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   Dr. Anna Hughes (annaghughes@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Dec-2024 00:37:39 JST Dr. Anna Hughes

   In the spirit of “we’ll tell scary ghost stories” here’s a roundup of some Christmas monsters.👹🧵

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     Dr. Anna Hughes (annaghughes@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Dec-2024 00:37:38 JST Dr. Anna Hughes

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     Hans Trapp is a thief who goes too hard with satanism and gets excommunicated from the church. A social reject, he disguises himself as a scarecrow and wanders the countryside. In his travels he develops an insatiable taste for human flesh, so he lures a boy into the woods and eats him.
     At this point God decides to step in. He strikes Trapp with a bolt of lightning that explodes his head, obviously killing him. But on Christmas Eve, Hans Trapp rises from the dead to eat naughty children.

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     Dr. Anna Hughes (annaghughes@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Dec-2024 00:37:38 JST Dr. Anna Hughes

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     Kallikantzaros are goblins who spend the whole year underground sawing down the tree that holds up the Earth. When the tree is almost entirely cut down, they get distracted by Christmas, and come above ground around to cause mayhem.
     When they go back underground, the tree has entirely repaired itself, and they have to start all over again. This happens every year.

     One way to protect yourself against the kallikantzaros on Christmas is to leave a colander on your doorstep.

     Charlie Stross, jwz and Tobias Hellgren repeated this.
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     Dr. Anna Hughes (annaghughes@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Dec-2024 00:37:38 JST Dr. Anna Hughes

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     Frau Perchta is a witch who lives in the Alps. She is absolutely terrifying. She has one enormous goose foot for some reason, and if you’ve been bad she will disembowel you and stuff your stomach with straw on Christmas.

     Charlie Stross repeated this.
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     Dr. Anna Hughes (annaghughes@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Dec-2024 00:37:39 JST Dr. Anna Hughes

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     Jólakötturinn is a huge Icelandic cat who stalks around the snow eating anybody without new clothes on Christmas. Jólakötturinn was historically motivation for farmers to produce wool faster, but today it encourages children to donate clothes so that everybody gets something new.

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     Dr. Anna Hughes (annaghughes@mastodon.online)'s status on Tuesday, 24-Dec-2024 00:38:48 JST Dr. Anna Hughes

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     Père Fouettard likes to butcher wealthy children, chop them up, and hide them in salt barrels. Santa learns about this and gets PISSED. He brings the children back to life and makes Père Fouettard become his assistant to punish the naughty children.
     (Père Fouettard briefly made his way into American Christmas folklore under the names "Father Flog" and "Spanky". This did not catch on.)