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-class coastal defense ship Odin-class coastal defense ship The "Odin" class was a pair of coastal defense ships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the late 19th century. The class comprised two ships: , named after the Norse god Odin, and , named after the Norse god of the same name. The ships were very similar to the preceding s, and are sometimes considered to be one class of ships. Like the preceding "Siegfried"-class ships, "Odin" and "Ägir" were obsolete by the time World War I had started. Regardless, they were still used in their primary role until 1915, at which point they