Friday, December 5, 2014
Evil Santa: Sint (2010)
This movie is based on the Dutch myth of Sinterklaas, whose
"arrival" in The Netherlands is supposed to be, well, today, or tonight. It's the whole reason for doing an Evil Santa theme theme this Friday in the first place. This is actually a Dutch film, but most will find it rentable only in the English dub; but for dubbed films, it's really one of the better ones,perhaps because Dutch is Germanic--related to English-- and about as far away from say Japanese or, say, Cantonese as you get. "Beware the moon" (?) No! Beware the Spaniards!!
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Another Icelandic Christmas Creep!
This is Gryla, the Troll or Ogress of Icelandic Christmas. She is the mother of the Yule Lads, written about yesterday on this blog. As if her mischievous and often scary dangerous off-spring weren't a bad enough deterrent to bad behavior by children; her appetite for children who have been naughty throughout the year, but especially around Christmas should scare hell out out of you! Her favorite snack is a screaming little naughty lad or lass; but her favorite dish is Naughty Kid Stew!
She is also not too good a marriage! She's been hitched three times, and currently lives with her third husband is the lava caves in Dimmuborgir, with the fairly nasty unto itself Yule Cat! For more on this "festive" hag, click here.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
One Of My Favorite Christmas Creeps: Troll Offspring!!
There are a number of strange, silly and sometimes downright scary "Christmas Creeps" from around the world, with the vast majority of them, unsurprisingly, from Europe, where Christmas traditions arose. One of my favorites are the Yule Lads of Iceland. I think a lot of people really only think of elves as being an Irish or Celtic thing, I know I certainly used to. Who would think that Vikings of all people would have a thing about elves?? Well, turns out a lot of Scandinavian countries have a elves of various sorts, and Icelanders (who are part Irish in ancestry) are positively crazy about them! To the point of having "elf crossing" signs on rural roads.
But, it turns out that the Gle∂ileg jól or Yule Lad is specific to the Christmas season. As Wikipedia points out, their numbers have fluctuated over the years, but they are currently numbered at 13 (which is perfect for here at the 13 Days Of Creepmas!). This is really another take on that naughty or nice tradition. Originally they ranged between really nasty tricksters (maybe related somehow to Loki??) to monsters that would eat children!! Now Yule Lads are said to either leave gifts for good children (who they visit during the long night--YIKES!) or rotten potatoes for the, well, "rotten" kids [sounds like a tooth-fairy type thing to me). Each one has a name, with some translating into English as "Window Pepper" or "Meat Hook"(!), with a specific arrival and departure date (full list on Wikipedia link above!)
Finally: Creepmas!
Hello (Osiyo) Everyone!
Merry Creepmas!!
A couple of weeks back our Internet got seriously knocked out when a large pine tree in the backyard was hit by lightning. Well, the technician just left and I am back up and running. Unfortunately I missed the first two days of Creepmas because of it! :-( But I am glad to be back up and running and will a few extra posts today to make up for it!
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