• Riding in/on a sleigh, pulled by reindeer...
• Which is flying through the air.
• When Santa arrives at his destination he is often seen delivering children's presents down the chimney.

Although this image of Father Christmas himself became almost universal following an advertising campaign by the Coca Cola Company in the 1930's, it was fairly ubiquitous much earlier - by the late 19th Century. Furthermore, with an expansion of global exploration in Victorian times, the story of flying reindeer spread south to central Europe during the 19th century as travellers returned home; having visited the Sami of Lapland, who are one of the oldest indigenous cultures in the world.

The question arises, is there some underlying connection which pulls all these characteristics together into a coherent synthesis? Well, perhaps there is...

Flying reindeer

Although the link between reindeer and Father Christmas was popularised in 1949 with the Gene Autry/Johnny Marks' hit song, 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', the association of reindeer with Christmas itself was already well-established. For example, English texts from the Renaissance mention reindeer antlers being displayed during Christmas festivities. This was centuries before the development of the legend of Father Christmas.

The first reference in print connecting Santa Claus and reindeer appears to be the 1823 poem 'A Visit from St. Nicholas' by Major Henry Livingston Jr (the famous "Twas the Night Before Christmas" poem).

Reindeer are a kind of deer found in the cold regions of Europe and North America (where they are called 'caribou'). They feed on grass and lichens, but also have a taste for the fly agaric toadstool, Amanita muscaria, because of its intoxicating and euphoric effects.

Because of the liking of deer for fly agaric, the Sami have a custom of deliberately feeding them to their deer, and then collecting and drinking the urine because most of the more poisonous components of the toadstool are metabolised (filtered out) by the reindeer's digestive system, whilst the hallucinogenic and psychotropic agents pass through unchanged. The hallucinatory effects of drinking reindeer urine give a 'high' similar to taking LSD, and one of the results was that the Sami thought that they and their reindeer were flying through space, looking down on the world. Such is the liking of the reindeer for the toadstool hallucinogens, that they, in turn, have been known to eat the snow on which intoxicated humans have urinated, thus creating a reciprocating cycle.

When the first missionaries reached Lapland, they heard mythological stories of reindeer flight, which later became integrated into the existing Christmas folklore of western cultures, concerning Saint Nicholas.

Red and white clothing

The word 'toadstool' is used for mushrooms which contain poisonous substances and Amanita muscaria, instantly recognisable for its brilliant scarlet cap with white warts, has long been used in the rituals of certain Asian societies. This is due to the fact that the toadstool contains psychotropic and hallucinogenic compounds, ingestion of which leads to 'expanded perception', macropsia (perceiving objects as enlarged)¹, rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, and the belief that one could talk directly with one's God. Amanita muscaria is found in pine and birch woods of western North America, northern Europe, and Asia.

It is no accident that the fly agaric toadstool often appears in books of fairy tales. It is because they contain potent hallucinogenic compounds, and so there has been an awareness of this in our folklore for a very long time.

The hallucinogenic components of fly agaric include the amino acid ibotenic acid, and muscimol. According to the former International Mycological Institute at Egham, Surrey, England². Ibotenic acid³ is present only in fresh mushrooms. When they are dried, it is degraded (decarboxylated) into muscimol, which has ten times the potency⁴.

Included among the peoples who use Amanita muscaria for recreational or ritualistic purposes are the shamans (village holy men) of Siberia who use a dried preparation called 'mukhomor' to speak to their gods. These peoples, the Kamchadales and the Koryaks, eat between 1 and 3 dried mushrooms; and believe that smaller mushrooms and those with a large quantity of small warts are more active than pale red ones and ones with fewer spots. The Koryak women chew the sun-dried agaric and roll the product into small sausages which are swallowed by the men. The Siberians subsequently discovered that the active principle was excreted in the urine and could be passed through the body once more, the recycled product having less of the undesirable poisonous effects.

The Koryaks also eat the flesh of slaughtered reindeer which have recently eaten fly agaric, but whose psychotropic condition has subsided.

During a mushroom-induced trance, the shaman would start to twitch and sweat before falling into a deep coma-like sleep. On awaking, the shamans found that their muscular systems had been so stimulated that they were able to perform spectacular physical feats with seemingly little effort; such as making a gigantic leap to clear a small obstacle. The effect on animals was the same, and a 'bemushroomed'⁵ reindeer traditionally guarded each shaman.
During his coma, the shaman's soul was thought to leave his body as an animal and fly to the 'other world' where it would communicate with the spirits; whom the shaman hoped would be able to help him deal with major problems such as outbreaks of sickness in the village, by imparting medical knowledge from the gods.

The poorer classes, who could not afford the time to gather the toadstools, would drink the urine of the better-off, which had been collected in bowls or skin bags. Apparently, there is evidence of the drug passing through five or six people and still being effective, and some scholars maintain that this is the true origin of the expression 'to get pissed' - nothing to do with alcohol intoxication at all as this urine-drinking activity preceded alcohol consumption by thousands of years.

The fly agaric may have been one of the earliest entheogens⁶, that is hallucinogenic substances used for religious or shamanic purposes. Such uses date back perhaps 10,000 years.⁷ The oldest archaeological evidence of mushroom use by Man discovered so far is probably an image in a cave in Tassili, Algeria, which dates back to 3500BC. The mushrooms are depicted with electrified auras outlining dancing shamans.

Climbing down the chimney bearing gifts

Now, the winter dwelling of the Siberian shaman⁸, called a yurt, is rather like a teepee made from reindeer hide, with a roof supported by a birch pole, and a smokehole. At the midwinter festivals of Annual Renewal the shaman would gather the fly agaric from under the sacred trees where they appeared. He would then enter the yurt through the smokehole carrying a sack full of dried fly agaric, descend the pole, perform his ceremonies, and 'share out the toadstool's gifts' with those within. Following this, he would leave by way of the smokehole again. Doubtless, the revellers, intoxicated by muscarinic reindeer or human urine, believed that the shaman and his reindeer had the power of flight.

Interestingly, whilst harvesting the toadstools, the shamans would wear a special attire, consisting of red and white fur-trimmed coats and long black boots, i.e. very much like the modern day depiction of Santa Claus.

It is interesting to note that, in central Europe, the fly agaric has been adopted as the symbol of chimney sweeps.

Furthermore, the fly agaric has been a popular image on Christmas cards in central Europe for a long time. In Kocevye, in southern Yugoslavia, it is believed that the Germanic god, Wotan (the king of the gods, synonymous with the Norse god, Odin) rides through the woods on Christmas night, pursued by devils. Red and white flecks of blood and foam spray from the horse's mouth to the ground where they emerge the following year as fly agaric toadstools.

St Nicholas

Saint Nicholas is a legendary figure who supposedly lived during the fourth Century. He is best known as the patron saint of children, to whom he brings presents on the eve of his feast day, 6th December.

Most religious historians now agree that St Nicholas did not actually exist as a real person, but was instead a Christianized amalgam of the historical bishops, Nicholas of Myrna (4th Century) and Nicholas of Sion (d.564) together with a number of pagan gods including the Teutonic god, Hold Nickar, synonymous with the Greek god, Poseidon. This powerful sea god was known to gallop through the sky during the winter solstice, granting favours to his worshippers below.

St Nicholas is associated with a number of miracles, but it is the following one that integrates him into the legend of Santa Claus:

There was a nobleman who had three daughters, and who had fallen on hard times. As the nobleman could not afford their dowries his daughters had little prospect of marriage; and so they faced a life of prostitution. St. Nicholas heard of this and, one night, threw a sack of gold through a window of the nobleman's castle. The sack contained enough gold to provide for one daughter's marriage. The next night he tossed another sack of gold through the window for the second daughter. But on the third night the window was closed, so St. Nicholas dropped the third sack of gold down the chimney. On hearing of this, townsfolk began hanging stockings by the fireplace at night to collect any gold that might come their way.

So also was born the tradition of the Christmas stocking and Santa arriving down the chimney.

The early Christians soon incorporated these traditions and folklore into their into their own ‘Holy Day’. Many images of Saint Nicholas from these early times show him wearing the red and white robes of bishops of the Roman Catholic church; or standing in front of a red background with white spots, the design of the amanita mushroom.

It would appear that around 1300AD St Nichola was fused with the pagan God Wotan (Odin). Wotan rode an eight legged white horse, Sleipnir, through the night skies, his long white beard blowing in the wind. Prior to this time, Saint Nicholas was depicted as having a dark beard.

In 1823 Major Henry Livingston published his 'Twas the night before Christmas...' poem in which the connection between Santa Claus and reindeer appeared for the first time. Here, a white-bearded Santa Claus was carried in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer. Moore's ideas of popular views of Christmas was based mainly on his knowledge of diverse customs involving St Nicholas, brought to the area by Dutch, German and Scandinavian immigrants. Hence the eight reindeer are an echo of the eight-legged horse, Sleipner, ridden by Wotan.

So, in summary, it seems quite possible that the traditional image of Father Christmas, described in Livingston's famous poem ''Twas the night before Christmas...' and universalised by the Coca Cola Company during the 1930's, has its real origins in shamanistic rituals involving the red and white fly agaric toadstool. Eating these creates hallucinations, including the illusion of flying. The Koryak shaman (a reindeer herdsman) enters a dwelling through the chimney carrying a sackful of 'goodies'. The equally intoxicated inhabitants also have the illusion of the shaman and his reindeer as having the power of flight.
Over time, stories of these customs have become fused with other pagan traditions. As is the wont of Christianity, these pagan customs have pragmatically been hijacked and integrated into our Christmas traditions.