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<p>Dutch Sinterklaas has a servant Black Piet usually done in
blackface to the horror of anti racism activists. It has been
quite an issue the last few years whereas before nobody seemed to
care. Anyway Sinterklaas is St. Nicholas and he brings presents to
the good children on december 5. Bad children are supposed to be
taken to Spain in a bag and punished with a birch by Black Piet
who comes down through the chimney to lay down the presents at the
fireside. Were supposed to be taken and punished I should say as
it is all deemed too harsh nowadays for the child's soul.
Sinterklaas rides his horse over the rooftops. A few weeks before
dec. 5 Sinterklaas arrives by boat from Spain which is being shown
on national television. Nowadays under police protection because
of the protesters<span class="moz-smiley-s1"></span>. When I was a
child I learned many songs related to this feast. The days leading
up to dec 5 you put your shoes by the fireside and Black Piet
would put sweets or little presents into them. 5 dec. was the big
day, like Christmas in the US. Santa Claus is originally
Sinterklaas I believe. These days Santa Claus is making inroads on
Sinterklaas and Christmas is competing.<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Op 21-5-2018 om 17:29 schreef Marc
Aramini:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAF1072zGHF6JKFV8+ZkjQyvYjA0dLWLzwqN=oiRP8TBUvA37hw@mail.gmail.com">So
there are a few things that didn’t add up in the conclusion of the
sorcerer’s house. One is the funeral of skotos with three guests -
one of them is Mr Black, who Bax concludes is Skotos, though
Hardaway does not recognize him, even though he was good friends
with Skotos. That argues against Skotos being Black. The other is
Nick’s story of he and Nicholas being grown in a trough by mr
Black ... clearly either that or his later identification as zwart
black is a lie.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Bax sees a white horse in the middle of the story. While I
wanted to make this a kelpie kind of spirit, we should remember
that the butler of Herod (anachronistically) has the head of
John the Baptist, who proclaimed the coming of Christ. Bax
arrives in January in Medicine Man. Duke at the duchy of
cumberbach makes a compelling case that medicine man is Medicine
Hat, Canada, in which a local legend says that one man
sacrificed his wife to the river to get the hat of the shamans
(see the pelt/hair of lupine). Kipling said the town had all
Hell as a basement. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We have Nick and Nicholas and a Greek. St Nicholas was born
of a Greek family. He gives gifts, but more importantly, I feel
in doing his research Wolfe looked up all kinds of house
spirits, which include Shinto figures, kikimora, domovoys ...
and, in some versions, Knecht Ruprecht, st nicolas’s Servant, is
associated with kobolds. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Look at this description, and remember that mr Black has a
staff he always carries, a white horse appears, Bax receives
gifts, is beaten by a stick, the prominence of someone
pretending to be Mr Black, the double mention of Nicholas, the
position as a butler, and a man dressing up as a woman (winker
is called a He by Ieuan and later Doris thinks the obverse of
the coin features a man rather than a woman), also keeping in
mind that The house is called the devil’s house </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">“Knecht
Ruprecht is Saint Nicholas' most familiar attendant in
Germany. According to some stories, Ruprecht began as a
farmhand; in others, he is a wild <a
href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abandonment"
title="Child abandonment"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(90,54,150)"
moz-do-not-send="true">foundling</a> whom Saint Nicholas
raises from childhood.</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Ruprecht
wears a black or brown robe with a pointed hood. Sometimes he
walks with a limp, because of a childhood injury. He can be
seen carrying a long staff and a bag of ashes, and on occasion
wears little bells on his clothes.<sup
id="cite_ref-Thorpe_2-0" class="reference"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1;font-size:0.75em;background-image:none;unicode-bidi:isolate;white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knecht_Ruprecht#cite_note-Thorpe-2"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(90,54,150)"
moz-do-not-send="true">[2]</a></sup>Sometimes he rides on
a white horse, and sometimes he is accompanied by fairies or
men with blackened faces dressed as old women.<sup
id="cite_ref-Thorpe_2-1" class="reference"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1;font-size:0.75em;background-image:none;unicode-bidi:isolate;white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knecht_Ruprecht#cite_note-Thorpe-2"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(90,54,150)"
moz-do-not-send="true">[2]</a></sup></p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">According
to <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tille"
title="Alexander Tille"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(90,54,150)"
moz-do-not-send="true">Alexander Tille</a>, Knecht Ruprecht
originally represented an archetypal manservant, "and has
exactly as much individuality of social rank and as little
personal individuality as the <span
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:italic;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none">Junker
Hanns</span> and the <span
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:italic;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none">Bauer
Michel</span>, the characters representative of country
nobility and peasantry respectively."<sup
id="cite_ref-tille_3-0" class="reference"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1;font-size:0.75em;background-image:none;unicode-bidi:isolate;white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knecht_Ruprecht#cite_note-tille-3"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(90,54,150)"
moz-do-not-send="true">[3]</a></sup> Tille also states
that Knecht Ruprecht originally had no connection with
Christmastime.<sup id="cite_ref-tille_3-1" class="reference"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:1;font-size:0.75em;background-image:none;unicode-bidi:isolate;white-space:nowrap"><a
href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knecht_Ruprecht#cite_note-tille-3"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(90,54,150)"
moz-do-not-send="true">[3]</a></sup> <span
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:italic;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none">Ruprecht</span> was
a common name for the <a
href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil" title="Devil"
style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(90,54,150)"
moz-do-not-send="true">Devil</a> in Germany”</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Nicholas’s
companions are also thought of as kobolds or house spirits.
Bad children are punished by being thrown in sacks and beaten
or thrown in the river. </p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">When
bax asks nick if mr Black is dead, a non sequitur on both
parts occurs. He answers “you, um. Sir. Or the boys, sir.
Emlyn, I would think. Or both, sir.”</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">“I
did not kill him, Nick. I have never killed anyone...”</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">“Sir?”
(258)</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">The
question here might indicate that nick is not talking about
someone being killed - and he is saying that perhaps both of
the boys are dead, grammatically. Unfortunately, there are
still some aspects this really does not explain (Ambrosius,
whose name means “immortal” being strangled by Goldwurm and
thrown into the river, though Nicholas has hands which
strangle. And how this overlays with Ted Griffin and Doris,
though the names Ted, Ieuan, and Doris all mean “gift” - st
Nick gives them, after all. But at the end there are only
lupine and (two) emlyns. Kate Finn and Cathy Ruth have first
names which mean clear or pure - the last name of Thelma Nabor
means to cleanse or purify. The victims of the wolf attack are
Martha murrey’s neighbor and a nurse (she wanted to be a
nurse). Finn’s last name means fair or white - Ruprecht means
bright.</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Bax
rejects the valuable gift he was given and has to pay the
price. But there are still some things, like what happened
forty years ago, that make little sense and require huge
amounts of extrapolation. Staff, horse, gift, blackface
(metaphorically), Devil, House spirit and the name Nick might
invoke Ruprecht here, but I don’t think this is very fair. </p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</p>
<p style="font-size:16px;margin:0.5em 0px
1em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:"Helvetica
Neue",Helvetica,"Nimbus Sans
L",Arial,"Liberation
Sans",sans-serif;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br>
</p>
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