Apparently an expedient alliance of Heaven and Hell...
Above are some documentary illustrations recording the kind of thing that has been going-on on over the channel on December 6th for generations...
Good clean fun? Harmless folklore?
I think not...
Look at the kids' faces in the above pix.
All this strikes me as very much in the spirit of the EU leadership class.
I can just imagine U von L cheering-on the lashings: "Hit 'em harder, put your back into it" she'd be shouting.
I fully expect our UK-Europhile politicians and legislators to be introducing these same practices in England, as soon as they can.
Clearly another Litmus Test. But I see now that the alternative, to only give chocolates and oranges (as I, I mean St. Nicholas, did this morning) is to fall into the trap of reacting to the test by going in the opposite direction, and not transcending the test. I shall have to think deeply about how to re enchant this ritual.
ReplyDeleteThis is neither here nor there, but I don't believe St. Nick punishes the kids on Dec 6. The worst he does is leave them a birch switch in their shoes to inform them that they did not behave well enough for treats.
ReplyDeleteThe punishment, torture, and kidnapping of children comes the night before on Dec 5, and it comes in the form of the Krampus (Saint Nick's companion), a goat-like demon after which the night is named (Krampusnacht).
Anyway, your main analogy is spot on. As far as the EU goes, it's all Krampus, all the time.
@Frank - Traditions vary by time and place, it seems - but apparently *somebody* always gets to administer a lashing; and if that's not always St Nick himself, it'll be one of his thugs; and if not Krampus, then someone else!
ReplyDeleteAll this was "triggered" by my surprise and puzzlement at today's Advent Calendar picture of some scared and pleading children facing (apparently) Father Christmas - who is holding-up a handful of birch twigs.
The Advent calendar was made in Germany.
Bruce, on a side note, this whole Saint Nicholas Day business strikes me as yet another example of the deeply ingrained (but implicitly denied) strain of legalism in Christianity, a strain that suffocates spirit under the burden of an externally enforced system of manmade rules and rigid divine "duties" one must conform to and obey to attain salvation or risk eternal punishment.
DeleteIt has everything to do with externally imposed necessity and nothing to do with agency, love, or freedom. Rather than answer God's creative call, people focus instead on obeying God's rules, mostly from the fear of negative consequences. The focus on "good" behavior is the big tell here.