like, dude, check out my mask.
Speaker 2: Bro oh, one hundred scent and a lot of these things.
Speaker 4: You know, of course, we're kind of created for very
Speaker 4: utilitarian reasons, Like I would argue that the and I
Speaker 4: think Max mentioned in the Yule Lads were created during
Speaker 4: a time of mega scarcity, where like these things like
Speaker 4: candles and you know, like this yogurt and these staples
Speaker 4: of existence were incredibly precious and hard to come by,
Speaker 4: and if you wasted them even a little bit, you
Speaker 4: could legitimately be putting your family's life at risk. So
Speaker 4: these these were like designed to you know, the crap
Speaker 4: out of kids at the point where they would never
Speaker 4: leave the candle burning too long, you know, yes, their ski.
Speaker 1: Right right, the taste of butter and so on. So
Speaker 1: there is one, at least one milestone moment for Crampis
Speaker 1: that expands this popularity. It's the eighteen nineties. The postcard
Speaker 1: industry experiences a huge boom. Everybody is sending postcards the
Speaker 1: way people were sending tweets back in what twenty ten
Speaker 1: or something, and on the way like it started out
Speaker 1: by sending a happy Holidays card, an old Saint nick card,
Speaker 1: you know, wishing you the best, hope you find some
Speaker 1: oranges in your socc or whatever was the big deal
Speaker 1: at the time. And then someone figured out they could
Speaker 1: make holiday cards that were crampis oriented. There's a German
Speaker 1: word for this.
Speaker 4: This is a great rate where German is so good
Speaker 4: at encompassing complex concepts and overly complex snapping words, just
Speaker 4: washing it together. Oh yeah, I give give it, give
Speaker 4: it a good squash. This one would be Crampus carton.
Speaker 1: Edgy Christmas card. Yeah, edgy Christmas cards. It's the stuff
Speaker 1: your cool aunt would send you.
Speaker 4: Some of these were a little racing. They started to
Speaker 4: depict Crampus as sort of a bit of a horny boy,
Speaker 4: you know, with that long snakelike tongue and sometimes doing
Speaker 4: some naughty stuff with ladies.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And and that's putting aside the regular baseline of him
Speaker 1: actively kidnapping and possibly eating children. Uh.
Speaker 4: I think I saw one where he had a child skewered,
Speaker 4: like the carcass of a child skewered on his pitchfork.
Speaker 4: So these really did lean into These were almost more
Speaker 4: kind of blue type car like you said, like your
Speaker 4: cool aunt would have like sort of like nudy playing
Speaker 4: cards or something like that.
Speaker 1: Right, they're violating or they're interrogating social taboos, right, and
Speaker 1: they're also popularizing this idea. So now, if you are
Speaker 1: someone who is traveling the continent and you want to
Speaker 1: send a car to someone who doesn't live in Central Europe.
Speaker 1: You're sending the coolest card you can find. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden they know about Crampis. Crampis goes viral in
Speaker 1: an analog way, and these cards are crazy to your point.
Speaker 1: You can look them up and you can see a
Speaker 1: lot of really weird stuff, and part of the appeal
Speaker 1: may also be psychological. Antonio carniiro spoke with National Geographic
Speaker 1: about this, and he said, this is a way for
Speaker 1: people to get in touch with their animalistic side. Look
Speaker 1: at these dual personalities, right, you put on a mask,
Speaker 1: just like the Internet today. You put on a mask
Speaker 1: and all the sudden, it's no longer you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it really is like Halloween at Christmas. Yeah,
Speaker 4: well that sounds great to me. But now should we
Speaker 4: get to the masks of it all?
Speaker 2: Do it? Because they are very particular and then very interesting?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So the mask are a seasonal industry in Central Europe.
Speaker 1: Think about it this way. If you're in the United
Speaker 1: States right before, right before Halloween, excuse me, you'll see
Speaker 1: a bunch of disused department stores transform into spirit Halloween
Speaker 1: stores and they become this seasonal cottage industry, or you
Speaker 1: know how meet and greets with Santa pop up starting
Speaker 1: in November. Great school kids still work on their own
Speaker 1: homemade Crampis costumes, and I thought this was weirdly wholesome.
Speaker 1: Some of those costumes, if they're good enough, they get
Speaker 1: tucked away for the next year.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 4: I remember distinctly when I went to actual job in
Speaker 4: kindergarten making a lot of paper mache masks. It's a
Speaker 4: very popular thing, and I distinctly remember, Uh, that's the
Speaker 4: first time I was exposed to the concept of paper mache.
Speaker 4: And we would like you would build it around a
Speaker 4: balloon and then you'd pop the balloon and then it
Speaker 4: would give you this like shell, and then you could
Speaker 4: cut the bottom out and then you could wear it
Speaker 4: on your head. You'd make these almost then you cut
Speaker 4: the eyes in the mouth out. Now that I'm thinking
Speaker 4: about it, that is a very German kind of tradition.
Speaker 4: You don't people don't do paper mache as much around here.
Speaker 1: It's so cool though. Papers is awesome, and that's awesome
Speaker 1: that you were doing this as well. Do you uh,
Speaker 1: did you hold on to the mask after you've made it.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't, but I do distinctly remember my kindergarten
Speaker 4: teacher's name was Frau Neuhause, which means miss new House,
Speaker 4: and I was. It was right before we moved to
Speaker 4: the States, and I think I was going back a
Speaker 4: few times and coming back and she really wanted me
Speaker 4: to bring a bought a finger bass because they did
Speaker 4: not have butterfinger bars in Germany at the time.
Speaker 2: And I believe I obliged that.
Speaker 4: She actually reached out to me after my mom passed
Speaker 4: out of nowhere on Instagram and it was the sweetest thing.
Speaker 4: I hadn't thought about her in ages, and she reached
Speaker 4: out saying that she had found out about that about
Speaker 4: a year later.
Speaker 1: I love that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker 4: I think they probably have butter fingers over there now,
Speaker 4: but at the time.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like now we get kinder, you know,
Speaker 4: over here, but there was a time where we did
Speaker 4: not get there. They're not the real kinder though they
Speaker 4: so now that's not entirely true. The eggs, of course,
Speaker 4: are different because choking hazards, right, But that's what I'm
Speaker 4: be the ones with the white chocolate on the inside.
Speaker 4: But you can get those as bar the bar versus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had the kinder bar, but it's they call
Speaker 1: them kindred Joy now kinder Joy at Tot Toys. It's
Speaker 1: more of a dipper than an egg. It is, it's
Speaker 1: it is nothing the same, but it's gone global, just
Speaker 1: like Crampis and Crampis like, why did this guy become
Speaker 1: so pop popular? I'll be honest with you, A lot
Speaker 1: of folks agree with this. It's capitalism. Oh yeah, commodification.
Speaker 1: Capitalism loves a franchise, loves us spin off. There's a
Speaker 1: reason there are so many Marvel movies, so many comic books,
Speaker 1: so many Pokemon. So Crampis is this pop culture phenomenon
Speaker 1: for people who want to celebrate the Yuletide season in
Speaker 1: non traditional ways. We talked about these Crampis parties and
Speaker 1: Crampus crawls in Atlanta, but things like this occur in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. In New Orleans, in pretty much any American
Speaker 1: city of a certain size.
Speaker 4: At this point, one hundred percent, and it does appear
Speaker 4: to be continuing to pay dividends because it's not like,
Speaker 4: does it reached the level of saturation of say, Marvel
Speaker 4: movies or Pokemon. You know, you have like one Crampis movie,
Speaker 4: and I heard there's going to be a Crampus movie sequel.
Speaker 4: But let's try to keep Crampus out of a full
Speaker 4: cinemat universe. You know, it kind of sucks the joy
Speaker 4: out of it a little bit, sort of cheapens it.
Speaker 4: You know, I've got marble fatigue, my friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not Crampus if it's every day, right, it's
Speaker 1: not Christmas if it's every day. I mean, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of merch and that merch still gets sold
Speaker 1: year round, collectible horns, figurines, chocolates across any kind of
Speaker 1: Christmas market. I'm sure you can go We didn't check
Speaker 1: this yet, but I'm sure you can go online to
Speaker 1: your ebays or your amazons and find any number of
Speaker 1: Crampist related merchandise. And the question is if we are
Speaker 1: commodifying this or cramp modifying Yeah, okay, all.
Speaker 2: Right, well, if we sail down, the man's the guy.
Speaker 1: But if we're doing that, to your point, are we
Speaker 1: not turning this ancient relic of folklore into yet another kitchy,
Speaker 1: soulless sort of money grab. You know, when does the
Speaker 1: crampest fatigue set in.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm hoping we can avoid.
Speaker 4: I think Grabus is really cool and uh, I've only
Speaker 4: seen the Crams movie a couple of times, and I
Speaker 4: am very excited to officially add it to my holiday
Speaker 4: viewing list.
Speaker 1: I'm also so excited to hear what you guys think
Speaker 1: about rare exports.
Speaker 2: I know very little about it, which I'm excited about.
Speaker 1: I don't want to spoil it's so weird, dude. H.
Speaker 1: We also, uh, we also want to give a moment
Speaker 1: of honor to Santa's other companions. Turns out Old Saint
Speaker 1: Nick globally is a lot less like a single act
Speaker 1: and a lot more like the Wu Tang clan. He's
Speaker 1: got companions all around Europe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And we talked a little bit about Shavata pet
Speaker 4: Shavata Peta in the Netherlands, who is sort of a
Speaker 4: sidekick of I think I think bell Snickel maybe like
Speaker 4: I think that's right. Results vary, but he is sort
Speaker 4: of a court jesterly fellow, but often in full blackface, right.
Speaker 4: And I think we talked about this not terribly long ago.
Speaker 4: Maybe it was a year ago around Christmas, but I
Speaker 4: think that some places in Europe have sort of started
Speaker 4: to distance themselves from.
Speaker 2: The whole Schwarza peint thing. But it used to be
Speaker 2: as common as can.
Speaker 4: Be to see, you know, very airy and European types
Speaker 4: dressed up in this motley, you know, with the full
Speaker 4: blackface on.
Speaker 1: Kind of like Bell Shickle, which you mentioned earlier. You know,
Speaker 1: he has a face smeared with charcoal and we're talking
Speaker 1: off air and I asked, you, guys, how much charcoal
Speaker 1: can someone smear like that before it's officially blackface.
Speaker 4: Well that's a good point. I believe Swartza pat is
Speaker 4: meant to be covered in soot.
Speaker 2: I believe, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was very much more a coal based, chimney based
Speaker 1: economy at the time. There's also Servant Rupert in German folklore,
Speaker 1: Paranoel Father Christmas in French folklore. It goes on and on,
Speaker 1: and you guys, honestly, Crampus is the coolest. We hope
Speaker 1: everybody is having a great holiday. We hope that we
Speaker 1: hope that you enjoy this deeper lore of Christmas. Check out,
Speaker 1: as you said, Noel, check out our Your Lads episode.
Speaker 1: Check out the origins of Christmas on stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know, and we wanted to make good
Speaker 1: on something we mentioned in a previous episode. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked. We talked Noel and Max and Alex sirkeez
Speaker 1: here too. We talked about maybe reading a couple of reviews.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and hopefully this will entice the rest of
Speaker 4: you to leave, leave some some nice ones. Apparently some
Speaker 4: people think we're like the woke police or something out there.
Speaker 4: Let's let's push all those down the queue, because we
Speaker 4: make no apologies for being human beings with a perspective,
Speaker 4: and I don't think we're overtly political or anything.
Speaker 2: But it's just crazy how triggered some people get just
Speaker 2: by like people.
Speaker 4: Having opinions and being human. I mean, that's just how
Speaker 4: it is. But yeah, please Ben, I would love to
Speaker 4: maybe read one apiece.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, here, why don't you? This is one of
Speaker 1: my This one we found that I thought was nice.
Speaker 1: And we're keeping these both very short. But why you
Speaker 1: do the first one?
Speaker 4: Then this one comes from doctor say, they say, great show,
Speaker 4: recommended four stars.
Speaker 2: Where's the fifth star? Doctor say? What did we do
Speaker 2: to hurt you?
Speaker 4: I really enjoy the style interwoven with the topics are
Speaker 4: asides quasi related banter. We specialize in and tangents that
Speaker 4: add color to the conversation, where nothing if not colorful.
Speaker 4: Thanks doctor Say, and we.
Speaker 1: Have one from Squeak eight seven four to oh one
Speaker 1: informative and lighthearted five stars.
Speaker 2: Thank you Squeak.
Speaker 1: I have been listening for a long time. I enjoy
Speaker 1: history and enjoy information with a light hearted banter.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, if you want to leave a pleasant review
Speaker 4: on iTunes or podbey or whatever, please do. We might
Speaker 4: share a few more of these moving forward. If you
Speaker 4: want to have your name and comment right on the show,
Speaker 4: that's a surefire way to do it.
Speaker 1: Big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 1: Big big thanks to our returning guest Alex the Circumstance
Speaker 1: Circa Alex, howd we do? Did we convert you to Crampus?
Speaker 2: I think I got to check out that movie that
Speaker 2: you mentioned.
Speaker 3: I might have to watch that later tonight.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Get the spirits excited to see it as well.
Speaker 4: Huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the Quist sort of a
Speaker 4: Crampis type fellow, a little more of a Bellsnickel. I
Speaker 4: would say, oh, shots fired, Yeah, and I once saw
Speaker 4: him get his wigs snatched off and he put it
Speaker 4: on backwards too. There was a reference to the previous episode.
Speaker 1: We're doing callbacks, guys. Big big thanks to Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: who composed this track. Big thanks to Eves Jeffcoat. Christopher
Speaker 1: hasiotis here in spirit. I am a research associate for
Speaker 1: this episode. We can't wait to explore more ridiculous history
Speaker 1: with you, folks. We've got gosh no, We've got a
Speaker 1: lot of things on the docket that I think are
Speaker 1: I don't know. Every time I read like our secret
Speaker 1: treasure troph of stuff we're working on, I get so excited.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to start digging in on some of them myself.
Speaker 4: It's going to be a fun new year. We'll see
Speaker 4: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 4: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 4: your favorite shows.