I wrote a guest post on this a while back and think it's quite apt for today being Krampus Day! And with a new movie on the topic just come out!
And what is Krampus Day, you might ask?
Well, in the evening of December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas' Feast day, young men in Austria, Southern Germany and Northern Italy celebrate a very old custom. They get dressed up as St. Nicholas' demonic servant, the Krampus, and then go running about the town (called a Krampus run). They warn the children to be good because St. Nicholas is on his way.
You can head to You Tube to see a little of a
Krampus Run .
I chose to feature this folkloric creature in my novel, Chasing the Trickster. When anthropology professor Pascal Guzman puts on a Krampus mask he comes away with a little surprise. He finds himself host to an ancient entity who has been living in the mask.
My interest in the Krampus was first tweaked when I saw a book by Monte Beauchamp,The Devil in Design and learned about Krampus folklore. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were many Krampus day postcards sent around Europe. These postcards were collected in a book by Mr. Beauchamp. Some of the demonic images are quite humorous as one of Krampus' sidelines was to chase buxom women. As well as having horns, he's--well--rather horny.
This and a few other ideas came together to create the plot and characters of my urban fantasy,
Chasing The Trickster.
1. From my college studies in Japanese Noh theatre (I was a theatre geek long before I thought of being a writer) came the idea that a mask can have a soul or being living inside it.
2. Then there is the idea of where do gods go when no one believes in them anymore. It is thought that Christians took Celtic gods such as Cernunnos, the stag god, and represented them as devils. Then what if the Krampus was originally a fertility god who then was represented as a devil? And what if when he lost his followers he felt he has no choice but to join with St. Nicholas to have whatever crumbs of worship he could garner?
3. I had seen a Jim Carrey movie many years ago called "The Mask" wherein a person wearing the mask would develop great powers but also lose all inhibitions. What if such a spirit could come out and permanently stay in a host.
Thus we have our hero, Pascal Guzman, possessed and plagued by an ancient entity, who is constantly nagging him to go out and Par-tee! The results are tragic, humorous and risqué.
I hope that you will take the time to find out more the Krampus, and also read my novel, Chasing The Trickster.
