Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men

Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men PDF Author: Phyllis Siefker
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786429585
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Much of the modern-day vision of Santa Claus is owed to the Clement Moore poem "The Night Before Christmas." His description of Saint Nicholas personified the "jolly old elf" known to millions of children throughout the world. However, far from being the offshoot of Saint Nicholas of Turkey, Santa Claus is the last of a long line of what scholars call "Wild Men" who were worshipped in ancient European fertility rites and came to America through Pennsylvania's Germans. This pagan creature is described from prehistoric times through his various forms--Robin Hood, The Fool, Harlequin, Satan and Robin Goodfellow--into today's carnival and Christmas scenes. In this thoroughly researched work, the origins of Santa Claus are found to stretch back over 50,000 years, jolting the foundation of Christian myths about the jolly old elf.

Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men

Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men PDF Author: Phyllis Siefker
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786429585
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Much of the modern-day vision of Santa Claus is owed to the Clement Moore poem "The Night Before Christmas." His description of Saint Nicholas personified the "jolly old elf" known to millions of children throughout the world. However, far from being the offshoot of Saint Nicholas of Turkey, Santa Claus is the last of a long line of what scholars call "Wild Men" who were worshipped in ancient European fertility rites and came to America through Pennsylvania's Germans. This pagan creature is described from prehistoric times through his various forms--Robin Hood, The Fool, Harlequin, Satan and Robin Goodfellow--into today's carnival and Christmas scenes. In this thoroughly researched work, the origins of Santa Claus are found to stretch back over 50,000 years, jolting the foundation of Christian myths about the jolly old elf.

Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men

Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men PDF Author: Phyllis Siefker
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786402465
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Much of the modern-day vision of Santa Claus is owed to the Clement Moore poem The Night Before Christmas. His description of Saint Nicholas personified the jolly old elf known to millions of children throughout the world. However, far from being the offshoot of Saint Nicholas of Turkey, Santa Claus is the last of a long line of what scholars call Wild Men who were worshipped in ancient European fertility rites and came to America through Pennsylvania's Germans. This pagan creature is described from prehistoric times through his various forms--Robin Hood, The Fool, Harlequin, Satan and Robin Goodfellow--into today's carnival and Christmas scenes. In this thoroughly researched work, the origins of Santa Claus are found to stretch back over 50,000 years, jolting the foundation of Christian myths about the jolly old elf.

Santa Claus

Santa Claus PDF Author: Gerry Bowler
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551996081
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
An entertaining, often surprising look at the life of the world’s most influential fictional character. He is the embodiment of charity and generosity, a creation of mythology, a tool of clever capitalists. The very idea of him is enduring and powerful. Santa Claus was born in early-nineteenth-century America, but his family tree goes back seven hundred years to Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children. Intervening generations were shaggy and strange — whip-wielding menaces to naughty boys and girls. Yet as the raucous, outdoor, alcohol-fuelled holiday gave way to a more domestic, sentimental model, a new kind of gift-bringer was called for — a loveable elf, still judgmental but far less threatening. In this engaging social and cultural history, Gerry Bowler examines the place of Santa Claus in history, literature, advertising, and art. He traces his metamorphosis from a beardless youth into a red-suited peddler. He reveals the lesser-known aspects of the gift-bringer’s life — Santa’s involvement with social and political causes of all stripes (he enlisted on the Union side in the American Civil War), his starring role in the movies and as adman for gun-makers and insurance companies. And he demolishes the myths surrounding Santa Claus and Coca-Cola. Santa Claus: A Biography will stand as the classic work on the long-lived and multifarious Mr. Claus.

When Santa was a Shaman

When Santa was a Shaman PDF Author: Tony van Renterghem
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Yes, there is a Santa Claus -- and this provocative book will tell you who he really is! Travel back in time to view Santa's pagan origins -- and his fascinating connections to the Horned Shaman, the Greek God Pan, the Norse god Wodan, and Robin Hood. Learn how we are influenced by this ancient myth everyday. Based on ten years of extensive research.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Illustrated

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Illustrated PDF Author: L Frank Baum
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a 1902 children's book, written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by Mary Cowles Clark

The Old Weird Albion

The Old Weird Albion PDF Author: Justin Hopper
Publisher: Bright Sparks
ISBN: 9781908058379
Category : National characteristics, British
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A woman stands at the edge of a cliff, looking out to sea and the horizon. Dancers welcome the sun in a circle of stones. A dowsing road turns without warning. A church bell. Footsteps. Old Weird Albion is America writer Justin Hopper's dark love song to the English South; a poetic essay interrogating the high, haunted landscape of the South Downs Way; the memories, myths and forgotten histories from Winchester to Beachy Head. When someone disappears, when someone leaps from a cliff and is all-but-erased from memory, what traces might we find in the crumbling chalk of the cliff face; in the wind that buffets the edge of this Albion? A skewed alternative to Bill Bryson, Hopper casts himself as the outsider as he wanders the English countryside in pursuit of mystical encounters. His journey sees him joining New Age eccentrics and accidental visionaries on the hunt for crop circles and druidic stones, discussing the power of nature with ecotherapists and pagans, tracing the ruins of abandoned settlements and walking the streets of eerie suburbs. Through a startling revelation of his own family history, Hopper turns part detective, part memoirist, tracking the footsteps of his grandfather's first wife, Doris; piecing together her forgotten history.

The Sacred Santa

The Sacred Santa PDF Author: Dell deChant
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725221896
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description


Entheogens and the Development of Culture

Entheogens and the Development of Culture PDF Author: John A. Rush
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583946004
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
Entheogens and the Development of Culture makes the radical proposition that mind-altering substances have played a major part not only in cultural development but also in human brain development. Researchers suggest that we have purposely enhanced receptor sites in the brain, especially those for dopamine and serotonin, through the use of plants and fungi over a long period of time. The trade-off for lowered functioning and potential drug abuse has been more creative thinking--or a leap in consciousness. Experiments in entheogen use led to the development of primitive medicine, in which certain mind-altering plants and fungi were imbibed to still fatigue, pain, or depression, while others were taken to promote hunger and libido. Our ancestors selected for our neural hardware, and our propensity for seeking altered forms of consciousness as a survival strategy may be intimately bound to our decision-making processes going back to the dawn of time. Fourteen essays by a wide range of contributors—including founding president of the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology of Religion section Michael Winkelman, PhD; Carl A. P. Ruck, PhD, Boston University professor of classics and an authority on the ecstatic rituals of the god Dionysus; and world-renowned botanist Dr. Gaston Guzma, member of the Colombian National Academy of Sciences and expert on hallucinogenic mushrooms—demonstrate that altering consciousness continues to be an important part of human experience today. Anthropologists, cultural historians, and anyone interested in the effects of mind-altering substances on the human mind and soul will find this book deeply informative and inspiring.

The Oxford Handbook of Christmas

The Oxford Handbook of Christmas PDF Author: Timothy Larsen
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks
ISBN: 0198831463
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 657

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Book Description
"The origins of Christmas lie in an Egyptian festival on 6 January, which spread to much of the Christian world as a celebration of the birth and/or baptism of Christ and known as the Epiphany or Theophany. The church at Rome did not adopt this festival but later instituted a celebration of the nativity of Christ on 25 December, which gradually supplanted its observance on 6 January in other churches, leaving this latter occasion as a commemoration of Christ's baptism alone, or of the visit of the Magi in those churches like Rome that had not observed that date previously. This essay traces that evolution and examines the merits of the two competing scholarly theories that have sought to explain the original choice of these particular dates"--

Nicholas

Nicholas PDF Author: Jeremy Seal
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1582344191
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Presents the evolution of a bishop from fourth century Turkey into the modern-day icon of Santa Claus, tracing the revered saint's cult in the Orthodox Church and his gradual acceptance in the West as a symbol of Christmas.