tardistexan
Tardis Texan
This blog is a shipfest. Fandoms -
Doctor Who, Doctor/River, River Song, Outlander, Sleepy Hollow, Arrow, Whendonverse, OUAT, Marvelverse, Sappy RomComs, Cute British Guys, whatever is making me happy at the moment.
Read my Doctor/River fanfiction at AO3!
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Tell us about santa and why he has 8 reindeer!
OKAY BUCKLE UP CHILDREN
Santa? Is Odin. With a bit of the Turkish Saint Nicholas plastered over top to make him more acceptable to Christianity.
Let’s wind this back a bit.
So. In Norse tradition, Odin rose with the wild hunt on Midwinter. Children would leave out offerings of hay or root vegetables in their shoes for Slepnir, Odin’s horse. In norse tradition, all gifts create an obligation that must be returned in kind, so if Odin found the offerings pleasing he would leave treats and sweets in return.
So. We have a magical bearded man riding through the sky on a winter feast day and leaving treats for children in footwear if they pleased him. Sound familiar? Yeah.
As for Slepnir, Odin’s mount? He has eight legs. So. Bearded man with powerful magic flying through the air on an eight-legged steed on a winter feast day and leaving treats for children in their footwear if they pleased him.
Yeah.
Enter Christianity. Now, the midwinter season is important to all cultures that live in cold climates. The passing of the worst of the hard times and the beginning of the longer days and the promise of the return of life and light and fertility is a powerful thing. There were Christian festival days around the same time as Midwinter was celebrated in many polytheistic faiths. Christians found that they couldn’t get people to stop celebrating the feast days they’d been celebrating for several thousand years, so opted instead to just absorb those traditions into their OWN midwinter festivals. It was a far easier and more effective way of convincing people to convert.
So. The tradition of Odin leaving gifts hung on, in a far different form. This was helped by the legend of Saint Nicholas, a Turkish man who inherited a large amount of wealth and who was known and beloved for his habit of slipping money to poor people via leaving it in their stockings as they were hung out to dry after wash day, or by dropping it down their chimneys. This was similar enough to the old Odin myth of leaving gifts in footwear to paste right over top of the older stories with relative ease. So, the man delivering gifts became not Odin, but St. Nick, who delivered gifts via stocking and chimney.
However, the idea of him flying through the sky, being associated with elves, possessing powerful magic, and the eight-legged steed stuck. (reindeer, incidentally, are an animal with a lot of symbol and power in Norse tales. Ullr, the god of the hunt, had ties to reindeer, and at some point the eight legged horse became eight reindeer.)
Incidentally the image of Santa as a chubby little jolly man didn’t come around until modern advertising began depicting him that way. Before that? A tall, strong man, usually with a staff (echoing Odin’s staff or spear).
So. There you have it. Santa, the jolly bearded old man of beloved childhood Christmas memories? If you ever wondered where he came from in a ‘Christian’ holiday, there’s your answer. He didn’t. He’s the amalgamation of an ancient Norse god and a Middle Eastern saint, filtered through the lens of pop culture.
Jim Butcher actually did this very well in the Dresden Files, where Odin makes several appearances, one wearing the mantle of Father Christmas.
Christianity never really managed to make the old gods vanish.
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River: ”Oh, but there is. There’s one force that can counteract hate.”
Brooke: ”Oh? Love? Why, you — You’re gonna love him back to life?”
R: ”Yes, I am.”
The Doctor: ”W-what’s happening…?”
R: ”See? It’s working already.”
B: ”No! I hate the Doctor, I hate the Doctor, I hate the Doctor!”
R: ”Oh, that’ll never be enough. Because I’m thinking of Asgard and the Byzantium and Demon’s Run. And never in the universe will you be able to summon up enough hate to wipe out everything he’s been to me.”
—The Diary of River Song 3.2: A Requiem for the Doctor
River loving the Fifth Doctor back to life was commissioned of me by Sandra Lilith Eden. Thank you! :)
Ko-Fi (Online Tip Jar) / Shop / ArtStation / Patreon / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter
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nice hair, clever, has her own gun, shouldn’t like that
kinda do a bit
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please draw river and the 12th doctor on darillium
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Conversation
River Song: And this is my ex-boyfriend.
The Doctor: I told you to stop calling me that. We're married. I'm her wife.
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AO3 is recognized by the Hugo Awards. How great is that???
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Doug Jones Appreciation Thread
as Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water
as the Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth
as Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth
as the Angel of Death in Hellboy II: The Golden Army
as Billy Butcherson in Hocus Pocus
as one of the Gentlemen in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
as Edith’s Mother, Lady Sharpe in Crimson Peak
as Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
as Saru in Star Trek: Discovery
as Abe Sapien in Hellboy
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A patreon commision I managed to draw before my wrist died on me and which I forgot to post
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The ‘LOKI‘ TV series will reportedly follow Tom Hiddleston‘s Loki appearing during certain moments in human history as a unlikely influencer on historical events.
Romans: ceasar is such a dick
Loki: stab him idk
Romans: you know what
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Look at this gorgeousness! Go buy one
https://www.etsy.com/listing/691257948/doctor-who-art-print-eighth-doctor-river?ref=shop_home_active_14&sca=1
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New Fan-Art Prints and Pre-Orders up in my Etsy Shop!
Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy XV and XIV, Doctor Who and more! Plus all my original fantasy art, coloring pages and books, of course. <3
Update: To help with my kitty’s vet bills, I have also just listed several pencil and watercolor artwork ORIGINALS! Mostly older fantasy work, but some fanart pieces, too.
All physical Etsy orders of my MeadowHaven Fantasy Art Coloring Book will also come with a surprise bonus gift–signed art prints, grayscale pages or maybe even a sketch by me. :) There’s less than 200 copies left now until sold out forever!
Meadowhaven.net | DeviantArt | Patreon | Instagram | Twitter | Etsy Shop
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“Okay, I know. You’re testing them. You said you were gonna be testing them.”
“You shouldn’t test them to destruction.”
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you know a lot of actors find a particular niche to inhabit when it comes to their roles but you really gotta hand it to David Tennant for somehow landing the absurdly specific category of “immortals that rebelled against their oppressive and bureaucratic people because they accidentally became too fond of the human race and also have a quasi-telepathic bond with a vehicle.”
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