How to Make a Reindeer Fly

What do Santa and Mario have in common?

Dec 21, 2022

A disclaimer: Theories about the origins of legends or traditions are almost always hotly debated and nigh unprovable one way or another, especially in cases like this where the mythology has passed through so many cultures and variations. The theories presented here are popular ones- particularly among mycologists, for obvious reasons - but by no means universally accepted by scholars. Like many things, they are probably neither complete fabrication nor the whole story. I’m told that there is an annual lecture on the topic at Harvard, for what that’s worth.

You are no doubt familiar with the fly agaric mushroom, Amanita Muscaria, even if you don’t know it by name - the classic red mushroom with white spots and white stalk, popular in everything from children’s illustrations to trippy 70’s blacklight posters to emoji 🍄. It is one of two categories of mushroom most commonly used for their hallucinogenic properties- the other being psilocybin or “magic mushrooms”, which are more popular (thanks to their active ingredients being a bit less toxic and nauseating. The two operate on different neurotransmitters and reportedly have very different trips, but I digress.) A. Muscaria is reported to cause a wide range of effects, from sleepy drunkenness, to wild visions and dreams, to a feeling of joy and spontaneous desire to sing and leap about. Some users report a feeling of physical strength, not unlike the boost provided by an adrenaline rush. They are also fairly toxic: while they probably won’t kill you, unpleasant digestive effects are par for the course and in some cases, people have suffered seizures and comas after ingestion.

Amanita Muscaria is native to a large swath of the northern hemisphere, including the snowy regions near the Arctic circle in Siberia and Scandinavia. There, they are popular with some of the locals - reindeer are enormously fond of the mushrooms and seek them out regularly with no apparent ill effects, beyond a little drunken reverie. Their affection for the mushroom did not go unnoticed by the indigenous groups that herded them, and they found that bits of mushroom could be used to lead a deer wherever their shepherd needed them to go.

It would be reasonable to assume that the reindeer’s fondness for the fly agaric is what inspired ancient humans to first try them, or maybe they were just seeking out another food source in the largely-barren landscape they called home (incidentally, the mushrooms actually can be used as food- parboiling removes the toxic and psychoactive effects). In any case, the mushrooms made their way into the cultures - and specifically the winter solstice celebrations - of several communities of northern natives (the Sámi, Koryak and Kamchadal people were mentioned specifically in my sources, but dozens of groups of people existed in this region at the time, so it’s likely that everything being reported here is a mishmash of practices from across the north.)

The stories go like this:

The fly agarics were commonly found surrounding the bases of pine trees. To dry the mushrooms and prepare them for consumption, the shamans and healers of these communities would either lay the mushrooms across the pine boughs, hang them from the branches, or place them in socks which were hung near a fire.

In some places, people preferred to forgo this drying process and have their mushrooms “pre-filtered” by the reindeer - drinking the urine of a deer who had eaten the mushrooms would give you all the hallucinogenic effects, but less of the toxicity. (The reindeer, for their part, were known to happily chow down on the “yellow snow” left by any human who had eaten the mushrooms, and one wonders how many times the psychoactive chemicals could be passed back and forth in such a manner.)

On the solstice, the shamans would don their red-and-white Muscaria-inspired garb (be it polka-dotted or fur-trimmed) and their tall, blackened reindeer-skin boots, and head out to the pine trees to collect their dried mushrooms in a sack (or harvest a little reindeer pee.) They’d return to their yurt, where the village elders and other important community members would be gathered. Because of the height of the snow at this time of year, the shaman may have needed to resort to coming and going through the chimney hole in the center of the yurt’s ceiling, rather than the door.

Once settled in, the shaman would consume the mushrooms (or mushroom-laced wee) and set off on their trip, during which it was said they could turn into animals and fly through the night sky towards the North Star. They would then consult with the tree of life (a large pine) that grew near the North Pole, in order to gain solutions, wisdom and foresight to address the community’s problems in the upcoming year. Then they would return, bearing gifts of wisdom and answers for their people, who would ply the shaman with food and drink (and perhaps partake in a little ‘shrooming themselves, whether directly or via the shaman’s urine.)

Some sources claim that there was a belief that those who consumed the fly agarics would come to look like the mushroom - plump, round, and red and white.

You can see, I’m sure, where all this is going:

A magical man, plump and decked out in red and white, coming down the chimney with a sack of treasures. Energetic reindeer leaping around their pastures; visions of flying through the sky to the North Pole and returning bearing “gifts”. A pine tree trunk surrounded by bright red and white treats, with more goodies hanging in the branches or in socks by the fire.

Yep - some scholars believe that we’ve found the origin of Santa Claus, and it’s “shrooms.” (Whoever said that drugs are never the answer?)

They theorize that the imagery and traditions of these solstice celebrations made their way to Britain and other areas of Europe via the druids, mixing and mingling with a little Norse and Germanic mythology. Gods from those regions would purportedly travel on the night of the solstice in a flying sleigh pulled by an eight-legged horse, with demons in pursuit. Drops of red blood and white froth from the horse’s mouth would fall to the ground… and spring up the next year as - you guessed it - Amanita Muscaria.

As usual, early Christianity would latch onto this cocktail of pagan legend and rub their stank all over it, in this case in the form of St Nicholas, a 4th century Turkish bishop who was known for distributing gifts to children and the poor (and less well known for his personal crusade against the goddess Artemis. Apparently he was hell-bent on destroying all her temples - personally if necessary - including the one at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Serious bad vibes, Nicky.)

Our most current image of Santa Claus comes from a 1931 assignment given by Coca-Cola to an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom - “A cheerful, playful, and at the same time realistic Santa Claus”. Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend, Lou Prentiss, combined with the description in Clement Moore’s classic poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Before that, he was more often depicted as a bit gnome-like and a little creepy, though still with a similar uniform. Interestingly, fly agaric mushrooms appeared commonly on Christmas cards well into the Victorian era, although presumably nobody was sure why anymore (for some reason they were often paired with chimney sweeps, who do share one important pastime with ole St Nick.)