Did you know North has a canonical son?
Coming from the legends of Germany, he is called Knecht Ruprecht. Knecht, meaning Servant or farmhand. His other aliases are:
"Hans Ruprecht, Rumpknecht, but is also referred to as De hêle Christ ("The Holy Christ"), while in Mecklenburg he was called Rû Clås (Rough Nicholas)."
If you see any depictions of him resembling Krampus, those aren't true to life. He moreso resembles a dark bearded man or looking like a raggid St Nicholas.
Like Krampus, he was a foil to St Nicholas, meant to punish naughty children with his switches. However, he is much milder than Krampus. His legends goes as such.
"According to tradition, Knecht Ruprecht asks children whether they can pray. If they can, they receive apples, nuts and gingerbread. If they cannot, he hits the children with his bag of ashes. In other versions of the story, Knecht Ruprecht gives naughty children gifts such as lumps of coal, sticks, and stones, while well-behaving children receive sweets from Saint Nicholas. He is also reported to give naughty children a switch (stick) in their shoes for their parents to hit them with, instead of sweets, fruit and nuts, in the German tradition."
So he certainly doesnt take too much after Krampus, but whats his backstory?
One variant is that he was a simple farmhand who rose to the occasion to shadow St.Nicholas. my favorite is the foundling telling.
Foundlings were infants or children who were abandoned by their biological parents to either die or be found by another.
St.Nicholas found a poor baby boy alone in the woods of Germany and took him in as his own son. An accident involving horses caused Ruprecht to walk with a limp, but Nicholas fashioned him a cane to help him walk.
In the rotgoc-verse, its even more gut wrenching if you translate this with North instead. North, who grew up with brigands and was abandoned much like Ruprecht, finds an abandoned child who would surely freeze to death. Him cradling the small infant, choking up a little as the boy falls asleep in Norths warm arms.
He'd raise Ruprecht with pride, teaching him everything about the wonders of the world and how his job worked. The accident that caused Ruprecht's limp would wound North, feeling like a failure. Then he'd carve Ruprecht's cane by hand, enchanting it to grow with his son.
The guardians at first would be shocked to see North adopted a child, but it would make sense the longer they watch North interact with Ruprecht. North definitely had that baby in a sling on his chest. The proudest papa on the North Pole. (He just had to figure out how to tell Krampus...)
