It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to use this little soap-box of mine to do some real good for a change. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that you need to know.<\/p>\n
Take note, and spread the message: the names of Santa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reindeer are as follows: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, DONDER and Blitzen. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, DONDER. Not Donner. Donder<\/em>.<\/p>\n As you might know, my last name is Donders. As such, it has been my lifelong quest to set the record straight and right the wrongs entrenched by Johnny Marks and Gene Autry<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little history lesson for you. The poem \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A Visit From St Nicholas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, commonly known as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Night Before Christmas\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, was written back in 1823 and is generally attributed to American poet Clement Clarke Moore (although there have been recent arguments <\/a>that the poem was in fact written by his contemporary Henry Livingston Jr.)<\/p>\n The original poem reads, in part:<\/p>\n More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, “Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! In the original publication of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1823 in the Troy Sentinel<\/em> “Dunder and Blixem” are listed as the last two reindeer. These are very close to the Dutch words for thunder and lightning, “Donder and Bliksem”. Blixem is an alternative spelling for Bliksem, but Dunder is not an alternative spelling for Donder. It is likely that the word “Dunder” was a misprint. Blitzen’s true name, then, might actually have been “Bliksem”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In 1994, the Washington Post<\/em> delved into the matter (sorry for the noisy link <\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201c it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only copy I could find online) by sending a reporter to the Library of Congress to reference the source material.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We were successful. In fact, Library of Congress reference librarian David Kresh described Donner\/Donder as “a fairly open-and-shut case.” As we marshaled the evidence near Alcove 7 in the Library’s Main Reading Room a few days ago, it quickly became clear that Clement Clarke Moore, author of “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” wanted to call him (or her?) “Donder.” Never mind that editors didn’t always cooperate. So there you have it. This Christmas season, make sure you give proper credit to Santa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seventh reindeer. On DONDER and Blitzen.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a matter of family pride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to use this little soap-box of mine to do some real good for a change. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that you need to know. Take note, and spread the message: the names of Santa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reindeer are as follows: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, DONDER and Blitzen. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, DONDER. Not Donner. Donder. As you … Continue reading “Setting the reindeer record straight”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.<\/p>\n
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on Dunder and Blixem!
<\/em>
As explained on the Donder Home Page <\/a>(no relation):<\/p>\n
(\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6)
Further confirmation came quickly. In “The Annotated Night Before Christmas,” which discusses the poem in an elegantly illustrated modern presentation, editor Martin Gardner notes that the “Troy Sentinel” used “Dunder”, but dismisses this as a typo. Gardner cites the 1844 spelling as definitive, but also found that Moore wrote “Donder” in a longhand rendering of the poem penned the year before he died: “That pretty well sews it up,” concluded Kresh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n