Question:
Need to know urgently - the names of all Santa's reindeer.
DASHER, DANCER, PRANCER, VIXEN, COMET, CUPID, DONNER, BLITZEN, RUDOLPH
According to www.funology.com/braindrains/bd028.cfm via Google
Confirmed at www.the-north-pole.com/carols/rudolph.html, which has full words and music. Now don't blame me for it being in the carols directory - it's not my site. A coupla christmases ago, in another friendly ng, we ended up with 14 or 15 from different sources,
but the above are the "official" ones.
"The Night Before Christmas" aka "A visit from St Nick" was written by
Clement Clarke Moore and published in 1823. It is the original source
for Santa's sleigh, and for reindeer (it gives the first VIII(1)), and
contributes to the traditional iconography of costume(2). In the poem
Santa, the sleigh and the reindeer are all miniature, which makes
negotiating chimneys a bit more practical...
however, the old man had a brown (and rather mucky) coat on: the red coat is a c20 invention, following the advertising colours used by the
cocaine cola corporation.
....Red-suited Santas predate the Coca Cola advertising campaign, but
until that campaign the colour scheme was variable, with some St
Nicholases in green, brown or multicoloured outfits. Nowadays, of
course, Santa is and always has been red-suited. Roger Highfield,
author of "The Physics of Christmas" suggests that the colour scheme
may actually be connected to Amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric).
(1)
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
(2)
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
Last updated
February 16th 2004
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