Christmas Witches Are Coming to Town

Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about creepy things that surprised us around the internet. That medwin. I'm Michelle Christmas my counter to your depressing thoughts about Christmas and your anti Christmas behavior. I'm a Grench. You're kind of a grinch, But like, I just think that maybe we grew up to like coddled by what Christmas is supposed to be. Because in Europe there's like all these crazy Christmas demons and it's still part of the spooky season. Legitly, it's from Halloween until Christmas. There's a bunch of weird things that roam the countryside and possibly eat children or whatever. There's a well known demon of Christmas, Crampis. Crampis, It's Crampas. I will be talking about him because I think he's too popular. I think he's jumped the shark. Yeah, I just think he's like, I think it's over because like when I moved to la in the year twenty eleven, Crampus was the hot new monster on the block. In twenty eleven. Everyone was putting him on Christmas cards, he was in art projects, he was in commercials. It was just like the hot new monster. It's over exposed now. Yeah, like so what he rides with Satan Nicholas and Stuff's children in a bag and drags them to help and occasionally beats them with sticks. Whooped de doo, normal, right, old news. What other dark creatures are there? The Christmas Witch? Oh nice, I like the sound of that. There's two that I'll be talking about. But let's get back to the old magic, shall we. Let's go sh that's its transforming back into the well again, and I'll do some bell sounds. Okay, oh, I guess that's a whistle, but it felt like a kitty cat. I want to go. I mean, I think that's good. I think that's pretty good. I think people will get it. I think people get our song. I also like how neither of us went with any sort of Christmas tune. We went more neutral pagan holiday mule sticks and bells and actually not bells. I made cat sounds. Oh yeah, little cat sounds. A little muse me, mute me, me me. But I'm excited about these because these fucking things are creepy. The witches, Yeah, the witches are creepy. They're properly witches. Okay, here we go. Have you ever heard of frau perch tuh duh, I'm just kidding. No what frau perched? Frau perchda Okay, Edwin, imagine you are a dramatic peasant girl, probably from the sixteen hundreds. Awesome, just imagine you're that. Okay, all right, you got that in your mind? Right, I got it. And you live in the Alps region of southern Germany and Austria. Nice. I don't know any accents, and I'm not even gonna try. I would say it's like maybe Bavarian. I have no idea. I don't know what that Agustas. I don't know if that's right Augustas. No, he's from Sweden, I think. I don't know if he's from Germany or where is a Gusta audience, If you know where Augustas Gluf is from, willy Wonka, please write in and let us know. Okay, So it's winter, Edwin, and you're a dramatic peasant girl. You're a peasant girl in the mountains, okay, And you have not finished all the spinning of your flax. Oh no, I know, Oh, such a nightmare. Oh no. Also, your house isn't clean. Damn it. I know I was supposed to clean it. Yeah you're the girl, so yeah, you're supposed to clean it. I was about to say, damn it, the cleaning lady didn't get there. No, that's you. You have a peasant. Oh oh, you didn't finish your weaving, and it's you have to finish your flax spinning to set up your weaving post Christmas so you can finish all of your cloth so you can start doing your cloth. So disappointed. And I know that. And there's a bunch of technical terms here because I was a fiber's miner. That's rice. Oh you have to thread your warp and start your weaving on the loop after Christmas. I have no idea how to do that. Yeah, well of course you wouldn't. But all of that has to be done before the twelfth night January. Sick or you're in trouble. So your loom has to be up and your spinning has to be done before January six. So stressful, So stressful back then, I know, and you didn't get it done. But if you had, you'd have nothing to worry about because fra perchta would appear to you as a beautiful young maiden dressed in all white and leave you a coin. Nice, okay, easy, simple, lucky day. Your house is clean, your weaving's done. You've been a good child, but this is reality, So you haven't been a good child. No frau Perched has coming and when you haven't been good. She's often depicted with a beak nose made of iron, dressed in rags. Generally resembles a decrepit old crone with one large foot, sometimes described as a swan or goosefoot. Okay, that's creepier than what is this? Could you imagine actually seeing that? Right? Creepy old woman with a giant affleck duckfoot, even if I mean if it's all made up right, But like, how do you even come up with something like that? Isn't that spooky? Yeah? An iron I think it's like a combination of a bunch of different goddesses. But yeah, it's so fucked. So anyway, your spinning's half done, edwin, you got your spinning half done. Fro Perched is gonna trample it or even set it on fire because you've been so late, because you're not ready to weave. And what else was I doing? Fuck if I know there's nothing to do, just weave for fun in winter. I don't know what they do. You're in the Alps, it's snowy out. What else were you doing besides spinning. That's why she's at you. Uh, that's why she's fucking mad. What a lazy child. I deserve it. I deserve it. So this thing comes by and it's just I'm just gonna burn your work, yeah, because it's only half done. But that's like getting off easy if you did at least half your work. Because if you really irritate her, you haven't woven any of your flax. It's not spun at all. And your house is a total mess because she hates messy houses. And you failed to eat the meal that you're supposed to eat on her day, January sixth, which is gruel and fish. What the heck? You're supposed to eat a delicious meal of gruel and fish, and if you haven't eaten it on January sixth, well, then her rampaging will extend far beyond your spinning. She'll do nothing less than steal into your bedroom, cut you open with a knife, disembealu, replace your guts with rocks and straw and you'll deserve it. That's so specific and creepy. What the heck? So that's a way. Is that like a way to keep women in the house doing stuff, or to make little girls do their chores or something. What about little boys? Do they get anything? I'm sure they're out on the farm or some shit. But this is specifically for weaving. She's kind of a domestic witch. Gruel and fish. Gruel and fish is pretty rough. Depends maybe if you prepare it. I don't know, man, this is the Alps. It's not Japan. They're not like flavoring. This is like probably boiled fish and boiled gruel. Oh no, the smell. If you don't eat her meal and your house is messy and you haven't done your fucking weaving, you're spinning. It's different. Spinning is different than weaving, and I keep interchanging them. What's the difference. So spinning you're making the thread. It's like sleeping beauty on the spindle. You're making the thread. Weaving you're making the fabric. So you're weaving the thread. Oh okay, you're on the loom and you're doing that. Oh yeah, I've seen women do it by hand actually with a ball of I don't know what it is, wool, and then they're just like stretching it and turning it into this thing. Oh okay, okay, yeah, that's it. So that's what you'd have to be doing since you're a little dramatic girl in the Alps. Oh that's terrible. That's what you should have done. But now you've been disemboweled. I have guts of it and rocks and sticks and strong. Although there was another thing that I read where they were like, she just puts garbage in there? Does it matter so much? Worse? Does it matter you're dead. She wanders around during the twelve days of Christmas, and then her final day of wandering is January sixth, which is known as Perchin Tog. The people basically just clean their houses to avoid her coming in. Well, that's cool, that's the way to do it. See. I think that's what we need as Americans to clean our house or to have a weird threatening Do we need a monster and we need to clean our house? We need some type of thing threatening with a big goose foot. Imagine though, Michelle, if we had things like that, for like if you burn the turkey this year, this witch is gonna come and cut your guts out, oh and stuff you with the turkey. But yeah, when you sweep mop clean dust, just visualize an old crone with one big goose leg sneaking into your kitchen at night, running her claw like fingers over the baseboards checking for dust. Just imagine her footprints with that one goose leg like in your trail of blood as she's dragging out your entrails. And then you'll have to clean it up. So if I see it like that, it's scary er. But also, what is a naughty child? This spells it out. You just didn't do your weaving, so you're gonna get disempaded. Everything's so black and white and Christmas stories, but really we're all just cray. Did you ever get in trouble Michelle during Christmas, like when you were a kid, not to the point of punishment or whatever. Did they do that to you? No? But one time I got that fake snow spray thing and I wrote across the entire front of the house Merry Christmas and really crooked letters. That's the best. Oh my god, mom made me like white would go away. Your mom was like we're calling the Christmas witch. She's taking you. I'm fine with it. That's about as bad as it got. It's hilarious, and it's coming from such a good place too. You just want to write Mary Christmas the day I started hating it. Just imagine that's my origin story. You just wanted to celebrate it. That's all just in very big crooked letters on the side of a house. The next witch that I'm going to talk about rivals foul Perchta and this one's from Iceland and this is Greela, And I think it's like a battle between the two. Who's preak here? Now we're talking about Greela, who is a fearsome ogres who lives in Iceland's desolate mountains. No one who wanders alone is safe there. Her name loosely translates into Browler. She has a horned tail and carries a large sack to holloway children. Creepy okay. She descends from her home to snatch up misbehaving children, which would have been Edwin after he spray painted his family's house with fake snow and then takes the children, boils them alive, and turns them into stew. What's of cannibalism in these. I like this one. I like this one more than the other one. I think it depends. I don't know how the story ends, or in other versions of the tale she simply carves out their stomachs, which, oh, that's it. She is considered a true villain and personification of winter and it's darkness and coldness that takes over the world. And then I went on this thing with rant about in history people eight children, so this isn't really a fiction and it's quite frightening to like tell your kids that. And did someone actually put kids in sacks all the time? Because why is that such a thing? And all the all of the myths, kids are getting put in sacks. So I'm not like understood. I being like, what happened? What happened in our history? Why did these children go in these sacks? I am very interested in this in the sack theory, like I want to know why. Also, there's this legend in South America. It's not necessarily as my story, but also a weird creepy guy thing that carries kids and it actually carries bones in a sack. What's with that? I just don't understand. They don't have suitcases. They don't have duffel bags. It's always a freaking sack because it's in so many stories like that. I mean, it's read the PhD paper on why we have sax and history. And when I say sacks, I do mean sa c k s sacks with other sacks. There's saxophone. I could be saying sex with an accent. We don't know what I'm some sacks. They had some sacks. We don't know how I know how to speak. Sometimes I say words strange. But anyway, back to the story. Some sacks, some wild sacks. And now I have to say the word oral. But anyway, oral history dates back to the thirteen hundred's Her story been told since then, so since the thirteen hundred's old. Yeah, And only in the nineteenth century did she become associated with Christmas, where she became the matriarch of a family of creatures. Her family grew to include the Mule Lads and the Yule Cat. The Yule cat is a giant black cat, and I love black cats. I like to imagine my childhood cat as the mule cat kitty, who I've talked about before. The Larry David of Cats hilarious and so annoyed with everything and everyone in life. The mule cat pierce into windows to see if children are wearing an item of new clothing before Christmas Eve. If they are not, the mule cat will eat them. That's why you get socks and underwear. Oh that's kind of mean, like it falls on the parents, right, yeah, I mean, I guess. Also it makes up if you think that kind of is a lame present. It's like your parents saved you from being eaten by the giant cat. I get it, I get it. But anyway, that's Greela's cat, or the Yule cat. And then these are her sons or her brothers, so I think they're her sons. It makes me laugh that if they're her sons, because they seem very strange. This is from the Smithsonian Magazine. By the way, Icelandic children get to enjoy the flavors of not one, but thirteen father Christmases. Called the Yule Lads, these merry but mischievous fellows take turns visiting kids on thirteen nights leading up to Christmas. On each of those nights, children place their shoes on the window still for the good boys and girls. The yule Lads will leave candy. If not, the Yule Lads are subtly expressing their disapproval, they'll fill the shoes rotting potatoes, those potatoes, all these the potatoes don't think. Well behaved Icelandic kids have a sweet deal all around. Apparently, the Yule Lads used to be a lot more creepy than they are today. In seventeen forty six, parents were officially banned from tormenting their children with monster stories about those particular creatures. Did it get that bad? They were that bad in seventeen forty six that they legally had to ban the story. Did you imagine, imagine there's some trauma. Oh my god, I'm sure it was awful, because I'm about to read what their names are, and I mean, they're still weird, but anyway, today they're mostly benign, save for the harmless tricks they play. But most of their names come from this poem from nineteen thirty two, which is like the names they still go by today. And they're kind of like the Seven Dwarfs, but they're thirteen of them, and they're more mischievous and they're kind of like perverts. But their for traders were wholesome. They just seem like weird pervert Sons of gree love thirteen of them. So one of them is named meat hook nice. He snatches up any meat left out, especially smoked lamb. So there's thirteen of them, so they each come on on different days. Oh that's awesome. Okay, yeah, I'm so jealous. So potentially you get thirteen candies in your shoe or they'll do this weird thing. Another one is called the candlebagger. He steals candles. In Iceland, it was a necessity, so the candlebagger would steal candles. Gullygoch. He steals foam from buckets of cow milk. Not the foam, the foam, just the phone. Oh okay, it's fine. Stubby. He's short and steals food from frying pants. Still still okay, still wholesome. Bowl liquor. He steals food from under the bed. Back in the old days, Icelanders used to keep food stored under their bed sometimes, which is very strange. Thanks for that, because I was gonna ask, like under the pin so that sounds like my stash of cheetos. Yeah, bull liquors coming for you. Spoon liquor. He licks spoons, pot scraper aka pot liquor. He steals unwashed pots and licks them clean. That's nice, I guess, except it's a little man licking a pot clean. And then you're like, oh, is this pot clean? And you don't know that someone licked it. And then there's door slammer. He stops around in slam stores, keeping everyone awake. Well, that's annoying. I might have one of those in my house. I mean, it's because you've been bad. They're doing this because he could even bead screen gobbler. He eats up all the Icelandic yogurt. So yogurt eater, it'll eat your yogurt. Sausage swiper he loves stolen sausages. Window peeper. He likes to creep outside windows and sometimes steals the stuff he sees inside. Door sniffer. These are so specific. I don't know why that's so disturbing to me. Somewhat he has a huge nose and an insatiable appetite for stolen baked goods. But all I can imagine is him walking up to doors that are closed and like smelling them, and that just grosses me out. For some reason. It's just I don't know what of hats about the nostrils, and that's what gets me. And then the final one, sheep coat clad, he tries to suckle use in the farmer's sheep sheds. So he goes and he drinks sheep milk from the tit. You know, you can debate me about whether we kink shaming the thirteen mule lads. But they're they're a little odd. And are they like short little creatures? It wasn't you? Are they just like dorma little? They look like little jolly Saint Nicholas's. You know, I think they're I think they're probably small, but they're now portrayed as little. They look like little Santa Clauss pretty much. And these are like well known over there, right, yeah, it's there Christmas, so are there? Like I can imagine songs written about them and like Christmas carols and then little kids doing their plays and they're just pretending to be the door sniffer, window peeper. I wanted to be window peeper this year. I would feel bad for the one that has to suck milk directly out of the sheep. I can't wait for a school play to really dramatize that. I wonder what they do. He just carries around a stuff, sheep or something, and then he puts it up to his face. I don't know. I don't know how you do that for children. Jeez. I love learning about other cultures. We're so cultured. What gets me is that's the tame version of the yule lads. What were the stories before seventeen forty six. I guess those are tam but they're still fucking weird. So they bring candy, or they do that, or they do both, or if you've been good, you won't get the guy that suckles on your us. Okay, okay, okay, okay. They could all be little lessons, right, like, for example, milk your sheep, guys, or oh yeah, washer bulls, take care of your candles, eat all your food under your bench or whatever. Oh yeah, you're right, they are little lessons. I don't know, because I mean sounds like a really cool way to scare kids into doing things that you wanted to do. Yeah, don't slam the doors, eat your yogurt, or you won't get to eat your yogurt. That's why I would scare my kids. I like it. Yeah, you gotta scare you, gotta scare them with the door sniffer. There's this creature called the door sniffer. And no, it's not a pervert. It's a Saint Nicholas type creature, not a pervert. It's not a pervert. It brings you candy. I don't think I'm kink shaming an elf am I oh god, I mean it's really creepy either way, Like to think about it, like, oh, that thing is going to be there. I would probably be terrified as a kid thinking about these things. Oh yeah, I think I'd be pretty scared of Grila. Grila, and then the fact that this is her whole posse of people that live in her cave, the cat, the yule Lads. She has a husband that's supposed to be really lazy and never does anything. They're all sitting there eating her kids stew that she's made. So you're more scared of Grela than you are a frau perch to I think. Okay, first I thought I was gonna be more afraid of what is it, Grela? Yeah or whatever you said, but in creepy factor, like the creepiness of it. And no, that first one the one with a difficult name. Definitely is that a perch stor or is it like something something perch looked it up? It's frau perch to so frow means like miss in German. Oh okay, okay, so perch to okay, perch toes just the image, just what it does, and that the thing slices you open and stuffs you with stuff. That the other one just carves your stomach out or whatever. You say, yeah, eat too, once again a nice nod to cannibalism. This is why this is so creepy to me, because it's like when I was a kid, I used to be afraid of do you know those in cartoons when you put a little angel and a devil on one side. I used to be afraid of those things. I used to be like, what if they're real and they're there and I can't see them because supposedly they're invisible to everyone else in the cartoons. And I remember, because that was a very like imaginative kid, I used to just imagine them, like, oh, one time I remember seeing like an animation. It was like a real actors, but they were supposed to be like shrunken down and they were inside of a stereo, and they were the ones that made the voices and the music. And you would turn on the radio and they would start talking. And I was freaked out thinking that there were little people in the radio singing, and I was like, there's no way. There's a little hole in the back of the speakers. I don't know if you've ever seen that. I used to be afraid of that. So I imagine as a kid, little Edwin, you tell them about these little things, or even the witch, that would be the end of me. Yeah, it's true. It would have been over. That's it. I would have been traumatized. And then I would have just advocated for banning it in Los Angeles County. You would have been on the city council banning all Christmas has to be happy holidays, can't even be happy holidays, celebrate festiveness or something like that. Yep. And then our podcast would have been called Happy Mystery Surprise, and we would talk all about joy to the world, and that wouldn't be fun for either of us to talk about. Frankly, that's terrible, but you know what, still though it sounds a lot like a lot of fun. I think all these other creatures instead of just oh Santa Claus. I think we do need stuff, like, we do need the creatures, and yeah, you need the magic more, yeah, more lore, more like here's a myth of this is gonna happen, or you know, even if they're scary. I think I would have appreciated that too. I mean I would have been freaked out, but definitely would have had some cool memories about it. Oh yeah, all my my rooms was clean that day, and I ate gruel and fish. And then you pass it down and scare your kids about it, and that's the point you pass the magic down. You know, with the Crampus explosion, everybody was super into Crampus. I don't know, it's just okay, great, you've just discovered one of the many Christmas demons that there are. Cool cul cool cool cool, cool cool guy. I think if we have any people that grew up Hispanic or Latino or whatever like me, I think there's this movie and it's gonna if it clicks with you. By the way, if anybody there's listening and you know what I'm talking about, please let me know. There's this movie that used to come on almost every around Christmas time. And it was about Santa Claus and a devil, and it was about basically a story of good versus evil, and they would they were basically in a fight, and the devil, like genuinely a red devil, was trying to not take over Christmas, but be there and ruin Santa's life or whatever and just burn things down. And if you know what I'm talking about, let me know. But if it creeped you out, I want to know, because it creeped me out. And then I'm definitely planning on showing it to you know, little cousins and everybody. I want them to experience Christmas like I did. You have to with the devil that used to commit crimes and stuff and burn things, And it was like it was supposed to this. This movie is in Spanish, is in Spanish. Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can find a translated version of it. But that image of that devil trying to burn the place down or trying to just ruin this kid's life, yeah, there was something else. I get it. I get it. We've talked about the Wheelers before. I'll definitely make my kids watch Return to Oz. But he oh man, the Wheelers. They are no joke. They are permanently burned in my mind. Goodness, there's been other creepy things. I remember thinking of Christmas that used to be freaked out about, and many the dark, Like I remember thinking of all those Christmas Carol and all those Christmas movies. I remember being so scared of one of them. I forgot which one it was. Was at home alone. I'm trying to think it was home alone. It was probably alone. I specifically because there's like a scene where he goes down the stairs on a sled, and I specifically remember doing that in our in my childhood house. Not quite sure why or the conclusion of that, but I'm pretty sure I did that. And also I've definitely used boxes to go down those stairs too. But the sled was I'm home alone. Oh yeah, I think that I might have been that idea, But I used the laundry basket. Oh yes there, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did survive somehow, but I don't have any memories of like landing, so who knows how it brain damage? Imagine it all makes sense. There's like just a big gap. I was going down in a box and then all of a sudden I was twenty three who knew, who knows what happened? Oh man, Oh that's terrible, that's terrible. But you know what, we do need some witches. I think we really do need some witches. Christmas witches sound amazing. I'm surprised we don't have any of that. So what we're guess what we're trying to say here is Merry Christmas, everybody. Yeah, that is what we're trying to say here. And what are we going to talk about next weeked when? I don't know. It'll be a surprise. Actually I know, but I won't tell you until then. Take good anyway, bye, see you guys. Mhm