Join Potato Plus
Krampus Tales · free · 5:56
The Mari Lwyd Knocks Twice
The Mari Lwyd Knocks Twice is a 6-minute Krampus Tale, a fireside Christmas story told by an Alpine innkeeper and introduced by Krampus himself. Press play to hear it free, right here.
Listen
The story
Carolers in a Welsh valley village ask to be let in, pulling a hooded horse skull on a pole, and the innkeeper gives them mulled cider to keep them from the door. The wassailers sing their rhymes in turn, and one verse goes wrong.
How it begins
My inn sits at the bottom of a Welsh valley, where the snow comes down so thick that the sheep forget which way is home. On the night before Christmas, the wassailers always come up the lane, and I always let them in. That is the custom. You do not refuse a visitor on the holy night, not even one who arrives with a horse's skull on a pole. I heard them long before I saw them. First came the crunch of boots in the drifts, then the low murmur of voices, then a sound like a far-off bell, faint and sweet, that rose and fell with every step. By…
The folklore behind it
On the air now
Krampus Kristmas, free 24/7
The Krampus Tales play between the songs on Krampus Kristmas, the world's first 24/7 Krampus radio station, and all 30 are a free podcast too.