Hey kids, hope you had yourself a merry little whatever.

I know I did.

What do you like best about the holiday experience?

My personal favorite part is where we systemically brainwash children into thinking there's supernatural beings,

who judge their every move and then invade their house at night.

Now everyone knows Santa.

Good old Saint Nick.

Or Father Christmas.

Or Kristopher Kringle.

Or Alphaeus prime.

Slayer of elk. And bringer of Xboxes.

Well today I want to show you guys some more obscure Yuletide beings from different cultures all across the globe.

I must say Europe. Now this first creature's name comes from the Welsh.

As a matter of moral principle, I personally don't formally recognize the Welsh language.

Maybe someday they'll figure out how Ws and Ys work, then it'll be a different story.

But for the time being, you'll have to excuse me for not condoning bullshit like this.

So the thing allegedly called Mari Lwyd isn't a true mythical creature per se,

but more so a tradition carried out for at least the past few centuries in South Wales.

No I mean Old South Wales.

This is how it works.

Every holiday season the village rapscallion will take a horse's skull and fix it to the end of a pole.

Kind of like one of these things, except, you know, awful.

The skull is typically decorated in some way,

and sometimes they put in a lever so you can make the mouth move on its own.

Then a white sheet is draped over the pole and its holder,

thus giving the illusion that famine himself has come to destroy all your figgy pudding.

From here one would think that the nightly festivities would include welshing your trousers and repenting for a lifetime of naughtiness.

But no, it gets better.

You know that whole mouth moving thing?

Turns out that's not just for taking wild snaps at the faces of innocent children.

The Mari Lwydand it's party of caretakers will go around to random houses and sing a song about wanting to be let inside.

The inhabitants are then expected to sing back with excuses as to why they don't want this abomination in their home.

All in rhyme, of course.

This goes back and forth until either the Mari Lwyd gives up, or the parties invite it,

at which point they get to raid your pantry and drink all your beer.

If you ever find yourself rap-battling a horse skull in South Wales, don't panic it's normal I guess.

Next we have Frau Perchta,

a witch-like being said to visit during the holidays in the Alpine regions of Germany and Austria.

Depictions of Perchta can range anywhere between a beautiful woman and whatever the hell this is.

But usually they fall somewhere in between.

She's also sometimes shown with this big weird floppy goose foot.

That's because she's apparently real into spinning, not the two foot kind,, though, the one foot kind.

It's said that this delightful spinster pays a visit to all the little Wiener Schnitzels on the twelfth night of Christmas.

If you were well-behaved and hard-working this year,

she might leave you a small silver coin in your shoe. How kind.

But if you've been an inattentive young lady and didn't spin all your flax that year,

Perchta will trample all your half-woven fibers as punishment, and you'll say: Weird flax but okay.

(F* cut that out, Jesus.)

Then there's the stuff Perchta considers especially naughty,

which can vary depending on who you ask.

If you left your house a mess, or you didn't leave out the traditional bowl of porridge,

or maybe you didn't eat your ceremonial fish and gruel on feast day,

that's when you've been a real goober.

As recompense, she'll rip out your f* intestines through your abdominal wall and then stuff your empty body cavity with pebbles and straw until you're just as plump as when she started.

So you know you win some, you lose some.

Nobody knows what she does with your freshly harvested innards after she leaves.

But being that she lives in the mountains and has an obsession with thread making,

I think we can all infer the obvious truth.

Of course, no discussion of folklore of any kind can truly be complete without taking a look at Iceland.

Between the centuries of isolation and the volcanic fumes constantly spilling out over the countryside,

it's no wonder that they're one of the world's biggest exporters of whack-ass mythology.

Seriously, according to one 1998 survey, over 54% of Icelandic citizens said they believed in elves.

Let me repeat that just so we're all clear.

In 1998,

the majority of the population of Iceland said they believed in elves.

And a very large portion probably still does today.

As such, the cast of characters said to visit during the holiday season over there is naturally quite diverse.

The main lineup consists of the family pictured here.

This is the leader of the bunch: a troll-goblin-ogreish type lady named Gryla.

Gryla just f* eats kids.

That's it.

She's said to prefer the naughty ones, but as long as it's small and made out of kid, she's game.

Then you got her husband Leppaludi, who lives with her in her cave,

generally considered to be equally ogrish.

When the holidays roll around, if there's no soot in your fireplace, he'll reward you with a pickled herring.

But if it's dirty, he'll scoop up the ash and dump it in your bed. Ooh.

Now I just messed him with you; none of that's true.

He also just eats children.

The couple also has a giant cat called this.

The cat's main concern is whether or not a person received new clothes for Christmas.

Pretty hypocritical, considering it walks around naked all the time, but whatever.

Anyway, if you got new clothes, then good for you, you got new clothes.

On the other hand, if you didn't get any, well uh, can can again can you guess what he does? Hmm?

You want to go take a wild stab?

Uh yeah, that's uh, that's exactly right. He f* eats you.

Children, adults, doesn't matter

He won't even avoid your dog; he doesn't care.

Finally you got the best of the bunch: the 13 Yule Lads,

each of which visits on a different day leading up to Christmas.

They're kind of like the Seven Dwarfs.

But whereas those guys are jolly and helpful and stupid shit like that,

the only real goal of the Yule Lads is to harass and inconvenience people as much as possible.

And each one has a unique way that they go about doing that.

I'm gonna go through all 13.

Now please remember I am making none of this up.

I'm not even gonna try to say the Icelandic name, so I'll just give you guys the English translations, which are very apt by the way.

First you got Sheep-Cote Clod, who goes around harassing sheep.

But he's easy to catch on account of his peg legs.

Then there's Gully Gawk, who hides in gullies to steal milk from your cows.

There's Stubby; he's real short, he eats the leftover crust out of pie pans.

This one's called Spoon-Licker. He licks spoons.

He's also incredibly thin on account of malnutrition for some reason.

There's Pot-Scraper. He scrapes pots.

And Bowl-licker, who's like Spoon-Licker,

the key difference here being that he licks bowls.

You got Door-Slammer, who slams doors in the middle of the night.

And then Skyr-Gobbler, who gobbles up all your skier,

which is like a Nordic yogurt type thing.

Whoa, who's that up in the rafters?

It's Sausage-Swiper, of course.

Here to swipe your sausages.

And who's that in the windows?

You bet your ass it's Window-Peeper.

Look at him peep.

And who could forget our favorite?

Doorway-Sniffer, who sniffs your doorway with his giant freakish nose to seek out bread.

There's Meathook; he steals your meat with a hook.

And finally, candle stealer, who f*...you get the picture.

So if you know some kids who just won't behave,

maybe it's time to take a page out of Iceland's book come next holiday season.

Now remember your friend dressed up as Gryla doesn't have to actually eat the kids.

Just bite him a couple times; that'll be enough.

Anyway, that's all for today.

Till next time.

I'm Sam O' Nella, and thank you for watching.