It does sound familiar Heron but as far as we can tell - the Scandinavian themes come from more recent cartoon versions. The author added these fables to what was then still a Santa Claus. But yeah.. Elves and Reindeer most definately come from up there. The Grinch being 'Loki' of course hehe.
Regardless of cartoons, Father Winter/Holly King have been around for thousands of years. The santa claus legends were indeed tagged onto that, not saying that Santa WAS Odin, but that the majority of the legend was old norse pagan. Regardless, it isnt the Coca-Cola santa that brings gifts to my children, they just hear the name and we go with it.
Mep.. Ok now Im not going to go with the idea that Santa (as we now know it) is being 'Tagged ONTO' the Norse stories. The one we have see nowadays is the Bishop of Myra Saint Nickolas and the Nordic mythology and fables are tagged onto it. Not the other way around. Sure, at a certain point it becomes so mish-mashed it barely matters and if I live in northern scandinavia - maybe I still have the 'Odin' version with the Saint Nick added to it. We are talking about what has become the modern popular version seen in most of the West. Wierdly enough - now seen in the East and elsewhere too (and Coca Cola really can get credit for that too).
A part of his origin does, but the Santa Claus part that was copied from our Dutch Sinterklaas comes from the bishop of Myra.
