SCP 4666
The Yule Man
One of the most effective techniques available to horror writers
is taking something that is normally friendly or harmless and twisting it into something much darker
Examples include a clown in Stephen King's IT,
children in the omen or children of the corn or even a pet like Cujo.
The SCP universe has its fair share of this trope.
And today we'll be looking at a particularly disturbing example involving both children.
And Christmas.
Scp-4666 is currently uncontained by the foundation,
and their best hope currently is constant monitoring across the globe
and suppression of any media coverage of the SCP or its actions.
4666 is believed to be, but not confirmed: An exceptionally long-lived humanoid entity.
Witnesses describe it as a very tall elderly male with an extremely emaciated appearance,
always appearing completely naked.
The foundation believes that 4666 is capable of instantaneous
or near-instantaneous travel to any location north of 40 degrees north latitude.
As that seems to be the only area of its influence, but it's possible it could travel anywhere in the world.
4666 is only seen during a specific time frame:
From December 21st or December 22nd to January 1st or 2nd,
and is only seen at night.
Over the course of 12 consecutive nights 4666 will carry out a series of actions
that have been dubbed Weissnacht Events.
Weissnacht meaning white night.
During these events 4666 will target one or more households,
each bearing some similarities to one another.
Each are in an isolated location north of 40 degrees north latitude,
each are home to a family with at least one child under the age of 8,
and each will have snow cover during the duration of the event
During the first seven nights of a Weissnacht Event
children in the homes who've been affected will begin to see 4666 outside of the home,
watching them from a nearby field or edge of a forest.
It has also been reported in some cases that affected children will wake up during the night to see 4666
watching them through a window.
Only children will notice this during this period.
Over the following four nights afterwards all family members will hear sounds of footsteps,
coming from the attic of the home or on the roof,
and an extremely unpleasant odor will also frequently be smelled.
Despite any efforts made no cause for the footsteps or smell will be found, often leading to paranoia.
Finally on the twelfth night one of two scenarios will occur with one of them far more likely
occurring in 85% of known cases.
This more common scenario involves 4666 entering the family's home,
incapacitating most of the family members,
and herding them into a single room so that it can kill each of them in view of each other.
The method of killing differs each time but often involves some degree of torture beforehand.
In a report from the late 1400s in Croatia,
the killings were seen as ritualistic and paganistic with a bishop believing them to be a part of a demonic ritual.
Another event involved a family being hung upside down from the ceiling
completely drained of blood
In Germany in 1913 a family was found suspended on the walls of a stable
with sharp implements forced through their palms and their tongues cut out.
Another family had their feet held over a fire until their bones were exposed and their heads were crushed,
with hundreds of bite marks not matching any animal or human covering their bodies.
In Norway in 1971 a family was found in a basement,
each with limbs forcefully pulled off, and each had sustained exactly 39 stab wounds.
Their bodies had then been eviscerated,
their intestines removed and cut into pieces arranged around the bodies.
Finally in Iceland in 1996 a family of nine had been found
with large pieces of skin removed and partially consumed from their backs, necks, and groins.
Each had then been decapitated with a bucksaw belonging to the family
before their bodies were carried to their respective beds and their heads placed on the staircase.
While gruesome and horrific,
the worst fact is that in each of these cases the youngest child of the families had been abducted.
Each younger than eight and most around the age of three to five.
We'll learn more about this in a moment, but in the other possible scenario,
occurring 15% of the time, none of the family members are hurt.
Instead they will hear footsteps inside their home during the twelfth night
and in the morning, the children will find presents at the foot of their beds
consisting of crudely made toys crafted from the remains
of human children.
These toys vary wildly in form and composition with some hardly considered to be toys at all.
In Finland in 1811 a small wooden drum was found
with the top of the drum made from a stretched piece of child skin
and secured with thread made from human tendons.
In Wales a knife was found made from a single piece of bone from a child,
and in Kazakhstan a flute was found made from a hollowed-out femur bone belonging to a child
dyed in human blood.
In Michigan in 1960 a box containing 13 miniature human figures was found,
each made from the finger or toe bones of a child and tied together with human tendons.
The figurines were decorated with human hair and torn pieces of clothing
and DNA evidence revealed that parts of 18 different children were used to make the figurines.
In Canada a ball made of 19 layers of human skin
wrapped around the head of a child and secured with pine resin was found.
And in the Netherlands, there was a hairbrush that used 43 human teeth in place of the bristles.
Each tooth was found to belong to a different child
and only two of them matched known abduction victims of 4666.
Despite events stretching back centuries the foundation only learned of SCP 4666's existence in 1974
but they began a worldwide search for past records of similar events.
They now possess records showing Weissnacht Events for nearly every year going back to the late 18th century.
Although there's a possibility that 4666 has been active since the 2nd century or even the first century BC.
Despite obtaining what seems to be 4666's fingerprint at each of his crime scenes,
it appears to be inhuman in design and the foundation is no closer to actually tracking the entity.
They did, however, gain new insight into 4666
when they retrieved one of the kidnapping victims after a Weissnacht Event in Alaska in 2018.
This was one of those rarer events where the family was not killed and gifts were left instead.
One of which was a life-sized doll made from an emaciated female child.
The girl was clothed in a dirty crude dress that had been sewed into her skin in several places
and her mouth had been sewn shut using thread made from human tendons.
Her lips were painted red with a substance primarily consisting of human blood
and three of her fingers were missing.
The rest of her fingers had some other child's fingernails glued over her own
and painted with the same blood solution.
Her entire scalp had been removed and another child's scalp placed where it was with long blonde hair.
Finally, both of her eyes have been removed and replaced with two large stones
with crudely painted eyes on them.
Upon examination. The child was revealed to be still alive and was airlifted to a hospital.
Two foundation agents were dispatched to the hospital and obtained an interview with the girl.
The girl, aged 7, was a known abduction victim
taken from her home in Russia in 2016 after a Weissnacht Event.
She was severely malnourished.
Her body was covered in scars and burns, and she had suffered two bone fractures that had not healed properly
She originally spoke to the two agents in an unknown language,
possibly pre proto-germanic, before switching over to broken Russian.
The girl's first concern was that she was going to be taken back to him,
but after being reassured she described the Weissnacht Event that she had witnessed.
She said that "He hurt mama and papa, and Katya and Yuliana for a long time, and they were bleeding."
After they stopped screaming he put her in his bag which contained other children as well.
She heard other people screaming as they went to other houses
and at each house he put another child in the bag.
Afterwards, he took the children deep underground, somewhere very cold
and she says there were bones everywhere.
There were apparently lots of children there and a huge number of holes each containing a group of children.
The children are then responsible for making toys and if he don't make the toys you don't get to eat.
She says "If you stop making toys or fall asleep he hurts you
by hitting you burning you biting off your fingers or even cooking and eating you."
The girl personally witnessed two other children being eaten,
and eventually she became sick and was unable to make toys any longer.
The other children in her group were then forced to work on her instead as she says
"When you can't make the toys...
you become the toys."
The girl died shortly after the interview.
So, 4666 is a bit of the movie sinister, combined with the myths of Santa Claus and Krampus,
with a healthy splash of SCP thrown in. As I said taking something normally cheerful,
fun and innocent and twisting it into something dark and horrifying
is often quite an unsettling technique and I think that's part of why 4666 works well.
What exactly are The Yule man's motivations for making such grotesque toys and leaving them behind?
Will the foundation ever manage to track down The Yule man and his underground lair of grotesquerie?
4666 is one of the more disturbing SCPs on the site
But, if you don't live above the 40 degrees north line, you don't have to worry
Probably.