Your Icelandic Yule Gauntlet Has Already Begun

It's already too late. It's started, and you can't stop it. That strange shuffling near the sheep tonight? That's no rattle of wind, friends. Those disembodied grunts? Stay in the light if you venture outside. A creaking of ancient bones from the gloom? You have a full-on Yule Lad situation.

Only one creature lurks each December 12th near the sheep pens. Stekkjastaur, the peg-legged troll-kin of the mountain caves, and he has larceny in his heart. He wants ewes' milk. Your ewes' milk. It's his whole reason for lurking. Your saving grace: Age and bulk have made him clumsy. If you're careful, or if you're brave enough to guard that pen, you can keep him at bay all night--and the night is twenty-one hours long. 

Be warned, though. He isn't going far. He'll seize any chance for undefended milk until Christmas Day. 

If that sounds bad, well, things are just getting started.

Stekkjastaur--Sheepcote Clod--is the eldest of Iceland's thirteen Yule Lads. His mother is, well, interesting, and she lets the lads loose one by one, starting on December 12th. As eldest, Stekkjastaur is the first to set out for thieving. That was yesterday, everybody. 

Today, Giljagaur sneaks down from the mountains. Sneaking is a tricky thing when you're a giant, so Giljagaur conceals himself in any gully or cavern he can find. If you glimpse an enormous head ducking from sight, that'll be him. He wants any cow's milk left unwatched.

Eleven more brothers will follow, one rogue troll-kin each day until the full bunch is creeping around everywhere. They'll snatch, hook, or lick any unminded food down to the last crumbs. The Lads will go for unwashed pans, dirty spoons, sausages aging in the rafters, and even swipe tallow candles for an easy meal. By Christmas, it's chaos.

One must be prepared to fend them off. In that spirit, here's your: 

Luckily, the Lads may be thieving trolls, but that doesn't make them unreasonable. A bribe of cheese or sausage goes a long way, is what I'm saying. They will leave you alone and maybe leave a few gifts themselves. After all, they're not cold-blooded killers.

No, that would be their cat. 

It's Christmas night. Everyone has battled the windswept elements and sun deprivation and troll-amplified holiday stress all day. If you were hoping for some needed sleep, think again. On Christmas night, you may well be marked for death. 

And you would know it was coming--because no one had given you clothes for Christmas. And those poor souls get eaten alive.

And yet. No new clothes. So you're laying there hoping that you had the legend wrong. Surely, there is no such thing as Jólakötturinn--the Yule Cat. The odds that a demon cat taller than any church steeple exists must be something like zero. And okay, suppose such a cat monster does stalk the night. It's not after you, right? It's probably busy eating people who actually did something wrong. It's no crime, not getting new duds. I mean, you've gotten plenty of books. You're not unloved. Or are you? Did your family and friends set you up? 

Getting eaten by a demon at Christmas. It's all so damned unfair. 

You wouldn't hear Jólakötturinn approach any more than you would hear a whisper of snow. But if you peered out the door, if you stared long enough, hard enough, you could maybe see it coming, a cat black as coal and so large it blocked the stars, fire-ember eyes fixed on you. 

Blame it all on Grýla. Iceland's ogress-in-chief is mother to the Yule Lads and the keeper of Jólakötturinn. Worse, she roams around all year--and she straight-up wants to eat your children. You'll know it's her even with all these trolls and monsters around. She has signature long ears, a tail, nasty-black teeth. She'll hit you up for charity and expect to be paid. In children, preferably, to stuff them in her sack and carry them off for the boiling pot.

Hey, Iceland is a spooky place. Ghostly spirits--draugur--haunt the wide basalt plains. Deep lakes and crevices hide monsters waiting for the unwary. Craggy rocks might be trolls that come alive at night. Or those rocks might be an elf's home--and elves don't like to be disturbed. It's why Icelandic roads and paths often veer around otherwise removable boulders. Nobody is taking chances. 

And nobody should. Iceland is a dangerous place. Isolated, desolate. Long, deep nights, glacier-carved crevices, slick rocks, slicing winds, geothermal vents, toxic pools, lava ooze. There's not enough to eat for wolves or bears to survive. If you wanted to last the winter in Iceland, you had to be ready. You worked together, sweated every detail, wasted nothing. You sure as hell didn't go wandering off alone.

Small wonder, then, that Icelanders started inventing stories to scare the snot out of their kids. Playing too near the rocks? That's a troll there. Set off on a foolhardy hike? Grýla will get you. Not doing your part to gather wool before winter? No clothes for you, then. You're going to get awfully cold. Watch the sheep, finish your meal, clean the dishes. Domestic lessons could be life-or-death in the thin margins of December.

So, in the old Icelandic spirit, come together this holiday season. Come together, stick together, grit it out. Give generously--clothes, not children. And me, I'm not saying that noise outside is a troll-kin. But I'm not saying it's not. It's a weird, wild world out there, and now we know to play it safe.