Santa Claus Origins: Christian, Norse, or Celtic?

We all know Santa’s origin story:

He’s based on the historical Saint Nicholas of Myra.

Who in turn inspired the Dutch Sinterklaas. 

Who, after arriving in North America, was redubbed Santa Claus.

Who in the mid-19th century effectively merged with the British figure of Father Christmas, the latter being a personification of Christmas, not a representation of the aforementioned saint. 

Add a few splashes of Coca-Cola and voila, we have our modern Santa Claus. 

(Pssst. You can watch a video version of this essay right here. Text continues below.)

Of course, some would argue that the figure of Santa Claus actually predates Saint Nicholas and even Christmas itself, going back to the days of Yule. 

In Norse mythology, Odin, the all-father, is depicted as Father Yule: He’s a long-bearded deity who flies around on an eight-legged steed and doles out gifts to the deserving.

Oh, and one of his nicknames, Jólnir (“the Yule one”), might have given us the word “jolly” in English, by way of the French joli, but that’s still up for debate.

Regardless, there are some obvious parallels between Odin and Santa Claus, and more broadly, Yule and Christmas, that many people have pointed out before. 

But what about Odin’s Celtic counterparts?

Specifically, there’s the Dagda from Irish mythology, who also goes by the name Eochaid Ollathair (All-Father), and there’s Sucellus who was worshiped in Gaul and beyond.

Given that all of three of these gods, the Norse Odin, the Irish Dagda, and the Gaulish Sucellus, likely evolved from the same Proto-Indo-European figure, it got me wondering: 

Might we find traces of the ancient Celtic gods in our modern Santa Claus, in the same way we find traces of the Norse god Odin?

The short answer: yes.

The longer answer: I found so much more than I bargained for.

But before I get into it: This December marks the five-year anniversary of Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy. This is a short story collection I put together, gathering stories from 16 incredible authors aaand there’s also one by yours truly. And while I may be just a touch biased, this book makes a wonderful gift for the Irish and Celtic mythology lover in your life, especially the hardcover collector’s edition.

Now, on with the show.

The Celtic Fingerprints on the Story of Saint Nicholas

Let me get right down to it:

The Dagda, the father of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Irish gods, is described as wielding a great club or staff known as the Lorg Mór and he possesses a cauldron that no one ever goes away from hungry.

Sucellus, meanwhile, who is thought to be a god of agriculture, is often depicted wielding a great hammer or mallet in one hand and, in the other, an olla, which is a jar or barrel for cooking and storing food.

Then we have Saint Nicholas, who is often depicted with his bishop’s crozier standing next to…

A barrel for curing food.

Only, according to legend, or hagiography, as it were, the food in the aforementioned barrel…is a trio of pickled children, whom Saint Nicholas dutifully resurrects.

Now, if you’re thinking to yourself, wait a minute, resurrecting people in a cooking vessel? That sounds super Celtic.

Welp, it’s possible you read the Mabinogion, the earliest prose stories written in Welsh, stories that are rooted in pre-Christian Brittonic Celtic mythology.

Specifically, in the tale Branwen ferch Llŷr, the British king Brân the Blessed gifts the Pair Dadeni (Cauldron of Rebirth) to the Irish king Matholwch, who famously chucks his dead warriors into the cauldron to revive them.

Sooo what does any of this have to do with Santa Claus?

Here’s the deal: the cauldron is a symbol. The olla and the barrel are symbols. They’re all symbols of life and abundance.

Of course, Ole Saint Nick would have been none too jolly if he had to lug a cauldron or barrel around with him, so it’s possible the old symbols evolved (in the popular imagination) into a more portable symbol of abundance:

Santa’s sack. A magical bag that no one ever goes away from wanting more.

Now wait just a minute, I can hear some of you shouting: St. Nicholas lived in what is now Turkey. How the heck could there have been any Celtic influence on the story of his life?

Two things to consider:

First, let’s look at the map. There were Celts in what is now Turkey perhaps as early as the third century BCE. These were the Galatians who branched off from the Gaulish Celts, and it’s possible they brought this shared Proto-Celtic concept of a cauldron of life or abundance with them, where it was then later absorbed into the St. Nicholas mythos. 

Because here’s the second thing: St. Nicholas is said to have lived from 270 to 343 CE, but the first written accounts of his life don’t show up until five centuries later and, not surprisingly, they’re full of embellishments and conflations.

Specifically, the story of St. Nick’s signature charitable giving seems to be lifted from the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, which was written in the third century CE but concerns itself with the wonderworkings of a first-century CE Neopythagorean philosopher. 

To quote historian Jona Lendering:

“It is not unusual that a Christian saint adorns himself with stories that belonged to the pagan cults.”

Perhaps the story of a restorative barrel or cauldron is another such example of Christianity taking a page out of the pagan playbook.

Did the Dagda Inspire Santa Claus?

So far we’ve found some potentially Celtic fingerprints on the character of Santa Claus but certainly no definitive link to a Celtic god. 

Let’s see if we can change that. 

Because the closer we look at the Dagda, the Irish Allfather, the one with the bottomless cauldron that “no company ever went away from it unsatisfied,” the more parallels to Kris Kringle we find.

For starters, his appearance: He’s a giant—or at the very least, a very large man—with a beard and a hooded cloak. 

The historian Peter Berresford Ellis describes the Dagda’s garb as “rustic,” and he also explains that during the second battle of Second Battle of Mag Tuired, as described in the text, the Cath Maige Tuired, the Dagda adopts a new persona, that of Ruad Rofessa (Rofhessa), which allegedly translates to something like “lord of great knowledge,” but one can’t help but notice that Ruad is the Old Irish word for red.

Turns out this is probably a red herring, because even in the guise of Ruad Rofessa, the Dagda does not actually dress in red and, of course, in the earliest depictions of Santa Claus, he’s not in red either.

According to author Mark L. Long, it was the artist Thomas Nast who “changed the color of Santa’s coat from tan to the traditional red that we see today.”

Keep that in mind as you read this description of the Dagda, per the Cath Maige Tuired:

“His belly was as big as a house cauldron, and the [Fomorians] laughed at it…It was not easy for the warrior to move along on account of the size of his belly. His appearance was unsightly: he had a cape to the hollow of his elbows, and a gray-brown tunic around him as far as the swelling of his rump…He had on two shoes of horsehide with the hair outside.”

And it’s not just the brown outfit and big belly that give off proto-Santa vibes, it’s the Dagda’s character and personality. Yes, he’s incredibly powerful, but he’s also jovial and silly. 

The word that almost always comes up when people describe him, is jolly.

Case in point: 

The whole reason the Dagda’s belly gets so supernaturally engorged is because the Fomorians try to mock him by offering him porridge, as they know his “love of porridge was great.” 

So they bring out this massive cauldron and what’s the very first thing they pour into it?

“Four score gallons of new milk.”

Then they add meal and fat and goats and sheep and swine and boil it all up, but instead of scoffing at this concoction, the Dagda eats the whole freakin’ thing, just to have a laugh and beat them at their own game.

Shortly after that there’s this scene where the Dagda’s trying to make love but he’s too full, and his belly’s just too big, and it’s all just very playful and silly.

Also, much earlier in the text, there’s a story about the Dagda having to give up the three biggest portions of all of his meals, so he loses a bunch of weight and when his son Aengus (a.k.a. the Mac Óc) sees him, he’s like: “Hey, why do you look so awful?”

There’s this expectation around the Dagda that he should always have a big belly.

And unlike the other gods, as Ellis notes, he’s allowed to have a big belly. He doesn’t keep his pristine form, as the other members of the Tuatha Dé Danann seem to do—his weight fluctuates and he ages just like a human, his great beard inevitably turning white as winter snow.

Oh, and did I mention the Dagda has a “house in the north”? It’s called Glen Edin, Edin meaning the place of pleasure. 

Finally, as the god of druids and druidism, the Dagda is also a sort of judge. That’s what historical druids actually were, mind you, not sorcerers or fortune-tellers, but arbiters of peace and justice, as well as scientists and philosophers and royal advisors. 

Now, it’s doubtful the Dadga drew up naughty and nice lists, but he does take the druid-as-judge concept to a supernatural extreme, given that he is the wielder of the Lorg Mór—one end of which can slay nine people with a single blow, and the other end of which can restore life with a single touch. 

And this leads me to one final avenue of exploration.

The Holly King and the Oak King

The ancient Celts only observed two seasons: winter and summer. The Holly King and the Oak King are personifications of those two seasons. 

The Holly King is said to come into power on Samhain but he’s at his most powerful in midwinter. 

The Oak King, meanwhile, comes into power on Beltane, the Celtic May Day, but he’s at his most powerful in midsummer.

A quick caveat: 

We’re stepping out of the realm of mythology here, in discussing the Holly King and Oak King, because they are essentially neopagan concepts that have been applied retroactively to figures across different storytelling traditions.

For example, it’s been posited that in Arthurian Legend, the Green Knight is a representation of the Holly King and Sir Gawain is a representation of the Oak King.

Within Welsh mythology, Gronw Pebr has been interpreted as the Holly King and Lleu Llaw Gyffes the Oak King.

And within Irish mythology, Balor of the Evil Eye is sometimes seen as a (really scary) version of the Holly King and his grandson Lugh is sometimes seen as a version of the Oak King.

The common thread in these stories is that the two figures are locked in battle until one kills (or beheads) the other, signaling that summer has overtaken winter or vice versa. 

And while the claim has been made that the Holly King, a personification of winter, directly inspired the British figure of Father Christmas, who, as you’ll remember, developed independently of the St. Nicholas tradition, it is strange that all of the Holly King examples I’ve encountered are antagonists.

Because that doesn’t really jive with what we know about Father Christmas, who, in his earliest appearances, is associated with feasting and merrymaking.

One way to resolve this issue is to think of the Holly King and Oak King not as two distinct figures, but as two warring personalities stuck within the same figure.

Folklorist and anthropologist James George Frazer referred to this figure as the Divine King, a figure that had within him the essences of both summer and winter, who wielded the powers of life and death.

Sound familiar?

It’s the Dagda. Or rather, he’s one manifestation of this archetype.

A log-swinging oak of a god who also happens to be in the business of chopping down oaks.

To quote the divine king himself:

“I will be a giant oak in every ford and in every pass you will cross, and the mark of my axe will remain in every oak forever.’

Celtic Origin of Santa’s Elves? The Leprechaun Connection

This one is simple: the Irish gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann, are the elves.

Or rather, they become them.

As I explored in my previous video, the Tuatha Dé Danann are renowned for and possibly named for their superior craftsmanship. So much so that they inspired Tolkien’s Elves from the Lord of the Rings, who, like their mythical Irish counterparts, famously make and wield some serious toys.

Unlike Tolkien’s Elves, however, who sail off into the sunset, when the “age of men” catches up to Tuatha Dé Danann with the arrival of the invading Milesians, who represent the arrival of Celtic culture in Ireland, the Tuatha Dé Danann are driven underground where they shrink, both literally and figuratively. 

To quote Irish poet W. B. Yeats’ Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry:

“[T]he pagan gods of Ireland–the Tuath-De-Danān–robbed of worship and offerings, grew smaller and smaller in the popular imagination, until they turned into the fairies.”

One of those fairies of course is the leprechaun, and you’ve also got your clurichauns, both of which are known for cobbling shoes and, especially with the former, granting wishes and hiding big crocks (or cauldrons?) of treasure.

And while modern depictions of leprechauns almost always see them in some type of green garb, in earlier iterations of the diminutive fairies, red was their signature color. 

To quote scholar David Russell McAnally’s Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pookas, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and Other Marvels of the Emerald Isle:

“The Northern Leprechaun or Logheryman wore a ‘military red coat and white breeches…’

“The Lurigadawne of Tipperary wore an ‘antique slashed jacket of red, with peaks all round…’

“The Luricawne of Kerry was a ‘fat, pursy little fellow whose jolly round face rivals in redness the cut-a-way jacket he wears…’

“The Cluricawne of Monaghan wore ‘a swallow-tailed evening coat of red with green vest…’”

You wanted some Celtic elves for our Celtic Santa? Ladies and gentlemen I give you…leprechauns.

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P.S. Ever wonder why people kiss under mistletoe at Christmas?

Uncover the Celtic origins of this bizarre yuletide kissing custom.

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Want to learn about the darker side of Irish mythology? Check out…

Samhain in Your Pocket

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Irish Monsters in Your Pocket

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Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy

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More the listenin’ type?

I recommend the audiobook Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes by Philip Freeman (narrated by Gerard Doyle). Use my link to get 3 free months of Audible Premium Plus and you can listen to the full 7.5-hour audiobook for free.

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