The story behind Rudolph the Red Nosed Cave-Bear

Figurines Found in German Cave Are Among Earliest Artwork

December 18, 2003
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

Three small figurines carved of ivory from mammoth tusks have been found in a cave in southwestern Germany, providing stronger evidence that human ancestors were already adept at figurative art more than 30,000 years ago, an archaeologist is reporting today.

Chanting away the Cave-Bear

This, O Best Beloved, is another story of the High and Far-Off times. Near the very beginning of those times there was a tribe of people, living in the area we now call the Danube Valley.

The tribe's priest, a wise man named Rudolph, had advised his folk well, and they were prosperous enough to almost always have enough food stores to last through even long winters. Unfortunately Rudolph had a problem. He wanted his daughter, whom he had trained to be his successor, to marry the Chief's son, so that she could be the most powerful person in the tribe. The Chief, on the other hand, thought that her daughter should be chief after her, and that her son – a fairly useless fighter – should marry into the tribe up-valley.

Ogga, for that was Rudolph's daughter's name, had her own ideas on marriage . . . a young hunter with a fine hand for carving had caught her eye, and she had been spending time modeling for a new carving of his. Ogga knew, however, that confronting her father directly was not a great idea. So she bided her time, allowing the Chief and Rudolph to argue and quarrel as much as they wished.

Rudolph's obsession began to grow darker as the Chief resolutely refused to grant permission for her son to become her heir and marry Ogga. He spent many nights in his part of the caves, hunched over small fires of strange and aromatic plants, chanting and dreaming, looking for a solution. His eyes grew perpetually red from the smoke, and his once friendly mein became pinched and harsh. Only Rudolph's love for Ogga protected her from his threatening her, too, for failing to carry out his wishes.

Finally, on a foggy winter night, Rudolph decided to create his greatest magic – a ceremony he believed would force the Chief's hand.

No one knows exactly what went wrong with Rudolph's spell. Some say that Ogga mixed his herbs to prevent his malediction from harming the chief. Others claim Rudolph himself realized at the last moment that what he was doing was wrong. A few even believe that Rudolph was so full of anger that his spell did not slay the Chief and her daughter, but rather brought a torment for the whole tribe.

By any reckoning the spell's effect was no conventional success, for the next morning the Chief's family was unharmed, and her mind had not changed one whit. Rudolph, on the other hand, was found dead, half mummified by the smoke in his cavern.

Spring came. Ogga married her young hunter, and, as she had hoped, he was so successful that they both had much free time to spend together – her creating new magical chants, and he painting scenes of the hunt. The tribe, watching Ogga, began to forget Rudolph's last bitter months, and to remember him only as the wise shaman he once had been.

Summer followed spring, and fall brought ripe fruit, berries, and much celebration as the tribe smoked and stored their winter's fare.

Fall also brought sad news from the tribe up-valley. The Chief’s son and his new wife were dead. While gathering berries, they had been attacked and mauled by a bear. The up-valley tribe had held a bear hunt – bears that attacked while other food was plentiful could not be trusted near their territory – but the bear had disappeared.

Shortly after this news arrived, members of Ogga’s tribe began to report having seen bear tracks or scat in areas near to the tribe’s encampment. The tracks were huge – far beyond anything seen before. Then hunters who overnighted away from the tribe started hearing the coughing grunt of a large bear and seeing eyes – redder than the reflection of firelight might explain – glowing at them from the darkness.

Ogga, who knew much of spirit matters, had dark dreams in which she would return to her folk only to find them all fled, and the body of her beloved mauled and strewn across the encampment. She also noted that bear sightings were more frequent whenever her beloved was with a hunting party, and bear tracks came closer to camp when he was home.

She easily persuaded the chief that the folk should move into their winter caves a bit earlier this year. The chief’s announcement of the move was greeted with much joy, as the folk were growing more and more uneasy. The tribe packed swiftly, and hunters were sent to the caves to ensure that no dangerous beast had chosen their winter home as its lair.

The hunting party, as was the custom, secured the caves. Then they sent two of their fleetest runners back to the folk, a two-day journey, to report that all was safe. As Ogga’s beloved had a reputation for speed and strength that was second only to that of the Chief’s daughter, it was natural that they were the ones chosen. They were the first to see the bear.

It entered their overnight camp almost silently, and but for the Chief’s daughter being a light sleeper it might have slain them both. As it was, she had time to call out and roll from her sleeping furs before the bear fell upon them. The bear was momentarily distracted by her scent on the furs. By the time it realized this “prey” was long dead, both hunters had equipped themselves with spears and flaming brands from the fire.

By the light of their torches they saw the beast, shaggy, black and massive. Its shoulder was higher than a tall man could reach, higher even than a man sitting on a tall man’s shoulders could reach. Its front paws, as it growled, and swiped at them were easily wide enough to score the Chief’s daughter from neck to thigh.

Yet these were the two mightiest hunters of the folk, and they had both killed bears before. Never so big, and never without more hunters, but they knew enough not to turn and flee. If they could get it to rear up, they believed they had a chance of making the spear stroke to the heart that would bring the bear down. This bear, however, seemed almost to know what they wanted. It growled and snarled and feinted at them – but shout as they would, wave their arms as they could – it refused to rear. Its blazing red eyes – and they could see this was no reflection – watched their every move, their every spear thrust, with a malicious intelligence. They could stand it off, but neither side could make a quick kill.

Finally, just as the first light of the sun crept over the south-eastern side of the valley, the bear took several steps backward into the forest and disappeared from view. And indeed, disappeared is the right word, for neither hunter could find any tracks beyond those first steps into the trees.

One does not get to be known as the fastest among the folk without being able to run. And run our champions did – arriving at the encampment shortly before sunset, bruised and torn by falls and brambles and almost too winded to gasp out their tale to the Chief.

Ogga was called and the tale repeated. She thought for a while, and asked whether either hunter had noticed any marks on the bear? Perhaps scars from fights with other hunters that might explain its animosity towards the folk? The hunters were certain the bear showed no major injury, but argued whether a notch one had seen on the bear’s left ear might indicate healed over damage.

Hearing them, Ogga grew pale, and asked the hunters to describe the mark carefully. The Chief’s daughter thought it a slash, probably made by the claws of another animal. Ogga’s beloved, however, described it more like the shape between outstretched fingers.

The chief asked, “Like a priest’s mark?”

“Yes, like the mark Ogga carries, but on the other ear.”

“My father, his mark was on the other ear.” Ogga sighed. “I feared that this bear might be a remainder of Rudolph’s curse.”

“Worse than that,” the chief suggested. “It may be Rudolph himself, returned to harm those who thwarted him in life.”

“Indeed, Rudolph, my father, now a red-eyed cave-bear. We shall have to warn the folk.”

“I will warn, and command that we leave for the caves tomorrow morning. Hopefully there we will be safer. But even if the caves are safer, we cannot live there forever. Ogga, you must find a way to get him to leave us alone.”

“I will try.”

Ogga’s first plan, once the tribe had settled into their cavern homes, was to ensure that wood was collected sufficient to keep a line of fire burning at each entrance through the long winter nights. Although some of the folk chafed under the task, after the first night visit of Rudolph the Cave-bear, enthusiasm for gathering wood abounded.

As the nights grew longer, the figure of Rudolph staring across the boundary flames became a familiar one. He would appear at dusk, and prowl from cave mouth to cave mouth until dawn. Only the most foolhardy of the folk hunted far enough from the caves to risk being unable to return before dusk. As the mangled bodies of those who risked (and lost) were found, risk takers dwindled.

Ogga would have been happy with the success of her first plan, but her beloved and the tribe’s other hunters chafed under the enforced curfew. Ogga remembered that even at his most angry, her father never turned his ire toward her. She wondered whether the same would be true of Rudolph in his bear form.

That night she left her sleeping furs outside the caves – if the bear tore them as it had torn those of the Chief’s daughter, she would know that Rudolph no longer loved her. Her cold vigil was rewarded when Rudolph found the furs. Rather than his usual barking grunt or growl, the bear made gentle crooning noises as he sniffed the furs. The next night, without telling anyone, Ogga stayed outside. She found a spot on the cliff face that she hoped would be out of Rudolph’s reach, and perched there waiting. Soon she heard the big bear’s heavy foot falls and coughing growl. Then sniffing noises, and the bears glowing eyes moving swiftly towards her ledge.

The beast reared to his full height, and Ogga realized she had underestimated the great bear’s size. Face to face with the giant cave-bear, Ogga pressed herself back against the stone. The bear could easily sweep her off her perch with a paw, or just rip out her throat with its teeth, but instead he only sniffed her and started making the same gentle crooning noises he had sung over her furs.

Remembering the first chant her father had taught her, a song for peaceful sleep, Ogga began to sing softly back to the bear. The bear settled back on his haunches, and began to sway gently in time to the chant. Ogga finished one song, then began another – staying with the more peaceful of the magical chants she knew. The night grew colder, and, before she knew it, a shiver added a tremolo to her voice. The bear bowed his great head to her, and patted the ground in front of himself.

“Rudolph?” Ogga asked.

The bear nodded and patted the ground again.

Ogga was no longer sure whether her trembling was from the cold, or from fear. But she had to know whether Rudolph would harm her, and it seemed simpler to find out now, rather than freezing half to death and then falling into his clutches. She scrambled off the ledge, sat on the ground where the bear had indicated, and, as he made no move to bite or claw, she leaned against the warmth of his chest. The bear held her, and she could sense the care he was taking to be gentle and avoid harming her with his claws.

“Rudolph,” Ogga said, certain at last. Feeling strangely secure, like a child of a few summers clasped on the lap of a large, fur-wearing elder, she asked the question that had driven her to her lonely nighttime sojourn. “Rudolph, you raised me to protect and pray for the folk, but now you are harming our people. What am I to do?”

The bear sighed deeply. Then he started rocking her gently in his lap and crooning again.

Ogga awoke with the sunrise. She might have thought the whole night a dream, but snow had fallen and she lay in the center of a bear-melted clearing, and was not in the least cold. A new chant was in her mind. She was almost certain that she had dreamed the song itself, for as she remembered it she could hear her father’s voice harmonizing with her own. She spent the rest of the day teaching the chant to as many of the folk as she could.

That evening, Ogga and her beloved both stayed outside the fire-guarded caves. As the shadows filled the valley, Rudolph appeared. The glows of eyes became redder as he saw a man of the folk, and he began to growl as he paced towards them. Then they began to chant the new song.

Rudolph stopped in his tracks, listening. A couple of the braver folk joined into the chant from their places behind the fires. As they joined in, Rudolph started backing away into the darkness. His retreat emboldened more of the folk and soon the entire tribe was chanting.

The Chief kept the guard fires burning for the rest of the winter, and Rudolph was sometimes seen watching the folk from the edge of the clearing. Hunting parties found that Rudolph was still eerily present whenever and wherever they were out in the darkness. Yet as long as they chanted his song, he would only listen for a while and then leave them alone.

When summer came again, and travel became easier, the folk sent runners to nearby tribes to teach them the song. Some of the tribes had lost people to Rudolph over the winter. Those who had not, heard the story and learned the song just in case.

And so it was, Best Beloved, that the Song of Rudolph the Red-eyed Cave-Bear spread among all the people of that bygone time. Though modern people have changed it, the original chant can still be heard echoing deep in the caves of the folk.

The Song of Rudolph

“by” Ogga

You know there's Tiger and Ogre,
Boger and Behemoth,
Goblin and Grendel,
Demon and Goliath
But do you recall
The most famous monster of all?

Rudolph the Red-Eyed Cave Bear
Had two very glowing eyes
And if you ever saw him
You'd be lucky to survive

All of the valley cave folk
Used their fear to fix their aims,
They never let old Rudolph
Break in through their guardian flames

Then one freezing Solstice Eve
Ogga came to sing,
"Rudolph with your eyes so bright
Please, please stay away tonight?"

Though all the cave folk feared him
They sang out in key,
"Rudolph the Red-Eyed Cave-Bear
You'll go and we’ll be free."

Modern Rudolph lyrics

“by” Johnny Marks

You know there's Dasher and Dancer
Prancer and Vixen
Comet and Cupid
Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw him
You would even say it glows

All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
"Rudolph with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You'll go down in history"