Krampus, Frau Berchta & Zauberkraft

 

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Austrians and Bavarians have a divine pair of antidotes to our American diet of Christmas sugar. The best known is the Krampus, a German/Austrian devil who appears at winter celebrations, usually on December 5, which is also Saint Nicholas day. In Bavaria and in the territories of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, he’s long been the Dark Companion to their Good Spirit of the season, the Christian St. Nick. 

Saint Nicolas & "Friends"

Krampus is doubtless a good deal older than the red-coated, crozier-toting saint, with his horns, furry pelt, and long, disgusting tongue. Krampus arrives to punish bad children, right beside Saint Nicholas, in, as some commentators have noted, a kind of bad cop/good cop routine.   He carries chains which he shakes threateningly and a bunch of birch branches, which he threatens to use on the backsides of all evildoers.

Krampus

Old Christmas cards from the region, especially from the 19th Century, show Krampus—sometimes portrayed as a female—delivering spankings in smirking 19th Century bondage scenes. However, I believe that Krampus has always been male, because of his enormous horns, that universal signifier of masculine prowess. In this case, the horns are trophies taken from the buck Steinbock, (Capra Ibex) which are an integral part of the traditional costume.  

Steinbock buck

Krampus has survived from pagan times in Austrian and Germanic lands despite more than a thousand years of disapproving Christianity. Soon, this magnificent horned god will dance in the streets as part of the celebration that lifts human spirits in a cold, dark time.  He does not dance alone, though. Long ago, he may have had a feminine companion.

Nature, in the form of the Teutonic Goddess, Frau Perchta or Berchta, is another seasonal deity. This Lady has two faces. In spring and summer she is Berchta, the shining one, dressed in white and crowned with flowers, who brings fertility to the fields and to the animals. Sometimes taking the form of a swan or of a lovely woman with one webbed foot, Berchta cares in a beautiful secret garden for the souls of suicides, the unbaptized and still born children, and those who have not been buried properly. This soul-shepherd could be a friend on a very personal level, too, for there are stories about her entering homes in the night and nursing babies in order to help their tired mothers get much-needed sleep. 

Berchta, the Good

In winter time, however, Perchta is no longer generous or kind to her human children. When The Wheel of the Year turns, she wears a new face, one that is old and cruel. Times past, as the Spinnstubenfrau, (Spinning room wife) this goddess would punish a woman severely if she had not finished all her spinning and/or housecleaning (*I'm doomed) by the Feast of the Epiphany--January 12.  Beneath the crone's dress, is a long knife she'll gut you with if you displease her. Every winter day she whips the land with ice, winds, and snow.  

In the howling of the gales you may hear the Wild Hunt blowing over your head--and Perchta, a winter witch, leads them, surrounded by lost souls. She is sometimes accompanied, it has been said, by the Capital "D" Devil himself. The birch tree is sacred to her in both aspects, and is represented by the rune Berkana.

Perhaps, once upon a time, the demonic Krampus creature was Perchta's mate. (He certainly looks like the Devil, doesn't he?)  The Old Woman haunts the time days before Epiphany. If you want to make friends, she enjoys a bowl of hot cereal left out for her, but, better yet, I've heard, is a glass of schnapps or brandy. 

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For the second part of my “Magic Colours” series I decided to employ a shape-shifting creature who lived in the Austrian Alps. The Krampus legend was an obvious choice, although I've altered it to fit the needs of the story.  Shape-shifters are limited to a single form--the werewolf being the prime example--but I gave my creature carte blanche. My hero can assume the shape of any animal that lives on his mountain.  

In Zauberkraft Black, a disillusioned soldier, Goran, returns home from the Napoleonic wars to find his family estate semi-abandoned in the wake of that long and devastating European war. The Austrians changed sides--first fighting against Napoleon and then siding with him, an experience that felt like a betrayal to many. The Year without  Summer (1815-16), just passed, has also taken a terrible toll. Sudden climate change, brought on by a gigantic volcanic eruption on the other side of the world, causes crop failures and starvation all over. 

Not only unseasonable cold followed the now famous Tambora eruption, but endless rains.  In the high mountains, this caused devastating avalanches. One on the Heldenberg (Heroes' Mountain) kills Goran's mother at their alpine family estate. Now, this wild, beautiful place--once, for Goran, full of happy childhood memories-- is tainted with darkness.

 During his first hours on the land, while aimlessly wandering, Goran stumbles into a seasonal celebration among his tenants. It’s a traditional Summer Solstice party, with food, drink and a hint of sex, but instead of these simple pleasures, an ancient ceremony of soul-joining now awaits the newly returned young master. 

 ~~Juliet Waldron

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An AWOL Character Returns

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My first novel, one where the main character moved into my head and literally would not be let me alone, not to sleep, not for work, or even to quietly clean my house. Nanina talked and talked and talked for six months straight and I had to stay up half of every night typing like crazy just to get it all down. Miss Gottlieb's story of love, of magic, of music and of madness set me on the full time writer's path some forty (!!) years ago.  

Sometimes, after starting out with a rush and talking away like crazy, a character can decide to take a holiday--sometimes permanently. Actually, this is more like "going AWOL" for the hapless author, who may have a book contract to complete. This is one of the hazard's of being the kind of writer who is working their way through a planned series of linked stories. I once was far more "prolific" --the favorite description of all all agents who are shopping a writer to an editor--but my own little well of inspiration dried up about a year ago.

I believed I was done--written out. Instead of mourning or getting bent out of shape, I've been trying to Zen my way through the absence. After all so many years of story telling, there was certainly a sense of loss, but I was determined not to brood or feel sorry for myself, but simply to take a "wait and see" attitude. 

Recently, however, I've received cage rattling, from not one, but from two characters, the leads in two quite different unfinished novels. One is pure, unadulterated romance (Aphrodite help me!). The other is Zauberkraft Green, which was supposed to be the third story in my "Magic" series. As the name suggests, these are historical novels with a fantasy flare, stories which cross a lot of genres, from Gothic to Adventure to Horror and Romance. 

                           

Zauberkraft Green's main character is Charlize, who is the grandchild of Caterina, who is the heroine of the strongly romance-inflected Zauberkraft Red. Charlize is also the niece of Goran, Caterina's first born son and the shape-shifting hero of Zauberkraft Black. 

Typically--at least, what I'd come to expect from Charlize after we became acquainted--was a lot of ADHD precocious chatter, even a certain bitchiness. Then, just as suddenly as she had begun, her voice vanished from my head. 

I'm beginning to think she didn't want  to talk too much about the things that frightened and threatened her, because, hell, what I do know about those elements of the story frighten me too. However, all of a sudden, right about the dark of the moon a few days ago, Charlize began to speak  again. This blog is a kind of celebration that she's taken it upon herself to reappear and (maybe) finish the darn story.

Or at least, I hope so! I don't want to go on too long about her reappearance or gloat. As everyone who writes, or aspires to, knows, these gifts from the Spring of the Muses must not be taken for granted.  A lot of work and even more concentration will be necessary to turn whatever odds and ends she shares into the spooky journey I hope that Zauberkraft Green will eventually be. 

BTW, all three of these novels are Regencies, even if the first two have a European setting instead of the traditional Lyme Regis or Bath. Young teen Charlize, however, has been adopted by an Englishman, a kindly gentleman who has made an honest woman of her beautiful mother and moved them all to London, so here they are at least, proper Regency people, living where they are supposed to: in the UK. 

Wish me luck! I'm sure I'll need it.


~~Juliet Waldron
(Happily hearing voices in her head again!)

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All Hallows' & New Covers

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I'm excited about new covers!

Red Magic recently got a re-brand--a new cover and a re-title. It is now Zauberkraft~Red, just in time for Halloween.  It was initially hard to chose a title for this story, back when I was grappling with that. In my long ago 'tweens, I'd been a fan of Baroness Orczy and so it was tempting to try to write that niche-within-a-niche version of "historical romance." Alpine Austria isn't exactly a popular venue and the books are cross-genre.  I'm the first to admit the Zauberkraft series crosses the abyss from Zauberkraft-Red's witchy romance into the fantasy (with a nice red dollop of horror) that is Zauberkraft-Black.

Zauberkraft-Red began because I had a character who wouldn't stop talking. This was Constanze Mozart's lover from Mozart's Wife (now titled The Intimate Mozart.) This guy was already a tall, dark, handsome and rather dangerous leading man type, who, however, turned out to be have unexpectedly decent, warm-hearted center. By the end of the Mozart story, he is indeed The Rake Reformed. 

When this fellow's property-minded family insist upon his marriage to a pretty, horsey, immature cousin who is just sixteen, he, now on the rebound, decides his roving days are over. She, however, doesn't believe a word he says--as well she might. As you can imagine, there is a book's worth of relationship work ahead for both of them.

At his alpine estate, the young woman finds her surroundings decidedly creepy and lonely. The jagged, snow-capped mountain behind the manor is a palpable presence. The freeman peasants who work the estate celebrate the older, weirder holidays as well as the newer Christian ones. Sighting these, she begins to anxiously ruminate upon a frightening experience from her childhood.

On the day of her arrival, the heroine is given a house tour which ends with her husband's bed chamber, separate from her own. After getting over the shock of his Height-of-Fashion 18th Century French pornographic bed curtains, she finds someone she did not expect lounging on the pillows--a cat, who is large, black and fluffy.

As a proper 18th Century lady she is now surprised to discover that her hunky new husband has such a "feminine" pet. The cat's name is "Furst," which is German for "First," which was often the short-cut title for a leader. I'm not sure where the inspiration for Furst came from, except that I wanted to slightly blow up the image of a romance's leading man with a "wussy" fondness for cats.

Furst is not completely based upon an actual animal companion, as many of the other cats in my books are. He's most like my own over-the-rainbow Katter Murr, who was named for E.T.A. Hoffman's (of The Nutcracker fame) illustrious pet. Hoffman's cat was a gray tiger, but our Murr was a barn-found Maine-Coonish sort of feline.

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Zauberkraft~Black  is is a no-holds-barred All Hallows' Eve story. Here, twenty+ years on from the first book, the now grown soldier son of the original couple returns to his childhood home, just after the last violent gasp of the Napoleonic Wars.

Goran has just left Vienna after discovering that his fiance has run off with an older and far wealthier nobleman. Not only that, but he's wounded from a decade's experience of the brutality of war. He's only twenty-seven, but he's grown utterly cynical about politics. His leader, the Austrian Emperor, switched sides when Vienna was threatened by Napoleon's forces. As a result, he, like other  Austrian military men, had been forced to fight first against Napoleon and then for him, a political decision which is firmly stuck in his craw.

As Goran arrives at at this rural estate where he grew up, he sees that things are in a bad way. Men left for the wars and many did not return, so barns and houses, left empty, are falling into ruin. Not only that, but here, in the mountainous back of beyond, there have been attacks by bandits and roaming gangs-- rogue soldiers for whom looting and killing has become a way of life.

Within hours of Goran's arrival, while he is taking a self-pitying ramble around the land, bottle in hand, he finds a May Day party being celebrated. He decides to party for a time with his tenants, and then, numbed with drink, begin the dreary task of listening to the old men complain about the state of things. Later that night, however, the celebrants let their young master into an ancient secret, one which brings all manner of bizarre changes into his life. Goran discovers that he has even more responsibilities and ties to this land--and to the people who live here than he--or even his parents before him--have hitherto imagined. 

Happy Halloween or Samhain or All Hallows' 

--your preference!

~~Juliet Waldron

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