Donated by Cambridge Literary Festival
Sarah Clegg | The Demons, Witches & Ghosts of Christmas
Sat 23 Nov 2024 | 4:00pm – 5:00pm
As winter comes and the hours of darkness overtake the light, we seek out warmth, good food, and companionship. But beneath the jollity and bright enchantment of the festive season, lurks a darker mood – one that has found expression over the centuries in a host of strange and sometimes unsettling traditions and lore.
In conversation with Anna Millward
Clegg explores the lesser-known Christmas traditions: from murderous plays enacted in the Cotswolds, encounters with the grinning horse-skull Mari Lwyd in Wales and modern pagan rituals at Stonehenge to Austrian Krampus runs, and the Nordic Lussinatt festivities (where a young woman is crowned with candles as the martyred St Lucy, who is both a beautiful, chaste Christian girl and also a rampaging witch).
At wassails, hoodenings and winter gatherings, she encounters snatching monsters and mysterious visitors, and explores how these traditions originated and how they changed through the centuries. She asks: if we can’t keep the darkness entirely at bay, might it be fun to let a little in?