The companions of Saint Nicholas are a group of closely related figures who accompany Saint Nicholas throughout the territories formerly in the Holy Roman Empire or the countries that it influenced culturally. These characters act as a foil to the benevolent Christmas gift-bringer , threatening to thrash or abduct disobedient children.
Jacob Grimm Deutsche Mythologie associated this character with the pre-Christian house spirit kobold , elf which could be benevolent or malicious, but whose mischievous side was emphasized after Christianization. The association of the Christmas gift-bringer with elves has parallels in English and Scandinavian folklore, and is ultimately and remotely connected to the Christmas elf in modern American folklore. Often the subject of winter poems and tales, the Companions travel with Saint Nicholas carrying with them a rod sometimes a stick and in modern times often a broom and a sack.
They are sometimes dressed in black rags, bearing a black face and unruly black hair. In many contemporary portrayals the companions look like dark, sinister, or rustic versions of Nicholas himself, with a similar costume but with a darker color scheme. Tradition holds that he was a man with a long beard, wearing fur or covered in pea-straw.
According to tradition, Knecht Ruprecht asks children whether they know their prayers. If they do, they receive apples, nuts, and gingerbread. If they do not, he beats the children with his bag of ashes. He also can be known to give naughty children a switch stick in their shoes instead of candy, fruit and nuts, in the German tradition. Ruprecht was a common name for the devil in Germany [ 4 ] and Grimm states that " Robin fellow is the same home- sprite whom we in Germany call Knecht Ruprecht and exhibit to children at Christmas According to Alexander Tille, Knecht Ruprecht represented an archetypal manservant, "and has exactly as much individuality of social rank and as little personal individuality as the Junker Hanns and the Bauer Michel , the characters representative of country nobility and peasantry respectively.
Ruprecht sometimes walks with a limp, because of a childhood injury. Often, his black clothes and dirty face are attributed to the soot he collects as he goes down chimneys. In some of the Ruprecht traditions, the children would be summoned to the door to perform tricks, such as a dance or singing a song to impress upon Santa and Ruprecht that they were indeed good children. Those who performed badly would be beaten soundly by Servant Ruprecht, and those who performed well were given a gift or some treats.
