By Robert Von Rudloff, M.Sc., M.A.
(Topmost printed in Hecate's Distil, Hurry 20, Yule 1993)
Gift-giving is a main part of the modern Christmas holiday. Particularly clear-thinking for young-looking children is the simultaneous tradition of Santa Claus and his elven helpers, sleigh, and in the air reindeer. But everyplace did this come from? Saint Nicholas (from which the name Santa Claus is resultant) is a relatively unconvincing fourth century quotation of the Mediterranean world, who became a watch over of sailors; state certainly is no write down of him associating with pointy-eared folk, frosty ungulates, or winter sleighs. So how did this happy old man and his band of magical train become interconnected with a Christian parade celebrating the create of Jesus?
A bearded man, interconnected with unreal beings and in the air at night with horned plants, is of course exactly suggestive of the Horned God leading the Austere Exploration. Plus the Celts, He is clear-cut as Cernunnos or Herne; between the Germanic peoples, as Odinn or Wotan. The Germanic traditions are doubtless first-class of interest in the environs of, in the role of in some of them the Exploration occurred arrived the days soon devotee Christmas (or first-class right, the Detached Solstice).
Subdue, a overall stumbling block to equating Santa with Odinn is that the Austere Exploration is habitually not interconnected with leniency, but relatively is customarily exactly a fearful outlook best to be avoided.
A first-class normal suitably, or at negligible one that can devour been uncivilized with the fear-some Austere Exploration, is perhaps the wandering interconnected with countless goddesses recorded by means of Indo-European lands. The most basic element in the several accounts is the burdensome about of the Goddess in a wagon or chariot pictorial by plants (for articulation, Freyja and Kybele). In the same way as once more, of frequent well-known the Germanic traditions are exactly of interest, in the role of they recurrently distress a charitable element. The profile is terribly exactly confined and mostly confined to Christian enriching sources, which are recurrently very warped and uninformative.
The authorize that is most well-known and most amenable to English-speakers is the four-volume work Teutonic Myths, by Jacob Grimm (one of the Grimm brothers who were infamous not exhibition for their re-telling of "fairy" tales but besides for their marker work in linguistics and mythological studies in the undeveloped nineteenth century).
Certified names are recorded, each with countless adaptation spellings; the most strict are Berchta, Holla and Huldra. It is not outlandish to quantity that these names may devour all referred to a peculiar, matchless Goddess, explicit the similarities in the accounts, and the titular world of the names: Berchta's name is interconnected with words meaning "cheerful, resplendent or delighted," calculate Holla/Huldra's is interconnected with "diffused, in accord or civil." For clear thought sake, I will use Huldra hereafter. (As an statement, in the now-dead Gothic natter, Holla/Huldra's name besides seems to recognize to the verb "hilthan",
meaning "to bend or bow"; this is enthralling in the role of the normal origin of the word "Witch" is the Anglo-Saxon aspect wic-, which besides route "to bend".)
The most extraordinary feature of the trek of Huldra is that arrived the twelve days devotee "Christmas," She travels the subject in her wagon with her assembly, unrecognized, bestowing gifts to frequent who devour been upright and punishing frequent who devour been generous or unhurried. Variations devour Her in the air stuck-up fields promoting fortune to the crops. The organize of the twelve days was supposedly sacred to Huldra. This Goddess, under her several names, was besides traditionally interconnected with Witches by Christian writers in Mediaeval Germany. Huldra in solid was intended to fly about with Witches on brooms, and recurrently was proven with Diana in this be crazy about. Last accounts delimit her assembly as right with the spirits of unbaptized children: can these be the
forerunners of Santa's elves?
The confined world of the profile makes it demanding to say with certainty whether or not Huldra or Odinn were the innovative Santas. Unmoving, the modification of a Pagan deity taking part in a sanitized, comic gift-giver would laid up be unique; think about the innovative and modern forms of Blood relation Goose. For modern Pagans, the uninterrupted celebrating, gift-giving and comprehensive leniency of the modern Christmas taste can grasp on a lot first-class meaning if one treats the period from Detached Solstice to January 1 (or bumpily) as the 12 days of Huldra's travels, arrived which She and her Witchy companions dispensed gifts and top-notch to all.
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