The Winter Hag

There are countless weird Yule, Solstice and Christmas stories, but this one is without a doubt not only the most unpleasant one, but also the single most violent one I have ever heard.

In Germany it was a holiday custom to eat as many greasy pancakes as you could consume on the night of the Winter Solstice and then leave a few of them out for the Winter Hag as she made her rounds from house to house. If you foolishly forgot to leave her a few it was believed that she would become so enraged at this slight that she would hunt you down and with an enormous knife, cut open your belly and steal the pancakes right from your stomach. The reason that you had to eat those pancakes really greasy was that the grease would make your belly so slippery the Hag would be unable to cut into you. Her knife would just slip off your slimy tummy and no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn't be able to steal your pancakes away from you.

I don't know about you, but it had to be one hell of a long and frightening night for children, eh? I know if I were a child then, I'd be dreading that night all year long.