Belsnickel, the Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas visitor

Fur Nicholas

The name comes from Pelznickel: Pelz is German for fur and Nickel is a form of Nicholas, so “fur Nicholas”. A New York State Parks curator describes him as “both gift bringer and child punisher in the Palatine region of southwestern Germany”: a crotchety old man in dirty clothes and furs, with a sack of presents and a switch. Unlike Krampus, who works for St. Nicholas, Belsnickel runs the whole operation himself.

Belsnickel in Pennsylvania

He came some time between St. Nicholas Day and Christmas Eve. In Pennsylvania he tossed candies on the floor in return for a song or a right answer, and a child who grabbed too soon might get a tap of the switch. On Christmas Eve 1842 a Pennsylvania diarist, James L. Morris, wrote that “a few bellsnickles or kriskinckles were prowling about this evening frightening the women and children with their uncouth appearance”, in patched cast-off clothes, false faces and shaggy wigs of tow. In 19th-century Philadelphia a masked Belsnickel with birch sticks and a backpack threatened the naughty and sometimes threw the good a handful of nuts or an apple.

Where he still turns up

Palatine families also settled New York's Hudson and Mohawk valleys, but Belsnickel lived on mainly among the Pennsylvania Dutch. Related customs survive in “belsnickling”, going house to house in disguise, in parts of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Philadelphia's Parade of Spirits keeps him marching every December (see our Krampus events guide).