Horns, a lolling serpent tongue, one human foot and one cloven hoof, chains scraping the cobblestones and an empty basket for carrying children to hell. This episode tracks the biography of Krampus from the pagan Perchten of the Central and Eastern Alps, goat-like winter spirits whose wild processions the Catholic Church tried and failed to ban in remote mountain valleys, to his 16th-century rebranding as the subservient bad cop to St. Nicholas alongside regional counterparts like Knecht Ruprecht and Pere Fouettard.

We look at the mechanics of Krampusnacht on December 5, the gilded birch twigs Styrian families hung on the wall all year as a warning, the 1932 ban under Austria's Dollfuss regime, the 1950s government pamphlets titled Krampus Is an Evil Man, and the 2013 East Tyrol runs that put eight people in hospital with broken bones. Then ...