Author: Al Ridenour

Al Ridenour is the writer and producer of the folklore and horror podcast Bone and Sickle (including two recent episodes exploring Pan’s curious cultural impact, and the episode ”It is 100 Years since our Children Left”, which looks at the Pied Piper myth alongside the phenomena of Italian tarantism). He is also the author of The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas, described by LA Times’ books critic Elizabeth Hand as “gleefully erudite,” and a volume that “deserves to become a classic.” He also produces an annual Krampus run and related events in Southern California as Krampus Los Angeles. Along the way, he has worked as an artist, mask-maker, journalist, arts impresario, and small-time cultural agitator (the last with the Cacophony Society). Ridenour’s writing, art, and creative projects can be found on his website.

A Pied Piper Mystery

June 20, 2019 by Al Ridenour

hile the Pied Piper of Hamelin is undeniably a fairy tale, it’s uniquely grounded in real-world specifics – the date for one – June 26. That’s the date in 1284 when the town lost a significant portion of its population, a matter treated as fact in the first written allusion to the incidents, the initial […]

A Californian Krampus

December 5, 2018 by Al Ridenour

Relentlessly sunny and known for a love of trend over tradition, Los Angeles is an unlikely home to a new incarnation of the old Alpine devil. It helps, perhaps, that make-believe is serious business in my town, and that it’s filled with creative people prone to see in an old tradition of folk Catholicism a revolutionary way to shake up the holidays.

Pan: Arcadian Myth, Victorian Panic

August 30, 2018 by Al Ridenour

While Pan’s goat-like appearance makes him one of the most recognizable of the Greek gods, ambivalence surrounding the figure makes him harder to pin down.