Like the fairy tales told to children today, many originated from European folk law. The Grimm brothers’ tales were so very dark in design by comparison to Disney’s adaptations.  And so it leads me to tell you the tale of the man many of us grew up with and very quickly associated with gifts and good times.  However, the Santa Claus we all know and love was once a very different character all together.

In 1465, in a town located in western Transylvania there live a man who had avoided the attention of the outside world, in particular the Hungarian forces that thinly policed the country for the previous 30 years.  He was a small thin man with drawn and pointed features that extended to his claw like hands. His love for money was only superseded by his unhealthy interest in young women. Locally he was called Scrawny Claws, but behind his back of course!

And so it came to pass that this strange creature would over the years become a much loved rotund jolly man in a red suit that we know and associate with Christmas.

How did this transition take place you may wonder from monster to merciful?  Well, it all began after a particularly poor harvest left a large part of the country without food and seed to plant to following year.  At a meeting in a town hall full of desperate farmers looking of help, stepped up the strange looking man in a red cloak.  He offered all the men financial assistance on a case by case basis. He singled out those with daughters and gave them preferential rates privately.  The repayment terms seemed generous to the farmers, who although pretty sharp of mind, were not so astute in financial calculations.  The kind money lender required repayment after the next harvest which gave the farmers and their families almost a year to pay the money back after selling their grain at market. However, the man in the red suit watched weather cycles as much as he did the pennies. Next year’s harvest by his calculations would fail, and fail the year after too.

And so it came to pass that the following year the crops died in the fields with only enough surviving to feed the village, but nothing for market.

The first knock on the door came on December 1st.  The farmer opened the door to find the man in the red coat with a large ledger under his arm.  His was invited in, the conversation was brief, and he left. This pattern was duplicated throughout the entire month until the 24th December whereupon he disappeared back into the mountains leaving very worried farmers behind.

The deal was simple, the money you borrowed had to be paid the following year with 1% added for interest. Such a great deal for all. However, if the money could not be repaid then you had to borrow more to cover your original debt. This was charged a 1% per day. The farmers would not have agreed to such terms, however, they also needed money to buy grain for planting and food for the coming year. That was offered at 1% for the entire loan. They just didn’t see that the entire interest on the original loan would be over 300%.  Life was going to become very difficult.

As predicted, the harvest failed and the man in the red coat appeared as before.  Knock on doors, brief discussion, but this time a reduction in interest payments for sexual access to the farmers’ daughters. There was no option, some farmers owed more money than they could earn in lifetime.  The shame was so great that no farmer would dare share their agreement with the next.  The deal was done.

The following year the harvest was good, but no matter how much grain was grown and sold, the debts were far to large and repayment was still required. Coin was exchanged for the third loan, however the original was yet to be called in until December.

As the snow lay about the village creating a muffled silence, the first family to be visited in December could hear sleigh bells approaching.  Their daughter was an obedient child and did as she was asked. She had bathed in lavender water in front of the fire and was wrapped in a fur skin to remain warm as agreed.  When the bells were heard she was to take off the fur, spread it on the floor and and lay with legs open for the man in the red coat. The family were to wait in another room until it was over.

From the sleigh dismounted the despicable creature.  From his pocket he took a small bag and tipped a pile of silver magic dust into his hand. Bending down to the keyhole he blew the dust into the room, waited a moment and entered.  There before him was a beautiful sight surrounded by fur.  He slipped off his coat of red to reveal a thin and scrawny body. He rubbed his hands before placing them around his huge cock. It was the size of a market sausage, thick and swollen in its skin. The end was the size of a child’s fist and it leaked a clear liquid which dripped to the floor.  The young girl looked up at the sight before her and she held her breath.

She stared at the man before her and could not think of ever seeing a man so beautiful.  He was tall, with a thick black hair and a matching beard.  His broad chest was framed by large biceps and thick forearms. A line of hair traveled from his chest, across his stomach and finally merged with his thick black pubic hair. Her eyes widened when she focused on his large cock and she felt a feeling in the pit of her stomach she had never felt before. He was, amazing.  He walked over to her, knelt and pulled her close. He smelt so good and his skin was so warm it radiated heat.  She felt the head of his cock nudge against her now wet folds of skin between her legs.  She looked into his dark eyes and felt the large cock ease its way in slowly. Her own juices were forced out by the size of the beast she now found her self impaled on.  As he withdrew she took a breath before forcing herself back on to him and at the same letting out a passionate scream.

The door closing woke her at the same time the hidden family burst in. She was covered in the fur and ached between her legs.  As her mother wrapped her arms around her to give comfort she noticed the girl was smiling. Immediately she recognised the girl was in no distress at all, in fact she looked ecstatic! Her father stood looking down at his daughter trying to understand the situation and from the corner of his eye he noticed a sprig of fir tree by the fire with small brightly painted box underneath.  Cautiously his lifted the lid of the box and inside was small scroll of paper with the words, ‘Debt paid in full‘ written in green ink.  The farmer could have cried but instead fell to the floor and embraced his young daughter seeking forgiveness.

For the whole of December, the farmers were visited. Sometimes one family, others up the three per night. Each time the daughter was seduced and the farmer’s debt written off.  It was only a matter of time before the young girls started to talk of the handsome man that visited them during the nights in December and left the families free of debt with a small painted box under a sprig of fir.  It was not until the snows had melted that a shop keeper asked if anyone had seen the money lender? To which everyone, to their relief, said they had not, and for that matter was never seen again.

The following year, in a village 100 miles to the east of his first appearance, arrived an odd looking man in a red coat. That year the weather was so harsh that the animals moved into far valleys for protection and the villagers had no meat or skins to trade. He offered them a way out.

Over the tens of years that followed, young women would talk in the fields and markets of their secret experiences, each with their own embellishment fueling the story of the handsome man that came to them in the night and left with their families better off after his visit.  How the scrawny man in the red coat transformed from a master of seduction and then into the jolly large man with a big white beard we will never know, or in fact if the tale I have told was ever true at all.. Ho Ho Ho!