On a one-horse (with eight legs) open sleigh
This blog discusses how the Dutch view Father Christmas (Santa Claus). Basically, to those Netherlandish folk he's a benevolent bishop who lives in Spain and comes to town via a steamship. Fine. Ace. Fuck knows how the ship is supposed to reach Amsterdam, but there y'go.
The blog's main interesting point comes in the discussion of the Dutch Santa's sidekick, Black Peter. This is a man/woman dressed up in (what is by now considered staggeringly racist) "negro" getup, complete with blacked face, curly wig and red lips. Nobody really knows why this is, though I suspect it may be largely connected with ye olden people thinking black people are hilarious to look at and worthy comedy icons. Bless.
More curious is the potential (Germanic) pagan connections to the story: traditionally Santa has a horse called Sleipnir, which is, of course, Odin's horsey what has eight legs (and egg_shaped_fred's bike). Cue lots of ooh-ing and ah-ing about Santa being an All-High figure and Black Peter being a devil figure; maybe Loki, who knows. Anyway, I like the idea of, in pre-Christian Germanic society, a big bloke dressed like Odin riding into the settlement and giving presents/booze to the good little Proto-Germanic girls and boys, then the Christian missionaries going "OMG" and hastily associating him with that Turkish saint bloke.
Edit: After a bit more scouting on Wikipedia, it seems the Black Peter figure may represent some kind of troll or other netherworldly being, and part of the myth is that he stuffs naughty kiddies in his sack and takes them away. I smell a "Grendel v Santa Claus" paper coming on...
The blog's main interesting point comes in the discussion of the Dutch Santa's sidekick, Black Peter. This is a man/woman dressed up in (what is by now considered staggeringly racist) "negro" getup, complete with blacked face, curly wig and red lips. Nobody really knows why this is, though I suspect it may be largely connected with ye olden people thinking black people are hilarious to look at and worthy comedy icons. Bless.
More curious is the potential (Germanic) pagan connections to the story: traditionally Santa has a horse called Sleipnir, which is, of course, Odin's horsey what has eight legs (and egg_shaped_fred's bike). Cue lots of ooh-ing and ah-ing about Santa being an All-High figure and Black Peter being a devil figure; maybe Loki, who knows. Anyway, I like the idea of, in pre-Christian Germanic society, a big bloke dressed like Odin riding into the settlement and giving presents/booze to the good little Proto-Germanic girls and boys, then the Christian missionaries going "OMG" and hastily associating him with that Turkish saint bloke.
Edit: After a bit more scouting on Wikipedia, it seems the Black Peter figure may represent some kind of troll or other netherworldly being, and part of the myth is that he stuffs naughty kiddies in his sack and takes them away. I smell a "Grendel v Santa Claus" paper coming on...