Olentzero

Account

Olentzero is the modern Basque Christmas figure: a pipe-smoking charcoal-burner who descends from the mountains with gifts for children. Older layers cast him as one of the jentilak who accepted the new era, or as a gluttonous giant reformed into generosity. Today he walks in parades, appears on cards, and is sung to in a tradition that is both festive and faintly elegiac.