Hans Trapp

Also Known As: Alsatian Hàns Tràpp; also Hans Trott, Hans Drot; from the historical knight Hans von Trotha, also written von Dratt, died 1503
Region/Culture: Western Europe
Mythos: French Mythology, Germanic Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Heroes and Mortals
Mythical Attributes: He is the dark Christmas visitor of northern Alsace, a man with no magic at all whose only power is the fear his name carries.
Role in Mythos: He walks beside Saint Nicholas or the Christ Child, the Christkindel, as the one who frightens the children the gift-bringer has come to reward.
Relation to Humans: He threatens badly behaved children with his rod, whip or chain and his sack, while the saint or the Christkindel protects them and hands out the gifts. Behind the costume stands a real man, a robber knight of the late fifteenth century whose cruelty in the Lauter valley was remembered long after his death.

On a December evening in northern Alsace the street goes quiet, then fills with noise. A chain cracks on the cobbles. Somebody is grunting in thick dialect. The children who were pressed to the window a moment ago are suddenly behind their mothers, because the Christkindel is coming, all white and candlelight, and walking beside her is Hans Trapp.

He is the bogeyman of the Alsatian Christmas, the figure who does the work that Knecht Ruprecht does further east and Père Fouettard does in other parts of France. Where the gift-bringer comforts, he menaces. Depending on the village he walks with Saint Nicholas on the eve of the saint’s day or with the Christkindel, the Christ Child, who in Alsace is pictured as a girl in white. He brings no presents. He brings a rod or a whip, sometimes a chain, sometimes a sack of coal, and a reputation.

Unlike most of the dark companions of Christmas, Hans Trapp can be found in the archives. He was Hans von Trotha, a knight born in the middle of the fifteenth century in the lands of the Archbishop of Magdeburg, the son of a marshal, who went west into the service of the Electors Palatine. In 1480 the Elector granted him the castle of Berwartstein, in the wooded hills of the Wasgau just north of the present French border, near Wissembourg. He turned it into a fortress in four years and built an outwork on the hill opposite so that anyone besieging the place would be caught in crossfire. Family tradition remembered him as a man of about two metres.

The trouble was that Berwartstein had once belonged to the abbey of Wissembourg, and the abbot, Heinrich von Homburg, did not accept that the Elector had any right to give it away. Trotha settled the argument his own way. He dammed the river Wieslauter, the Lauter, above the town, until a lake spread over the valley floor. Then, without warning, he let it go. The flood came down the valley and through the town, and the damage was heavy. The stillness of the held water, and then the roar of it: that is the act the people of the valley never forgot.

The abbey went to law, first to the Emperor and then to Rome. Trotha was put under the imperial ban by King Maximilian in 1496. Summoned to the papal court of Alexander VI, the Borgia pope, he refused to go and sent a letter instead, professing his faith in terms that took a sly swipe at the pope’s own morals. He was excommunicated. He seems not to have cared. He died in his own bed in 1503, the sentences were lifted a couple of years later, and he was buried with church honours in the chapel of Niederschlettenbach, a few kilometres from his castle. The history of the dispute with the abbey was set down in the nineteenth century from the documents, and it has been studied again by the historian Kurt Andermann, who called him a knight in the twilight.

The legend did what legends do with such men. In the Palatinate he became a black knight who finds no rest and haunts the Wieslauter. His name slid in local speech from Trotha to Trott, Drot and Trapp. And somewhere along the way, across the border in Alsace, Hans Trapp was folded into Christmas. By the end of the century an Alsatian writer, Jules Hoches, could describe him as a kind of Lucifer, a bogeyman out of scripture who spoke nothing but Alsatian dialect. Strasbourg’s own Christmas tradition today still calls him by the knight’s name and dates him to Berwartstein.

A whole costume grew around him. In the older Alsatian descriptions he has a white beard, a long pointed cap and a rod, which makes him look less like a knight than like a darker double of Saint Nicholas himself. Children teased him with a rhyme about his tasselled cap, calling him down from wherever he was hiding. Later he became a wild man, dirty and unkempt, who comes into town loudly and goes about grunting, with a whip, a chain or even a rifle and his sack of coal. At Wissembourg, the very town his flood ruined, a parade on the fourth Sunday of Advent brings him back on horseback, ragged among other riders, with drums pounding behind him. The town that suffered most from the man now books him for Christmas every year. Revenge, in the end, took the form of a parade.

Recent popular retellings push him further, into a devil-worshipper who bought his wealth from demons. None of that is in the record of the man. The real Hans von Trotha needed no pact to be frightening. He had a dam and a grudge.

What Hans Trapp can do is limited, and that is the point of him. He has no supernatural power. He cannot fly, vanish or see into houses. Everything he has is borrowed from a reputation five hundred years old and from the dark of a December evening: the rattle, the dirt, the voice, the sense that this is a man who once drowned a town to win an argument. His limits are plain too. He never comes alone. He walks a step behind the Christkindel or the saint, and they are the ones who decide. A child who has behaved has nothing to fear from him, and the light he walks beside is always stronger than he is.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Hans Trapp?

Hans Trapp is the frightening companion of the Christmas gift-bringers in northern Alsace, in eastern France. He walks with Saint Nicholas or the Christkindel and threatens badly behaved children with a rod, whip or chain. He has the same role as Père Fouettard or Knecht Ruprecht elsewhere.

Was Hans Trapp a real person?

Yes. Hans Trapp is based on Hans von Trotha, a knight and marshal of the Electors Palatine who held Berwartstein castle near Wissembourg and died in 1503. His name changed in local speech to Hans Trott, Hans Drot and Hans Trapp, and folklore turned him into a figure used to frighten children.

What did Hans von Trotha do?

Hans von Trotha quarrelled with the abbey of Wissembourg over the ownership of Berwartstein castle. He dammed the river Wieslauter and then broke the dam without warning, flooding Wissembourg and causing heavy damage. He was put under the imperial ban in 1496 and excommunicated after refusing a summons from Pope Alexander VI.

What does Hans Trapp look like?

Older Alsatian descriptions give Hans Trapp a white beard, a long pointed cap and a rod. In later versions he is a dirty, unkempt wild man who grunts and comes into town cracking a whip or rattling a chain, often carrying a sack of coal. At the Wissembourg Advent parade he rides on horseback.

Is Hans Trapp the same as Krampus?

No. Hans Trapp and Krampus fill a similar role as the frightening companion of the Christmas gift-bringer, but they are different figures from different regions. Krampus is a horned, demon-like being of the Alpine countries, while Hans Trapp is an Alsatian figure based on a real fifteenth-century knight and has no supernatural powers.