Kallikantzaroi

Also Known As: singular Kallikantzaros; also Kalikantzaroi, Skalikantzaros, Karkantzaros
Region/Culture: Southern Europe (Greek folklore, with cognate traditions across the Balkans and Anatolia)
Mythos: Greek Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Demons and Devils
Mythical Attributes: Grotesque underground goblins who spend the year trying to saw through the tree that holds up the world and surface for the twelve days of Christmas to torment the living.
Role in Mythos: Seasonal demons of the winter solstice period whose annual failure to fell the world tree keeps the earth standing, released above ground only between Christmas and Epiphany.
Relation to Humans: They invade homes through the chimney to foul food and water, spoil the milk, break furniture, and frighten families during the holy days. Households keep them at bay with fire, colanders, salt, old shoes burned for their stink, and the church’s blessing of the waters that finally drives them back underground.

Somewhere beneath the floor of the world, a crew of small black creatures has been sawing at the same tree for a year. It is an enormous tree, the one whose trunk holds up the earth, and they are almost through it. The last splinters are giving way under the blade. Then a cock crows far above, grey light breaks over a village in the Greek hills, and the diggers drop the saw and scramble upward toward the smell of roasting pork, because Christmas has come and they would rather make trouble among the living than finish the work of their whole year. Weeks later they climb back down. The tree has knitted itself whole again in their absence. They spit, pick up the saw, and begin once more.

This is the life of the kallikantzaroi, and it is a study in wasted effort. They are ugly things, small and black and covered in coarse hair, and the stories give them the pieces of animals more than the shape of men: horns curling from the skull, hooves or the feet of a donkey, hands ending in claws, a long tail behind. Many are lame, dragging one leg, and many are half-blind, their red eyes weak in any light stronger than a hearth’s glow. They stink. Not every account keeps them small. Some swell them into towering, ravenous monsters with tusks and iron teeth, closer to ogre than imp, and the disagreement is old and unresolved. What holds steady across the tellings is the grotesquerie and the animal parts, the sense of something that never quite finished becoming either beast or devil.

For most of the year they are a problem for the world tree and no one else. Their season is the twelve days, from Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December to Theophany on the sixth of January, the stretch the Greeks call the unbaptized days, when the waters have not yet been blessed and the barrier between the buried things and the living is thin. During those nights they come down the chimney like soot given legs. They urinate on the fire, befoul whatever food and water they find, sour the milk, drink or spoil the wine, snap furniture, and make off with the Christmas pork if the house has left it out. Mostly they want to frighten and defile rather than truly harm, though a family waking to find its holy-day table ruined would not have drawn a fine distinction.

Where they come from depends on who is telling it. One thread ties them to the ancient winter revels of Dionysus, the masked processions of men in grotesque animal costume ringing bells from door to door, a piece of pagan mischief that outlived its god and hardened into a demon. Another thread is grimmer and more personal. A child born during the twelve days, and especially on Christmas Eve, was thought to be in danger of becoming a kallikantzaros in adulthood, punished for the sin of a mother who dared to bear a child in the same season as the Virgin. On Zakynthos the belief ran that such a child would gain the power to turn into the creature each winter. The remedy was to bind the newborn in braids of garlic or straw, or in some places to singe the small toenails, so the taint could not take root. Those born on a Saturday were said to be able to see the goblins where others could not. The name itself resists explanation. It seems to fuse kalos, meaning good or beautiful, with a second word no one can pin down, perhaps kentauros, the centaur, perhaps kantharos, the scarab beetle, and the notion of a beautiful centaur has satisfied almost nobody.

Against them the villages kept an arsenal of small defenses, most of them turning on the creatures’ own dullness. A colander left on the doorstep would stop a kallikantzaros cold, because it could not resist counting the holes, and it could not count. One, two, and then the tongue failed, for three is a holy number and the word would not come, so it began again at one and stayed there counting until the sun rose and drove it off. Fire was the surer guard. Families kept the yule log burning through all twelve nights so nothing could climb down a live chimney, and they threw salt, old shoes, and foul-smelling things into the flames, on the theory that a demon that reeked could be routed by a worse reek still. A black cross marked on the door, a lit censer of incense, the lower jaw of the Christmas hog hung by the hearth, all did their part. The end came on its own schedule. At Epiphany the priest blessed the waters, the sun began its climb back up the sky, and the goblins had to go down again to their tree.

Their strength is only persistence and appetite, the mindless energy of things that never tire and never learn. They can slip down any open chimney, spoil anything they touch, and in the hungrier versions devour livestock or worse. But every power they have runs into the same wall, which is that they are not clever. They cannot count to three. They cannot bear fire or the growing light. The crowing cock and the returning sun send them fleeing, holy water closes the door behind them, and their one great labour is undone every year by a tree that heals faster than they can cut. A whole species has organized itself around a task it is constitutionally unable to complete, and the world stands because of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Kallikantzaroi?

The Kallikantzaroi are malevolent goblins of Greek folklore who live underground and surface only during the twelve days of Christmas, from 25 December to Epiphany on 6 January. They are described as small, black, hairy creatures with horns, hooves, claws, and tails, and they exist to torment households before being driven back underground.

Why do the Kallikantzaroi saw the world tree?

The Kallikantzaroi spend most of the year underground trying to saw through the great tree that holds up the earth, hoping to make it collapse. They never succeed, because just as they are about to cut through it, Christmas arrives and they rush to the surface to cause mischief, and by the time they return the tree has healed itself and they must start over.

How do you keep Kallikantzaroi away?

Greek tradition uses several protections against the Kallikantzaroi, most exploiting their stupidity. A colander left by the door traps one because it compulsively counts the holes but cannot say the number three, a holy number, so it counts forever. Families also keep a fire burning in the hearth through the twelve days, burn salt and old shoes to repel them with the stench, mark the door with a black cross, and burn incense.

How does someone become a Kallikantzaros?

According to Greek belief, a child born during the twelve days of Christmas, especially on Christmas Eve, risked becoming a Kallikantzaros in adulthood, seen as punishment for being conceived out of season near the birth of Christ. To prevent the transformation, the infant was bound with braids of garlic or straw, and in some regions its toenails were singed.

When do the Kallikantzaroi disappear?

The Kallikantzaroi vanish at Epiphany on 6 January, when the Greek Orthodox Church performs the Blessing of the Waters. With the holy days ended, the waters sanctified, and the sun beginning to climb higher again, the goblins are forced back underground to resume their endless sawing of the world tree.