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Yule Lads: Mischievous Icelandic Santas
In Iceland, there isn’t just one Santa Claus; there are thirteen of them. That’s the good news if you are an Icelandic child. The bad news is that these jólasveinar (or jólasveinarnir) or “Yule Lads” are a pretty rowdy and unpredictable bunch—at least in the earliest accounts.
Like Santa, the Yule Lads reward good boys and girls with treats, which they slip into shoes that have been left on the windowsill. But they also distribute not-so-nice presents to children who have misbehaved, usually in the form of a raw or even rotten potato.
The depiction of the Yule Lads has varied over time and according to location. Their original role was to frighten children into behaving—in short, they were bogeymen. In the earliest accounts, they were mischievous or even criminal pranksters who would steal from or otherwise harass the population. Sometimes, they were simple pranksters. At other times, however, they were frightening child-eating monsters. In 1746, there was even a public decree issued to prohibit parents from frightening their children with stories about creatures such as the Yule Lads.
The Yule Lads are trolls—although that word is actually a bit fluid in the Scandinavian languages and is practically a generic term for any sort of fantastical humanoid creature. They are the sons of mountain-dwelling cannibalistic trolls (or ogres or giants) named Grýla and Leppalúdi (literally, “Hag” and “Ragamuffin”). They came down from the mountains to scare Icelandic children who misbehave.
The Yule Lads have become friendlier in the past century or so due to contact with American Santa Claus traditions. They have stopped being a terror to children, although they are still thieving mischief-makers. At the same time, they started bringing gifts for children and taken a more kindly attitude toward them. They have also largely traded in their original attire of ragged farmer’s clothes for red suits with white beards and black boots. Modern-day Yule Lads are funny old men with childlike minds and behavior.
The modern depiction of the Yule Lads owes much to a 1932 poem, “Jólasveinarnir” by Jóhannes úr Kötlum. Just as Clement Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” established much of the contemporary American depiction of Santa Claus, “Jólasveinarnir” gives Icelanders their modern-day conception of the Yule Lads. The poem establishes their number at thirteen where before their number varied. It also gives them their traditional names, which all refer to the sort of mischief they are prone to making: Spoon-Licker, Door-Slammer, Sausage-Swiper, Window-Peeper, etc.
The Yule Lads come to town one by one in the days before Christmas, the first arriving on December 12 and the last on December 24. Then, on Christmas day, the first Yule Lad returns to the mountains, followed by the second on December 26, third on December 27, etc., until the last one leaves on January 6, bringing the Christmas season to a close.
The Yule Lads are often depicted with Grýla’s cat, also known as the Yule Cat (Jólakötturinn or Jólaköttur), a huge, vicious cat that lurks about the snowy countryside and eats children who don’t receive new clothes for Christmas. Some say farmers used the threat of the Yule Cat as an incentive for their workers to finish processing the autumn wool before Christmas. Others claim, however, that new clothes were a reward for having been obedient and hardworking throughout the year. Lazy children didn’t get any, which means the Yule Cat can take them.
The International University of Santa Claus
Helmed by Tim Connaghan—who has suited up in the big guy’s red suit for the past 45 years and is an inductee in the International Santa Hall of Fame—more than 2500 Santa wannabes have earned their diplomas. But what prerequisites does Santa Claus need to graduate? Here’s a snapshot of 11 workshops covered in the IUSC’s official textbook,“Behind the Red Suit—The Business of Santa.”
Easter Island
Two anthropologists, Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, from the University of Hawaii, are advancing a new theory about the collapse of society on Easter Island. It is in some ways complementary to what Jared Diamond previously suggested in his book Collapse.
Diagon Alley in Google Maps Street View
No giants on motorcycles to be found, but I think I spotted a Death Eater.
The Lost Colony of Roanoke
It’s still lost, apparently, but historian Eric Klingelhofer has proposed a new theory that suggests the colony split up to better survive whatever catastrophe befell it. Some of them, he says, may have relocated westward to the mouth of the Chowan River.
A clue uncovered in a long-forgotten, centuries-old map of the area called “La Virginea Pars”—drawn by the colony’s governor John White—kicked off a reexamination of the fate of the lost colonists. An artist and employee of explorer Sir Walter Raleigh, White was later appointed governor of the new lands; he was also the grandfather of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World.
Two patches on the map made Brent Lane of the First Colony Foundation (the group behind the latest archaeological trip and a National Geographic grantee) in Durham, North Carolina, wonder if they might hide something beneath.
Scientists at the British Museum looked into the patches and discovered a tiny red-and-blue symbol. Could it have indicated a fort or a secret emergency location?
Christmas in the Reich
Matt Soniak has posted a fascinating article at Mental Floss about Christmas in Nazi Germany.
Wherever possible, in both public and private spheres, Christmas’ religious aspects were de-emphasized and replaced with nationalistic and pagan symbolism. “People’s Christmas trees,” were erected in many towns and cities with the traditional star topper replaced by swastikas, Germanic “sun wheels” or the Nordic “sig runes” used by the SS as their insignia.
These trees became the subject of numerous Christmas carols rewritten with no reference to Christ or religion, as well as the focal point of Christmas celebrations, events and activities organized by like the Hitler Youth, the League of German Women and the German Workers Front and the state. The Nazi Party organized massive celebrations across the country where the Hitler Youth reenacted solstice rituals and soldiers swore “oaths of fire” before huge bonfires. Joseph Goebbels often appeared at celebrations like this at the tree in Berlin, handing out presents to children like a jackbooted Santa Claus.
Santa, of course, still existed in Nazified form, as someone had to bring gifts to good National Socialist children. Instead of St. Nick in the red robe of a bishop, though, he came in the form of the Norse god Odin, riding around the planet on a white horse to announce the coming of the winter solstice. Presents were still exchanged among families, friends and co-worker, sometimes with a depraved twist: the special Yule lanterns that SS leader Heinrich Himmler handed out as gifts to his officers were made by the inmates at the Dachau concentration camp.
Bronze-Age Irish Kings Had a Very Responsible Position
If anything went wrong, they were held responsible:
Cashel Man suffered violent injuries to his back and a sword or axe wound on his arm, but this level of violence is not unusual for bog bodies. Keeper of Irish Antiquities, Eamonn Kelly, who has worked on all the major bog body finds, theorizes that the bog bodies died violent deaths as a form of sacrifice.
He explained to the BBC, “When an Irish king is inaugurated, he is inaugurated in a wedding to the goddess of the land. It is his role to ensure through his marriage to the goddess that the cattle will be protected from plague and the people will be protected from disease.”
He continues, “If these calamities should occur, the king will be held personally responsible. He will be replaced, he will pay the price, he will be sacrificed.”
(H/T: Celtic Myth Podshow)
Sunday Inspiration: Courage
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
—Nelson Mandela
Elves and Ladies
Nils Blommér, Meadow Elves, 1850
Originally, the Old Norse term álfr may have connoted exclusively masculine beings. There must have been female members of this group, however. If Alaric Hall is right that vanr is synonymous with álfr (Elves in Anglo-Saxon England, 27, 36), then we can even propose the names of some of these females: the names of female vanir such as Freyja, Jörd, etc.
In Icelandic, a female álfr is called an álfkona. But there are also certain named beings that seem to correspond more directly to “elves” as they are generally understood.
Hall (Elves in Anglo-Saxon England, 29, 43) suggests that dísir and nornir were the female counterparts of álfar. You can decide for yourselves whether this means that dísir is simply the term for female álfar or that dísir and álfar are naturally paired entities, perhaps like nymphs and satyrs are paired in Greek mythology.
At any rate, Hall perceives a distinct group of goddess-like beings in Norse mythology that go by a number of names. He contends that dís (plural, dísir), norn (plural, nornir), and valkyrja (plural, valkyrjur) are partial synonyms with largely overlapping meaning. Of these three terms, dís is the most inclusive. Just as the Norse religion had the custom of álfablót, a votive offering to the álfar, there were also sacrifices to the dísir called dísablót.
Dísir (“ladies”) are female warrior-spirits who choose who will live or die on the battlefield—and often intervene to ensure their choices come to pass. Valkyrja (“chooser of the slain”) is a kenning or poetic nickname for dís.
The derivation of the word norn is uncertain. It may, however, come from a verb meaning “to twine,” a reference to these beings’ twining the thread of fate. Another possibility is to connect the word with a later Swedish word meaning “to communicate secretly.” This etymology evokes images of shadowy, mysterious entities that deal in secrets mortals rarely comprehend—until it is too late.
Scholars speak of “the three Norns,” but Old Norse sources never do. According to the Prose Edda, “there are yet more nornir, namely those who come to every man when he is born to shape his life.” The nornir are thus a close counterpart to the fae women of other cultures who take an interest in the destiny of human beings.
World’s Largest Gingerbread House
The community of Bryan, Texas has constructed a gingerbread house Guiness-certified as the largest in the world. The project is now being used as a tourist attraction to fund a new facility to for the trauma program at nearby St. Joseph Health System.
The 39,201.8-cubic-foot structure was built on the grounds of the Texas A&M Traditions Club. It is nearly 3,000 cubic feet larger than the previous record holder built in 2006 at the Mall of America in Minnesota.
Other than requiring a tarp to protect it from the elements, the only drawback is the bees: a cluster of about 2,000 bees has moved in to avail themselves of the free sugar.
Darrell J. Pursiful 