A Calendar of
Christmas Spirits and Spells
Mid-October to Mid-November: Álfablót
You don’t have to wait for those mall decorations to go up to start celebrating the elves. Now is the time to host an Elf Sacrifice, or feast for the Álfar, in the old Nordic tradition.
November 11: St. Martin’s Day
Don’t be surprised if St. Martin has come and turned your bedside glass of water to wine in the night.
If the geese are ice-skating this morning, you’ll have a mild winter. If they’re splashing, you’ll have a cold one. It’s all up to the Wild Rider, who will be swirling through the skies on his dappled horse from now through the Twelve Nights of Christmas.
Jack-o’-lanterns are now out of season, but you might consider carving an old-fashioned turnip lantern in token of the bonfires that once burned on this night.
November 24: St. Catherine’s Eve
If you’re not too busy baking cattern-cakes, you should try to get a jump on your spinning today. All wool and flax must be spun by Twelfth Night if you are to have a good visit from the Spinnstubenfrau.
November 29: St. Andrew’s Eve
All over northern Europe, this was the first of many nights on which Bleigiessen, the pouring of molten lead into cold water, might be practiced. Each hardened blob of lead was scrutinized for hints as to what gifts one might receive in the coming year. Does it resemble a coffin or a car? If you don’t like what you see, you can try again on St. Barbara’s, Christmas, New Year’s, or Epiphany Eves. If you can’t get your hands on a Bleigiessen kit—they’re hard to come by these days—you can simply throw your shoes over your shoulder and see how they land.
Romanian vampires are out in force tonight: rub all window and door frames with garlic so they can’t get in.
December 3: St. Barbara’s Eve
You must go out and cut your “Barbara branches” tonight if they are to bloom in time for Christmas Eve. After you’ve put them in water, you can start looking out for the long-haired Barborky with their brooms, carpet-beaters, and baskets of sweets.
December 5: St. Nicholas’ Eve
On this date in 1844, Hans Christian Andersen began writing “The Snow Queen” in his hotel room in Copenhagen.
Tomorrow, if St. Nicholas decides you have been good, you can start eating Spekulaas, “mirrors,” which are cookies of pressed dough bearing images of windmills, castles, and seventeenth-century Dutch ladies. If he decides you have been bad, he will allow his sidekick Black Peter to stuff you in his sack and carry you off to Spain.
If Svatý Mikulaš, the Czech St. Nicholas, decides you have been naughty, he will turn you over to the goat-hoofed demon Čert, who will drag you all the way down to Hell.
Advent Thursdays
Advent candles are lit on the four Sundays preceding Christmas. (If Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday, it doubles as Fourth Advent.) The last three Thursdays of Advent were dedicated to Yuletide goddess/witch Berchta and her retinue. This was the time to scare evil spirits out from under the eaves by banging on pots and pans, playing fiddles, and throwing dried legumes. Spinning is forbidden on these nights.
In the Middle Ages, Advent, like Lent, was a season of abstinence. Sex at any time during Advent might result in a child who would eventually become a werewolf.
December 9: St. Anne’s Day
In Sweden, the arrival of St. Anne’s Day meant it was time to start reconstituting the dried cod that would be served on Christmas Eve. St. Anne is also popular with the Finns, who have conflated Jesus’s maternal grandmother with their own female forest spirit, Anni. Today, Finnish women begin baking the Christmas loaves that will serve as centerpieces and, like the Swedish Yule Boar, ensure prosperity in the coming year.
December 12: St. Lucy’s Eve
As well as marking the Old Style winter solstice, St. Lucy’s Day was an Ember Day, or day of fasting, beginning the night before.
It’s not yet time to deck the halls but to dust, scrub, and polish them in preparation for a visit from one of the many cross-dressing Slavic and Germanic Lucys.
On St. Lucy’s Eve, young men might read their futures in the Luzieschein, balls of light dancing over the rooftops.
If you’ve started making Icelandic snowflake breads, better hide them from the ravenous Yule Lads, the first of whom arrives today.
December 13: St. Lucy’s Day
Having survived the erstwhile darkest night of the year, you can get up early and celebrate Swedish style with “Lucy cats,” coffee, and candlelight.
December 20: St. Thomas’ Eve
In that region of the Czech Republic formerly known as Bohemia, this was not a good night to venture into the churchyard. At the stroke of twelve, all those who were called Thomas in life rose from their graves to be blessed by the dead saint himself, whose approach was heralded by the rumbling of his chariot wheels. At home, salt and holy water were cast about to petition the Apostle—Thor or Wodan in disguise?—for his protection.
Poor English children who went “a-thomassing,” begging door to door on this night, were appeased with small change. In return, they handed out blessings in the form of holly and mistletoe sprigs.
Meanwhile, on the isle of Guernsey, will-o’-the-wisps, spectral dogs, and white rabbits (who were probably witches in disguise) were also about after dark. They haunted all the nights between St. Thomas’ and New Year’s Eve.
December 23
On this date in 1893, Engelbert Humperdinck’s fairy opera Hansel and Gretel was performed for the first time.
December 24: Christmas Eve
Many Europeans are only just putting up their Christmas trees today. In some places, the Christ Child himself will bring the tree; in others, he/she will only light the candles.
Forget cookies for Santa; in Greece, tonight was the night to stuff the chimney full of pork sausages and sweetmeats for the kallikantzaroi. Try not to give birth today; a child born on Christmas Eve stands a good chance of becoming a kallikantzaros himself.
You should also put out some grain for the Yule Buck, fish heads for the Yule Boar, and, most importantly, don’t forget the resident household sprite’s annual bowl of rice porridge.
If you are staying home alone tonight, try not to fall asleep, and do not speak, no matter who or what comes in the door.
On Christmas Eve in Lithuania, unmarried young men and women might turn to catoptromancy, or mirror magic, to identify their future spouses. Banding together, they took a mirror to an abandoned (shall we read haunted?) house and lit two candles before it. The mirror would fog up, presumably from all that excited breathing going on in the unheated parlor, and as each participant wiped the mirror in turn, he or she would see the face of the person in question.
Christmas Eve was one of two nights of the year on which seals were most likely to shed their skins and appear in human form. The other was Midsummer’s Eve.
December 25: Christmas Day
Reckoned by some as the First Day of Christmas (for others it is December 26), this is a relatively quiet day, supernaturally speaking. Scandinavians leaving for church before sunrise fit plenty of torches onto the sleigh to scare off any homeward-bound trolls they met along the way.
Holly picked today will keep witches away all year.
December 25 (or 26) to January 5 (or 6):
The Twelve Days (and Nights) of Christmas
Do many of your neighbors go away over the Twelve Days of Christmas? If you notice a preponderance of wolves in the neighborhood at this time, then they probably haven’t gone away at all; they’ve simply assumed lupine form, as werewolves are famous for doing between Christmas and Epiphany. Children born during the Twelve Days of Christmas may become werewolves themselves.
In Alpine lands, these are the Smoky/Hairy/Rough Nights. Smudge all rooms of the house with incense or juniper boughs to smoke out the rough, hairy monsters abounding at this time.
December 31: New Year’s Eve
This is Moving Night for Icelandic elves, so keep the Christmas lights twinkling and leave offerings of food outside the house. Those who decide to Sit Out at the crossroads and question the elves do so at their own risk.
Another curious feature of the old Icelandic New Year’s Eve was “pantry drift”: a magical white frost that trickled in through the pantry window, if it was left open, on the last night of the year. Pantry drift was supposed to taste like sugar and bring good fortune. If you wanted to partake of it, you had to stay up all night in the pantry and collect it in a pot. A cross had then to be placed over the mouth of the pot or the “drift” would disappear.
Midnight on New Year’s Eve was the hour when a Finnish maiden might gaze into a candlelit mirror or, better yet, two mirrors placed opposite each other on a black cloth. There, she would hope to see the image of her future husband wandering in the uncertain light.
Stroke a piglet tonight, and you’ll have good luck all next year.
Float a fresh ivy leaf in water inside a soup tureen on New Year’s Eve. Put the lid on and don’t disturb it until Twelfth Night (January 6). If the leaf remains green, you can look forward to a healthy year. If it is spotted, take comfort in the fact that reading ivy leaves is a notoriously unpredictable method of predicting the future.
January 1: New Year’s Day
Be careful whom you let in the door first today. If you plan to interview first-footers ahead of time, look for tall, dark, handsome men, and remember to ask them if they were born feet first. Redheads need not apply.
Of course, if you can possibly arrange to have your chimney cleaned first thing today, that would be the best luck of all.
January 5: Epiphany Eve
Epiphany Eve is generally but not universally synonymous with Twelfth Night. If you counted Christmas Day as the First Day of Christmas, then Twelfth Night will fall on the night of January 5. If, however, you didn’t receive your partridge in a pear tree until December 26, then Twelfth Night is January 6.
At Epiphany, homeowners in eastern and central Europe chalk a magically protective formula over the doors of their homes. It consists of the century followed by the initials of the Three Kings—Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar—ending with the year: e.g., 20K + M + B13. Before the Three Kings rose to fame, it was the Drudenfuss or pentagram that was chalked on the lintel.
In Lithuania, the girl who could stare at the moon’s face for a full hour on the Eve of Epiphany, then wash for another hour before retiring to bed, would be rewarded by a visit from a white ghost. The ghost would answer whatever questions she cared to ask it, including, no doubt, whom she would marry and when.
Just when you thought it was safe to go outside again, the Nordic Yule Buck is back, capering behind the Star Boys in the village street.
Any lingering elves should be moving along today. Take down your Christmas decorations, and they’ll probably take the hint.
If your stocking wasn’t filled on Christmas Eve, you can hang it up tonight and the Italian witch Befana will do the job.
Stick to fish, pancakes, or dumplings for dinner on Epiphany Eve or run the risk of Frau Berchta coming and slitting open your stomach.
If you have apple trees, anoint the roots of the oldest one with hard cider. Pinch off any unseasonal blossoms but leave one apple on the tree for the fairies or the Apple-Tree Man.
January 6: Epiphany or Twelfth Night
Today is Perchtentag in Austria. Represented by both her pretty and ugly servants, our White Witch, Perchta, has her last hurrah.
January 13: St. Knut’s Day
Scandinavians take down their Christmas trees today. The Yule Buck comes knocking once more in the form of Nuuttipukki, the Finnish St. Knut’s Day Goat-man. Offer him beer in return for a final blessing.
February 2: Candlemas
This is your very last chance to take down your Christmas decorations, green or otherwise. If you keep them up any longer, then you probably deserve anything the goblins can dish out!
St. Tibb’s Eve
If you’ve made it through the whole Christmas season and still haven’t seen any witches, best to go home and wait for St. Tibb’s Eve.