{"id":149597,"date":"2020-12-07T13:43:19","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T18:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=149597"},"modified":"2026-03-16T11:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:50:08","slug":"the-shadows-below-the-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shadows below the Shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nina MacLaughlin\u2019s newest column, Winter Solstice, will run for four weeks, finishing on the solstice on December 21.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Vintage Krampus Postcards<\/p><\/div>\n

December and Demeter is grieving again.<\/p>\n

Hades cracked the earth and snatched her daughter Persephone, tugged her down to the underworld to be his unconsenting bride. In response, Demeter ceased growth. Wilt, starvation, cold. No warmth, no fruit, no fat goats whose throats to slit in sacrifice. So Zeus sent Hermes to the underworld to bring Persephone back. But Ascalaphus, Hades\u2019s orchard minder, saw what Persephone had done, and told, rotten tattler. If you eat the food of the dead, you stay, and Persephone had swallowed six pomegranate seeds. The gardener held the fruit in his hand and the juice slipped down the private part of his wrist. Each seed, one month in Hades. She\u2019s down there now. And we\u2019re up here, buttoning our coats, eating carbohydrates, trying to remember to unclench our jaws.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something seductive about the below, the magnetic tug of the dark. Aren\u2019t you curious? To see how dark it gets, to see what\u2019s down here, a little lower, a little deeper, something might get revealed, something singular, something special, I\u2019m getting close to something true. It\u2019s risky. I have a friend who likes to press a knife blade to his wrist. \u201cIt makes me shiver,\u201d he says, \u201cI feel it in all my tips.\u201d I wouldn\u2019t call him crazy. He\u2019s interested in the edge. \u201cThe descent to the Underworld is easy,\u201d Virgil cautions in The Aeneid<\/em>. \u201cNight and day the gates of shadowy Death stand open wide, \/ but to retrace your steps, to climb back to the upper air\u2014 \/ there the struggle, there the labor lies.\u201d Sinking down is easy. But to return? No guarantees.<\/p>\n

In Ireland, thirty miles north of Dublin near the river Boyne, there\u2019s a mound of earth with an opening. You can enter. A tight passageway leads to a deep chamber; a tomb at one time: human bones were found there, and long-gone chiselers carved triskelion, those ancient-art triple spirals, into certain stones. The passageway extends sixty feet, almost the length of two telephone poles, and at sunrise on the winter solstice, a shaft of sunlight enters through a window above the opening you\u2019ve entered through; the beam travels down the passageway and penetrates into the chamber, spraying light into the deep dim basin. The place is called Newgrange and it was built in 3200 B.C.<\/small> It is older, by hundreds of years, than Stonehenge and the pyramids at Giza.<\/p>\n

I entered a long time ago. It wasn\u2019t on the solstice, but they shine a light that mimics the way the sunbeam seeks the chamber on the darkest day of the year. The hush was total, we were all the way within, and the shaft slid past our bodies and lit the deepest part of the tomb, the womb, the undermound, otherworld, and the megalithic spirals revolved across millennia. If you are someone who feels ghosts, or time, or the presence of deep-dead stone movers, peat farmers, priestesses, priests, bog queens, salmon kings, ubiquitous shape-shifters, souls who touched the stones you stand under, souls who tracked the sun and made a mound for it to enter, to join with, to bring the sunlight back to the earth, you might feel them here, as you witness the silent coupling of sun god and earth goddess. Let\u2019s urge sun and earth to mate so that light is born on earth again. They knew the angles, five thousand years ago.<\/p>\n

This whole earth spins tilted on its axis at 23.5 degrees. On the winter solstice, the sun at noon is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, at 23.5 degrees south of the Equator. Capricorn, that stomping, large-horned sea goat. Is there an earthier beast than the goat? They dance on rock faces, their cloven hooves leave ash prints on soft earth, they grunt, hum, holler with the voice of man, and I felt a funny mix of alarm and delight the first time I looked one in the eye and saw its pupils were rectangular. At a farm on a hill in south-central Connecticut, buy a pack of stale wafers for a quarter to feed the three goats penned to the left. I pressed the wafer through the fence, the goat took it on its tongue, and I saw what I had not seen before. Goats with right-angled bands across the globes of their ice- or amber-colored eyes.<\/p>\n

In Central Europe, a folklore lives in the figure of Krampus, a stomping satyr-like creature, furred animal from the waist down, furred man-goat from the waist up, with a pointed lashing long tongue and sharp fangs and great goat horns. The smell of woods and soot about him, dead-leaf tang of dark dens, half-intoxicating half-repugnant ungulate musk. I haven\u2019t touched his fur, but maybe it\u2019s not a thick-matted hay-coarse mess, but angel-hair lush, cashmere-y. He emerges this time of year as the dark twin to the twinkle-eyed benevolence of old Saint Nick. His night, Krampusnacht, was this past weekend, on December 5. He carries a birch switch to whip the misbehavers, and the sack or basket slung over his shoulder bears no gifts: it\u2019s to stuff bad children in. He knots the sack and drops them into a river like a squirming litter of unwanted kittens. That, or he eats them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a way to motivate children to behave, sure. You better watch out, you better not pout, et cetera. Stop tugging your sister\u2019s pigtails or Krampus will take you. Stop chasing the chickens or you\u2019ll get jammed in Kramp\u2019s sack. Be good, be right, behave, or Krampus will whisk you away forever. Motivation, and also, maybe, secret wish? A fantasy? Or perhaps this goat-horned punisher is the creatured embodiment of winter\u2019s danger. It\u2019s not just a chubby chuckling red-suited do-gooder in a flying sleigh who giveth but a furred fanged earthbound mischief-maker who taketh away. Here we are, back to forces of dark and light.<\/p>\n

Fleshing the shadows is one way to know the shadows better. When fears get faced and named, aren\u2019t they easier to encounter? When they come creeping, slithering, spidering in, as they always inevitably will, it\u2019s better, no, to see a familiar silhouette, a recognizable cut of the jaw, that same tongue, that same staticky charge, those wild underworldly eyes, you again, we\u2019ve met before. Still unpleasant, still frightening, but at least it slots into a taxonomy of the monstrous. It\u2019s the formless unfamiliar, the shadow that lives below shadow, the one we sense but have not named or cannot yet name, there\u2019s where real terror lives. And so we name our monsters. Perhaps the pull of the dark is the urge to introduce ourselves to the shadows below the shadows. Come in, come in, let me know you better, let me look upon you, I have never seen the like of you before. Maybe they all have something to offer. After all, wouldn\u2019t we all like to live deliciously?<\/p>\n

Saturn rules Capricorn, and Saturnalia was the ancient Roman festival honoring him. He was a child-eater himself, a scythe-holding god of the agricultural cycles. The festival took place over seven days around the winter solstice. Feasts, gifts, mischief, the rules gave way, the chains of discipline were lifted. In this kind of boundary-dissolving extendo-fest, \u201cwe throw down our burdens of time and reason,\u201d writes Octavio Paz. Time dissolves; roles reverse; people drop into a simultaneous backward and forward. Reason gives way to something more bodily, blood-level, in a \u201csudden immersion in the formless, in pure being.\u201d Ecstasy, in other words. Kerry Howley writes of \u201cecstatic spectacle.\u201d History is full of it:<\/p>\n

If you were a fourteenth-century Latvian looking to leave yourself, you might mask up and dance through the streets reveling in Rabelaisian wonder \u2026 were you a nineteenth-century Paiute Indian in the American West, you might try your hand at ritual millenarian dance \u2026 or an ancient maenad, join the other womenfolk in ripping apart a live goat in the Greek countryside.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What opportunity for ecstasy do we have right now? These twin searches: for dissolving the boundaries and exiting time; and for home, grounding, safety, the source. In rare moments we dissolve, formless, passing through the membrane into a shimmering of raw perception, into union with the All. A temporary death\u2014an end to the limits of the self\u2014and an emergence from it in the form of rebirth, a waking up.<\/p>\n

And maybe that\u2019s what the ancient farmers were up to in building Newgrange, a way of pulling the sun back from darkness, to wake it up and return it to earth. It\u2019s long ago, and it\u2019s right now. It\u2019s earth and sun, and the wheel of the year spins on, like the triskelion on stones, the evergreen wreaths on doors. Mistletoe, the evergreen white-berried vine, living as it does off the ground in trees, was seen as link between earth and air, a fertility symbol, athrob with life force, its milky jewel berries full of sticky white juice. So come, kiss. Kiss. It might take you somewhere. As Sibyl tells Aeneas before his journey to the underworld: \u201cNo one \/ may pass below the secret places of earth before \/ he plucks the fruit\u201d of the famous golden bough, \u201cas mistletoe in the dead of winter\u2019s icy forests \/ leafs with life on a tree that never gave it birth.\u201d It\u2019s his ticket in. It\u2019s his ticket under.<\/p>\n

Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year. Slip out of the light and know something older. Slip into something elemental. It\u2019s on offer, these weeks more than ever. I liked the way I felt inside the mound of earth at Newgrange. The way I felt there I have only felt there. Not underworld exactly but touched by\u2014turned into\u2014light and darkness, light and time. Not for long. Ten seconds of my life, likely less. I returned to the surface with the others, fat sheep made small clouds against green hills, river had sky on it, I couldn\u2019t speak for a while. What was there to say?<\/p>\n

The year is fading. Light is fading. Solstice<\/em> means sun-stilled. We light candles and raise toasts, we smooch in doorways under strung-up plants, we hang lights along the roofline peaks, give gifts, make wishes, laugh and pray and fear. We bring the light into the earth and try to harness the great forces. It\u2019s a wild sort of stilling, a thrashing frenzied sort of stilling, a stopping of time, a de-metering, a holding of the breath as the tension builds, as the dark expands, until it cracks and light drives in. That\u2019s the hope. The far-off tinkling of bells you hear could be the harness of the reindeer or the bells around the neck of a goat. Hoofbeats on the roof, hoofbeats thudding in the warm and living hollow of your chest. Here in the wild quiet, something in the shadows whispers and you can\u2019t tell if it means you good or ill. Pomegranate, holly branch, birch switch, mistletoe. We\u2019ll leaf with life and pass below the secret places of this earth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read Nina MacLaughlin\u2019s series on\u00a0Summer Solstice<\/a>,\u00a0Dawn<\/a>,\u00a0Sky Gazing<\/a>, and November<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Nina MacLaughlin is a writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts<\/em>.\u00a0Her most recent book is\u00a0Summer Solstice<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68281],"tags":[67827],"class_list":["post-149597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-winter-solstice","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Shadows below the Shadows<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Shadows below the Shadows by Nina MacLaughlin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 7, 2020 \u2013 Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-07T18:43:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-16T15:50:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nina MacLaughlin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nina MacLaughlin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nina MacLaughlin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838\"},\"headline\":\"The Shadows below the Shadows\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-07T18:43:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-16T15:50:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/\"},\"wordCount\":1946,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02-1024x512.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Featured\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Winter Solstice\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/\",\"name\":\"The Shadows below the Shadows\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02-1024x512.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-12-07T18:43:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-16T15:50:08+00:00\",\"description\":\"Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":600,\"caption\":\"Vintage Krampus Postcards\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Shadows below the Shadows\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838\",\"name\":\"Nina MacLaughlin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nina MacLaughlin\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/nmaclaughlin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Shadows below the Shadows","description":"Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Shadows below the Shadows by Nina MacLaughlin","og_description":"December 7, 2020 \u2013 Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2020-12-07T18:43:19+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-03-16T15:50:08+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nina MacLaughlin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nina MacLaughlin","Est. reading time":"10 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/"},"author":{"name":"Nina MacLaughlin","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838"},"headline":"The Shadows below the Shadows","datePublished":"2020-12-07T18:43:19+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-16T15:50:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/"},"wordCount":1946,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02-1024x512.jpg","keywords":["Featured"],"articleSection":["Winter Solstice"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/","name":"The Shadows below the Shadows","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02-1024x512.jpg","datePublished":"2020-12-07T18:43:19+00:00","dateModified":"2026-03-16T15:50:08+00:00","description":"Underworlds, otherworlds, so many passageways on this earth to elsewheres, especially during these weeks of the year.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/krampus_triptych_02.jpg","width":1200,"height":600,"caption":"Vintage Krampus Postcards"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/07\/the-shadows-below-the-shadows\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Shadows below the Shadows"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/1aa79ce6b1ed14531f6ba13b37ff8838","name":"Nina MacLaughlin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/31c87f72f1def38557afff34e175c4e92aa03c6a699d825a5fdda6aa690f914e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nina MacLaughlin"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/nmaclaughlin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149597"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149604,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149597\/revisions\/149604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}