A version of this article appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #182 (December, 2011).
Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also very solemn.
–The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis.
It is once again the merry time of Yule, when the old year dies and the new is born again. It is natural in the northern hemisphere, and especially in the truly northern regions, to associate this time with death and rebirth. It is a special time for myth and religion, a time that seems to attract mythical figures like moth to a flame. Christianity and Mithraism both chose this time to honor the broth of their respective deities, of course, but equally entwined in the season is the legend of the Gift Bringer, a magical figure that rewards children for good behavior and, sometimes, punishes the bad children.
The gift figure takes many forms throughout Europe, ranging from the Yule Goat of Scandinavia to La Befana, the Old Woman of Italy or the Christkind of Bavaria and Austria. The more common form, however is a bearded old man, usually connected to the Christian Saint Nicholas, called Father Christmas in the British Isles. In America he is Santa Claus, and like many American things he has sprung from his old world origins to spread back out throughout the world.
Whatever we call him, Santa Claus is a powerfully mythic figure and a seeming natural for fantasy fiction, especially the more mystical, dream-like style of fantasy that follows in Lord Dunsany’s footsteps far from the fields we know and deep into the realms of Faerie. But as I have mentioned before, Christmas remains a difficult subject, and perhaps its relentless commercialization and the plethora of children’s stories have dissuaded fantasy authors from exploring its fantasy potential. Regardless, there are some very good fantasy tales of Santa, by the greatest writers in the field, and fantasy lovers looking for a fantastical take on Christmas should give them a try.
Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), which I reviewed here. Baum revisited Santa in the short story "A Kidnapped Santa Claus" (1904), a sequel to the origin tale which the five "Daemons of the Caves" (Selfishness, Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Repentance). They try to eliminate Santa and his influence on children first through temptation then when that fails through kidnapping. It's an excellent short parable, with plenty of fodder for gamemasters.
C.S. Lewis, of course, employs Father Christmas, but his momentous appearance in Narnia in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) was indistinguishable from Santa save in name. His appearance is a pivotal plot point, and the gifts he brings are not mere toys, but essential to the tale - in fact, rather similar to Galadriel's gifts to the Fellowship in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
Lewis’ friend J.R.R. Tolkien produced a series of letters from Father Christmas to his children, written over two decades and first published in 1976. Letters from Father Christmas (revised 1999), notable not only for its engaging prose and episodic tales of life at the North Pole, but also because so many of the motifs and events of Tolkien’s The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Silmarillion are foreshadowed in the letters.
Of course, as well written as they are, the Santa works of Tolkien, Lewis, and Baum are aimed at children. Seabury Quinn’s Roads, first published in Weird Tales in 1938 and then in hardback by Arkham House in 1948, is written for adults, asking the question, "What if Conan the Barbarian became Santa Claus?" The Arkham House novel was well illustrated by Virgil Finlay, and was reprinted in 2005. It is divided into three parts, ‘The Road to Bethlehem,’ ‘The Road to Calvary,’ and ‘The Long, Long
Road.’ Santa is really "Claudius" an immortal German mercenary who apparently spent centuries slaughtering his way across Europe and the Middle east with his equally immortal wife (a sort of Jewish Red Sonja who begins life as a prostitute in a brothel run by Mary Magdalen). The book positively reeks of anti-Semitism and Anglo-Saxon triumphalism. Quinn is best known for writing occult detective stories, which appeared in the pulp magazines alongside the tales of H.P. Lovecraft, R.E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Roads is a religious Christmas tale told through a Sword & Sorcery lens and dripping with 1930s style anti-Semitism that it simply never rises above.
A more modern take comes in Bill Willingham’s long running comic Fables. The comic addressed Santa, in “Jiminy Christmas” (issue #56). Santa is a
‘Fable’ (a living, breathing fairy tale) of course, but he is a particularly powerful one who somehow transcends the other Fables in power and influence. The tale is very adult, all though it portrays a young child’s quest to see Santa during his gift-giving (the explanation provided for Claus’ miraculous Christmas Eve global service is sublime). Like Lewis, Willingham uses Santa as a deus ex machina who passes gifts and knowledge onto the protagonists. It also provides one of the best explanations for how Santa reaches all the houses around the globe in one night.
good, but it is really only about the start of the tale, how Kringle transform into Santa is barely addressed. But as far as it goes its a great, fun, fantasy tale. It reminds me a great deal of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, with the magic world existing alongside but hidden from the barbarity of the Dark Ages.
An even more modern take is The Christmas Chronicles: The Legend of Santa Claus by Tim Slover. It is a pleasant enough tale, but it doesn't quite scratch the Santa and Fantasy itch I've always had. It doesn't catch the magic of the elves and faerie quite right. Magic only enters the tale after Claus and his wife have had a long life as toy givers. Even then, it ignores or changes most of the Christmas legends, (Rudolph gets a different name and totally different story). It lacks that connection to older, deeper mythologies
All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.
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