krampus

Krampus made of prunes. Note the chain he's holding!


One interesting Austrian tradition we discovered was Krampus. Apparently Krampus is left over from a pagan tradition primarily in Austria, though supposedly some other places in Europe as well. Online information resources differ in their interpretations of the Krampus tradition.



Krampus made from sweet dough.


In one approach, Krampus punishes the bad little children while St. Nick rewards all the good ones on Dec.6. Some Austrians celebrate the tradition by wearing scary masks and and "generally scaring children" on Dec. 5th. (source info).



Bread Krampus with a chain.


In another interpretation, Krampus is one of Satan's minions, and either hands out presents to children or beats them, depending on whether they've been good or not.

Holy toledo...as a child, I used to have nightmares about the abominable snowman in the Rankin-Bass television production of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; I think I would have stayed under the covers forever if anyone had told me about Krampus back then.



There were very few nonsmoking areas in Vienna. Here,
people about to enter the underground were
encouraged to butt out their cigarettes.


Jeff and I both woke up at 5:30 a.m. this morning. I stayed up as late as I could last night, but ended up crashing around 9:00 p.m. Must stay up later tonight!



A harper we encountered on a walk.


My arms are markedly improved since before our trip to Vienna; staying off the keyboard helped a great deal, I think. The only time my arms hurt was when I posted in Blatherchat and had to type manually since I couldn't use ViaVoice (hence the lack of postings :-).

Have a great weekend, everyone! Allison and Jodi are coming over tomorrow for our last Urban Tapestry practice before The Gathering.



Saw these at the xmas market. Does anyone out there
know what they are? Are they really filled with cream?

December/2003 comments: Read | Post | LJ