Free The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year by Linda Raedisch Page B

Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, but it could just as easily have been named for St. Martin, Bishop 76 Riders on White Horses
    of Tours on whose day new wine was drunk with the Mar-
    tinmas goose. Bishop’s Wine is just one variation of the
    mulled, spiced wine that is ladled out under the twinkling lights of northern Europe’s outdoor Christmas markets.
    Ingredients:
    1 bottle cheap, dry red wine
    1⁄3 cup vanilla sugar (This is white sugar in which a
    vanilla bean or two have resided for at least a few
    days.)
    1 slice fresh ginger or chunk of candied ginger
    1 star anise
    1 cinnamon stick
    6 cardamom pods
    6 allspice berries
    10 cloves
    1 orange, sliced
    Pour the wine and vanilla sugar into a large pot. Tie up the spices in a piece of cheesecloth and add to pot. Heat to simmering, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Keep
    simmering but not boiling for about half an hour. Remove
    spices and float orange slices on top just before serving.

CHAPTER FIVE
Creatures of Forest and Mountain
    Beware: Black Peter is not the only dark spirit abroad on
    the eve of St. Nicholas. Not long after the Pelzmarten
    has rolled up his wolf skin and hidden it at the back of
    the wardrobe, we hear another collection of feet tramping
    down the frozen track that leads out of the forest and into the village. This time, the footsteps are accompanied by the clanking of bells and the rattling of chains as well as the whistle and crack of the birch rod as it slashes through the air. There are monsters out there, and they are just warming up for their first performance.
    Č ert
    American children know that if they start acting up early
    in December, they may or may not get a really good pres-
    ent on the morning of the twenty-fifth. The closer they get to the big day, the less the threat of an empty or briquette-filled stocking becomes, because hasn’t Santa already
    packed up his sleigh? What a nuisance it would be for him
    77
    78 Creatures of Forest and Mountain
    to have to dig down through all those packages to retrieve one light-up fighting hamster-bot just because someone
    forgot to clean her room. Yes, the sad truth is that there is very little left of real fear in the twenty-first century American Christmas.
    But fear is alive and well among Czech children on the
    eve of St. Nicholas’ Day, known to them as Angels and Dev-
    ils Night. The star of Angels and Devils Night is a horned demon named Čert who looks rather like an upright goat
    but has the face and hands of a man, and whose foot-long
    scarlet tongue will prevent you from ever mistaking him for Mr Tumnus. His wrists linked by iron chains, he carries a
    birch switch in one hand and an empty basket on his back.
    Thanks to Čert, Czech children do not have to wait until
    Christmas Eve to get what’s coming to them; as the sun sets on December 5, they face the very real possibility that they will be carried off to Hell in Čert’s basket that very night.
    If Čert, or Krampus as he is known in Austria and parts
    of Germany, were allowed to roam freely, we would all be
    lost. Fortunately, he always appears in the company of a
    starched white angel and St. Nicholas himself in full Myran bishop’s regalia. Usually, if not always, the angel intercedes on the child’s behalf. St. Nicholas hands out a few small
    gifts, and the party departs the home with Čert rattling his chains and grumbling over his bad luck. Still, he has this to comfort him: though not the last goat-man we’ll meet in
    these pages, he is certainly the most frightful, and the one who has managed to hold on to his devilish form for the
    longest.
    Creatures of Forest and Mountain 79
    Knecht Ruprecht
    Another of Čert’s German cousins, Knecht15 Ruprecht,
    dresses like a Trappist monk. Though he shrinks from the
    spotlight, Knecht Ruprecht reached the pinnacle of fame
    in 1862 by way of a poem by north German poet/novelist
    Theodor Storm. Since then, “Knecht Ruprecht” has been
    recited before many a German