If aliens were to land on our planet during the month of December, they’d be forgiven if they wondered what all the Santa Claus fuss was about. Those aliens might feel like Jack the Pumpkin King from Halloween-land, as he analyzed the Christmas-land traditions and the notorious Sandy Claws.
Listen now, you don’t understand
That’s not the point of Christmas land.
Now, pay attention.
We pick up an over-sized sock
and hang it like this on the wall.
Oh, yes. Does it still have a foot?
Let me see, let me look.
Is it rotted and covered with gook?
Uh, let me explain.
There’s no foot inside, but there’s candy!
Or sometimes it’s filled with small toys.
Small toys? Do they bite? Do they snap?
Or explode in the sack?
Perhaps they just spring out and scare girls and boys.
What a splendid idea
This Christmas sounds fun
I fully endorse it
Let’s try it at once!
Everyone, please! Now, not so fast.
There’s something here that you don’t quite grasp.
And the best, I must confess
I have saved for the last.
For the ruler of this Christmas land
Is a fearsome king with a deep mighty voice
Least that’s what I’ve come to understand.
And I’ve also hear it told that he’s something to behold
Like a lobster, huge and red.
When he sets out his sleigh with his rain gear on
Carting bulging sacks with his big great arms.
That is, so I’ve hear it said.
And on a dark, cold night, under the full moonlight
He flies into a fog like a vulture in the sky
And they call him Sandy Claws
Burton’s ghoulish interpretation of Christmas seems remarkably prescient. Because behind our seemingly innocuous traditions lie some very gruesome tales involving this “Sandy Claws” gentleman.
Almost every Catholic child has heard the story of Saint Nicholas, but if that child was often to be found daydreaming in Sunday school (like I was), he/she might have forgotten some, or all, of the details.
Legend has it that Saint Nicholas (a bishop from Myra, a part of present-day Turkey) anonymously gave away his family inheritance to the poor and performed miracles. So far, so good. But then, the story gets interesting. Two competing legends—both of which claim to explain Saint Nicholas’s fame—involve, believe me or believe wikipedia, a lifetime of forced prostitution and a salacious murder. (Eleventh century themes that seem to crop up repeatedly on Lifetime, come to think of it.)
In one story, during a famine on the island of Myra, a butcher trapped three children and slaughtered them, planning to pickle them and sell the meat to the villagers. In the French version of this story the children are chopped up by the butcher and stuck in a tub of brine. Saint Nicholas, who apparently was always available for a party, accepted an invitation into the butcher’s house, but wisely refused to dine on the offerings of ham, veal, or pig. The good Saint Nick then graciously rescued the children, vanquished the butcher, and left the house. Although, to be fair, it’s unclear whether the children lived through the experience.
So, Saint Nicholas saves three children from being someone’s lunch (and, in the process, saves a man who just wants a hotdog from participating in the reputation-killer that is cannibalism), and rightly earns his title as the patron saint of children. Good for the kids, good for the man, but a gory tale nonetheless.
In Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands, visits by Saint Nicholas (also known as Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, and Amerigo) are related to even more fearsome outcomes. In those countries, the jolly saint is rumored to appear with a sort of doppelganger—an evil elf-like helper—who either beats or throws naughty children into a big sack and takes them away to Spain, where Santa resides when not at the North Pole. More morbid stories involve throwing the sack of children into the nearest lake.
But Saint Nicholas is only half the story of the origin of this modern-day Santa Claus and/or Sandy Claws. Another theory claims the Norse god Odin and his eight-legged horse Sleipnir, are responsible for all the hoopla involving stockings over the hearth and flying reindeer. (Incidentally, Sleipnir must evoke great imagery; apparently it’s a popular choice as a tattoo.
Odin, usually depicted with a long white beard, rode the long-jumping Sleipnir on hunting treks during the Germanic holiday of Yule. According to Phyllis Liefker’s Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men, children would place on their rooftops shoes full of carrots for Sleipnir to munch on. Legend has it that Odin would trade the carrots for gifts of candy and then send the shoes down the chimney for the good children to eat. This led to the practice of hanging stockings over the fireplace.
These yuletide traditions have been evolving for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. A hundred more years from now—just a blink of an eye as far as mythical men who fly are concerned—it seems impossible to predict how else this Santa Claus/Saint Nicholas/Odin will transform. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe the important thing is that some version of this legend will still be around, enchanting believers around the world. I, for one, won’t be petrified of a child-eating (or even child-napping) Santa Claus. Instead, I’ll join Jack the Pumpkin King and all the wide-eyed kids out there who are supposed to be in their beds sleeping, to once again press my ear against the ceiling and listen for reindeers, eight-legged or not.
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‘Up on the house top, click click click!’
Did anyone bother to count the legs on the 8 tiny reindeer? Wouldn’t that be 32 hooves? It seems as if the eight-legged Sleinpnir spawned each leg into our traditional flying reindeer. May I ask then, what part of Sleinpnir give Rudolf get his famous nose?
You might also ask whether or not it’s possible for distinct strands of tradition to form in our interconnected world with global advertising campaigns. Will cultural traditions continue to evolve independently of other cultures?
It’s always interesting to research the roots of our beliefs and see how interconnected the world has been for centuries. The sad reality is that today the story of ‘Sandy Claws’ is probably known far more extensively than any traditional yarn we’ll find in our cultural history. I’m with you, Tara, still looking up and listening with an open heart and open mind!