The Origins of Santa - Mythillogical

Ho ho ho! In this festive special, we open up our sack of gifts to give you the story of Santa Claus, from the story of Saint Nicholas of Myra, through to Germanic traditions around Christmas, and how much these influenced the jolly old man delivering presents on Christmas Eve.

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Mythillogical logo + Thumbnail art by Ettore Mazza. You can find more of Ettore's excellent artwork below:

Suonatore di Liuto Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Music: Carol of the Bells (Celtic Version) by Alexander Nakarada (www.creatorchords.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License

Sources:

'The Oxford Handbook of Christmas, edited' by Timothy Larsen

'Santa Claus: A Biography' by Gerry Bowler

'Christmas: A History' by Judith Flanders

'Santa Claus Worldwide' by Tom A. Jerman

'Medieval Children' by Nicholas Orme

'The stations of the sun: a history of the ritual year in Britain' by Ronald Hutton

'The Christmas encyclopedia' by William D. Crump

'Christmas in Germany: A Cultural History' by Joe Perry

'The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s most Cherished Holiday' by Stephen Nissenbaum

'St Nicholas: A Closer Look at Christmas' by Joe L Wheeler

Symeon the Metaphrast’s The Life of Nicholas

The Saint Nicholas Centre website

Old Peter’s Russian Tales

'The Legend of Ded Moroz' on the website Express to Russia

'How Joulupukki, the Finnish Santa, went from naughty to nice' by Kathleen Harris, on Ink Tank

'Seasons Bleatings, Finnish photographs of the Nuutipukki, 1928, a collection of public domain photos of a Finnish tradition and information behind them'

'Does Santa Claus come from Finland?' BBC article

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