The Pagan Roots Of Stuffing Stockings With Presents
The well-known history of Christmas stockings begins with St. Nicholas, an early Christian bishop who purportedly performed a series of miracles in modern-day Turkey. During one of these miracles, he filled the socks of three girls from a poor family with gold while they were hanging by the fireplace to dry.
Public DomainStockings hung above the fireplace in 1943.
However, there’s also a version of this Christmas tradition with pagan roots that goes back much further than St. Nicholas.
According to some European folklore, the Norse god Odin and his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, were the original inspiration for Christmas stockings. Children would supposedly fill their shoes with straw and carrots for Sleipnir, and after the horse ate his fill, Odin would replace the treats with sweets as a token of his appreciation.
Public DomainAn illustration of Odin and Sleipnir from an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript.
In some parts of Europe, children still receive small gifts in their shoes each year — a pagan Christmas tradition that persists long after Christianity firmly took root in the region.
