Little Ice Age

And a lot of them are centered around winter and winter can be that dark period of time.

And so ultimately, Ultimately, it led to the Little Ice Age and the 30 Years Wars that was going on in Europe, which from a witch trial perspective and the fact that my daughter was born on Halloween, I was like, I really think that this story works best during this time period.

Because ultimately, Santa Claus, as obviously Jeff talks about, was popularized in the U.S. with Coca-Cola or the figure that we know of, Santa Claus.

But there's so many stories in Europe and in that area that are just interesting to me because some of the same traits of kindness and mercy, and then of course the dark side, they run village to village, even though they're slightly different.

And so I thought, wouldn't it be interesting that what if...

Santa Claus and these figures that we think of to be Santa Claus and Santa Claus and all the names, and you think of other characters like La Bafana, what if they're all part of a time period where there was such grief? You had neighbors going against neighbors in this little ice age where anybody could be considered a witch, whether they liked you or didn't like you.

Things could change on a dime, even if you just did something the wrong way.

And so what if it was that grief that really led him to become Santa Claus? this kind, merciful individual.

The historian Johan Morken thinks part of the answer is the weather.

The witch hunts overlap with what is called the Little Ice Age.

which would lead to bad harvests, which would lead to starvation.

It is possible that this is a contributing factor, which added to the pressures that was felt in these communities.

1953 was actually the first time the Inuit had lived this far north in hundreds of years.

Before contact with Europeans, they began to move south when the climate cooled during the Little Ice Age, which dropped temperatures so low humans couldn't survive here.

Though it had warmed some by the 1950s, this place was hardly fit to live, even by the people who were the best equipped on the earth to live in these cold climates.

Resolute is over 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

So you could imagine they were just getting this crap back together and that happens.

Because then we go into the little ice age, can't we? Yeah.

And the medieval warming period, which was four degrees warmer than what it is now.

There's events happening all the time.

So everybody's lives are getting harder.

And from about 1560, we have what's known as the Little Ice Age, where temperatures are dropping dramatically as well.

So there's all sorts of things going on like that.

In terms of attitudes towards women, I don't think they radically change over the course of the 16th century.

And the witch becomes the symbol for it.

And the second thing, the second kernel of truth, is that people at the time, Europe was going through what is called the Little Ice Age.

This is a climate change period where for over a couple centuries, crops are failing, there's harsh winters, and there's a lot of starvation, food shortages, the rivers are freezing over, people are getting sick.

And you can see that this lines up perfectly with the witch trials, not just because it lines up with the dates, but because of what the witches are getting accused of.

That's why they are the elites and the poor people are starving.

The elites at this time are not starving.

So even though what was actually happening was massive crop failure and food shortages from the tail end of the Little Ice Age, people are putting two and two together and they're seeing the bigger picture.

It makes me think of, you know, the famous quote attributed to Mary Antoinette, which she may or may not have said, which is, let them eat cake.