Episode 105: Wild Wonderful Winter with Joshua Cutchin

“In the Bleak Midwinter.” Mixed Media, Barbara A, Fisher 2022.

Blessed Yule, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Blessed Solstice, Happy Diwali, and Blessed Kwanzaa!

Morganna just finished her next to last semester of undergrad last Wednesday, and she said, “I’m not doing another Christmas episode—I just wrote five papers.”

To which I said, “Fair point,” and asked Joshua Cutchin if he could step in, and he, being a kind soul, did just that. And so we talked about the winter holidays, folklore, traditions, music, food, stories—with special emphasis on the spookiness of this darkest time of year.

We started out with Santa Claus as a Wild Man archetype—and I brought up a really good book on the subject, Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men: The Origins and Evolution of Saint Nicholas, Spanning 50,000 Years., by Phyllis Siefker. It’s a mouthful of a title, but it’s a really good and interesting book. Well worth reading.

While I’m at it, here’s a couple more books for you to peruse. There’s The X-mas Files: True Tales of Claus Encounters, Elf Help, Angelic Interventions, and Holiday Spirits by Ralph Betters. And for traditional Christmas ghost stories other than the Dickens classic, there is The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories. Finally, for tales of Krampus, and Perchta, we have: The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas: Roots and Rebirth of the Folkloric Devil by Al Ridenour and Sean Tejaratchi.

At any rate, we had a great time, and as always, we went wandering off the topic, but we always brought it back around in the end. I hope you cosy down with a cup of cocoa and some cookies and enjoy our conversation.