A dark Christmas in Iceland - Folklore

 

A dark Christmas in Iceland - Folklore

 

Deep within a dark cave, made from the lava set stones in Dimmuborgir, adjacent to the Mývatn area of north Iceland, lives a terrifying giantess named Grýla. She is thought to be half-troll, half-ogre, and her thirst for the blood of children is insatiable. Grýla doesn’t often roam from her cave, taking only an annual excursion to stock up on her feast for the year - a silent Christmas killer. Much like Santa, Grýla keeps note of which children have been naughty, however Grýla’s list is much more of an actual hit list. Whispers of naughty children are collected throughout the year, and when Christmas time comes around again she goes on the hunt, collecting the misbehaving youths in a sack and subsequently cooking them in a pot, creating a pot of stew of such great volumes that it sustains her for the entire year.

Grýla’s latest husband is named Leppalúði, also a troll. Leppalúði is seemingly terrified of his wife and her homicidal tendencies and so mostly just stays in the cave and doesn’t do much at all. You may ask – so how does Grýla manage to pull off so many murders if her partner will not participate? Luckily for her, she also happens to live with a giant flesh-eating feline, The Christmas Cat. This fluffy felon is less interested in the actual behaviour of children, instead preying on those that did not receive any clothes for Christmas, which does seem somewhat unfair. 

Grýla and Leppalúði have thirteen children, collectively termed the ‘Yule Lads…’

Sheep-Cote Clod tries to suckle yews in farmers sheds and Gully Gawk steals the foam from buckets of cows milk. Stubby, as his name suggests, is a short lad and he steals the food from frying pans. Then we have Spoon Licker, and well, he just licks spoons. Pot Scraper steals unwashed pots and licks them clean, very much like his brother Bowl Licker who does the same with bowls left under beds. Door Slammer likes to wait until people are having a nice nap, just to wake them up by slamming doors. Skyr Gobbler eats up all of the Icelandic yogurt and Sausage Swiper loves stolen sausages. Window Peeper looks into houses and steals what he fancies, whereas Door Sniffer with his enormous nose sniffs out baked goods to steal. Meat Hook especially likes smoked lamb but will snatch up any meat which is left out, and finally, we have Candle Beggar who steals candles. An odd bunch altogether, but I guess that can be expected when brought up by a murderous giantess and a killer black cat housemate.

The moral of the story is a very extreme version of Santa’s ‘be good or don’t have a nice Christmas’ but due to its gruesome nature which obviously left children fearing for their lives, the Icelandic government officially banned parents from scaring their children with such chilling tales in 1746. Nowadays, the Yule Lads are much more well behaved and children get to celebrate 13 days of their visits leading up to Christmas. If they are good, the Yule Lads will leave sweets in shoes which have been laid out, whereas naughty children will get rotten potatoes. It is thought that the intense nature of this Folktale ties in with the extreme weather conditions in Iceland, where parents could not afford their children to be running around irresponsibly outdoors. The cat preying on children without new clothes is likely a method to ensure all sewing is completed on time.

Overall, I bet the behaviour of Icelandic children leading up to Christmas was impeccable.  

 

A wee poem if anyone is interested: https://ingebretsens-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/The-Yule-Lads-Poem.pdf