Show Notes
Have you ever been sorry you asked something? Don’t be! PLSJ’s Reference Librarian J.L. finds the answers to questions you thought might not even have an answer.
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Welcome to PLS Jays podcast or the public library of Steubenville and Jefferson county shares with you. Our favorite quirky questions finds out what leaders in our community are reading interviews, local authors, and so much more. This podcast is part of the ask us series where the reference librarian shares answers to some of our favorite questions from the past and provides information on topics, youth ponder that didn't know who to ask. Now you do
Speaker 2 00:00:38 Hello and welcome to I'm sorry. I asked if your reference librarian JL lash. That's me. And we're here to talk about Christmas is that everyone knows if you're good at Christmas time, Santa Claus brings you toys. But what if you're bad? Well, when I was a kid, we were told Santa would bring us coal, but in certain other parts of the world, especially Alpine areas like Austria and Southern Germany, they know of somebody else. The Krampus, the crumpets is an imposing for covered horned figure, carrying switches to punish bad little boys and girls, a basket on his back to carry away the really bad boys and girls and heralding his arrival with the jangling of bells, you may have even seen the us laugh. The crumble slough is the Krampus parade like they have in Pittsburgh, where many crop was, will run along, trying to scare a little boys and girls making noise and just generally having a good time.
Speaker 2 00:01:57 So where did Crump was come from and why do we have him? Many people know that it's not just Santa who visited on Christmas Eve. Sometimes in some countries you have the price, keep the price child. Some children can be visited by the Yule lads in Iceland, 13 lads who each visit, uh, 13 nights leave presence and occasionally play tricks. And if you don't wear your new Christmas clothes, Iceland also has a big cat who will come and eat. You might only do that if I don't feed them in. Sometimes Saint Nicholas work, Santa Claus, is it a company by other figures? Sometimes it's just the crop Acropolis. Sometimes it's his servant connect Rupert. And sometimes it's the crumpets on one side and then the angel on the other side, so that, you know what you would get if you were bad or good. But as for the crop, the Crump was, is one of those fear figure.
Speaker 2 00:03:03 When I was a boy, if my parents didn't want me to go someplace or didn't want me to do something repeatedly, they would often tell me that the boogeyman was coming to get me. And I didn't know what the boogeyman looked like, or really what defined the was. I just knew that I was not going to be allowed to go down by the lake. That was on a nearby farmer's property, which whether the boogeyman kept me away or not is neither Heather nor the other, but parents all over the world do this sort of thing. And so in these parts of the Alpine territory, they would often talk about dark shadowy figures that would come and get you if you didn't behave yourself. Well, this continued until about the middle of the 19th century, when they had to portray this dark shadowy figure, the crop was, and costumes started being made.
Speaker 2 00:04:04 The Catholic areas already had an idea of what a Batman looked like in the form of the devil. And so the crop has took on the appearance of the devil. Now the costumes that they wear in these areas are very elaborate. They use real fur with a, for covering the mask are usually carved out of wood sometimes with real animal horns for the horns and are fairly valuable keepsakes as well as costume pieces. That was the ups. Now I've heard other stories. I've heard that at one point at national geographic article, even quoted someone is saying that crumb posts had origins in north Smith biology as the son of hell, hel hell not place. And thus the grandson of Loki. This is not. So, as I mentioned before, the crop was really didn't take form until the 19th century. Now the Crump crumpets can visit people in a number of different ways.
Speaker 2 00:05:16 They have what they call the Crump of slop. The crumble slaw for Crump was parade. Our crumpets runs as Crump and crumpets runs. You have many, many crop posts and Crump posts seems to be the foreal of Crump posts like sheep. One and plural are the same, not Crump buses or crumb pie, or however you might want to say it, but still they have many of these get together with their jangling bells and you can hear the bells from a long way. And then they come by and roar at Hsu and growl and try to scare the children and swing their switches. And yeah, sometimes maybe get a little enthusiastic and such things continue to happen. And you can find many videos of them online. I would recommend looking at these videos, or if you are lucky enough to live near where one happens on Crump was knocked, which is December 5th.
Speaker 2 00:06:26 They will often happen. Even here in America, as promises has become very popular. Then you have the Krampus visits. These, you don't see that often here in America, but for younger children, St. Nicholas or Santa Claus will visit their house in the form of obviously somebody dressed up or relative or as Santa Claus, often that's at the toy store and the Krampus will also be there. Santa Claus will be in there consulting whether or not they've been a good little boy or a girl. And the Crump was we'll either wait outside or wait in the hallway. Menacingly letting them know that if they were not a good boy or a good little girl, the Crump was there to make sure that they will be good next year. So yeah, implied threats are always a good way to get your children to behave that humorously of course.
Speaker 2 00:07:25 And another thing that a lot of people may only be aware of kind of tangentially are compass cartoon, crumbles cart, and our combis cards like Christmas cards. People would often send prom postcards with pictures of Krampus punishing, or just looking medicine, only carrying children in his basket. I have seen Krampus carton where there's a female Krump was punishing bad men make of that, which you will, but these were, and still continue to be popular. I imagine you can send them to your friends in the manner of hahaha you've been bad. Yeah. Just to kind of a friendly ribbing as most of the ones I see do not seem to be geared towards children, but towards adults, but because of the fact that these made their way online, a lot of Americans began to see them. And so suddenly the Crump was began making his appearance here in America.
Speaker 2 00:08:27 And the first time I remember seeing the Krampus was on a TV show called the venture brothers, which was a cartoon geared towards older people, not children. And the Krampus showed up in an episode of that, but he has also showed up in shut shows as supernatural. Uh, he's been in horror movies. And so the Crump has, has made his way to America, perhaps not to frighten any children. I don't know of a single parent who has told their children, if they don't behave themselves, the Crump was will come get them. But I certainly know a lot of adults who know about Krampus will either joke about him or send images of Krampus carton to their friends, watch the TV shows or the movies, and also participate in the Crump of slops. And there's one in Pittsburgh. They have it on December 5th and they call it the compass crawl because they will often hit local, uh, drinking establishments and have themselves a very good time. And there are videos of that. And several of people I know have participated in it and sent pictures of themselves participating in, I may or may not have gotten myself a Crump, a smash. So that next year I may be participating in the Crump of slouch myself or no. Can I hope you're not sorry you add,
Speaker 1 00:10:04 I have a question. You want the answer to visit the library's website@steubenvillelibrarydotorgoremailthereferencedepartmentatshopperbranchatseolibraries.org. That's S C H I a PPA, B R a N C [email protected].
