I posted this today, and it went completely unnoticed. Which is very interesting, considering how much people banged about Krampus only few days ago. Here is the real thing. St. Nicholas Day, aka "Little Christmas" In Austria, 1934:
St Nick comes out of the church accompanied by two women dressed in white...Brides???...He is awaited by "the devils" or "the demons"...Or, considering that most have sculls instead of faces, they could also be "the ancestors", "the dead"...
They form a procession which follows St Nick from the church and through the village...
All along they shout, bang their bells and shake their chains...One of them is carrying a "wooden grape picking basket" on his back...
The procession stops in front of every house.
The mother opens the door and takes the children out in front of the house...
St Nick then tells all the children to cross themselves, which they attempt to do as best as they can, while still staring at the grinning (devils, demons, dead) standing behind St Nick...
Once they cross themselves, the children are proclaimed to be "good children" and are given presents: apples, nuts, holy pictures...
But one child, instead of crossing himself, makes long nose at the procession (basically telling St Nick to stuff it).
The "bad child" is then stuffed into the grape picking basket, bucket and taken away by the (devils, demons, dead)...
Hmm...Grape picking basket? Wasn't there a god once, who loved grapes and wine, and who, every December, threw mad parties, during which he led processions consisting of his female followers, half men half beasts creatures, and the dead?
And wasn't his favorite punishment for women who didn't want to follow him to make them mad and make them kill their own children? And didn't Dionysus, allegedly, delight, as a child, in tearing kids into pieces and bringing them back to life again...
I don't know...
