Christmas gift-bringer the leader of the Wild Hunt at the time of Yule. Santa Claus's reindeer has also been compared to Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse of Odin in Norse mythology. Jacob Grimm ("Deutsche Mythologie") traces the threatening or scary companions of Saint Nicholas (such as the Krampus of the Austro-Bavarian dialect region) to Christianized versions of house-spirits (kobolds, elves). After Christianization, the benign mid-winter gift-bringer was associated with the 4th-century Christian Saint Nicholas of Myra. This association took place mainly in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, including German-speaking Europe, the Low Countries, the Czech lands, Hungary and Slovenia. The basis
Eight-legged essay the form's adoption was blamed for the decline of classical poetry and prose during the Ming Dynasty. The critic Wu Qiao wrote that "people exhausted themselves on the eight-legged essay, and poetry was only composed with their spare energy." Writing at the same time, the political theorist and philosopher Huang Zongxi echoed these sentiments. Also, the essay did not allow for any personal opinion and was completely impartial. As a result, it led to the gradual narrowing of people's innovative thinking and consequently their minds, thus achieving a constraining effect on Chinese people and the nation. The eight-legged essay has