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 ] over it", which imbued the head with the ability to answer Odin and "tell him many occult things". In , the great king and his wife (unnamed) are unable to conceive a child; "that lack displeased them both, and they fervently implored the gods that they might have a child. It is said that heard their prayers and told Odin what they asked", and the two gods subsequently send a Valkyrie to present an apple that falls onto his lap while he sits on a burial mound and 's wife subsequently becomes pregnant with the namesake of the family