December 23, 2025 • 19 mins
George Noory and author Varla Ventura explore the history of ghosts, witches and monsters associated with the winter season, famous Christmastime ghost stories like 'A Christmas Carol,' and the legends of scary creatures hunting for misbehaving children.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Barla Ventura back with us. Noted author, traveler, botanist, lover
of the strange, she has written several books on bizarre
and freaky things, from the history of the paranormal, parlor
games to plants that smell like corpses. She's a committed supernaturalist, folklorist,
(00:26):
and seeker of those shadowy things. That's great at your
window in the night, Barla, welcome back. How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Ah?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Thank you, George, A pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I'm doing well all things.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Considered, and Merry Christmas to you.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Yes, Happy holidays. It's suddenly upon us.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
How did your book mark? Twain's Ouiji Mystery do.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
That's doing well.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
That's part of the Shadow Zine series, and interestingly, just
put out one about Christmas ghost stories.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
He's got three really creepy.
Speaker 6 (01:05):
Christmas ghost stories and I have mine set aside to
read on Christmas Eve, as is the you know Victorian tradition.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, you make sure you're listening to our show that
night too, Okay, but of course called in that night,
love to hear some of your ghost stories again.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
Oh, that's lovely, that's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We'll try to get Tom to give you a call
back on that. How did you get involved in this field.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Really, George, I think I was born into it.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
The older I.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Get, the more I realized that I.
Speaker 6 (01:40):
Had a very unconventional upbringing. I think a lot of
people come to the paranormal from experiences that they had
that they can't explain, and I certainly had my fair share.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Of experiences as a child. But I think I've told
you before my mom is a witch.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
And so the what was surrounding me as a child,
You know, there were books of the occults on the shelf.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Frequently, what I was given tourou readings.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
My my astrological chart was in my baby book, before
my height and weight, you know, or.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Length and weight that you put in the baby book.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
And then just throughout my life, there were a lot
of intuitive things that my mom taught me, especially about
about plants, about magic, about sort of belief in the
other world, ghosts, communication, and it just really stuck with
me and I didn't really you know what do you
You only know what you were brought up around until
(02:47):
you get a bit older and you start going into
other people's houses more often, and you start having more
philosophical discussions. And that's when I realized, oh, this is
not this is not necessarily the most conventional upbringing. I mean,
we spend a lot of time in cemeteries as kids,
walking around talking to ghosts and making up backstories to
(03:09):
how we thought people had died and things like that.
So apparently everybody doesn't do that, George, I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And if I recall, wasn't mom a good witch?
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Yeah, I mean she's a mostly.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
You know, sometimes there's necessary means when you have to.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Protect people that you love, So I'll say no more.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
All right. Some people think Halloween is the only time
ghosts pop up, but you say otherwise.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
So it's interesting because I feel like Halloween is sort
of like the.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Open door.
Speaker 6 (03:53):
But as we get further into the winter season, and
especially when we get around the solstice, which is also
around Christmas, we hit this. You know, it's a time
of extreme darkness, and so it has a long association
with big time supernatural occurrences, and there are many traditions
(04:16):
around the world during this time that speak of.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
Things that you.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Shouldn't do out in the dark of night, creatures that
are roaming out there, strange things that can happen at
the stroke of midnight. And so because of this sort
of darkness that envelops us, and we think of Halloween
as this time everybody says the veil is thin, and
so that means that it's a little easier to get
(04:51):
through to the other side, whether that's you trying to
communicate with the dead or you know the dead literally,
you know, all the creatures and things slipping through. I mean,
the tradition is actually that's the night when the floodgates
open and all the beasts and ghoulies come to their
night to dance.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
But that is also a tradition in many cultures, especially
in Nordic.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Cultures Scandinavian cultures, you have the solstice or Christmas Eve.
You know, over time, these two major winter holidays became
merged as Christianity and Paganism sort of started, you know,
meshing together. But nonetheless you still have all these old traditions.
(05:37):
For example, it was a night that witches went out
and danced with trolls. This is like a Scandinavian story
of which is going out onto this hill and dancing
with all the trolls and beasts on Christmas Eve, and
that was one of the reasons you shouldn't go out
that night because you might.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Get captured and then you know, converted.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I guess in eighteen forty three Charles Dickens wrote a
Christmas story and I cited the three ghosts that visited Scrooge.
How prevalent were ghost stories in those days, farla extremely prevalent.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
The Victorian era was the era that sort of revived ghosts,
really dropped ghost stories as a Christmas tradition throughout the world,
and Charles Dickens was at the forefront of that. Now
the one we're most familiar with, of course, is the
Christmas Carol, as you mentioned, with the ghosts of Christmas
(06:40):
past and present and future, and there's this lovely kind
of story arc in there where the ghosts helped him
sort of reevaluate his life. But Dickens actually wrote ghost
stories every Christmas.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
He had different ghost stories.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
He used to do a publication and called all year round,
and it was this little journal that he put out
I think every every I don't know if it was
every month. I think it was every season, but the
Christmas edition always contained ghost stories and one of my favorites.
I think it might even pre date the publication of
the Christmas Carol.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
But it's this.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
Wonderful story where he basically sets it up to be
this haunted house that this he writes the introduction, and
you know, it's a wayward traveler seeking shelter.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
They end up in this house that.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
Is sort of molding and old but once grand. And
in the house there's the room with all the bells,
you know, all the servants. The bells the people would
ring to get the servants attention and.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Then they would say, oh, say it's the clock room
or whatever.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
So in this scenario that he created.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
He basically commissioned a bunch of writers that he knew
at the time, including like has the Threton, who was
Queen Victoria's favorite poets, Wilkie Collins who wrote The Woman
in White, which is one of the most famous.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Ghost plays out there.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
So he commissioned all of these friends and he assigned
them each a ghost to embody the ghost of that room,
and he had them all assembled and then he assembled
them all into this publication.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
So there are other ghost stories that he put out
around that time, and he, of course wasn't the only one.
There were all kinds of people writing ghost stories. And
I think the tradition, you know, it has to do.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
With that coziness.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
There's something I think we have to admit that, like
fear brings us together to a certain extent, there's something
about sharing something really scary with others. But knowing that
you're around a horse and you're gonna.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Get tucked into bed and there might be candy car
in the morning.
Speaker 6 (09:01):
I guess it's a little bit of a morbid comfort,
but it's a comfort nonetheless. And I think, you know,
the Victorians had a pension for the morbid and for ghosts,
and that was a period of time and history when
there are a lot of innovations starting to happen, just
in terms of you know, electricity and telephone and radio
(09:23):
and things like that were really kind of starting to
change the way people communicated and were able to communicate.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
And so of course we had the spiritualist.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Movement go right along with the Victorian era, which was
the belief not just that you could talk to the dead,
but that the dead actually.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Had valuable lessons for us.
Speaker 6 (09:43):
And for example, you mentioned the Mark Twain's Uigia mystery
that comes directly out of that, this woman channeling an
entire novel, saying that she connected with Mark Twain and
he had all of these things to tell her and
a bunch of short stories and this novel that he
wanted her to write for him from Beyond the Grave,
(10:05):
all part of that era.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
Of kind of being obsessed with ghosts.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Really, Barlo, I find Christmas to be religious, fun giving,
a great time. Yet for some people there are a
lot of ghost stories associated with Christmas, aren't they.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Yeah, well, I do think that it's also a time
when we do think of we associate Halloween and.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Sort of like day, we associate that with the dead.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
But I think we feel the loss of people that
have been in our lives the most at the holidays,
and that's something that you know, we're lighting candles and
we're stringing up the lights, and we're playing the cheery music,
we're trying to word off that darkness. It's very difficult
time of year because.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
You also feel lost a lot more.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
So taking in the fact that there is life after death,
or there are possibilities of ghosts communicating with us. It
actually can be a comfort to think of something more
ever lasting than you know, the finality of death.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Are the Twelve Days of Christmas upbeat or scary?
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Definitely not upbeat.
Speaker 6 (11:23):
So the twelve Days of Christmas in terms of like
what we think of the twelve Days of Christmas are
basically Christmas Eve to the Christian holiday of the Epiphany,
which I believe is January sixth, So there's twelve days
in between, and most common is Christmas Eve and Christmas
(11:45):
Day are celebrated. Some of us celebrate the Solstice.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
A lot of us.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Don't go all the way to the Epiphany and the Epiphany.
You know, I wasn't, as I mentioned, I wasn't raised Christian,
but I understand that the Epiphany is another.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Feast day that we're of building up.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
To, and it celebrates like the Magi and the you know, more.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
About the whole birth story of.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Jesus.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
So during those twelve days, though traditionally, even prior to Christianity,
these were several days that I mean, these are the darkest,
coldest days of winter, and so there are all kinds
of things that come through during this period of time.
There's witches, there's monsters, there's mischievous spirits, and including the
(12:40):
origins of Santa Claus, right like these kind of mischievous spirits,
these Scandinavian Christmas trolls.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
That are wearing red hats, and there are.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
All of these lovely little tidbits that you put together
and it sort of forms our more modern.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
View of Christmas.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
But those twelve days, there's some things that happen.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
And that are pretty intense during that period of time.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
One of the things that you have to be very
careful of. And actually a.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
Lot of this folklore comes from I don't know if
you're familiar with Guernsey, but it is sort of like
an island that's off the coast of France in the
English Channel, in between France and England, but closer to France,
and there is so much interesting folklore from Guernsey. I've
read several old books just about the folklore of Guernsey,
(13:31):
and Guernsey has some pretty It's from Guernsey where we
have this very specific tradition and I'm going to read
it to you and probably not do a great job
with the French, but it's pretty fabulous. So this is
midnight on Christmas Eve. So many many cultures, especially in Germany, France, Belgium,
(13:54):
Guernsey and England, would believe they believed that midnight on
Christmas Eve water turned to wine. That sounds great, right,
all right, you just go out to the well and
help yourself. But it was you weren't actually supposed to
do that, and if you did, it was frequent that
the water would actually turn to blood. And so here's
(14:17):
the story of a Guernsey woman who tried to test
it to see does water actually turn to wine? And
you can see the echoes of Christianity and the idea
that Jesus was able to turn water into wine. Right,
So she goes out on midnight, she dips the bucket
down in the well.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
And then she hears this voice. Okay, see if I
can do the French to.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
This itron it iss a fine and it basically means
all the water has turned to wind and you are
near your end.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
And not long.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
After that she died.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
So we don't know for sure of all the water
turns to wine, but be careful test it because it
could actually be blood. There's some other crazy things that
can happen at midnight on Christmas Eve and also throughout
those twelve days of Christmas, but specifically, it's so interesting
(15:12):
how magical this night is, even post Christianity, the idea
of the magic of Christmas being very real, but maybe
not quite what we think of, you know, we think of, like, ah,
the magic of Christmas, the spirit of giving, but really
we've got this the magic of Christmas. If you're wandering
(15:33):
after midnight, you know, the wells run with blood, or
animals begin to speak.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
This is a very common story.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
I've read it in several collections.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
Of folklore from all around Europe, in particular, that at midnight,
if you are out you are able to hear animals talk. Now,
that sounds like a cool skill, but all the stories
tell of hearing animals plotting against humans, the.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Things you wouldn't want to hear, so they're all really scary.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Actually, again, maybe this is just a cautionary tale to
keep you from staying out drinking too late on Christmas
Eve when you should be home with a family. That's
possible too, But there are some very very thin lines
between this world and the next throughout that period of time,
and so there are kind of countless.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Stories of things that can happen to you.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
If you It reminds me a lot of you know,
the stories of like the Puka, if you're caught wandering
on a.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
The trickster fairy. The shape shifts are fairy from.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
Celtic lore that if you're caught stumbling down the lane
too late at night, the Puka can take you on
this wild ride and play tricks on you. And you know,
the moral of the story is, don't stay so late
at the pub.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
What about the story of Cramps, who's supposed to accompany
Saint Nick for the bad kids.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
Right, So that's in German tradition in particular, there are
the two counterparts. Right, we hear about being naughty and
being nice. We still have so many elements of prompos today.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
But Crompas is you know, he's half goat.
Speaker 6 (17:18):
Kind of a demon monster, and he goes after the
misbehaving children.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Now.
Speaker 6 (17:24):
I don't know about you, but where I live there's
a Christmas market and every year when you go down there,
there's usually a Krompus wandering around and it's a pretty
terrifying coffee. I remember sinking my son down there and
inadvertently running into Crompas and it actually really really scared him.
He was pretty little, but you know he was, he
was deeply concerned about it. So December fifth, I believe
(17:48):
it's December fifth is officially Crompus knots and that's Crampis Knight.
That's the night that Krompus gets to go out and
roam around and look for all the bad children, all
the misbehaving children.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
And it's pretty horrific.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I mean he in some case, in some.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
Stories you hear of him just beating the children, and
others he's kidnapping them and taking them and.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Sharing them apart. So it's really quite the.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
Opposite of Saint Nicholas, who is, of course all about
generosity and kindness and miracles and giving. And actually it's
said that he restored a child that had been killed
by Crompus. It's said that he actually restored a child's
(18:41):
kind of counteracted him. So you had those two very
different ideas, and today we just have the are you
on you know you're gonna get a.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Lump of coal or are you going to get a
candy cane? Kind of have the naughty nice thing.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
But that's a holdover from the Crompus, Saint Nicholas Dynamic.
Kind of good cop, bad cop, only like really really
really bad cop.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one am Eastern, and go to Coast to coastam dot
com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Barla Ventura back with us. Noted author, traveler, botanist, lover
of the strange, she has written several books on bizarre
and freaky things, from the history of the paranormal, parlor
games to plants that smell like corpses. She's a committed supernaturalist, folklorist,
(00:26):
and seeker of those shadowy things. That's great at your
window in the night, Barla, welcome back. How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Ah?
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Thank you, George, A pleasure to be here.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I'm doing well all things.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Considered, and Merry Christmas to you.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Yes, Happy holidays. It's suddenly upon us.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
How did your book mark? Twain's Ouiji Mystery do.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
That's doing well.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
That's part of the Shadow Zine series, and interestingly, just
put out one about Christmas ghost stories.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
He's got three really creepy.
Speaker 6 (01:05):
Christmas ghost stories and I have mine set aside to
read on Christmas Eve, as is the you know Victorian tradition.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, you make sure you're listening to our show that
night too, Okay, but of course called in that night,
love to hear some of your ghost stories again.
Speaker 5 (01:24):
Oh, that's lovely, that's a great idea.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
We'll try to get Tom to give you a call
back on that. How did you get involved in this field.
Speaker 6 (01:33):
Really, George, I think I was born into it.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
The older I.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Get, the more I realized that I.
Speaker 6 (01:40):
Had a very unconventional upbringing. I think a lot of
people come to the paranormal from experiences that they had
that they can't explain, and I certainly had my fair share.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Of experiences as a child. But I think I've told
you before my mom is a witch.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
And so the what was surrounding me as a child,
You know, there were books of the occults on the shelf.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Frequently, what I was given tourou readings.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
My my astrological chart was in my baby book, before
my height and weight, you know, or.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Length and weight that you put in the baby book.
Speaker 6 (02:25):
And then just throughout my life, there were a lot
of intuitive things that my mom taught me, especially about
about plants, about magic, about sort of belief in the
other world, ghosts, communication, and it just really stuck with
me and I didn't really you know what do you
You only know what you were brought up around until
(02:47):
you get a bit older and you start going into
other people's houses more often, and you start having more
philosophical discussions. And that's when I realized, oh, this is
not this is not necessarily the most conventional upbringing. I mean,
we spend a lot of time in cemeteries as kids,
walking around talking to ghosts and making up backstories to
(03:09):
how we thought people had died and things like that.
So apparently everybody doesn't do that, George, I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And if I recall, wasn't mom a good witch?
Speaker 6 (03:23):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Yeah, I mean she's a mostly.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
You know, sometimes there's necessary means when you have to.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Protect people that you love, So I'll say no more.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
All right. Some people think Halloween is the only time
ghosts pop up, but you say otherwise.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (03:45):
So it's interesting because I feel like Halloween is sort
of like the.
Speaker 5 (03:51):
Open door.
Speaker 6 (03:53):
But as we get further into the winter season, and
especially when we get around the solstice, which is also
around Christmas, we hit this. You know, it's a time
of extreme darkness, and so it has a long association
with big time supernatural occurrences, and there are many traditions
(04:16):
around the world during this time that speak of.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
Things that you.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
Shouldn't do out in the dark of night, creatures that
are roaming out there, strange things that can happen at
the stroke of midnight. And so because of this sort
of darkness that envelops us, and we think of Halloween
as this time everybody says the veil is thin, and
so that means that it's a little easier to get
(04:51):
through to the other side, whether that's you trying to
communicate with the dead or you know the dead literally,
you know, all the creatures and things slipping through. I mean,
the tradition is actually that's the night when the floodgates
open and all the beasts and ghoulies come to their
night to dance.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
But that is also a tradition in many cultures, especially
in Nordic.
Speaker 6 (05:13):
Cultures Scandinavian cultures, you have the solstice or Christmas Eve.
You know, over time, these two major winter holidays became
merged as Christianity and Paganism sort of started, you know,
meshing together. But nonetheless you still have all these old traditions.
(05:37):
For example, it was a night that witches went out
and danced with trolls. This is like a Scandinavian story
of which is going out onto this hill and dancing
with all the trolls and beasts on Christmas Eve, and
that was one of the reasons you shouldn't go out
that night because you might.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Get captured and then you know, converted.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
I guess in eighteen forty three Charles Dickens wrote a
Christmas story and I cited the three ghosts that visited Scrooge.
How prevalent were ghost stories in those days, farla extremely prevalent.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
The Victorian era was the era that sort of revived ghosts,
really dropped ghost stories as a Christmas tradition throughout the world,
and Charles Dickens was at the forefront of that. Now
the one we're most familiar with, of course, is the
Christmas Carol, as you mentioned, with the ghosts of Christmas
(06:40):
past and present and future, and there's this lovely kind
of story arc in there where the ghosts helped him
sort of reevaluate his life. But Dickens actually wrote ghost
stories every Christmas.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
He had different ghost stories.
Speaker 6 (06:58):
He used to do a publication and called all year round,
and it was this little journal that he put out
I think every every I don't know if it was
every month. I think it was every season, but the
Christmas edition always contained ghost stories and one of my favorites.
I think it might even pre date the publication of
the Christmas Carol.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
But it's this.
Speaker 6 (07:19):
Wonderful story where he basically sets it up to be
this haunted house that this he writes the introduction, and
you know, it's a wayward traveler seeking shelter.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
They end up in this house that.
Speaker 6 (07:34):
Is sort of molding and old but once grand. And
in the house there's the room with all the bells,
you know, all the servants. The bells the people would
ring to get the servants attention and.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Then they would say, oh, say it's the clock room
or whatever.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
So in this scenario that he created.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
He basically commissioned a bunch of writers that he knew
at the time, including like has the Threton, who was
Queen Victoria's favorite poets, Wilkie Collins who wrote The Woman
in White, which is one of the most famous.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
Ghost plays out there.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
So he commissioned all of these friends and he assigned
them each a ghost to embody the ghost of that room,
and he had them all assembled and then he assembled
them all into this publication.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
So there are other ghost stories that he put out
around that time, and he, of course wasn't the only one.
There were all kinds of people writing ghost stories. And
I think the tradition, you know, it has to do.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
With that coziness.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
There's something I think we have to admit that, like
fear brings us together to a certain extent, there's something
about sharing something really scary with others. But knowing that
you're around a horse and you're gonna.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Get tucked into bed and there might be candy car
in the morning.
Speaker 6 (09:01):
I guess it's a little bit of a morbid comfort,
but it's a comfort nonetheless. And I think, you know,
the Victorians had a pension for the morbid and for ghosts,
and that was a period of time and history when
there are a lot of innovations starting to happen, just
in terms of you know, electricity and telephone and radio
(09:23):
and things like that were really kind of starting to
change the way people communicated and were able to communicate.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
And so of course we had the spiritualist.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Movement go right along with the Victorian era, which was
the belief not just that you could talk to the dead,
but that the dead actually.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Had valuable lessons for us.
Speaker 6 (09:43):
And for example, you mentioned the Mark Twain's Uigia mystery
that comes directly out of that, this woman channeling an
entire novel, saying that she connected with Mark Twain and
he had all of these things to tell her and
a bunch of short stories and this novel that he
wanted her to write for him from Beyond the Grave,
(10:05):
all part of that era.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
Of kind of being obsessed with ghosts.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Really, Barlo, I find Christmas to be religious, fun giving,
a great time. Yet for some people there are a
lot of ghost stories associated with Christmas, aren't they.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Yeah, well, I do think that it's also a time
when we do think of we associate Halloween and.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Sort of like day, we associate that with the dead.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
But I think we feel the loss of people that
have been in our lives the most at the holidays,
and that's something that you know, we're lighting candles and
we're stringing up the lights, and we're playing the cheery music,
we're trying to word off that darkness. It's very difficult
time of year because.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
You also feel lost a lot more.
Speaker 6 (10:58):
So taking in the fact that there is life after death,
or there are possibilities of ghosts communicating with us. It
actually can be a comfort to think of something more
ever lasting than you know, the finality of death.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Are the Twelve Days of Christmas upbeat or scary?
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Definitely not upbeat.
Speaker 6 (11:23):
So the twelve Days of Christmas in terms of like
what we think of the twelve Days of Christmas are
basically Christmas Eve to the Christian holiday of the Epiphany,
which I believe is January sixth, So there's twelve days
in between, and most common is Christmas Eve and Christmas
(11:45):
Day are celebrated. Some of us celebrate the Solstice.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
A lot of us.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Don't go all the way to the Epiphany and the Epiphany.
You know, I wasn't, as I mentioned, I wasn't raised Christian,
but I understand that the Epiphany is another.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
Feast day that we're of building up.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
To, and it celebrates like the Magi and the you know, more.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
About the whole birth story of.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Jesus.
Speaker 6 (12:10):
So during those twelve days, though traditionally, even prior to Christianity,
these were several days that I mean, these are the darkest,
coldest days of winter, and so there are all kinds
of things that come through during this period of time.
There's witches, there's monsters, there's mischievous spirits, and including the
(12:40):
origins of Santa Claus, right like these kind of mischievous spirits,
these Scandinavian Christmas trolls.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
That are wearing red hats, and there are.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
All of these lovely little tidbits that you put together
and it sort of forms our more modern.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
View of Christmas.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
But those twelve days, there's some things that happen.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
And that are pretty intense during that period of time.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
One of the things that you have to be very
careful of. And actually a.
Speaker 6 (13:08):
Lot of this folklore comes from I don't know if
you're familiar with Guernsey, but it is sort of like
an island that's off the coast of France in the
English Channel, in between France and England, but closer to France,
and there is so much interesting folklore from Guernsey. I've
read several old books just about the folklore of Guernsey,
(13:31):
and Guernsey has some pretty It's from Guernsey where we
have this very specific tradition and I'm going to read
it to you and probably not do a great job
with the French, but it's pretty fabulous. So this is
midnight on Christmas Eve. So many many cultures, especially in Germany, France, Belgium,
(13:54):
Guernsey and England, would believe they believed that midnight on
Christmas Eve water turned to wine. That sounds great, right,
all right, you just go out to the well and
help yourself. But it was you weren't actually supposed to
do that, and if you did, it was frequent that
the water would actually turn to blood. And so here's
(14:17):
the story of a Guernsey woman who tried to test
it to see does water actually turn to wine? And
you can see the echoes of Christianity and the idea
that Jesus was able to turn water into wine. Right,
So she goes out on midnight, she dips the bucket
down in the well.
Speaker 5 (14:34):
And then she hears this voice. Okay, see if I
can do the French to.
Speaker 6 (14:39):
This itron it iss a fine and it basically means
all the water has turned to wind and you are
near your end.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
And not long.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
After that she died.
Speaker 6 (14:51):
So we don't know for sure of all the water
turns to wine, but be careful test it because it
could actually be blood. There's some other crazy things that
can happen at midnight on Christmas Eve and also throughout
those twelve days of Christmas, but specifically, it's so interesting
(15:12):
how magical this night is, even post Christianity, the idea
of the magic of Christmas being very real, but maybe
not quite what we think of, you know, we think of, like, ah,
the magic of Christmas, the spirit of giving, but really
we've got this the magic of Christmas. If you're wandering
(15:33):
after midnight, you know, the wells run with blood, or
animals begin to speak.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
This is a very common story.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
I've read it in several collections.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
Of folklore from all around Europe, in particular, that at midnight,
if you are out you are able to hear animals talk. Now,
that sounds like a cool skill, but all the stories
tell of hearing animals plotting against humans, the.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Things you wouldn't want to hear, so they're all really scary.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
Actually, again, maybe this is just a cautionary tale to
keep you from staying out drinking too late on Christmas
Eve when you should be home with a family. That's
possible too, But there are some very very thin lines
between this world and the next throughout that period of time,
and so there are kind of countless.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Stories of things that can happen to you.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
If you It reminds me a lot of you know,
the stories of like the Puka, if you're caught wandering
on a.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
The trickster fairy. The shape shifts are fairy from.
Speaker 6 (16:40):
Celtic lore that if you're caught stumbling down the lane
too late at night, the Puka can take you on
this wild ride and play tricks on you. And you know,
the moral of the story is, don't stay so late
at the pub.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
What about the story of Cramps, who's supposed to accompany
Saint Nick for the bad kids.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
Right, So that's in German tradition in particular, there are
the two counterparts. Right, we hear about being naughty and
being nice. We still have so many elements of prompos today.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
But Crompas is you know, he's half goat.
Speaker 6 (17:18):
Kind of a demon monster, and he goes after the
misbehaving children.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Now.
Speaker 6 (17:24):
I don't know about you, but where I live there's
a Christmas market and every year when you go down there,
there's usually a Krompus wandering around and it's a pretty
terrifying coffee. I remember sinking my son down there and
inadvertently running into Crompas and it actually really really scared him.
He was pretty little, but you know he was, he
was deeply concerned about it. So December fifth, I believe
(17:48):
it's December fifth is officially Crompus knots and that's Crampis Knight.
That's the night that Krompus gets to go out and
roam around and look for all the bad children, all
the misbehaving children.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
And it's pretty horrific.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
I mean he in some case, in some.
Speaker 6 (18:08):
Stories you hear of him just beating the children, and
others he's kidnapping them and taking them and.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Sharing them apart. So it's really quite the.
Speaker 6 (18:20):
Opposite of Saint Nicholas, who is, of course all about
generosity and kindness and miracles and giving. And actually it's
said that he restored a child that had been killed
by Crompus. It's said that he actually restored a child's
(18:41):
kind of counteracted him. So you had those two very
different ideas, and today we just have the are you
on you know you're gonna get a.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Lump of coal or are you going to get a
candy cane? Kind of have the naughty nice thing.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
But that's a holdover from the Crompus, Saint Nicholas Dynamic.
Kind of good cop, bad cop, only like really really
really bad cop.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
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