Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1883-12-20
Tie original Santa Claus.

Santa Claus" is an int resting archa-
ism carrying the mind acreeahly back
ward to those old times which always
have such a charm for the critical in
vestigatons or poetic reyeries of men.
This cheerful Christmas legend was
quite new thing to most of us few
years ago to those, at least, who got
their ideas of .ucl things from the
literature Of o,n own language. Santa
Claus has come, as everybody is aware,
from Germany TO the new world; and
the curiosity of this matter is that III
thus coming over the sea he underwent
certain remarkable kind of transform
ation-a sort Of sea change He was
once honored IN Deutschland or Ger
many (for both of these names have ex-
actly the same meaning in the Celtic.l
as child, fact which none of the
German critics or ph'lologers have con-
descended to not e, at least in any dis
tinguishabie way.
Santa Claus was one of the oldest
ideas of the Celtic West in Pagan times,
as he was of the Pagan East before In
Christian times he was still regarded
with religious reverence, sitting, as he
had sat for ages in Egypt and else
where, III the arms of his mother.
Santa Claus was, IN fact, the child
Jesus in the middle ages; ana through
out that period the festive creed Of
Germany and all Celtic Europe was that
he visited all family dwellings, of good
Christ ans OH the eve of his anniversary,
and brought with him gifts and bless
ings for the children This beautiful
tradition is still to be found lingering in
Germany, though Santa Claus does not
seem to be specially connected with it
by name. The truth of this original
belief is plainly enough indicated
by the word claus, which, in
the gothic or ancient German,
means child" and son Santa
Claus formerly meant the Holy Child.
1t is not very difficult to see how the
change of mems religious beliefs 800
OF 400 years ago changed the charac-
ter of the legend. Those who had put
away Catholic sentiment in religion,
and wished to have theic own or more
dignitied sort, thought it too ride and
simple thing to make that holy child
bring knick-nacks and sweetmeats to
the children down the chimney, and so.
by degrees, altered the old idea, MAX
ing it genial ocular fancy in the per.
son of benevolent and jolly old man,
such as the Germans and others have
welcomed for many generations, and
we i'll this country have generally rec
/ ognized of late years. He is such; a
CHEEKY and felicitous old fancy that
nobody would ever have thought of
challenging him in any respect, but for
the great mistake, so long ago commit
ted, of sending HIM about the world
with that tell-tale Clans pinned on his
back, as 1t were. He really should him
self have remembered, with the rest oil
his recollections, that his name is inter
preted in Schiller or Buxhorn eve for
get which,, and should have chosen
another
This statement, supported as it is by
the old Christian traditions clinginp
around the present season of the wear,
will commend itself, perhaps, to the
critics of the old customs and old Ian
guage. But the rest of mankind" don't
see it, and, in reply to that Gothic lexi.
con, exclaim, in the words of Giles
Scroggin's ghost, that's no ruler
Santa Claus will still be the old man
with the beard and the frosty face
frosty, but kindly" And, indeed,
very properly. The popular instinct.
that is, i'll these our modern times
was right in setting that image of the
child aside. 1t belonged to far pro
founder sentiment than that of mere
household game, pastime and festivitv,
was inevitably displaced by a genera
ton in whom the simple old beliefs and
reverence Of departed ages lived no
longer. After all, it was lucky that
Santa Claus was turned 50 very oppor-
timely into an old man. The other idea
could never have come down to such a
matter-of-fact age as this, and our
Christmas would have wanted the hap
piest genius Of its festivity--the Santa
Claus of the German vaterland