The dark, playful, and sometimes tragic roots of Christmas traditions old and new come to light in The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures, an entertaining and captivating investigation of the evolution of Christmas celebrations and folkloreby British historian Sarah Clegg (Women's Lore).
Clegg opens with an atmospheric recounting of going out late on a "howling, windswept night" in the British countryside for a Year Walk, a Swedish tradition in which a walk before dawn on Christmas Eve can reveal who will die in the coming year. No ghostly funeral processions appear on Clegg's stroll, but she still sets an ominous mood for her exploration of customs and creatures diametrically opposed to the wholesome, respectable perception of Christmas today. Clegg traces Carnival's "wild, hierarchy-shredding freedom" back to riotous Saturnalia celebrations, delves into folktales to find the origins of the horned monster Krampus, an unsettling wassailing horse-skull costume called the Mari Lywd, and mummers' plays in which the dead return to life. "Are you sure that the darkness has been kept entirely at bay?" she asks readers. "And do you think it might be fun to let a little in?"
This thoroughly researched journey across Europe in search of Christmas past entertains partly through its subject matter and partly through Clegg's engaging voice, which is filled with fascinated enthusiasm for her topic tempered with wry humor and patient research. Readers may find a new favorite tradition or two from Christmases of days long past. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads