Krampus & Other Demons

The Beastly Monsters of Christmas Legends

“Christmas requires the darkness. Every child understands that it’s only at midnight the Christmas mystery unfolds. The holiday we’ve spun from sugarplums and annual TV specials can’t exist without those dark edges where imagination blooms.”

—Al Ridenour,
The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas

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I had thought Jolie and I were alone in the woods. Arm outstretched, her leash pulled taut as she tugged us over the path’s rocks and roots. Hermione admonished Harry and Ron for some insensible behavior in my Harry Potter audiobook, distracting me from the burning blister on the back of my heel, each step pulling the outer layers of skin apart from the tender flesh beneath.

Then a howl pierced through the narration.

We halted, heads whipped to the left. I scrambled to pause my book as another howl rent the air, rushing down the mountain. Right toward us. The rest of the pack joined in, their cries crashing into us from the right, a primal chorus closing in.

We ran. I could hear their paws pounding over the forest floor, searching, hunting for us. Or perhaps it was simply my own galloping heart. My blister screamed as it stretched and contracted, but adrenaline pushed all thought of that aside as I devised a plan to scoop up all 30+ pounds of Jolie with one arm while punching and kicking any coyote that tried to get their jaws around her throat. I pumped my legs harder at the thought.

I’ve never considered myself scared of animals. More likely to walk toward a snake or spider than away, there’s nothing more exhilarating than meeting a wild animal on their own turf. But that day, my primal animal brain took over rational thought, so sure I was that this pack of coyotes would attack us, an obvious contradiction to my understanding of wild animals’ natural timidity.

As my heart and feet slowed after a few minutes of running, comprehension dawned that this primal fear was the basis of folklore across the world. Because, of course, we’re never alone. The earth teems with life, some microscopic or mammoth, others deadly or benign. Always huddled in houses or cocooned in cars, we’ve built strong walls against the wild world. It’s easy to forget it’s out there until moments when the divide comes crashing down and we realize the wilderness is never more than a breath away from snatching our safety.

When the monsters of folklore begin to emerge from the shadows, their forms resemble the beasts in our backyard, mutated versions of the animals we know.

Enter Krampus.

It’s Alive

The Krampus¹ is but one of many animalistic boogeymen across the world, brought to life in small Austrian and Bavarian towns each Christmas season as men don furs and horns to scare children into obedience. I first learned of this legend in my high school German class, just a few years before he surged into the spotlight with the 2015 horror-comedy Krampus. While the monsters of the dark have always intrigued and terrified me in equal measure, it’s the beastly ones that still linger in my mind.

If we look back in time to ancient religions—the extinct ones we now call mythologies—humans worshipped, and feared, animalistic gods. The deities of Egyptian, Greek, and Norse mythology often appeared as anthropomorphized animals and could shapeshift into, procreate with, and give birth to animals. Some of those old religions, like Hinduism, have carried their animalistic gods into the modern era.

Christianity ushered in the Beasts of Revelation, and horned, hooved, and furred figures became associated not with merely violent gods that could be appeased through worship but with pure evil. The devil.

Lucifer is not a god, never was. A fallen angel, he lost his human-ish form—the pure white wings and golden halo—and morphed into a dark, dirty beast. The spread of Christianity throughout the world cemented the relationship between nonhuman creatures and damnation. As such, the devil and the Krampus are virtually indistinguishable.

The film Krampus offers a modern take on Krampus’ existence: as a “shadow of Saint Nicholas,” he comes to punish children, and their families, who stop believing in Christmas by dragging them all down to the underworld. In Red One, this Christmas’ fantasy-action flick, Krampus is Santa’s brother—yet both movies show Krampus in chains, one of the few ways pop culture is historically and culturally accurate to the original legends. Depictions of him on Krampuskarten (cards) of the nineteenth century often show him with shackled wrists, symbolic of his servitude to St. Nicholas. The pair worked together, with Krampus offering punishment by way of a bundle of sticks to children who’ve misbehaved, while the saint rewarded good children. But these chains could also represent humanity’s subjugation of animals. The wild beast must be tamed, their primal lust for violence held back, captive, used for our own means. Red One makes this connection, too, as the antagonist takes the time to replace the reins on Santa’s reindeer with chains before setting off to punish all those on the naughty list.

Al Ridenour concludes The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas by saying, “The fear the Krampus produces has but one traditional purpose, and that is the betterment of children’s behavior.” On the night of December 5 (St. Nicholas Eve, or Krampusnacht), men costumed as Krampuses run down the streets of Alpine towns, and offerings of food are prepared to appease them when they come knocking. Ridenour continues,

“Those who view the whole production in terms of harsh adult discipline overlook how intimately the house visit is attuned to the child’s world of imagination. The encounter is made uniquely childlike and meaningful as it is played out by larger-than-life figures. Success in the encounter banishes ravening horned monsters to the frozen outdoors and brings a small gift and gentle words from a regal man with whiskers like clouds and hat like a church. The child’s small trial is envisioned from his perspective, made huge as the child experiences it. He not only becomes the center of this living room drama, but the center of an epic battle pitched between the powers of heaven and hell.”

One could also argue that such an encounter solidifies a fear of the animal and a faith in the human.

In “Do Fictional Animals Matter?” I wrote that the “stories of our youth leave an indelible mark upon our psyches, seared into our gray matter so that they influence our personality, and therefore our actions, for the rest of our lives. They taught us what it means to be good and bad.” Boogeymen the world over look and act a lot like the Krampus, instilling a fear in young minds of inhuman creatures. We learn that to be dark, dirty, ugly, and beastly signifies villainy. For what else would a monster look like but a twisted form of the animals we already know?

Spreading Christmas Fear

Jennie Williams documents nearly the exact same winter ritual—on the opposite side of the world, in Canada—in her stunning short film “Nalujuk Night.” Occurring on the night of January 6,² the Nalajuit rise from the frozen sea dressed in furs and carrying large sticks. They knock on doors and enter homes, where children will sing them a song and wish the Nalajuit a happy new year in exchange for a gift. Naughty children will be pursued by a Nalujuk and smacked once or twice with their staff. Like the Krampus of the Alps, the Nalajuit return to their icy homes once their work is complete.

Many children likely understand that the Nalajuit, Krampuses, and Perchten³ are men in costumes, but the fear persists. Like adults cowering from scary clowns at haunted amusement parks, we can’t help but be leery of people behind masks. The masks remove their humanity, make them into monsters.

When whispers of a boogeyman floated down the mountains and burrowed into the consciousness of Austrian villagers, they turned to the animals around them to bring him to life. They draped him in pelts of their sheep, crowned him with horns of their goats, and adorned him with horsetail hair and cowbells. The very act of using switches on children calls to mind the herding of cattle before feasting on them over the bitter months of winter.

Is there anything scarier than animals turning the table on us?

Until recently, Christmas looked much more like Halloween, with ghost stories shared as the nights grew longer. Monsters hid in the snow, scratching at windows and pawing at doors to be let in.

This tradition of anthropomorphic creatures calling as the old year dies has influenced some of the most famous Christmas tales: the Grinch with his green fur and puggish face, plus his mutt companion/servant, Max; The Nutcracker’s⁴ Mouse King and soldiers (I always thought they were too cute to be evil—the 2001 Barbie movie may have influenced this opinion); the Abominable Snow Monster of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; and the Ghost of Christmas Future, draped in the cloak of Death itself, who drives a carriage pulled by two black horses in the 2009 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, reminiscent of the horse-drawn hearses of that era.

Other creatures of European folklore also take on a beastly visage⁵:

• Belsnickel

• Frau Perchta

• Grýla⁶ & her Yule Cat

• Joulupukki

• Klapperbock

• Mari Lwyd

• Nuuttipukki

• Pelzmärtel

• Schimmel & Schimmelreiter

• Schnabelgeiß

• Schnappvieh

• Turón

• Türst

Human spirits like Bloody Thomas and the cannibalistic Père Fouettard are drenched in blood like butchers, symbolic of the slaughter of animals before winter begins.

Prey for Peace

Behind every folktale is a moral lesson. The Krampus exists to teach kids that there are consequences for bad behavior.⁷ But what does it teach them about animals? A hulking beast that comes out only at night, the Krampus perpetuates the idea that anthropomorphic, allegorical creatures are scary, that their raison d'être is to teach us something by scaring us.

Of course, there are implications beyond the metaphorical. Real animals are sacrificed to the Krampus. Their skins, furs, horns, and hooves make up each costume—killed in honor of tradition and authenticity. When little boys look up to the Krampus in their living room, they must see past the dead sheeps and goats cloaking him. To become the Krampus themselves, they must learn that creating an animal in humans’ image is more important than allowing those animals to live their own lives, free.

The Krampus may scare us into obedience, but his punishments are far more deadly for animals. It is they who should fear us, not the other way around.

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On my mind: Krampus: The Yule Lord by Brom

Brom holds true to Krampus’ form as a hideous satyr with glowing orange eyes, but he combines tradition with fiction to fill in the rest. A descendent of Loki, Krampus acts more as a Norse version of the Greek god Pan (especially in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians way), lamenting humans’ destruction of the earth and wondering if it’s even worth it to attempt restoring yuletide—not Christmas!—cheer. But upon fulfilling his traditional Austrian duty of visiting children in their homes, his faith rebounds.

It is strange reading a story where Santa Claus is (sort of) the villain, and Krampus’ moral high ground is shaky at best, but it’s still the kind of dark fantasy perfect for this time of year.

1. Al Ridenour notes in his book that “Krampus” is not one distinct figure but a variety of creatures, and as such he refers to them as Krampuses or the Krampus. (He likens it to calling all vampires Dracula.) Though the Krampus today is considered like a dark version of Santa Claus, or a chained servant of Saint Nicholas, the Perchten were their true predecessors. Ridenour describes Perchten (the German plural of Percht) as “winter spirits” that served as the Krampus prototype. Some Austrian towns still celebrate with a Perchtenlauf (like a Krampuslauf, or Krampus run) around Epiphany (January 6).

2. As seen in the above footnote, January 6 is the same day on which the Perchtenlaufen take place.

3. See above footnotes.

4. Notably, Tchaikovsky’s ballet was based on a German short story, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King” by E.T.A. Hoffman. By blending his Russian roots with the style of Western European musicians, he became the first Russian composer acclaimed by international audiences. Without Tchaikovsky, ballet and classical music as we know them today would not exist.

5. These monsters can be found in The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas by Al Ridenour and The Dead of Winter by Sarah Clegg.

6. Grýla makes an appearance in Red One (2024), as well. Initially appearing as a beautiful young woman, she sheds the disguise to become her true ogress form in the finale. (This duality between beautiful/good and ugly/bad can be seen in other Christmas legends, such as Frau Perchta.) Krampus, though not entirely evil in this story, partners with animalistic cronies, such as cyclops, creepy orc-looking things, and various hideous human-animal hybrids, like birds, fishes, and boars. Santa, on the other hand, has a fuzzy (though intimidating) polar bear and penguins. (Though those little elves look like a mix of house-elves and grindylows from the Harry Potter movies.)

7. In Heinrich Hoffman’s 1845 children’s book, Der Struwwelpeter, one of those bad behaviors is tormenting animals.