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 foretold events of , Odin is told to lead the into battle before being consumed by the monstrous wolf . In later folklore, Odin appears as a leader of the Wild Hunt, a ghostly procession of the dead through the winter sky. He is associated with charms and other forms of magic, particularly in Old English and Old Norse texts. Odin is a frequent subject of study in Germanic studies, and numerous theories have been put forward regarding his development. Some of these focus on Odin's particular relation to other figures; for example, the fact that 's husband appears to