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
Odin and other trees exist in Norse mythology, the tree is near universally accepted as the cosmic tree , and if the tree is , then the name (Old Norse 'Ygg's steed') directly relates to this story. Odin is associated with hanging and gallows; John Lindow comments that "the hanged 'ride' the gallows". In the prose introduction to the poem , the hero Sigurd rides up to and heads south towards "the land of the Franks". On the mountain sees a great light, "as if fire were burning, which blazed up to the sky". approaches it, and there he sees a