I later found in Wikipedia, under “Pagan Alpine Traditions”, the complexity of the character, the “companions of St. Nicholas”.

Of course you’ll never find them in any christian bible, they are pagan in origin, and they have their origin in old germanic winter rituals. It seems that there was a dark guy, mischievous, non-human creature of the darkness called “Krampus” (Claw), which was under controll of a germanic, white-bearded god (Odin/Woden). Winter was the occasion were the darkness invaded the Earth, so rituals were necessary as protection of winter spirits. Other similar character was a goddess, witch-like called “Perchta” oder “Perchten”. (Any connection with germanic “Nerthus”, a fertility goddess?). I find it interesting that these folkloric rituals are still performed in some alpine towns of Austria, south Germany and Switzerland.

I find the Krampus quite mysterious, some other sources say it is an “incubus”, so an evil creature. But some others say, it can be a troll or a wildman…(A european yeti?) Who knows? Maybe these creatures roamed centuries ago!!

Greetings.

Santa better load up on weaponry (shotguns, long-range rifles, heat-seeking rocket launchers, TANKS) and watch his back this winter.

Might also be a good idea for him to get some exercise and diet or something.

And I all ways thought that Christmas was all cookies and milk!

Notice that I quoted the word mythical. And that is because the tale of El Hombre del Saco is loosely formed from an actual notorious infanticide case that happened in the Spanish region of Almería in the early XXth century. El Hombre del Saco is also known by another name: El Sacamantecas, which could roughly be translated as ‘the fat-remover’… I guess that gives you a pale idea of the nature of the crime that created this scary legend.