Editing Companions of Saint Nicholas (section)

=== Knecht Ruprecht ===
{{main|Knecht Ruprecht}}
[[File:Samichlaus un Ruprecht.jpg|thumb|[[Knecht Ruprecht]] (on the left) and Saint Nicholas]]
In the [[folklore]] of Germany, Knecht Ruprecht, which translates as ''Farmhand Rupert'' or ''Servant Rupert'', is a companion of Saint Nicholas, and possibly the most familiar. Tradition holds that he was a man with a long beard, wearing fur or covered in pea-straw.<ref name="Thorpe">Benjamin Thorpe, [https://archive.org/details/ThorpeBNorthernMythologyComprisingThePrincipalPopularTraditionsAndSuperstitionsO_201707/page/n159 ''Northern mythology: comprising the principal popular traditions and superstitions of Scandinavia, north Germany, and the Netherlands''], vol. 3, (E. Lumley, 1852), 146.</ref> Knecht Ruprecht sometimes carried a long staff and a bag of ashes, and wore little bells on his clothes.<ref name="Thorpe"/>

According to tradition, Knecht Ruprecht asks children whether they know their prayers. If they do, they receive apples, nuts, and [[gingerbread]]. If they do not, he beats the children with his bag of ashes.<ref name="Thorpe"/> In other (presumably more modern) versions of the story, Knecht Ruprecht gives naughty children gifts such as lumps of coal, sticks, and stones, while well-behaving children receive sweets from Saint Nicholas. He also can be known to give naughty children a switch (stick) in their shoes instead of candy, fruit and nuts, in the German tradition.

''Ruprecht'' was a common name for the devil in Germany<ref name="siefker">Phyllis Siefker, ''Santa Claus, last of the wild men: the origins and evolution of Saint Nicholas, spanning 50,000 years'' (McFarland, 1997), 82.</ref> and [[Brothers Grimm|Grimm]] states that "[[Robin Goodfellow|Robin fellow]] is the same home-[[Sprite (creature)|sprite]] whom we in Germany call Knecht Ruprecht and exhibit to children at Christmas{{nbsp}}..."<ref name="siefker"/> Knecht Ruprecht first appears in written sources in the 17th century, as a figure in a [[Nuremberg]] Christmas procession.{{sfn|Siefker|1997|p=155}}

According to Alexander Tille, Knecht Ruprecht represented an archetypal manservant, "and has exactly as much individuality of social rank and as little personal individuality as the ''Junker Hanns'' and the ''Bauer Michel'', the characters representative of country nobility and peasantry respectively."<ref name="tille">Alexander Tille, ''Yule and Christmas: their place in the Germanic year'' (D. Nutt, 1899), 116.</ref> Tille also states that Knecht Ruprecht originally had no connection with Christmastime.<ref name="tille"/>

Ruprecht sometimes walks with a limp, because of a childhood injury. Often, his black clothes and dirty face are attributed to the soot he collects as he goes down chimneys. In some of the Ruprecht traditions, the children would be summoned to the door to perform tricks, such as a dance or singing a song to impress upon Santa and Ruprecht that they were indeed good children. Those who performed badly would be beaten soundly by Servant Ruprecht, and those who performed well were given a gift or some treats. Those who performed badly enough or had committed other misdeeds throughout the year were put into Ruprecht's sack and taken away, variously to Ruprecht's home in the [[Black Forest]] to be consumed later, or to be tossed into a river. In other versions the children must be asleep, and would awake to find their shoes filled with either sweets, coal, or in some cases a stick.