Strange Tidings We Bring

Hello everyone, and welcome to LukeLore. A quick deep dive into a folklore topic, where I share some of the stories from around the world that have piqued my interest.

It's getting all festive again and while clearly not as great as Halloween this time of the year can still be a fun time filled with feasting, gifting, and plenty of strange goings on under the surface. So lock up your drinks cabinet before it attracts the Mari Lwyd and do some last minute good deeds before Krampus starts clawing at the threshold, let's take Krampusnacht this year to go look at some Christmas tradition oddities.

So without further ado, Strange Tidings We Bring,

SECTION BREAK – What's With The Big Socks?

Christmas stockings feel like a staple these days, and have throughout my lifetime. I guess this could be regional, but it definitely seems widespread. Presents under the Christmas tree appear to have overtaken them in popularity some point around the 1950s but purpose bought big fancy socks will still be put up around Christmas to gain a small assortment of stocking stuffers. From tiny toys and new fangled modern gadgets, through to more traditional fruit and nuts. I always got chocolate coins every year myself, in a stocking that had a little bear tucked in at the top if I'm remembering right.

Their actual origin seems pretty disparate, with some loose claims of paganism but a solid Saint Nicolas tale attached to the modern interpretation. So the sanitised story goes, Saint Nicolas stayed at a poor house with a recently widowed man and his three beautiful daughters who he was too poor to offer dowry for, so they sadly may not marry. The horror! Bam, gold in socks, happily ever after, toe satsumas for all the children of the world.

That's not quite right, though. Let's quickly tear the Disneyfication wallpaper off and peak deeper. The original story does follow that, kind of, with a worrying key difference.

So Saint Nicolas was travelling at winter, and a charitable man did indeed take him in. The household was poor, and his wife had died that year. There were indeed three beautiful young daughters, but husbands were not the concern. Everyone in the household starving to death was the worry, and there was a dark desperate solution the widower was close to resorting to. While the house was struggling, Saint Nicolas was welcomed warmly and what little food there was shared with him.

Once the daughters were put to bed, the guest was trying to sleep when he overhead a desperate pleading prayer from the father. Things were so desperate he was close to selling his daughters into prostitution, where they would at least be fed and sheltered while he himself could continue to eke out some sort of existence on the damnable reward from the dark deed.

Saint Nicolas was worried that the wounded pride the man had left to him combined with the humility of refusing to take from another would prevent any attempt at charity being accepted, no matter the dire consequences that may follow, so the Saint took it upon himself to enact a miracle so the family may be saved.

He left early, before anyone else could awake, and climbed up to the chimney where he would drop down three bags of gold coins. One for each daughter. At least one fell into a stocking hung to dry above. In some stories it was all three, a miraculous set of trick shots that would have to have been divine topspin. In other stories, he threw them up into the chimney or else in through an open window towards the fireplace instead of climbing onto the roof.

Any which way the story began? This would evolve across time into Santa Claus coming down the chimney to deliver presents, with stockings being the traditional jolly receiver.

Of important Christian note: The Saint didn't wait for God to do something, he bloody well got to work doing this himself. And Saint Nicolas definitely had the Holy Spirit special sauce, he resurrects some murdered children at one point in his career that were clean chopped to bits, but the faith with charity doesn't come from expecting a higher power to do the heavy lifting. You do the charity yourself, and have faith the Lord will provide for you should you need help yourself later. Deeds first, thoughts and prayers later, never thoughts and prayers alone.

Okay, preaching from the cranky pagan over, but it IS Santa we're talking about here so feel free to do good for goodness sake.

Getting some sort of orange fruit in the bottom isn't a random attempt to get a kid to mix some vitamins into their seasonal sweets rampage, it's legitimately symbolic and linked to the original gold. They either represent the lump of gold coins, or span off from a permutation of the story where Saint Nicholas threw balls of gold into the stockings.

It also occurs to me that those chocolate coins that pop up each year, which I enjoyed in my childhood, are quite literally the gold from the tale.

Huh.

It's strange how we take some things for granted, never reflecting on their deeper meaning - even when it's right under our noses the whole time.

Should you dig around a bit, you can find some potential older origins here. One that seems a little too neat to be true is a claim that this tradition is instead from Nordic myth. Out with Saint Nicolas, and in with Odin, who would travel at the darkest time of year sharing Jol gifts of food and trinkets for children to play with. Good children looking to curry his favour should leave out boots filled with carrots, straw, and sugar beside the fire for his flying horse (and grandchild via Loki, the divine lineage of Norse gods getting complicated) Sleipnir. In return, those same boots would then get filled with Jol gifts from the happy god.

The Odin story feels like neo-Paganism to me, the conflation of Santa and the All-father looping back upon itself from the other direction. It may also be an older appropriation by the original Norse worshippers, as early Christian attempts at conversion led to the pantheon worshippers stealing the proto-Santa tale and merging it with Odin themselves, they did indeed have their own Yule or Jol that cross pollinated quite heavily with the invasive theology that led to the Christmas grab bag we enjoy today.

But you know what? I'm good with it! Santa is all about the whimsy, and this is whismical as all single L Hel. So why not?

There's a stronger pre-Santa connection that could have been absorbed by earlier Christianity and propagated outwards from there, in the Grandmother cult tradition of Bari, Italy. I don't actually have much details about this one, I think it's early Christian weirdness. One branch cult in that area worshiped "Pasqua Epiphinia", or "The Grandmother", which included a winter tradition of The Grandmother filling up boots with treats for kids as a part of other celebrations. A different cult venerating St Nicholas displaced the older one, and potentially scooped up the tradition on its way to spreading across Europe. It was an interesting sidenote at least, and a reminder that Christianity was much more fractured originally given how monolithic it may seem at a casual glance in the Information Age.

Stockings aren't a guarantee of gifts, you still need to behave your way onto the Nice List.

Bad children may get coal instead, which is at least useful and better than Krampus getting a hold of them. The only time Santa's goat demon buddy, or any one of his other anti-Santa contemporaries we've discussed over the years, would use a lump of coal in a stocking as a punishment would be to beat a child with it as a warm up exercise.

Consider that a bonus reminder to be good for goodness sake.

SECTION BREAK – Wren Hunting

The Wren Boys made a brief appearance on the Halloween special, as they have been known to take loan of the Samhein hobby horse Láir Bhán (Lure Vhan) for their Christmas activities in County Kerry.

So, this gets strange fast...

What would now be called St Stephen's Day in Ireland, an additional feast over the holidays in honour of the first Christian Martyr, more widely known as Boxing Day on the 25th of December; used to have a bit of an older rite. Something very likely to have been pagan in origin that refused to completely die out and has now come full circle to a modern revival of the tradition.

Let's try to construct the affair in broad terms, dropping some regional specifics as we go while trying to wrap our head around the core of the concept.

The day has come, the 25th, and local men assemble. Especially young men, but a good tradition goes a long way towards getting your exercise in while staving off boredom, so a wide assortment of men can be booted out of the holiday crowded homes to go on this adventure while everyone else enjoyed some quieter midwinter chores time.

For it is Hunt The Wren Day, or elsewise simply Wren Day.

A procession would head into the wilder areas, woods especially but thick gorse is good too in boggier places that may not become forested so easy. As loud a racket and uproar as could be made by the group drives through the wilds, beating at bushes and evergreens with sticks, until a wren is driven out.

The King of Birds!

A vital symbol of thriving life and good fortune to come.

That the procession will then throw their sticks, scavenged stones, and other objects at to strike the wren down dead. This will continue until the blood sacrifice is made, and a dead wren collected.

To be the wren slayer is bonus good fortune for the year ahead, but the kill is just the beginning.

If not already in full regalia as part of the initial hunt, the procession will now get fancier. Whether that's to simply become more colourful, or to even wear special Wren Day straw outfits. Sometimes masks were used, either crafted from straw or in some places skinned animal faces were used. The exact details would vary by region but the dead wren will be taking centre stage. The end of a ceremonial staff will have some sort of ornate wren bush, similar to an evergreen wreath, where the dead bird will be affixed so it can be paraded around the village. This is where the Lair Bhan comes in for County Kerry, their Samhain hobby horse joining in with the march for this day. The strange procession would go door to door singing songs about the wren to collect food, drink, and money. Any household who contributes would have good fortune in the year to come, although the parade would skip the homes that had any recently deceased family members. Those homes would not be expected to contribute, although were still fully expected to participate in what would come next to help the bereaved family get through the rest of the winter.

The march will eventually come to an end, and the sacrificed wren gets a funeral. This is another point where regions can vary wildly, the ceremony differing in size and exact details. All of which leads to what happens after, the collections will then be used in a 'Wren's Wake'. Maybe just called the 'Wren Dance', it was time to for the community to party! This was especially seen as an important calendar occasion for the unmarried to mingle, with an eye towards them no longer being unmarried by the next Wren Day.

The modern revivals kindly forgo the sacrificial hunt and skip directly to the strange parade, a long stuffed or even completely artificial wren being used for the procession. Collections may just go to charity, but there could also be a 'Wren Ball' that gets contributed to, the tradition getting all the way back to its roots - only absent the blood.

This is all extremely close to other dead of winter mumming traditions, like the Mari Lwyd in South Wales. It more than explains why County Kerry's own hobby horse joins in! Some form of Wren Day can be found in other parts of Britain with strong ties to Ireland so it may pop up in Scotland, Wales, and the North West of England. The Isle of Man even had an extra step where the sacrificed wren would go at the top of a raised up Wren Pole for people to dance around.

The whole Hunt The Wren Day is most certainly pagan. This isn't something accidentally Christian, it's something the church found when it got here and just put up with for the most part - chucking St Stephen at it in Ireland and hoping for the best. I don't know if there's a Wren Day revival local to me or not, but expect pictures to pop up on social media if I can find one to attend.

SECTION BREAK - If It's Green, It's Probably Pagan

We've looked at a few traditions over the years about bringing nature indoors, and how this ballooned into a variety of seasonal affectations that have lost the core association yet still the old ways lurk in plain sight. For every Coca Cola corporate approved red Santa on a street corner, some holly will sneak into the equation and suddenly it's thousands of years of pagan celebration to defy the darkest days out in the open.

Let us look a little closer at wreaths, something adjacent to bringing a tree in that's also got a lot of its own tradition behind it.

Now, the Christian tradition IS pretty strong here, for those who observe. It not quite being the level of stealth heathenism that a Christmas tree can represent. Lutherans in Germany would use an early version of the Advent Wreath from the 16th century onwards. The evergreen plants used in the Christian tradition are to symbolise the rebirth and eternal nature of Jesus. Candles used in an Advent Wreath help mark out the days of Christmas, and a special white Jesus Candle is reserved for Christmas day.

Saint facing Christian sects have an extra celebration on December 13th of Saint Lucy, who the story goes wore a lit Advent Wreath on her head to light her way so she had both hands free to carry more food down to persecuted Christians hiding from Roman rule in catacombs.

But there are older ties still to where the winter wreath comes from. It was as late as 1836 the Lutheran priest Johann Hinrich Wichern was recorded making a Christian advent to help children count the days of the season, and he used a cart wheel. The wheel didn't stick, the greenery did, so how much further back may that go? This already comes with the marked distinction that an Advent Wreath sits on a countertop and a Christmas Wreath gets hung up on doors or walls. What's going on with that innocuous symbol of life that's sneaked indoors?

As with the Christmas Tree itself and other living plant decorations like mistletoe, bringing the outside in and preserving it tends to have nature worship ties should you go back far enough. The fact Christmas tree trimmings are used in making these wreaths should be a red flag for animist nature worship shenanigans. Bringing Mistletoe indoors is something Pliny the Elder wrote about the Celtic Druids doing just before the turn of the Common Era, and when an academic from a colonising Empire bothers to write something down will hardly be the first time something occurred. It's a tradition that had been going on for a while.

Wreaths as a general concept are pretty old, although usually a headdress representing victory in ancient civilizations rather than a wall hanging. It may be Yule to blame for them becoming an evergreen plant themed winter holidays decoration, although ancient Romans had holly wreaths for their Saturnalia around the same time of year. These old winter aligned ones leaned into evergreen components as a celebration of life enduring through the death of the year, a reminder humans frequently like to give themselves to keep everyone going through the harsher times. Across all cultures who use the symbolism this becomes the promise of life returning again in the spring. It's easy to take that for granted in a climate controlled modern home, these symbols of hope enduring may have been the last lifeline a struggling family needed to push through the dark days into the next spring.

As with most modern Christmas traditions, the wreath went through something of a Victorian specific revival to get to today's form. The push to make Christmas a big event to improve morale among the people of the British Empire had wreaths celebrated for representing love, friendship, and good fortune. A useful gift to share around they were sometimes closely associated with Christmas trees, being hung up back on the tree they were at least in part made from, but they also would become a symbol of welcome when affixed to an entrance door. That they moved outside may have been what permanently unlimbered them from the tree they were at first decorating, it's certainly most common to see them hanging from doors during the holidays now.

None of this is to say devout Christians need to go on a heathen culture purging rampage to find some sort of core "correct" Christmas. These things all just merged and combined in strange ways as the historical foundations evolved over the years. The holidays are still what you make of them, and the shared point of community banding together to survive hard times is well worth celebrating even if a decidedly non-Christian Elf has crept onto a shelf every year.

I HAVE been noticing additional seasonal wreaths around. Either simple season celebrations that can even pop up in mainstream stores, through to Pagan Wheel of the Year aligned offerings. I may need to go into full Wreath Watch as yet, unpack more about them. Certainly start decorating with them! I quite enjoy wreaths as seasonal decor, that there may be more seasons to rotate through could be neat.

SECTION BREAK - The Gift That Fought The Nazis

Okay, slight diversion here. I WAS just looking for weird traditions, but stumbled across something relatively recent I found fascinating. It's all about a gift, and some technical minor abuse of what would become the Geneva Conventions.

Playing cards have always been a staple of soldiers. War is nowhere near as action packed as movie propaganda would suggest, while also being a greater psychological terror than action flicks would have you believe. Card games are a simple but effective tool to keep everyone settled and calm in the prolonged waiting times before everything goes horribly wrong, followed by being at least some comfort or distraction in the aftermath. Prisoners of war over the years generally got to make use of them, if nothing else as a reward incentive for good behaviour that distracts them from such other fun games as "What can I turn into a shiv for those Military Police guarding me?" that are more frowned upon in those circumstances.

From World War I the United States Playing Cards Company began making cheap decks aimed at the US troops. Affordable, easily replaceable, no big deal if damaged or abandoned, and enjoying a big push to get stocked where soldiers can easily purchase them. These USPCC Bicycle brand budget decks were basically synonymous with deployed United States troops come World War 2, and this created a strange opportunity for international espionage.

Allied Intelligence had a cunning plan, and three things were integral to this:

One, the treaties of 1906 and 1929 which laid the grounds for the Geneva Conventions allowed for Prisoners of War to have parcels shipped to them by the Red Cross provided the parcel contained no weapons of any kind.

Two, packs of playing cards that were essentially standard issue to US forces are not only not weapons, they're basically an innocuous background detail or ornamentation.

Three, it was coming up to Christmas.

So a plan was formed. A special deck was made that for all intents and purposes was just another deck of cards, but there was something funny with the glue holding the cheap pieces of glossy cardboard together to form the two faces. If you got them wet, you could peel the cards apart, and inside of these now separate pieces of card?

Well, looky here! There are sections of maps, instructions, and tips for escaping into surrounding countries should you happen to be help prisoner in Colditz Castle that just need assembling to use.

Sure would be a vexatious mishap to send a whole load of these weirdly faulty packs of playing cards to Colditz now, wouldn't it?

So a whole bunch of these trick decks were assembled for care packs distributed via the Red Cross into the prison, and POWs suddenly have pretty damn important intel one spilled drink away from being revealed. The full details of the original map decks are still a secret, they kind of sort of also violated the proto Geneva Conventions that were used to smuggle them in. You're not supposed to be facilitating a break out, the Red Cross likely weren't too happy being mules for a clandestine rebellion when they're supposed to have free movement to give out things like Christmas presents in a war. But the decks were a success leading to over 300 escape attempts with at least 32 people successfully breaking out. These presents may have come in small packages, but gave the gift of freedom!

There has been a special commemorative edition of playing cards to celebrate the slightly technically a war crime great Christmas escape from Colditz. You can pick up a pack of BICYCLE(R) ESCAPE MAP PLAYING CARDS which doesn't do the full trick peel, but includes reproductions of the original escape map segments on the faces of the cards. These sound like a pretty cool stocking stuffer to me, as a piece of history from when a Christmas present was used to fight the Axis powers in World War II.

SECTION BREAK

That's it for now. Season's Blessings to you all, for whichever holidays you will be celebrating this

Winter. I hope you were all good enough, or at least cunning enough, to escape the wrath of Krampus or another anti-Santa this year. Keep being nice until we clear the year! Save up being naughty for January now. We're not quite done for LukeLore in 2025 just yet, we have a ghost story for Christmas Eve planned. No spoilers as to what it will be quite yet, I will see you there for my favourite Christmas tradition.

If anyone has any neat stockings to show off, head to social media! I may see if my mum has my old stocking is storage to show everyone. Let's make a stocking showcase A Thing this year.

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Goodbye for now.