December 22, 2006

• Santa’s Reindeer

  
  
  
  Three days left in the Christmas countdown, and how did reindeer get involved anyway?

  
  The
  species Rangifer tarandis is native to Scandinavia, Greenland, and other northern areas of Europe, Asia, and
  North America.  They had been native to Scotland
  until their extinction in the tenth century, and they were reintroduced
  there about half a century ago.  The wild ones are tasty and
  nutritious, and the domesticated ones are working stock in addition to
  being a source of meat and milk.  Generally they pull sleds, but
  in Siberia they are also ridden.
  
  Around here, in Alaska, they are known as caribou unless they are
  domesticated, in which case they become reindeer.  That makes
  sense doesn’t it?  Deer with reins are reindeer.  

  They
  are known from archaeological evidence in northern Europe to have been domesticated since
  sometime between the bronze age and iron age, close to three thousand
  years ago.

  The earliest known print reference to Santa Claus with (possibly) a single flying reindeer is this from William B. Gilley in A Children’s Friend (1821):

  
  “Old Santeclaus with much delight
  His reindeer drives this frosty
  night
  O’er chimney tops, and tracks of snow
  To bring his yearly
  gifts to you.”

  The image of Santa with a team of
  reindeer appears to have originated with Thomas Nast in a series of
  illustrations he drew between 1863 and 1886, a few of which were copied
  as color lithographs by George P. Walker to illustrate a popular
  children’s book, Santa Claus and his Works, around 1870.

  
  
  (My source for much of the above info is B.K. Swartz, Jr.’s college course on Christmas history.)

   
  The likeliest origin for both Santa’s
  aeronautical reindeer and his residence at the North Pole is in the
  Russian myth of Grandfather Frost, “Ded Moroz”, who drives reindeer to pull his sleigh, delivers gifts, and fights off Baba Yaga, the witch who tries to steal the presents. 

  Part of the myth of Grandfather Frost is
  similar to that of the Anglo-American Jack Frost who personifies and explains
  the appearance of frost, hoarfrost, rime and ice
  in freezing weather.  Even though Jack Frost has a chilling
  effect, he is an elfin and friendly character in comparison with the
  ancient pagan Grandfather Frost, a powerful smith who forges rigid chains of
  ice to bind water to the earth in winter.  Some aspects of the
  Saint Nicholas legend have adhered to the older pagan Ded Moroz in contemporary Russia.

  That most famous reindeer of all, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, was
  the brainchild of Robert L. May.  May worked for the
  Montgomery-Ward department store chain as an advertising copy
  writer.  The company had been buying Christmas coloring books as a
  promotional give-away to children.  In 1939, Robert May was asked
  to come up with a story that could be printed in a give-away
  booklet.  It was a money-saving scheme.

  May, drawing in part on the tale of The Ugly Duckling and his own
  background (he was a often taunted as a child for being shy, small, and
  slight), settled on the idea of an underdog ostracized by the reindeer
  community because of his physical abnormality: a glowing red nose.
  Looking for an alliterative name, May considered and rejected Rollo
  (too cheerful and carefree a name for the story of a misfit) and
  Reginald (too British) before deciding on Rudolph. He then proceeded to
  write Rudolph’s story in verse, as a series of rhyming couplets,
  testing it out on his 4-year-old daughter Barbara as he went along.
  Although Barbara was thrilled with Rudolph’s story, May’s boss was
  worried that a story featuring a red nose — an image associated with
  drinking and drunkards — was unsuitable for a Christmas tale. May
  responded by taking Denver Gillen, a friend from Montgomery Ward’s art
  department, to the Lincoln Park Zoo to sketch some deer. Gillen’s
  illustrations of a red-nosed reindeer overcame the hesitancy of May’s
  bosses, and the Rudolph story was approved. Montgomery Ward distributed
  2.4 million
  copies of the Rudolph booket in 1939, and although wartime paper
  shortages curtailed printing for the next several years, a total of 6 million copies had been given by the end of 1946.

  
  The
  post-war demand for licensing the Rudolph character was tremendous, but
  since May had created the story as an employee of Montgomery Ward, they
  held the copyright and he received no royalties. Deeply in debt from
  the medical bills resulting from his wife’s terminal illness (she died
  about the time May created Rudolph), May persuaded Montgomery Ward’s
  corporate president, Sewell Avery, to turn the copyright over to him in
  January 1947. With the rights to his creation in hand, May’s financial
  security was assured. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was printed
  commercially in 1947 and shown in theaters as a nine-minute cartoon the
  following year. The Rudolph phenomenon really took off, however, when
  May’s brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and
  melody for a Rudolph song. Marks’ musical version of “Rudolph the
  Red-Nosed Reindeer” (turned down by many who didn’t want to meddle with
  the established Santa legend) was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold
  two million copies that year, and went on to become one of the
  best-selling songs of all time (second only to “White Christmas”). A TV
  special about Rudolph narrated by Burl Ives was produced in 1964 and
  remains a popular perennial holiday favorite in the USA.

  May quit his copywriting job in 1951 and spent seven years
  managing his creation before returning to Montgomery Ward, where he
  worked until

  his retirement in 1971. May died in 1976, comfortable in the life his reindeer creation had provided for him.
  
  

  (source:  snopes.com)

  I had one of those books when I was
  little, and as children do I read it over and over until I knew the
  story by rote.  Although the best-known Rudolph is the
  one from the song and the subsequent short film narrated by Burl Ives,
  May’s original Rudolph wasn’t quite the same
  story.  Originally, Santa found Rudolph by accident when he
  noticed the glow from his nose as he was delivering gifts to the home
  where Rudolph lived with his loving parents.   I recall the
  first time I heard Gene Autry sing the song.  Mama and I were in
  our kitchen listening to the radio.  I must have been five years
  old, because that was when that record was released.  I was
  outraged, and complained to my mother:  “He got the story all
  wrong!”

  

  
  On this day in 2004, I focused on the religious and spiritual aspects of  Christ’s incarnation, addressing, among other things (including Vermont Royster’s famous Christmas column), the question:

  Why?

  .
   

  • 8:20 am
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