POTTSVILLE — Unlike Santa Claus, the Belsnickel doesn’t make a list and check it twice to see which kids were naughty or nice.
Nor does he give kids a warning that they should not cry or pout, as Santa does in the lyrics of the Christmas classic “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
No, the Belsnickel just shows up unannounced at kids’ houses anytime in the weeks before Christmas.
And his method is much more direct than jolly old Santa’s — the Belsnickel rewards good kids with goodies from his bag, but the bad kids get a tap of a switch to remind them to be good next year.
Such is the legend of the Belsnickel, a fearsome figure that lives on in Pennsylvania Dutch lore.
Imported from the Palatinate region of Germany in the 18th Century, the Christmastime custom is no longer widely practiced.
Keith Brintzenhoff, a Pennsylvania Dutch folklorist, keeps the legend alive in appearances like the one he recently made at the Schuylkill County Historical Society.
With a face covered in soot, wearing a fur hat, a shabby mink stole thrown over his shoulders and a coat so long it nearly touched the floor, the crotchety Belsnickel cut a figure that would make Scrooge look like a nice guy.
The furry attire, Brintzenhoff explained, was in keeping with the literal translation of Belsnickel, which is a “furry St. Nicholas.”
The Belsnickel was around for generations before illustrator Thomas Nast popularized the current image of Santa Claus as a kindly rotund old man in a white beard in the December 1862 issue of Harper’s Weekly.
Brintzenhoff, a well-known Berks County folklorist, musician and storyteller, bantered in Pennsylvania Dutch with some of the 50 or so people at the historical society.
“Ach du lieber,” or “Oh, My Goodness,” he’d reply, suggesting a surprising detail of the conversation. Everybody laughed.
When he waved a four-pronged switch at a “naughty” person, a woman in the audience called out “You’ll poke their eye out.”
It’s hard to escape the similarity of the comment to the warning Ralphie gets in “A Christmas Story” when he asks for a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.
Invariably, even the naughty ones in attendance got a gift from the Belsnickel’s sack for being good sports.
The really good people got an orange — kids would find an orange in their Christmas stockings into the 1950s. Others received peppermint candy, walnuts or pecans and candy root beer barrels.
The Belsnickel read the “Pennsylvania Dutch Night Before Christmas,” a parody of Clement C. Moore’s classic, where cows pull a “sleigh plow” and kids “schnuggle” in their beds awaiting Santa’s arrival.
Keith Brintzenhoff has lectured on the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect and culture at Kutztown University. With the Toad Creek Ramblers, he recorded hoedown music and performed at the Kempton Community Center. He was a fixture for decades at the former Kutztown Folk Festival.
The German-Pennsylvania Association presented Brintzenhoff with a lifetime achievement award for his work in the field of Pennsylvania German culture and language in 2017. His efforts were recognized by the association’s president, Frank Kessler of Belgium, and its vice president, Michael Werner of Germany.