Santa Claus Has An Evil Doppelganger – His Name Is Krampus And He Isn’t Afraid To Scare Children

We have all come to know and love the good-natured, pot-bellied Santa Claus, who on the occasion of Christmas is willing to overlook some of the misdeeds committed by his beloved children. However, there is a an evil counterpart to our grandpa Claus called Krampus. If it were up to Santa’s evil doppelganger, every wrongdoing by a naughty kid would deserve some of the meanest forms of punishment imaginable.

Long before, parents had begun coaxing their wards into good behavior using the big fat and jolly Santa, their counterparts in the Alpine villages were threatening their kids into compliance with some of the worst possible retributions at the hands of Krampus.

This shaggy-furred, horned creature with a fistful of bound twigs is a menacing looking creature, a devilish mountain goblin who serves as an evil counterpart to the good St. Nick. His arrival is indicated by the clanging of oversize cowbells. Krampus is the threat that parents have long admonished their kids with.

The Demonic Creature Scares Children Into Good Behavior

Little misdemeanors like refusal to clear the dinner table, shrugging household duties and acting up at school would all be made to recollect and repent before Krampus would coming knocking up on the door, said Mr. Bierbaumer, who grew up in the Bavarian Alps and now heads a Munich-based club, the Sparifankerl Pass — Bavarian dialect for “Devil’s Group” — devoted to keeping the Krampus tradition alive,

“When you are a child, you know what you have done wrong the whole year. When the Krampus comes to your house, and you are a child, you are really worried about getting a hit from his switch.”

However, Krampus isn’t all that bad. Apart from joining St. Nicholas, Krampus has been running through villages and towns. Though his primary duties included disciplining children, Krampus also helped in ridding the town of evil spirits, before Christmas could roll in. However, modern day society seems to be gradually forgetting Krampus as the citizenry have migrated from villages to cities and adopted a more civilized form of Christmas.

Still, quite a few Europeans are trying to bring back the customs that defined their childhoods, and those of their parents and grandparents. One of the rituals is called Krampuslauf, a visually disturbing, but thrilling spectacle in which the fearsome seasonal beasts run through rows of adorned wooden huts at the Bavarian capital’s oldest holiday market.

These rituals might seem disturbing and sometimes downright frightening, but the howling winds of the Alpine region bring with them a fear that needs to be met with an equally threatening force. So what if the ghastly looking creatures lend a helping hand to parents in keeping their children on their best behavior.

For more scary photos of the demonic creature, head to The Atlantic.

[Image Credit | Credit Gordon Welters / The New York Times, Sean Gallup/Getty Images]

Santa Claus Has An Evil Doppelganger – His Name Is Krampus And He Isn’t Afraid To Scare Children is an article from: The Inquisitr News