Idea for a Christmas story
The origin myth of the candy cane. A village in the far north is being menaced by a creature out of the white wastes, something in the shape of a man that is not a man, something of the ice that is yet living. Finally, a carpenter in the village, known for his prodigious strength and his gentleness of spirit (he makes toys as gifts for the local children), takes a pine tree and takes off the branches in one long strip, the exposed sap drying into a blood red spiral. He sharpens the tree into a point, fixing a multi-pointed spike to the end and with it, and heads out into the snow to face the monster. He kills the monster but dies of his wounds. Thereafter, the villagers erect a pine tree and gives toys to children in his memory every midwinter, and celebrate with sugar sticks decorated with a blood red spiral.