Creeping Death
01-17-2009, 11:49 PM
Santa's Little (Slave) Helper (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,594674,00.html)
Myths about Santa's sinister helpers are as widespread in Europe as Grimm's Fairy Tales. In parts of Germany, Knecht Ruprecht brings terror into the hearts of naughty children when the gift-giving season arrives. In Austria it's Krampus, the horned devil who torments adolescents with asocial tendencies. In France, Pere Foutard does the proverbial whipping. Kids in America are threatened with coal in their stockings if they act up, but in European folklore, they are beaten with switches or stuffed in sacks. Brutal stuff. But in no country is the tale of Santa's diabolical sidekick as bizarre as in the Netherlands, home to Zwarte Piet ("Black Pete").
Just when you thought EU Bureaucrats where totally consumed by PC this article shows up. Under the thin veneer of PC behavior I thinks something of the old fire and force that conquered the whole world just a few centuries ago is still smoldering under the ashes. Maybe the current crisis will light the embers. ;)
Myths about Santa's sinister helpers are as widespread in Europe as Grimm's Fairy Tales. In parts of Germany, Knecht Ruprecht brings terror into the hearts of naughty children when the gift-giving season arrives. In Austria it's Krampus, the horned devil who torments adolescents with asocial tendencies. In France, Pere Foutard does the proverbial whipping. Kids in America are threatened with coal in their stockings if they act up, but in European folklore, they are beaten with switches or stuffed in sacks. Brutal stuff. But in no country is the tale of Santa's diabolical sidekick as bizarre as in the Netherlands, home to Zwarte Piet ("Black Pete").
Just when you thought EU Bureaucrats where totally consumed by PC this article shows up. Under the thin veneer of PC behavior I thinks something of the old fire and force that conquered the whole world just a few centuries ago is still smoldering under the ashes. Maybe the current crisis will light the embers. ;)