Fool & Devil = Santa Claus??

[le pendu]

Perhaps I should have saved this till December.. but

The fool (and the devil) : Santa Claus in disguise?

In a recent thread in the History & Iconography section, there is a thread concerning Bel-Gargan and his connection to the Fool. When I read it, I immediately thought of Santa Claus.

There are three books that have influenced my belief in the origins of the Santa Claus myth, and it's relation to the Fool and the Devil.

When Santa Was a Shaman by Tony van Renterghem
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=156718765X/ref=nosim/aeclectic/

Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men by Phyllis Siefker
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0786402466/ref=nosim/aeclectic/

and

Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture by Arthur Evans.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0915480018/ref=nosim/aeclectic/


All three tie the Horned God to the Fool and the Devil.

"Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men" traces Santa from the Mediaeval imagery of the "Wild Man" to the development of the Fool and Harlequin, then to Santa Claus.

"When Santa Was a Shaman" traces the imagery all the way back to cave paintings.

"Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture" shows the connection between worship of the Horned God and homosexual prosecution, and the transformation of the Horned God into the Fool.

The theme in common with all of them is that there was worship of the Horned God, that this worship was suppressed, and then hidden in other images for centuries.

The basic concept goes;
Horned God> Shaman worship> Tormenting of the Wild Man as part of an ancient fertility rite> Robin Goodfellow/Puck> Patched clothing representing patches of fur/hair> the Devil in negative aspect & Harlequin in trickster aspect> The Fool> Introduction of Christian St. Nicholas as positive aspect & "Dark Helper" (Knecht Ruprecht, Black Pete, Krumpas) as dark aspect> Santa Claus gift giver/deed punisher>Santa Claus as benevolent gift giver.

The connections are nearly endless: Horned God, Cernunnos, Dionysus, Frey, Odin, Woden, Herne the Hunter, etc..

I can see the "torment" manifested in several of the early Fool cards where "children' or adults humiliate the fool.

Modern "remembrances' include at least the Morris Dancers, and Mummers plays.

I'm curious, have others read these books? Or come to similar conclusions regarding the Fool and Devil? It's hard for me to look at either of these cards now, and not make that connection.

Is Santa Claus our closest modern association with the "true" meaning of the Fool and Devil?

Or is this all nonsense?

robert

[HudsonGray]

Santa Claus....yet nobody mentions St. Nicholas who was the basis for Santa Claus. (Yep, he was real, did the thing with the gold coin in the toe of a shoe or sock, and was patron saint of fishermen so they wouldn't drown).

Robert, how does St. Nicholas fit into the equation? It's almost like a step is missing without him.

[isthmus nekoi]

I once read a book where Santa Claus and Hermes were the same guy underlining the trickster aspect. I have also read (although not from any reliable source) that SC used to be depicted in green until Coca Cola made him all red. That loosely reminds me of the Green Man which would connect him back to the Fool, Dionysos etc.

Underlying all the associations of your gods is the materialism of them, which would easily associate SC w/the Devil. Fool is not so much associated w/materialism in Rider Waite, but if you have Thoth, it is all over the green man.

[lunalafey]

I wrote up a little thing at christmas time about the santa shamans.....

as for a cconnection to the fool & the devil, what you present looks pretty good to me, but I never came aross anything connecting the two.
BUT
you mention it and I am reminded of the Devil in my Native American deck. The Devil is depicted as the sacred white buffalo.
White Buffalo Woman came down from the sky and gifted man with tabacco...
There is also the astrological connection. The oneset of winter starts with the Sun in Capricorn, the sign associated with the devil.

In modern times I can see the commercial fixation with the holiday enslaving us into money spending morons....quite a fool/devil moment

[skytwig]

I love these type of discussions, robertmealing. thank you.

I attempted a similar question in this thread: Misunderstood Devil (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22765&highlight=devil )

What I noticed is a difficulty in perceiving the Devil as something delightful and playful.... He seems to carry a social acceptability and an obsession with sinfulness..... both concepts of the human being, the dilemma of living here on Earth.

I looooove the concept of a Santa Claus.... such benevolence and Delight, for me, reflects a great deal about the Truth of Life.... I tend to believe that Love is the essence of all life, that it is living and creative..... Santa has always evoked that spirit for me.

The Devil may very well be that essense...... :)

[le pendu]

Hi HudsonGray,

The premis is that the Catholic Church tried to sanitize the yearly festivals that celebrated the Wild Man/Horned God and applied St. Nicholas to the role. However, the wildman still kept bubbling to the surface. What ended up happening is that the two identities never really meshed and they split off as a pair, St. Nicholas and Black Pete/Krumpas/Knecht Ruprecht.

Here's an interesting link on St. Nicholas:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/santa1.htm

There seems to be a lot of doubt about the legends we traditionally associate with him. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia just barely admits he even existed:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11063b.htm

Its interesting to look at the Santa Claus Illustrations of Thomas Nast from the 1860s, here Santa is depicted very much like a wildman/elf:
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Original_Santa_Claus.htm

Historically, most of the concepts connected with "Santa Claus" seem more closely related to the dark helper than to the saint. There are also aspects of Frey (Fertility god, lord of the elves), and Odin/Wodan (Flies through the air on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, and leader of the "wild hunt"). A lot of people believe that Santa Claus came to America via the New York Dutch, but it seems the Germans that migrated to Pennsylvania had a lot more to do with the shaping of the Santa Claus legend. A search for "Belsnickling" brings up a lot of information and clues to the older legends. Belsnickle and Pelzsnickle are two versions of the Santa/Dark helper.

It's really hard to keep everything straight as there are so many different cultural aspects blended together. Fundamentally, Christmas is a combination of Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus, the North European celebration of Yule, the Roman celebration of Satunalia, "twelfth night", and other celebrations all occurring at the time of the Winter Solstice. Likewise, Santa Claus has pieces from these traditions blended together.

There is also a connection to the GreenMan. A theme that runs through some of this is the "Battle of the Holly King and the Oak King". In Celtic mythology the Holly King was said to rule over the half of the year from the summer to the winter solstice, at which time the Oak King defeated the Holly King to rule for the time until the summer solstice again. These two aspects of the Nature god were later incorporated into Mummers' plays traditionally performed around Yuletide.
You can find some short articles about it here:
http://paganwiccan.about.com/library/weekly/aa120602hollyoak.htm
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/1956/santa.html

So we seem to have two aspects of one god, representing the two seasons of Summer and Winter.
The Summer God has associations with Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow, Puck, the Greenman and The Fool. The Winter God has associations with Odin/Wodan, Herne, The Devil, and Santa Claus. The Arthurian legend of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is another example of this.

When I was reading the story of Bel Gargan in the other thread found here:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25850

I kept picturing the connections to the Santa Clause legends. Some investigation has led me to believe that Bel Gargan is just another version of the Celtic god Bel, Belenos, Belinos or Belenus. Bel, the Continental god of light. Not much seems to be available to learn about him. A thought that crosses my mind though is to wonder if Bel is another version of the Summer God, and if Cernunnos is his opposite half???

An interesting coincidence to all of this is that the body of St. Nicholas lies on Mount Gargano in Italy! Hmmm.

robert

Further Reading:
http://www.para-normal.com/nuke/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=780
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/118_santan.shtml
http://german.about.com/library/blnikolaus2.htm
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bj1/hood/bjhoodsi.htm
http://www.westsylvania.com/cfm/articles_detail.cfm?article_id=137&content_id=106
http://www.mtsn.org.uk/acdepts/english/tempest/calibanandwildman.htm

[le pendu]

Well... two years later.. and I am STILL wondering about these connections.

It's one of my favorite subjects.. the folklore connected to the Winter Solstice.

In this thread (http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=40900) I bring up the iconography of Krampus and the Devil in the Cary-Sheet.

To summarize.. the "theory" seems to go like this...

There is an ancient tradition of a "dark visitor" coming to the house during the solstice season.

The visitor would reward the good with presents, and punish the bad with a spanking with his bundle of sticks, or worse... carry bad children off in his sack or basket. My assumption is that the parents would try to defend the child, and the child would promise to be good, and so was released. The parents would then offer Ale or other goodies to the "visitor". Basically, we have a "behavior mechanism", to create good behavior in the kids.

Then we have these other related customs.. the "Hogmanay" in Scotland, and the "Mari Lwyd" in Wales where there are echos of this.

We have the "belsnickel" and "pelznickle" of German ancestry.. meaning "Bell Nicholas" and Fur Nicholas".. in my opinion relating to the Fool, and the Devil respectively.

We have the connection to the "Wildman"... being beaten and tormented (which I associate with early Fool iconography).

We have the "Winter King" and the "Summer King"... the Oak King and the Winter King.. fighting it out over the rule of the seasons.

We have Sir Gawain and the Green Knight... which was once considered a Christmas story.

So... looking beyond the Christian Mythology of Santa Claus... what are the traditions in Europe that harken back to something else? What did your parents or grandparents tell you about the darker side of this seasonal celebration?

Is there a connection with the Mummers and the Morris Dancers?

What connections can we find to the Fool and the Devil, if any?

[Satori]

Fascinating topic Robert.
I can offer nothing except to say that my own interest is now tickled.

Please post your findings, I read the thread with interest.

[celticnoodle]

you posted [The visitor would reward the good with presents, and punish the bad with a spanking with his bundle of sticks, or worse... carry bad children off in his sack or basket. My assumption is that the parents would try to defend the child, and the child would promise to be good, and so was released. The parents would then offer Ale or other goodies to the "visitor". Basically, we have a "behavior mechanism", to create good behavior in the kids.]

i can only say that i know of 2 kids who i would love santa to visit and this happen, however, they don't believe, (both under 6!), and couldn't care less anyhow. maybe santa claus also needs to spank the parents too! :D

[prudence]

hmmm, Robert, this has me thinking....the Marseilles Devil has those 2 little "helpers" who could possibly be seen as Santa's elves. :D

You're giving me some great ideas for homemade Christmas decorations, the cogs in this twisted mind have been set into motion. ;)

[le pendu]

This is an interesting page:
http://www.serve.com/shea/germusa/belsnick.htm

and I love the first image on this page of "Knecht Ruprecht and the Christchild":
http://www.klosterkirche.de/zeiten/advent/nikolaus-8.php

and this is probably my favorite image, from 1850:
http://www.zlb.de/projekte/advent/mann.htm

[kwaw]

I rather see in this respect the devil as krampus type santas help, rather than Santa himself, with the popesse also connected with St.Nicholas as boy bishop, as explained with image in other thread here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=844198&postcount=61

Kwaw

[Glass Owl]

Seeing this post totally got me thinking that in the Games section we need some Tarot math questions! I think that would be fun. Plus, it would be nice to actually see some math where there the answers are subjective :)

[le pendu]

I rather see in this respect the devil as krampus type santas help, rather than Santa himself, with the popesse also connected with St.Nicholas as boy bishop, as explained with image in other thread here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=844198&postcount=61

Kwaw

Hi Kwaw,

I don't think I've done a good job of explaining this. Frankly, it's so convoluted, and tied to so many different traditions, it's hard to come up with just one cohesive presentation.

The book "Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men" by Phyllis Siefker, presents the idea that the iconography of both the Fool and the Devil are related to the "Wildman"... and that they evolved over time into the "dark helper", and that the "dark helper' is actually the grandfather of "Santa Claus", not St. Nicholas.

The book "When Santa Was a Shaman" by Tony van Renterghem, is similar, but rather than focusing on the Wildman as the origin, the author suggests that the tradition can be traced all the way back to prehistoric Shamanistic practices.

Both books show images and discuss the changing developments, and both indicate that Fool and the Devil are decendants of these earlier traditions, and that the "dark helpers" are just another manifestation of this.

Neither of the books are particularly scholarly. They're interesting and thought provoking, and they do open ones eyes to similarities in both the Fool and the Devil.. and eventually in Santa Claus.

So yes, the images that I have been showing are of the "dark helpers". The point is that the modern "Santa Claus" probably evolved from the dark helpers rather than St. Nicholas. The "story" goes that the dark helpers are actually archtypes that go back a long way in history, and that at one point the "church" tried to christianize the tradition by putting St. Nicholas into the role. This didn't work, what ended up happening is that the "dark helper" continued to be part of the tradition, but was put in a "servent" role to St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas became the "good" figure, and the servent was the "punisher" of naughty children. It's amazing how wide spread the dark helper mythology is.

In the US, the Dutch brought St. Nicholas with them to New York, and the Germans brought "belsnickle, pelzsnickle, Knecht Ruprecht" to Pennsylvania. The figure of Santa Claus, more likely grew out of the German tradition than the dutch. Most of the legends we have about Santa Claus have nothing to do with a Bishop of Myra. They are much more connected with elves, flying sleighs, the north, lists of good and bad children, lumps of coal, etc. The firgure as well seems more connected to the iconography of the dark helpers than to St. Nicholas.. especially if you look back a couple hundred years. It's easy to see connections to Odin, and Freyr in the mythology. It's easy to see Santa changing from a furry elf-like creature into the human-sized Coca Cola Santa that all of us know today.

All of this is mixed up with different cultures and traditions, many of them just hinting to something "scary" at the "new year" that would travel around house to house. In some cases it seems more like trick or treat where you gave something to the "band of characters", in others, the scary thing would be invited in and pass judgement on who had been good or bad. It seems to have been "softened" to the point that the good would be rewarded for good behavior, and the naughty would be threatened with beatings or abductions.

Krampus is certainly a VERY scary version, and may be older than the Knecht Ruprecht versions. Black Pete is connected more to Moors, and to the traditions of the Dutch.

Much of it also seems connected to a Dying and Rising figure, often a wildman or greenman figure.

[tarotbear]

Are you talking about having The Devil and The Fool coming up together in a reading or just speculating in general?

If the Devil and Fool were to come up together in a spread, IMHO they would cancel the properties of each other out ... but I'm not sure if that is what this thread is all about or not... :confused:

[sweet_intuition]

Well, look at it this way. What does the "Devil" do? (Not the tarot devil, the christian one). He basically tempts us to do things that are not "good".

Santa makes a list of kids who are "good" (i.e. those who don't get tempted to do the things the devil would have tempted them to do)

So in a way, every year, each kid who wasn't tempted is rewarded with a christmas present.

And if you notice, SATAN, SANTA... isn't it ironic that the exact same letters are used?

[MikeTheAltarboy]

And if you notice, SATAN, SANTA... isn't it ironic that the exact same letters are used?
No. ;-) The former is semetic, the latter is, what, dutch? Any language tranlitterated into the roman alphabet will have lots of words with the same letters as words in another language, but I don't think they have a thing to do with each other.


About the "church" trying to christianise things - I'm skeptical. In the eastern churches I've visited, I've never yet seen St. Nicholas portrayed with even a hint of reindeer or elves. ;-) I didn't encounter any public tradition in normandy of a "santa" except what they've borrowed from the US. In Italy itself, the Epiphany Witch brings presents, and if St. Nick comes, I *believe* it's early in december.
Our santa is just so clearly northern, and the church is so clearly Roman and Byzantine, and looking at related stories around the christian world, there's no consistancy. I think it would be more accurate to say that the older stories simply evolved. If the Church tried, it was a colossal failure! They did better propogating Christmas, since *everyone* celebrates that. :-)

[jmd]

This, and the other threads linked, are fascinating.

I must admit that when I first read the possible connections, I was rather more dismissive (though always willing to see what emerges) than accepting of the possibility.

I suppose that for me there are a number of questions that this raises, specifically in terms of tarot.

The first is that such depiction as the Cary Sheet 'Devil' does increasingly look like it has a connection to this multi-faceted image, and that, if we take as a possibility that it does indeed relate to the Schmutzli or Krumpus, it also links, at least in the popular mind, to both Christmas and therefore the Advent of the Jesus Child.

Positioned as it is (card XV), it also augurs well for the cards that follow as a group if we take, for example, the Vieville deck as characterising other nativity scenes.

Even in more Marseille-type depictions, the scene that follows (in the Tower) can be related a pseudo-infancy gospel, and so again 'fits' well enough.

To be sure, there is a clear distinction in the Tarot between, on the one hand, the Devil figure, and on the other, the Fool - and that irrespective as to the manner in which the Harlequin may likewise be in some ways connected to both Fool and 'Devil' or helper figure.

... a fascinating thread(s), le pendu, and looking forward to reading more reflections and seeing more pertinent images!

[le pendu]

I suppose this is becoming a personal journey.. and I'm still not completely convinced of anything.. but do find the connections and similarities fascinating. I'm hoping that those who know some of the folklore, especially "older" versions, may contribute and add more to the picture.

Here's two interesting images...

The first is from the book by John Matthews "The Winter Solstice". He has an image which he identifies as "In folklore, the darker side of Santa Claus is often expressed in an accompanying character, such as the Swiss Schmutzli, who appears in order to punish bad children"
http://association.tarotstudies.org/images/schmutzli.jpg

I have no idea where the image is from, or when, but to me.. the connection to the Fool is very clear.

This second image is "Harlequin" from the Commedia dell'arte,
http://www.delpiano.com/carnival/html/pantalone.html
Which dates it to around 1577. What's fascinating is the iconographic connections to the Krampus, and to the Cary Sheet, with the basket on the back with "children" inside.
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=958002

Both of these images show the Fool aspect rather than the Devil aspect.

[le pendu]

This site is very interesting:
http://german.about.com/library/blnikolaus.htm

on the second page, there is link to a regional map of German St. Nicholas terms
http://german.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.nikolaus%2Dvon%2Dmyra.de/brauchtum/regio%5Fverbreitung.html

[Dark Inquisitor]

And if you notice, SATAN, SANTA... isn't it ironic that the exact same letters are used?

If you were a Landover Baptist , you wouldn't think it ironic at all.. }) :bugeyed: