Keltic Krampus II

"Keltic" Style Krampus

Ah, Christmas. Mother in her kerchief, and Father in his cap. The children swimming through a sea of wrapped gifts. Stockings stuffed with chocolate hang neatly above a blessed Yule log crackling away in the fireplace. So cozy. So joyous. The fear of possibly receiving coal in your stocking is long gone. The biggest fear children have around Christmas time these days is "Elf on a Shelf", and, boy, is he an intimidating figure....

Elf on a Shelf  =  Nothing to worry about

"You better be good, little boys and girls, or Elf on a Shelf might.... move around the room...??!" Yep. Nowadays parents try to coerce compliance from their children by threatening them with a tiny household sprite whose biggest threat is that he may show up in different spots around the house in a variety of FABULOUS poses. How absurd.

It wasn't always this way. A long time ago, before Coca Cola created Santa Clause and before the reason for the season was to go into debt buying cheap crap made in China in order to show people you secretly can't stand the other 364 days of the year how much you "love" them, there was a reason for bad children to dread Christmas.

You see, the German speaking cultures didn't fuck around when it came to discipline. It wasn't, "Oh please be good, little children. If you're good I'll take out a second mortgage on the house in order to buy you more shit you don't need, and if you're bad, Elf on a Shelf might do a split on the mantle, and you'll still get all your presents anyway!" Hell no. In the German speaking world, fathers would get together, get bombed on hearty lagers (not this "lite" shit people drink now), and they would then TERRORIZE their own children dressed as something so horrible, so unbearably wretched that the German children wouldn't even THINK about misbehaving!

They dressed..... as KRAMPUS!

Krampus  =  a LOT to worry about 

(photo by Anita Martinz found on Wikipedia)

Forget about dad dressing up as jolly ol' St. Nick and bringing joy into the household. No way. The German children lived in FEAR that a slight infraction, a single misstep, one back sass, or tantrum could get them WHIPPED by Krampus' birch branches, or worse! Krampus had a sack, but it didn't contain gifts. It contained the bodies of exceptionally bad children whom he ABDUCTED from their slumber, and then promptly DROWNED them in the local river or creek. Merry fucking Christmas!

You can imagine that Krampus was a bit more motivating than Elf on the God damned Shelf... The Krampus traditions fell out of favor in the USA after we fought not one, but TWO WORLD WARS against the Germans. After that, anything German wasn't all that popular... BUT, the Krampus seems to be on the verge of a comeback in North America! So nasty, whiny, bratty, spoiled, snot nosed, running through a restaurant, tantrum throwing, screaming, children may just get what is coming to them! Krampus might just show up again, and dish out some long overdue ass whoopings! BEWARE!

Keltic Krampus Apparel

The drawing above is the second attempt by me to fuse some Celtic style into the Krampus mythos (you can see the first "Keltic Krampus" drawing here). What I love about the Celtic style is that it conveys a sense of mystery. Like the artwork depicts something ancient and lost to time and history. That's why I think the Krampus is a perfect character to be portrayed in a Celtic style. The history of Krampus, as with most folklore, is shrouded in a past that isn't totally clear, and yet, it's presence continues to be known into contemporary times. This version, to me, looks kind of like a Tarot card. It's more simplistic and two-dimensional, but it's meaning implies centuries of history and hidden meaning. 

Keltic Krampus Accessories