Journey with me to snow menaced peaks
Where a winter day is shades of dark
And the pop of burning evergreen is a thin shield against frosty death
High in the Alps
Tonight shall we receive the blessing of taught skinned wintertide apples
Roasted nuts and warming gingerbread
Or will Ruprecht, with his straw-stiff bearing, will he find you wanting?  
Raised in a barn, will this true villain (though he prefers the term farmhand) find you lacking?
Do you know your prayers, little ones?
Say them now!  Eyes tight and hands folded in earnest 
to avoid his heavy laden sack of ashes
and whatever he may visit upon you
Well, it does not bear thinking about.
Come closer into town
The doors lock, old metals grate against themselves  
house by house
Flues cautiously creaking open
Do you smell the ozone iron meeting of musk as new snow shifts across matted haunch
Listen to the bells, are they church bells pealing or Krampus bells like goat bells
Hooves crunching in the packed night of white and then the sudden silence of
Muzzle twitching, red tongue licking daggered teeth, waiting to catch the unmistakable scent
of impiety, of  rebellion, of disobedience  
His burlap satchel, yearning to be filled with the willful and the wicked 
Long leather straps dragging behind, studded with all manner of sharp and heavy things
Hurry children, under the covers!
Pretend you cannot hear, pretend you are fast asleep!
Perhaps you would prefer we go to the city, where beastly creatures cannot tread
As forest enforcers have been swept away, or outlawed 
Look now, there’s jolly Black Pete, a clownish blackamoor
Then look away, because…
Oh! How about that – 
Why, it's the New World!
Come over here a moment
Leave the land of ice giants and let us go to the northern bestormed shores of Newfoundland, of Nova Scotia
The soft dance of the Aurora Borealis heralds the dark stranger, the peddler swathed in rags 
Belsnickle, the mummer, the judge and jury of your deeds
Mischievous figure of many faces who may one moment look like a miscreant and the next, a neighbor
Can you guess who it is?  Quick!
Or else serve him rum, eggnog, spiced wine!
And let him weave away
Muddled and stupefied by drink 
and blessedly forgetful 
Heed me, small ones for the night approaches soon
Stay to the side of good and right…decent at least 
Or find yourself the honored guest of a Christmas dinner, a Yuletide feast
With the exquisite taste, the succulent joys
Of naughty little girls and wayward little boys


The Dark Companions - A Christmas Warning

Swift Robbers

Elizabeth Beck 5