Welcome Back Witches! With 17 days till Christmas it's hard not to have a Christmas/Yule inspired Episode, and in the same breathe, with the hustle and bustle of the modern world its sometimes easy to forget that the Christmas traditions, stories and festivities we know and love have ancient roots too. In today's episode we are going to be looking at the the history and evolution of our beloved Santa Claus.  As we have seen so many times before on this podcast Pegans, Nordics and Witches world wide are usually at the heart of many of these stories and traditions. Well, the legends of Santa are no different. So come with us as we take you on a magical Christmas Journey to learn all about the Chirstmas Witches who started it all. Episode Sources: https://medium.com/sweetwitch/its-got-goblins-demons-witches-it-s-the-strange-history-of-christmas-dc7ac7f73783 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana https://www.artandobject.com/slideshows/santa-claus-through-history-tracing-evolution-beloved-icon https://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus https://www.britannica.com/topic/Santa-Claus https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/santa-claus https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/witchy-christmas-1.6695542 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Christmas_folklore https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-icelands-christmas-witch-much-cooler-and-scarier-krampus-180967605/ https://witchlike.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/lucia-and-lussi-celebrating-the-darkness-and-the-light/ https://www.britannica.com/topic/St-Lucias-Day https://boroughsofthedead.com/frau-perchta/ https://boroughsofthedead.com/