In the wake of popular American interest in European Krampus traditions, few Pennsylvanians are aware that the commonwealth is the New World point of origin of an equally legendary and fearsome figure known to the Pennsylvania Dutch as the Belsnickel.
Although interpretations of the Belsnickel have varied considerably throughout Pennsylvania, many Berks County families remember a time when the tap-tap-tapping of the Belsnickel’s birch switches against the window was a foreshadowing to the children of what was to come. Clad in furs, smeared in soot, and waving a bundle of birch switches, the Belsnickel served as both bearer of gifts and the agent of punishment in the Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas tradition. The Belsnickel typically was masked and dressed in patched and tattered clothes, sometimes carrying a whip or crowned with horns.
