Krampus: The Yule Lord

by Brom

You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming for your head. For Odin, Loki, and all the fallen gods, for your treachery, for chaining me in this pit for five hundred years. But most of all I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide.

I, Krampus, Lord of Yule, son of Hel, bloodline of the great Loki, swear to cut your lying tongue from your mouth, your thieving hands from your wrists, and your jolly head from your neck.

“Where you going?” Isabel asked. “Snipe hunting.” “Snipe hunting? What’s a snipe?” Jesse looked at her as though she must be kidding. “Really?” She frowned. “What? What is it?” Jesse let out a snort. Isabel’s face clouded and Jesse couldn’t help but laugh. Isabel set her hands on her hips. “Well, are you gonna tell me or not?”

Your dreams are your spirit, your soul, and without them you are dead.” He made a fist. “You must guard your dreams. Always. Lest someone steal them from you. I know what it is to have your dreams stolen. I know what it is to be dead.” His voice was almost

a growl. “Guard your dreams. Always guard your dreams.”

“Christmas,” Krampus spat. “No, Christmas is an abomination. A perversion! Yule is the true spirit of Mother Earth. Yule is the rebirth of the seasons. Without Yuletide, Mother Earth cannot heal herself . . . will wither and die. That is why it is so important that I reawaken the spirit within mankind. Help them to believe again. Because it is their power of belief, their love and devotion, that heals the land.”

“You worship death. You and all the One Gods. They seduce mankind with their promises of glory attained in the hereafter, thus blinding men to the splendor before them here on earth. One can never expect to achieve enlightenment if one does not first live life to its fullest.”

So I must ask myself, what role can I play in a world where men worship the moving-picture box, where they make and consume potions that eat away their own brains, where they ravage and pillage entire mountains, kill the very earth itself? “Mankind has lost its connection to the land, to the earth, to the beasts and spirits. They gather their food not from the forest and fields, but from plastic bins and ice boxes. Their lives are no longer tied to the cycles of the seasons and the harvest, no longer do they need the Yule Lord to chase away the winter darkness and usher in the light of spring. Man has only himself to fear now . . . he has become his own worst devil.”

He gave them what they wanted, a pretty lie, and they believed, because a pretty lie is easier to believe than an ugly truth.”

Do you ever wonder why you seek the Devil with such vigor? I shall tell you. Because you cannot face your own wickedness. The truth is there is no Devil making you torture, rape, murder, and sodomize one another, or making you destroy the very land that feeds you. There is only you. So look at yourself, for you are the only devil in this room.”

whatever ills tomorrow may harbor nothing can steal this moment if you live it with all your vigor.