December 5th, and all at once it’s Christmas! At least in my admittedly idiosyncratic worldview. At any rate, today is the day several of my favorite midwinter folk figures elide.
In light of Christmas’ often nightmarish roots in paganism, it’s a wonder that the holiday has evolved into the anodyne festival of advertising and consumerism it has. Of course, we’re all familiar with the religious significance of Christmas – December 25th, the observance of Christ’s birth – but there was an awful lot of celebrating going on well before the Nativity.
Abundant pre-Christian symbols and rituals were assimilated into modern Christmas, borrowed from our distant ancestors, who marked the death of the old year and the birth of the new. Evergreen, holly, and mistletoe are all around us. Though we’ll probably never fully get a handle on all of them, their secret origins lost to time, it is these “Ghosts of Christmas Past” that make Old World traditions such a source of endless fascination.
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” on the eve of Saint Nicholas Day, we’ll take an imaginative journey to the realm of Joulupukki (literally “Yule Goat”) – the Finnish Santa Claus – and enjoy an evocative portrait of his stomping grounds, around Korvatunturi (Ear Mountain), in Savukoski, Lapland.
One of Northern Europe’s wackier Christmas traditions, the Yule Goat may have derived from the worship of Thor. After all, the God of Thunder’s chariot was drawn by goats. In the Christmas version, the goat is led about by Saint Nicholas, possibly as a symbol of the subjugation of evil.
Whatever the goat’s function, its involvement goes way back. For hundreds of years, rowdy young men in costumes would go door to door to act out plays and demand gifts. One of these would take the part of the ornery Yule Goat. This is the reason Scandinavians sometimes refer to the practice of wassailing as “going Yule Goat.”
In the 19th century, the Goat’s role was transformed into a giver of gifts. Though the Goat has since been replaced by a humanoid Father Christmas, in Finland he is still referred to by the name Joulupukki – yes, Yule Goat.
Nowadays, the Goat is mostly seen in its incarnation as a miniature tree ornament, made of straw and bound by red ribbon. A notable exception is the Gävle Goat, a 40-foot version, constructed every year in Gävle, Sweden. More often than not, this winds up being set aflame. But more about that another time.
Tonight’s broadcast also happens to coincide with Krampusnacht. In Austria, Germany, and Hungary, on the night of December 5th, it is customary for Saint Nicholas to visit all the little girls and boys. His companion on these excursions is Krampus, an ominously-horned and whiplash-tongued Alpine demon, who scampers down from his mountain lair, festooned with chains and cowbells. Good children receive a gift from the hands of St. Nick. The naughty are handed over to Krampus, to be beaten with a switch and consumed by hellfire.
So play the music loud! Enjoy evocative portraits of the land of Joulupukki. We’ll hear a suite from “The White Reindeer,” composed for an award-winning film about a shapeshifting, vampiric Laplander, by Einar Englund; “Cantus Arcticus,” featuring actual bird songs recorded in the bogs of Liminka, near the Arctic Circle, by Einojuhani Rautavaara; and “Northern Lights,” a musical response to the Aurora borealis, by Uuno Klami.
It’s a Christmas bait-and-switch, with plenty of Old World traditions, but no actual Christmas music! It will be guaranteed to get your goat. Sample the sounds of true north, on “Pole Position,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
