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What is a Krampus?

November 23, 2023

Long ago on a mystical continent called Europe...

St. Nicholas decided to, shall we say, "contract out" the decidedly unsaintly task of punishing naughty children. Throughout European history, several distinct traditions involving companions of St. Nicholas have developed. Just to name a few:

  • The rugged Knecht Ruprecht: a farmhand who clobbers impious children with a bag of ash or sometimes a wooden stick that looks like a goat. [1]
  • The rural Belsnickel: brilliantly portrayed on The Office, where he was described as “kind of like Santa, except dirty and worse”[2]. Exported to the eastern United States by German emigrants.
  • The whip father, Père Fouettard: pretty much what it says.[3]

While most of these rogues could pass for what modern Americans might call “Old World Santas”, the Krampus does not. He is a hairy, horned, and goat-like. He harkens back to pre-Christian folklore: an ancient demon bound and in thrall to a saint.[4] He looks like this:

Gruss vom Krampus

What's not to love? He even has his own series of parades called the Krampuslauf.

  1. Thorpe, Benjamin (1852). Northern mythology: comprising the principal popular traditions and superstitions of Scandinavia, north Germany, and the Netherlands. Vol. 3. ↩︎

  2. Dwight Christmas. The Office, S9E9, 2012. ↩︎

  3. Le Père Fouettard: The French Christmas cannibal who serves Santa Claus ↩︎

  4. The Origin of Krampus, Europe’s Evil Twist on Santa ↩︎

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