My miraculous travels with Santa
A journey to the roots of European culture through St Nicholas.
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St Nick (1848) from Clement C. Moore's: a visit from St. Nicholas (with Dutch clay pipe, and presents) |
Beyond the feast of St. Nichlas lays a rather frightening Indo-European myth; Odin's army of dead warriors: The Wild Hunt.
These warriors who supposedly died on the battlefields inhabited the imaginations of the ancient Europeans. During the bleek wintermonths and severe December storms, especially during Christmas time, the pre-christian twelve days of Yule, the wild noise of breathing horses, the howling of wolves and the clattering of arms was heard by farmers and shepards in the field.
In front of this army of dead men flew an old bearded mantled man on a white horse, armed with a spear and followed by wolves, ravens and men with soot blackened faces.
Surviving under many guises and names one thing remained consistant. His arrival was a necessety. He braught gifts and fertility, welfare, plentiful crops as well as bounties of fruits and nuts. And as tradition has it, he coummunicated through the chimneys, riding his white horse or reindeer through the skies, along with his black faced sidekick, named Black Peter, using his rod of fertility.
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New York Magazine 1905 |
Holland played a major role in the spread of the St. Nicholas or 'Sinterklaas' cult. Odin's army still exists not only in myth, but also in ritualistic practices.
The book 'Wild Geraas' (Wild Rage) by Arnold-Jan Scheer
first published in Holland, November 2009