If you are a new subscriber, you may wish to start at the beginning.
Casting its last fulvous light up to the belly of the clouds, I watched the sun slowly sink toward the bleak horizon. The first night of the sacred festival would soon begin. The king strode out from his hall to meet the athravan who would perform the sacrifice, an aged man called Oustana, tall and solidly built for an elder, with precisely parted grey hair and a neatly clipped beard. He might have been mistaken for a spectator except that he wore no ties in his long hair, and his undyed felt trousers and caftan were free of ornament, closed only with a simple leather belt and slide buckle of gold. His plain sheepskin boots also bore no knots or ties.
They stood near the makings of a massive fire. Over the stacks of fuel hung an enormous iron cauldron, big enough for four men to bathe comfortably inside. A bowshot from the cauldron, priestly attendants held a wide-eyed bull by his halter. His breath steamed forth in the night, and he bellowed as the sacrificer approached. The beast couldn’t have known what awaited him, but by the look in his eye and the set in his shoulders, he suspected ill tidings.
I didn’t want to watch it. I’d seen my share of sacrifices, and they were none of them pleasant. I searched for an escape. But being with the Warband had granted me the honor of being closest to the rite. If I fled, everyone would witness my leaving, and I could not afford to dishonor the sacred traditions of my hosts.
Another man in similar dress, the zhotr who presided over the rites, chanted holy words before the beast as Oustana placed a loop of rope around the bull’s neck. He looped another length of rope around the bull’s forelegs, close to its hooves. He stood behind the bull with the remainder in his hands. Gripping the rope, he raised his left arm above his head. He bent his left leg, so his foot no longer touched the earth. He shut his left eye tightly. In this strange manner—on one foot, arm raised, eye closed—the grey-haired athravan stood before all and waited. It was the king himself who spoke.
“Three hundred and sixty spokes there are,” said Ariapaithi, speaking not to the crowd but addressing himself to the heavens, “all fixed to the nave of this everlasting wheel. The Great Wheel has turned; the World has passed. We invoke thee, immortal Goetosura, who brings inspiration, wisdom, and light. Even as the days have waned, never did we forget thee, Powerful One, as we began, and as we end. Do not forget us. Bring us your light and ward off the darkness. Bring us strength and ward off fear. Bring us bounty and ward off hunger. In awe, we tremble before your glory, oh Lord.”
With that, the sacrificer Oustana let his upraised hand fall like the downward stroke of an axe, and with it came the rope fixed to the forelegs of the bull. A hard tug pulled the loop tight so that the bull’s legs were swiftly knocked from under it, throwing its shoulder down to the frozen ground. As the bull fell, Oustana shouted the name of Goetosura and pounced upon the helpless animal, thrusting a stick under the loop of rope already about its neck. This the spry elder quickly began to twist, tightening the rope and strangling the startled animal within minutes. There was no blood, and the poor beast choked once but then went still and did not struggle. It was over quickly. Once dead, the bull was skinned, butchered, and its flesh placed in the cauldron to boil. Its meat would be distributed equally among the gathered tribes and clans.
As the sacrifice stewed, the novice sword dancers took their positions. In the Marches, I learned that warriors’ dancing is nothing like the dancing of stockmen and farmers. For ordinary people, dancing was meant to impress, entice, or seduce. But our dance was free of conceit. It was not presentation; it was transformation. I recalled the endless hours of training in steps and flourishes of spears and swords to foster our swiftness in battle and delight the gods with our excellence. I remembered fondly, too, the many drunken nights we linked arms, spun ourselves around the hearth, and sang just because it made our spirits light. And the time before the battle when we stamped our feet and clashed our spears on our shields, chanting ancient words to summon the burning chaos as we relinquished our names, our wills, our very selves to some unspeakable rapture. Tonight, the dance felt similar but not the same. Maybe because I was just a spectator now.
“Where have you been?” Aric surprised me. I’d become so preoccupied with the sacrifice and the dancers I forgot to keep an eye out for him. “I’ve looked everywhere for you.” He phrased it like an accusation. “Please,” he softened his voice as he leaned closer, “may we speak before the Hunt tomorrow?”
“There’s no need for you to concern yourself.”
“There is. You’ve no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
I turned away from him, staring at the young sword dancers performing before the king and his queens. “I don’t care.” The dance paused as a roar rippled through those gathered in the field, flashing swords brandished high. The sun slipped below the horizon.
“Ana, don’t be foolish. Allow me to do my duty by you.”
With nightfall, the new day had begun. A chant arose from the celebrants as the mass of them now joined the dance.
“Those words from you mean nothing now.”
“Is that meant to hurt me?”
“Ha! Nothing hurts you, does it? And I suppose I should congratulate you. She’s beautiful.”
“I will not take her for a wife.” He said it with such conviction I nearly believed it.
“Oh? And what did Ariapaithi say when you refused? I’ll bet he was disappointed. After all, this one’s so perfect. Everything a man desires: petite, pretty… pliant.”
He bit his lips and shook his head. “Wife or no, nothing changes between us.”
“It’s amusing that you should think so.”
The dance concluded just as quickly as it had begun. All went silent as Oustana took the first offering of the flesh and liver of the bull, which had been carefully laid before him on a bed of dried grass and clover, and, while chanting a verse, consigned them to the holy fire. This signaled the commencement of the feast.
Aric moved to speak, but I shoved past him. “Go! Dine with your betrothed. I can find my own place.”
After the long feast, the camp slept most of the short day in anticipation of the night’s festivities. As the sun sank into the horizon, an order passed from the athravan through the camp that all fires must be extinguished and not relit again until the king’s great fire was rekindled; from its flame, they would draw their first fire of the dawning year. The constellation of The Huntress rose in the southern sky to bless our rites.
A cold wind blew from the north as the Warband massed in the pasture south of camp for the lighting of the king’s fire, signifying the start of the ritual. Their bare skin had been painted like the dead, with ash or soot mixed with water. And they wore costumes of animal hides, evergreen boughs, and thatch, with masks representing all manner of underworld beasts, real and monstrous—wolves, stags, bears, goats, horses, and bulls prowled the grounds in wondrous and terrible hybrid forms.
My own costume was no less strange. Dressed in a gown of white felt lined in rabbit fur, the priests gave me a paste of gypsum to whiten my face and hands. Over my shoulders, I wore a short cape of carefully sewn falcon feathers secured with a golden eagle’s talon. The dress had been made to fit a man but had laces to pull it snug and a sash of goatskin to cinch it about the waist. I wore a veil of long, silky white horsehair over my head and shoulders like a mane. Atop all this sat a circlet of ivy.
In a dress again, I had no weapons but the dagger I concealed in my linen vest. A skirt always made me feel useless and vulnerable. How does one ride, run, or fend off an attack so encumbered?
A hand grabbed my arm from behind. I spun around, my hand going instinctively to my vest. It was Aric, though his face and hands were obscured in the darkness. Pulling free of his grip, I could feel the blade beneath my dress and pressed it close to my skin.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t.” He shocked me, though. He stood dressed all in black—a belt, greaves, boots all of black leather; a coat and trousers of shaggy black goatskin. He draped his grey-black wolf pelt around his shoulders. Soot blackened his hands, face, hair, and beard. Dark as dusk, he was barely visible as he moved among the shadows. Only the girdle of faded golden bast tied about his waist let any color escape. Beneath his arm, he held a mask. A helmet fitted with an animal skull and six-point antlers protruding from the top. In his other hand, he carried a stout staff. His goryt was absent from his side.
A horn sounded, and the doors of Ariapaithi’s great felt-house were thrown open before the gathering. With a fire drill of wood, the High King of the Skythai lit the massive hearth between the four mighty pillars propping the tent’s roof. In the dim light, a curl of smoke rose, and the king cupped the source of the smoke in his hands and fed it with his breath until it began to glow. To this, he added incense from a golden bowl—twigs of myrtle and herbs—and blew on it again until a flame sprang up. Sustainer of life, yet insatiable itself, fire lived unsparingly—terrible and benevolent, wild and tame, lethal and needful. No creature to conjure carelessly. All those who bore witness cheered. The festival had begun. From this fire, all the torches, bonfires, and cooking pits in the camps were rekindled.
Before the congregation, under the stars, a golden bowl glowed in the torchlight on an altar before the king. A horse’s skull fixed to a staff moved through the crowd in front of me, borne by an unseen man bent beneath a white cloth. Ariapaithi wore full, bright armor—its polished bronze scales gleamed like golden dragon-hide in the light of the flames. He stretched himself tall, surveying those gathered around a now-blazing bonfire which stood in the center of the enclosure, with a trident clutched in his hand, its massive shaft braced on the frosty ground. Beside her husband, Queen Opoea sat bundled against the cold in a heavy cloak and crimson woolen gown lined in grey wolf fur. Both sovereigns seemed weary.
The kara—also dressed in black, with wolf-pelt capes, wolf-skull headdresses, and ash-painted faces—took out their gilded cups and clamored to be near the bowl. The haomapaithi of the Paralatai, whose duty was to prepare, pour, and sing the praises of the haoma libation for gods and men, stood before the bowl, ready to dispense the pearly liquid. The secret elixir—a union of vegetable and animal—was pressed from the stalks of ephedra plants and mixed with the sacred cow’s milk. Haoma allowed warriors to soar like eagles above their bodies, made them move quick as lightning, and on a night such as this, it was said, could even let them gaze with the eyes of the Fathers upon the sacred realms.
Upon his big black gelding, Aric rode silently to the fore of the crowd in his coat of black goatskin, the horned mask under his arm. Isiras, too, wore a fantastic costume. A leather mask covered his face and head, and from it extended branching forms like antlers covered in white hide. From the tips of each tine sprang tufts of red hair that floated in the breeze like flames. The face of the mask was dyed blood-red and embellished with ornaments of gold. Above the ears, on either side of the head, spread raven’s wings.
Isiras resembled the creature tattooed on Aric’s right forearm, and on nearly all the other men, along with much of the art that adorned objects in this place. When I’d asked him what the strange creature was, he called it Sreita, The Slider, the mount of Goetosura as he ranges between worlds, granting his rider passage through the three realms. Many of the riders had dressed their horses in like fashion for this night.
Aric filled his cup and drank.
“We have the Master of the Hunt. Where is the Huntress?” Oustana called across the gathering of men. His well-organized rite would not be delayed.
Through the crush of fur- and leather-clad men, masked faces turned to watch me as I walked forward in my fur-lined gown and cloak. These were all men I should know, yet I could recognize almost none of them with their faces painted and masked.
“A woman?” Oustana furrowed his brow and pouted as he turned to Aric. “An actual woman?”
“I also disapprove,” he answered. “An unfortunate mishap. We’ll choose another quickly and begin.”
“This is indeed strange,” the priest nodded slowly as he spoke. “This is the hamazon? Sanctified on Eramandin?”
“She is,” Aric answered grudgingly.
“Hmm.” He pulled at his grey beard. Then fixed me in his gaze and blinked once, long and slow. “Proceed.”
Aric gritted his teeth and refused to look at me. He snatched Sakha’s reins from my hands and reined back his antlered mount. The masked warriors stood silently, waiting as the crowd drew around in a circle. The haomapaithi presented me with a small cup filled with pale liquid. I was reluctant to take it, recalling how it had hastened the flight of my spirit from my body during the battle by the river. I glanced around me. Perhaps if I held it in my mouth, I could spit it out when I was out of sight. I took in the oddly smooth and sweet drink but did not swallow, repressing a gag as it sat on my tongue. There would be dire punishment for spewing the holy elixir onto the ground.
“Repeat after me, Lady Huntress,” Oustana said: “The Fathers are gathered around the golden chalice, granting strength; our sanctuary in times of trial, mighty and bottomless. A terrible host with force of arms enduring, unconquerable, and with unmatched might, they emerge unyielding as they descend upon the enemies of our people.”
Shit. With a gulp, I swallowed the potion and repeated the words. Oustana followed the haomapaithi as he carried the golden bowl to the other warriors, who took their draughts in turn.
The sacrificed bull, which the party and gods had feasted upon last night, had been reassembled, bones and all, stuffed with straw and sewn back into its hide. It stood before the king’s hall. As the last rays of the sunlight withdrew, Oustana handed me a golden spindle and ushered me forward to stand before it. He spread his arms wide and spoke an incantation over the bull, then he gestured to me to touch the beast with the wand.
The troupe of warriors gathered around me in a circle ten men deep. Nearly three hundred masked karik were joined by the novices for the night—and all had drunk their cups. They drew their swords. I glanced toward Aric, sitting on his horse and holding the reins of mine, yet a thousand miles away.
Oustana spoke again. “The Elders say this about the Mistress: She is the chooser of the living and slain, both man and beast. Three times fifty riders shall come, but one leads them all; A Huntress, white-skinned and golden-haired beneath her helm, her eyes burning like suns. Her horses shake their manes; the dew falls from them over the pastures into the valleys to flood Her sweet rivers. Hail to the Mistress, bestowing bounty upon the land.”
A goatskin drum began slowly beating outside the men’s circle. In time to the drumbeat, the masked warriors stamped their feet. A skin-and-reed pipe played a stern tune. Within the great throng of hides and horns and painted skin, the small circle began to turn like the wheel of a chariot, with me as its hub. I could see each man as he stepped and leapt, cutting with his sword, playing with the last of the day’s light on the edge of his blade. An army of shadows all thrusting and slashing at the night.
The rhythm of the song marched ever faster as the circle spun nearer. The dance grew more frantic, brushing closer and closer. Thrusts of swords gave way to shouts as the mass of warriors spiraled toward me at its center. The tempo turned to a gallop, and the dancers were no longer leaping so much as colliding, no longer stepping so much as stampeding. And in the riot of the music, they drifted to and fro, sometimes knocking into me, sometimes catching me with an elbow or shoulder, sometimes stepping on the hem of my dress or foot. I could do nothing but clutch the golden spindle to my breast and stand fast. The swaying crowd began to dislodge me and turn me around, and for a moment, I lost sight of where Aric stood, holding Sakha. Not that I could have escaped if I tried.
I planted my feet firmly against the writhing mob, looking for a landmark to steer by, seeking out Aric on the whirling horizon. A horn blew, and the wheel slowly came to rest. All eyes trained on Aric enthroned upon his masked black steed. While we had been dancing, he had donned his own mask. A wolf’s skull was set upon his forehead and partially covered his face, its black pelt intact and draped down his back, its fangs stark and gleaming white in the moonlight. In the sockets of the eyes were set two round, polished stones of red amber. Two gleaming antlers rose from either side of the skull, three points each and white like barren trees. He blew the horn again, and the men scattered like a flight of birds. Glancing down, I saw that the skirt of my white dress was now filthy and in tatters.
Sakha, whose neck and quarters had been draped in pale doeskin, stood patiently. Where most horses would spook at the sight of a man with antlers, a dog’s head, or his face peering out from between the jaws of a wolf, he was calm. He barely batted an eye, and I adored him for it.
With an ox horn on his belt and a staff in his hand, Aric reined his black gelding around to address the restless crowd, which cried out in a tremendous roar. He waited for the sound to subside before continuing.
“The Wheel has turned; the World has passed. Our Fathers—who bequeathed us wisdom, laws, and this land—return this season to guard the order they set forth for us. Be generous to them, and they shall be plentiful to us. Remember them, and they shall not forget us.” Then he glanced toward me and continued. “May we do them honor, and may our descendants do the same. None can ever die, for the dead live again in us.”
From behind their masks, the field let up a deep and savage roar, eerie and bestial like the cracking of a great mass of ice over water. The horses were ready to bolt with the excitement, and the men would not be able to hold themselves in check much longer.
Aric raised the snout of the skull, resting the mask on his forehead, and peered out from beneath as he rode beside me. He thrust a blowing horn into my hand. “Take this and keep it close. As Master, I ride at the fore, sounding a horn to lead the riders on and warn others that our Host approaches. Ride slow and steady, and keep to the road. Once we leave the camp, we follow the Funeral Road through the burial grounds. Do not stray from the road. And do not turn back until you reach the river. Follow the sound of my horn. If you are in danger, sound your horn three times.”
“What danger?”
His eye grew wide, and he quickly glanced away. That shook me more than any threat he could name.
“I will do my best to lead them on,” he said, “but there is little you or I can do to control them. Do not get between the hunters and their quarry. And take this.” He untied a leather pouch from his belt and placed it in my hand. It was heavy. “Give one at every home. For goodwill.”
Inside, the purse was filled with small silver coins.
“You’ll see. Once taken, there is no telling what the Hunt might do.”
“Taken by what?”
“Those you knew yesterday are not themselves tonight. We are all soon possessed. Remember this… if you can.”
I hung the horn around my neck. “Three times?”
He nodded, the antlers upon his head swooping forward and back again. “Don’t stray from the road. May the Mistress bless and keep you,” he said anxiously and tugged at his rein to go.
A horn sounded in the distance, and the whole thing began to move. Like a pack of hounds at full cry, the troop traveled from east to west, making a terrible tumult as they rode forward, howling and shouting along the road from the sanctuary through the camp toward the barrows where the dead dwelt. I felt a tingling in my blood, and dew formed across my skin despite the cold. The moon arose, full and clear, and my vision of the riders grew starker in the crisp light. Yet, as my thoughts flew, I trusted nothing before my eyes. I saw horses upon three legs, wolves upon two, bears with men’s faces inside their jaws, and creatures wholly unknown to me but in dreams.
I saw the army of wraiths writhing like a great black snake along the road before me. I heard a tremendous ringing of bells and clanging of pots, warning the living to clear the way for the dead, the profane for the sacred. I heard a terrible roar of voices shouting in babble, bestial howls, a throng of hooves, and a clanking of bones. The stench of decay and musk arose from the multitude of hides—shaggy, ragged, and black. Antlers and horns of every shape cast shadows upon the ground like a naked forest on a winter’s night. At intervals, the bellowing of a blowing horn shattered the din, its trumpeting like the roar and rumble of a waking dragon lurking ahead in the darkness. I saw a seething river of souls; hordes of monstrosities born of fever and shadows; blood on the snow beside shattered spearshafts; rusted swords lying in the mud; I saw the bones of heroes crumbling alone in a tomb. I saw twilight and dawn together and whispered irrational prayers as I trailed the unearthly procession.
Amid the clamor of hungry fiends and the jaws of savage beasts, I saw a man among the monsters. Tossed upon that sea, rising and falling on the waves of black, I saw Aric’s face. His eye was like the head of an arrow in flight, sharp and bright and deadly, pointed straight at my heart. Then he was gone—if he’d ever been there at all.
I held my breath as we approached the first house. A simple wagon, its occupants had left modest offerings hung from the hitching post outside while they wisely hid indoors—cheese, kumis, mead, and a small portion of beef. Azarion, his mask little more than a grey wolf-hide strapped to his back and ash smeared over his face and hands, was the first to arrive and claim these spoils, which he dispensed equally to his brother Bradak, dressed in a deerskin and stag mask. The rest of the Hunt moved on to the next house, and I readied a coin for the family. But Azarion pounded on the door demanding entrance with fury in his eyes and thirst in his veins.
Timidly, a gentle, sturdy-looking herdsman opened the door. Peering past the man, I listened as Azarion interrogated the weathered herdsman’s restless wife and their three terrified young children about their chores and whether they kept up with their felt-making and milking, his voice booming through the night. A young boy of about six winters began to cry.
He pointed his finger through the door at me and told them, “Do you see her? She will come for you if you do not do your milking and dung-gathering. Drag you off among the dead. And she will slit you open, pull out your guts, and stuff you full of straw. Then she’ll sew you back up, smear you with wax, and seal you up in a log forever!”
As he stomped from the wagon with a smirk on his face, a girl of probably ten years began to pray through her tears. “Mara of the Night, protect us. Do not harm me, nor carry me off, nor cut out this heart and stuff straw in its stead. I implore you and your companions, Mother, by water and fire, to bless and protect us.”
“You’re a rotten shit, you know that?” I said to Azarion. “Why would you say such a thing to them?” Now, these good people would spend the year believing they had been cursed.
He chuckled as he mounted his horse and rode past me toward the clamor ahead. I dismounted and walked to the door. Inside, the children all cowered behind their parents.
“Have no fear,” I said. “I give you the Mistress’s blessing,” and laid three silver coins upon the doorsill.
Most of the others were more interested in collecting their spoils than harassing anyone and happily went on their way when they’d taken their fill. The masses of riders spread out over the camp, each to collect his own bounty, and I kept back a fair distance, let them finish their work, and left a coin where the goods were taken. Most households left modest offerings, as one would expect of people with simple means: some mead or wine, a dish of meat or cheese, some kumis or butter. Those who were generous found themselves unharmed. Those who’d been stingy might have had their stores raided or their property defaced. For those who were clearly poor, I offered an extra coin to supplement their winter stores, and for those who genuinely seemed miserly, well, the Host dealt with them as they saw fit.
The Hunters didn’t bother to distribute the sacrifices equally, as they’d be glutted with food and drink by the night’s end. Each grabbed what he could get his hands on, and the surplus would be shared out afterward. But some men are greedier, and some houses left better sacrifices than others. When it was discovered that one householder left a pitcher of fine Greek wine, three loaves of fresh bread, a jar of olive oil, and salted fish, everyone had somehow seen it first, and the men began to brawl.
The next house offered nothing so grand as this. A generous plate of beef, a wedge of cheese, and a bowl of kumis. Good Skythian fare, but lowly relative to that exotic feast the men had just come to blows over. Feeling slighted, they set about tearing down the second house.
After an hour or two, the riders had exhausted their offerings, and most were gathering far ahead in the cemetery. The remaining riders were mainly the youths who were left to clean up the remaining sacrifices from modest households around the camp’s periphery. I was depositing coins at the last few houses when I heard screams and shouts from a tent. I put my heels to Sakha and galloped toward the sound. Before me, six hunters in their black masks and hides were growling as they tore the felt from the tent’s frame. The biggest, boldest of them, wearing a boar’s head and hide, leapt from his horse and, with a running start, threw himself against the lattice frame of the walls. He was no karik, dressed as he was, and neither were his companions. None wore the bast girdle we all did, even this night. With the beginnings of beards, they were at the age where boys begin to believe they are men. Where they had come from, I couldn’t say—sons of cattle herders or farmers, perhaps—but it seemed they would take advantage of the festivities to engage in some mayhem of their own. When it rattled but didn’t fall, their leader tried again. And again. It finally collapsed under the force of his blows, trapping the family inside against the opposite wall. Two others rushed to join in.
Pulling Sakha up before the felt-house, I shouted to them in my most commanding voice to cease and leave the tent be. Remembering the golden spindle I’d been given by the priest, I held it aloft like a scepter and commanded them to stand back and desist. At the order of the boar-headed boy, three others dismounted their horses, pulled the felt from the roof, and held fast, looking from me to their comrades nervously, awaiting a sign. Through the opening in the roof, I saw the elderly man hunkered down beneath the table bearing the altar, sheltering his frail wife beneath his arm.
The boar-headed boy who had broken down the wall struck the old man with his whip and laughed. Pulling the couple’s coats from a peg on the wall, he dropped them into the fire. Then he untied his trousers and pissed on their hearth.
“Enough! Cease this destruction!” I leapt from Sakha’s back and strode through the broken wall into the home.
The boar-headed boy laughed louder and more deliberately. Then he rushed at me, and the next thing I knew, all six were upon me, and I was on the ground. The stench of wine enveloped me as their bare hands clawed my every inch. Face-down on the cowhide carpets, I tucked my limbs close, knowing I could not fight all of them as they dragged me from the tent. I caught the old man’s horrified eye and tossed the bag with the few remaining coins to him as they hauled me out the door. Then I felt inside my vest for the dagger, pressing its handle against my breastbone for solace.
They dragged me to where they’d left their horses and cast me down on the frozen ground. They’d stopped to argue over where to take me and how to share me. I studied the youths’ faces and listened to their voices, but I didn’t recognize them from the Marches. While they argued, I slithered toward the nearest horse and readied myself to grab the reins and leap onto its back. I tried to tuck up and hold my skirt so it wouldn’t hinder me as I mounted. With a last glance to be sure none of them were looking, I made my move for the horse, sliding awkwardly into place with the skirt wrapped around my knees.
One of the boys shouted, and the boar-headed boy lunged for me again, trying to grasp my arm and pull me from the horse. This time I was ready. The dagger in my hand, I plunged it down into his neck, his bright blood spraying onto my white dress, then drove my foot into his chest and shoved him to the ground. Tugging at the reins, I pushed the horse through the other horses standing nearby and scattered them, then set off galloping and quickly made for the river, the other riderless horses following our lead. Once at the banks and far from the crazed Host, I put the horn to my lips and blew three loud, clear blasts.
Chapter Forty-One: Marsh
The visitation to the family in creepy reminds me of the Krampuslauf in Austria. Krampus is supposedly the evil twin of Santa Klaus. So tradition has it that he chases after the bad children and carries them off to Hell, while the good children receive gifts. When I was living in Vienna I attended a few of the “Krampus Runs” (as they’re called), where people in horrific masks chase after kids and scare them to death. This is not like haunted houses in the States. Sometimes, in the more rural districts, they guys dressing up as Krampus get a little too much into it. It’s a tradition that would never fly in the State. And if you ever visit Innsbruck, there is a wonderful Tyrolean folklore museum, and every year at Christmas time they do a special exhibit displaying traditional Nativity Scenes and Krampus costumes, some of which are over a hundred years old. So I felt the pain of the kids who were horrified of the visitation.
I liked that sequence because I think our traditions of things like Halloween and the Krampus are directly related to pre-Christian rituals like this.
The slaying of the bull was very Mithraic. Interestingly, that HBO series from the middle ‘90s called “Rome”, one of the characters goes to a Mithraeum in order to participate in one of those sacrifices. In the episode, she goes into a chamber beneath a stone grate and prays in a simple cloth. They drag the bull over the grate and slay it and the blood spews down on her as she’s praying. A rather gruesome imagining of such things, but I thought it was pretty believable.