STALLO - BEWARE HIM ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Stallo is a bogeyman in the folklore of the Sa'ami or Lapps of northern Scandinavia.  On Christmas Eve he comes around, looking for misbehaving children.  He is depicted as hairy and having horns and he carries a sack into which to stuff his victims.  Stallo may sometimes be considered a species name.  In Vindelfjallen Nature Reserve (Sweden) lie the foundations of a building which it is said Stallos constructed for their dwellings.

In Finland a procession goes around led by a man in black rags who calls himself Stallo.  He pokes at girls with a phallus, which leads me to suspect that here is the remnant of a fertility rite. Thankfully, here in Ireland we are some distance from Stallo's stomping ground.