The Mythic Yuletide Origins of Noddy Holder

This special time of year, our little lad is obsessed with a special someone.  A big jolly man with a huge friendly smile who wears bright clothes and who you only ever see around Christmas.

Yes.  He still believes in Noddy Holder.

Everyone knows who Noddy Holder is.  He is the very spirit of Christmas.  Every year he emerges from his magical underground kingdom beneath Birmingham City Centre (some say Walsall)  to bring stompy glam rock to all the good children of the world.

We tend to think of Noddy Holder as synonymous with Christmas, part and parcel of humanity’s Yuletide experience, but in fact the origins of this mythic archetype are confused and obscure, drawn from a variety of European sources.

Who is Noddy Holder?  Where does he come from – really?

The answer is surprisingly complicated.

In Northern Italy Noddy Holder is known as  “Ciondolare Il Capo” and for centuries he has shaken  toys out of the Alps with his enormous boots and his booming voice.   The presents roll straight into nearby villages where they are gathered up by all the good children.

In Germany Noddy  is a mountain god known as “NickenKopf”.  Wagner considered integrating him into the Ring Cycle, but the onstage realisation of such a primal force of nature defied the technical resources of nineteenth-century Bayreuth and he was written out of the score.

In France, Noddy Holder (or “Hocher La Tête”) is a figure from the late twelfth century cult of chivalry.  Each year he is engaged in a ritual combat with Le Roi Dubois or Le Roi Sorcier to see who can make the stompiest music.  If Le Roi Dubois is ever so slightly louder than Hocher La Tête then winter will last forever and spring will never come, every day of the year to be as cold as midwinter.  In the weeks leading up to Christmas, French schoolchildren dress up as the esquires of both these bold knights and replay their timeless adventures.

“Quand le bonhomme de neige prends la neige!” chant the village children in tremulous anticipation of the arrival of the evil winter “Sorcier!”  Every year, since 1178, Hocher La Tête has bested him in stompy glittery combat.  So let it ever be.