Who is the kindest grandfather in the world? Who comes in a red coat and with a huge sack to us for a holiday? Who always gives gifts to obedient and not so obedient children? Who are the guys waiting for in every home and preparing poems and songs?
New Year is a joyful holiday and he cannot do without our Santa Claus. Did you know that the kindest Grandfather Frost was not that kind from the beginning? He was then magnified as the Great Old Man of the North and he was a pagan deity.
There was no kindness in him, quite the opposite, he was very cruel. The elder, like our contemporary, had a sack. But there were never any gifts in it. In this very bag he collected donations. And the victims were often small children. Therefore, it was believed that if this old man came to the house, you should immediately hide so that you would not be carried away with you in a big sack.
If a person met the Great Elder in the forest, then there was a great risk of not returning back. The old man had a custom of freezing people. This image of the lord of blizzard and cold is used in Nekrasov's poem "Frost - Red Nose".
The image of a pagan deity with a tough disposition appeared in pagan times. And in the nineteenth century, another mythical character appears and begins to live in the minds of people. Both characters are similar in appearance. Only one has a bag in order to collect small children there, and the other has a bag to get gifts from there and to please the children with them.
At one time he did not have a permanent name. Over time, the name Santa Claus stuck to him. They call him grandfather as a sign of respect for wisdom and strength, and they call him Frost, remembering that his strength can take on a different character. The lord of the cold has the power to ruin the harvest, and not to reward those who did not obey the whole year with gifts.
Grandfather Frost acquired his usual appearance in the USSR, in the thirties of the last century, and since then he comes to us on a holiday just like that.
