Kallikantzaroi: Naughty Nocturnal Goblins Emerge From Underground Only During Twelve Days Of Christmas

A. Sutherland  - AncientPages.com - The Kallikantzaroi are naughty and sometimes evil underground goblins who emerge during the 12 days of Christmas and then disappear into the Earth on the eve of the Epiphany.

In the folklore of Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Turkey, and Bosnia, they are responsible for many bad things that happen to people during the Christmas time between Christ's birthday and Epiphany on January 6.

These creatures do not come with Christmas gifts. Instead, they appear to trouble people because these demonic spirits are mischievous, tricky, and even dangerous. The Greeks say confusing the Twelve Days of Christmas with the Twelve Days of Hell wouldn't be hard.

No one ever is waiting for the Kallikantzaroi's coming, but they always come.

"Of all supernatural Christmas visitors, the most vividly realized and believed in at the present day are probably the Greek Kallikantzaroi or Karkantzaroi. They are the terror of the Greek peasant during the Twelve Days; in the soil of his imagination, they flourish luxuriantly, and to him [peasant], they are a very real and living nuisance," Clement A. Miles writes in his book Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan.

People believe that they usually appear when darkness falls. Therefore, they try to use Christian precautions to protect themselves by staying indoors, scratching a cross on their doors on Christmas Eve, burning incense, or leaving the fireplace lit all night to scare the goblins away.

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