The AFU and Urban Legend Archive
Misc
 origin of santa




Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 15:08:30 GMT
From: Martin Gilbert <m.gilbert@ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Santa's red and white suit originates from cola commercial?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban

m.gilbert@ucl.ac.uk (Martin Gilbert) wrote:

[snip me generally, other than to note my memory failed two places -- St. Nicholas was a 4th century man (thanks for that correction Daan), and that the present *taking* Santa equivalent, the Finnish Joulupukki (Yule Buck), may well be a separate tradition.]

There appears to be some disagreement with the urbanlegends archive here:

http://tafkac.org/misc/santa_claus_origins.html

The following is quoted from the Observer, 15 December 1996, under the by-line "Dongan Lowndes", _The Observer Review_, page 1, copyright reserved.

"A late-nineteenth-century, German-born American political cartoonist, Nast indeed created the first famous images of Santa, with pipe, beard, presents, and North Pole workstation. His 'Santa look' was clearly based on a folk figure from his Mittel Europ childhood, Pelznickel, or Nicholas - St. Nick that is - in furs. Which is why Nast's Santa is not red at all. He might look the modern part in the black-and-white engravings, but the colour ones show Santa's coat to be brown and furry."

In addition, the poem referred to in the FAQ by Clement Clarke Moore (written 1822) as "Twas the night before christmas" is in fact titled "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (and I've just been to the library to double-check that one). It is this poem that moved the date forwards from the 6th to the 24th December - far later than I had it down for.

Most of the standard accompaniments also arise from this work other than: his flying, which he started in 1812 in _Knickerbocker's History_ by Washington Irving; he didn't move into the North Pole until 1869 in "a poem by George P. Webster", and Rudolph arrived in 1939 (no reference given).

The intermediate Dutch name is not recorded in the FAQ, either, so I'll bung in that it's Sinterklaas.

The killer passages are: "the red coat was missing, and that seems to have arrived about 1885, when it was first recorded on a Christmas card" and "Coca-Cola's evidence for its claim - 84 glossy pages displaying the works of Haddon Sundblom, the Chicago adman who painted Santa Clauses for Coca-Cola's Christmas campaigns from 1931 to 1964".

Considerable disparity in the claims there, which continues to strongly support an False rating for the title of this thread.

I've written to Dongan Lowndes, asking for any primary sources he/she may have, and will of course pass this information on when/if it arrives.

Martin Gilbert

{Posted and mailed to the original poster and Emily Kelly} --
http://www.phys.ucl.ac.uk/~mkg


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