Fireplace excursus A

[muckefuck]

While surfing the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana for fireplace terminology, I came across this gem of folklore:

fumera Ninot ple d'ulls que, abans de Nadal, suposadament davalla per la xemeneia i s'encarrega d'avisar els Reis o el tió sobre la bondat que han fet els nens.

For those of you who inexplicably don't read Catalan, En Fumera (from fum "smoke") is the name of a spirit that sneaks into the house through the chimney and spies on the children so he can report back to the Three Kings (who are the holiday giftbearers in most of Spain) or the Yule Log (don't ask!). Another source informs me that té set ulls, quatre al davant i tres al darrera ("he has seven eyes, four on the front and three in back"), and yet another that he has four ears as well. In Girona, he apparently goes by the alias "Ximineia" (cf. xemeneia "chimney") or "Xocolata" ("chocolate") fent referència a l’estat i els colors de la seva vestimenta ("referring to the colors of his clothing") and supposedly some parents used to actually create one out of cloth and leave it sitting around the house in order to keep the younger kids in line. So be thankful: However much your own parents might have messed with you, they never brought a creepy doll into the house and told you it was watching your every move.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Three-quarters by heritage, but all American by upbringing. Mother was the black sheep in her petit-bourgeois family, which is how she ended up with my father, and this informed their parenting to the point that we grew up in a household without bogeymen of any kind; the carrot was always fatter than the stick.