Did Santa steal a horse?

[Afterthought]

I’ve been studying Scandinavian culture and history for a while, and whilst reading over some notes on Norse religion, I came across the story of how children would fill their shoes with straw, and Odin, riding his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, would ride through the night and exchange the straw for candies or gifts.

Was it eight tiny reindeer or eight horse legs that first rode through the night (metaphorically speaking)?

 

[Eucharisted]

Santa is the secularized version of Saint Nicholas.

And no, Christmas isn’t about Nicholas. It’s about Christ.

 

[survive]

I believe you’re thinking of Thor, actually.
The Norse were among the last Europeans to become Christian. When the Christian missionaries explained about saints and the love of the poor for which some were renowned, including Saint Nicholas, who gave some well-timed gifts to the desperate, Norse people thought of how they relied on Thor for needed gifts and financial aid. Unlike Thor, God and Saint Nicholas actually deliver (no pun intended). That encouraged them to convert. But they retained some details of the religion they abandoned. Not knowing how Saint Nicholas would help them, (by praying with them) some envisioned him riding like Thor through the night sky. Centuries of intercultural contact mixed in other bits and pieces of Santa-stuff. One culture added the red fur-lined outfit because that was their symbol of winter joy and warmth; another adding the leaving out of cookies and milk, one way they recognized hospitality and gratitude; another made him rotund, symbolic to them of joy and friendliness, a red nose from people who saw that as a sign of a happy person. The reindeer? The main herd animal in some parts of Scandinavia, the obvious transport. Their names were a combination of Norse Thor imagery (Donner, Blitzen) added by a 19th-Century poet for Northern local flavor, together with typical English/American horse names. The Coca-Cola Company in the 1930’s finished up the look. Today, neither Saint Nicholas nor Thor nor anyone real or imaginary from before 1935 or so would resemble Santa as we see him in ads.

 

[Cluny]

This is from the Wikipedia article about Santa’s reindeer. It would seem that the eight reindeer were invented by Fr. Moore (an Episcopal priest):

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More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:
"Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen,
"On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem;

"To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
"Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

In An American Anthology, 1787–1900, Edmund Clarence Stedman reprints the 1844 Clement Clarke Moore version of the poem, including the German spelling of “Donder and Blitzen,” rather than the original 1823 version using the Dutch spelling, “Dunder and Blixem.” [4] Both phrases translate as “Thunder and Lightning” in English, though German for thunder is now spelled Donner, and the Dutch words would nowadays be spelled Donder and Bliksem.

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Rudolph came later in a song by Johnny Marks that caught the American public’s fancy.