My friend Dean alerted me to what is possibly the most metal mythology to surround the Christmas season. Behold, the Krampus:
Krampus is a beast-like creature from the folklore of Alpine countries thought to punish bad children during the Christmas season, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards nice ones with gifts. Krampus is said to capture particularly naughty children in his sack and carry them away to his lair.
So this most metal of creatures goes around terrorizing wicked children and even goes so far as to kidnap the exceedingly wicked ones so it can drown them, eat them, or send them to Hell. In our society people worry that scary stories will cause psychological damage to young children. The ancient Germanic people had no such concerns and decided children should have the living shit scared out of them at least once a year. I leave you with this creature and one of the more bad ass representations of it:
