One summer before the pandemic, Dad and I spent a lovely week in Iceland, and I loved everything: the language (practically unchanged Old Norse), the food, the landscapes, the history, the art and literature, the capital (Reykjavik is quaintly Nordic, the size of Castellón, and it's impossible to get lost - I warmly recommend the Penis Museum and a sculpture museum with statues based upon Norse myths - there is a Penis Museum; I will blog about it someday), but especially the Yule Family, though Christmas was half a year away.
As the years went by, the Yule Family, especially the Yule Lads, but also their parents and family pet to a lesser degree, became stars and global celebrities - so why not give you my certified guide to the entire Yule Family? The source is Yule Is Coming, Jólin koma, a famous folk song that describes the family in detail, but I also add my own headcanons.
YULE LADS
The Yule Lads are the gift-givers, but also the tricksters, of Icelandic winters. Think the Seven Dwarves, but there are 13 of them and far more mischievous (is this why there are 13 dwarves in The Hobbit? Was Tolkien inspired?), though some of them are far more mischievous than others. Every Yule they come down from the icy volcanic interior of Iceland to the farms and towns that dot the coast of the land and make a grand tour, my headcanon is that they start in Reykjavik and from there go counter-clockwise around the entire coastline, harassing the local people and farm animals, but also leaving gifts everywhere along the way.
- Sheepcot Clod: His favourite food is sheep's milk, preferently straight from the ewe's udders. Fortunately, most Icelanders live in rural areas, so it's an easy craving to satisfy... if he didn't have TWO peg legs, making it impossible for him to bend the knees, the low-hanging udders always tantalizing him!
- Gully-Gawk: His favourite food is cow's milk, preferently straight from the cow's udders. Especially the fat and the foam on top of the milk. Fortunately, most Icelanders live in rural areas, so it's an easy craving to satisfy... he hides in gullies and enters the stable when everyone's guard is down. Also, he has no peg legs. In towns like Reykjavik, I presume he raids fridges and supermarkets.
- Stubby: Hide your frying pans and woks well, or wash them the best way you can, because short little Stubby loves the food crusts on woks and frying pans!
- Spoon-Licker: He looks more than thin, emaciated to be more precise, because he only licks the globs of food on wooden spoons (wash them well!). Seems to have an eating disorder, preferently anorexia nervosa.
- Pot-Scraper: Like his name suggests, he loves scraping the crusts on cooking pots, just like Stubby eats those on frying pans.
- Bowl-Licker: Has the weirdest craving of this quartet (do you see a pattern?), namely, he eats the pet food that your pets haven't eaten, straight from the pet food bowl. He appears to suffer from pica, like Candle-Stealer below. I headcanon all the Lickers and Pot-Scraper as quadruplets, for obvious reasons.
- Door-Slammer: A frustrated percussionist, who slams all the doors for pleasure in the middle of the winter nights, welcoming air drafts that cut like swords. Someone please give him a drum set!
- Skyr-Gobbler: my absolute favourite, since we both adore skyr (Icelandic yoghurt, also available in both Spain and Sweden), but his obsession comes to the point of looking like a drug addiction. In rural areas, "he lambasted the skyr tub (a big barrel where country folk make craft skyr) until the lid it broke." In towns like Reykjavik, I presume he raids fridges and supermarkets.
- Sausage-Swiper: Loves to, well, swipe sausages (Sausage-Swiper, don't swipe sausages! Sausage-Swiper, don't swipe sausages! - said in a Dora the Explorer voice!) dropping down from the ceiling, à la Mission: Impossible.
- Window-Peeper: described in Yule Is Coming as "a creepy little twit," and definitely the creepiest member of the Yule Family. My least favourite. Loves to, well, peep through windows (In towns like Reykjavik, I presume, through opera glasses), according to the poem for looking for valuables to steal, but in my headcanon also to watch out for more valuable things - ie to spy on attractive young ladies, and certainly on attractive young men, whilst they undress. Makes Santa's "He watches when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake," sound far more innocent in comparison. If your Elf on the Shelf looks particularly fishy or ugly, please cover his eyes: you may have let in a Trojan Horse Window Peeper into your home!
- Threshold-Sniffer: has a remarkably large nose. Think Cyrano and J.P. Morgan added together. He has a particularly strong sense of smell, especially for Icelandic gingerbread , which is fried (though he also accepts regular, baked, gingerbread), and he always sniffs from the threshold to ensure that there is some gingerbread at home. Best to keep these Yuletide biscuits in a safe or under lock and key!
- Meat Hook: Has a hook in place of his right hand (how did he lose his real hand? Was it more like Captain Hook or more like Jaime Lannister?) and uses it to get the lamb shanks that are the stars of Icelandic Christmas. Best to keep that lamb somewhere safe too!
- Candle-Stealer: Last of all, the most ambiguous. Gives the largest and most expensive gifts, but enjoys stealing and eating candles, being in love with the texture and taste of wax - he definitely has pica, just like Bowl-Licker (I have eaten candles myself, since I have pica myself, and also raw pasta, raw rice, everything crunchy or crispy, napkins, and toilet paper - but I find pet food revolting!). In the medieval and early modern periods, before electric light, fires and candles were crucial for surviving the Arctic winter, so Candle-Stealer has the largest body count of all the Lads.
THE LADS' PARENTS
Of course they must have a mum, a dad (or in this case a stepdad), and a family pet! Though, this being the Yule Family, Mum, Dad, and the pets are definitely far more monstrous.
Mama Gryla gave the thirteen Lads, her children, giantess' milk, because she is a giantess, one of the jötnar of Norse mythology that were already mentioned in the Eddas. Like her kids, she leaves the Yule Family cave in December and makes a grand tour of the coast line, abducting misbehaving and disobedient human children, whom she stuffs inside her sack (which, like Santa's sack - and Hermione's handbag, and Mary Poppins' carpet bag - is a lot like a TARDIS, considerably roomier inside!). Back at home, she slaughters all the kids she's captured and makes her special stew for the entire clan (2 giant parents, 13 dwarf children, and a cat the size of a house: that's 16): there's enough to feed them all for the rest of the year, when the Yule Lads are not feeding on their respective favourite foods along the coast.
Her third and current husband, Leppalúdi, is only the Yule Lads' stepdad: their real dads are gone, and they were most likely dwarves themselves. These two dwarves were most likely eaten in harder times, when there was not enough food to go around. I headcanon Leppalúdi as an extreme case of couch potato, always playing videogames and watching sitcoms on a TV that Gryla stole for him on one of her raids because he always complained about life being tedious in the Yule Family cave. Leppalúdi even pees and poos in a chamber pot beneath a hole in the sofa, at anus height.
YULE CAT
And then, of course, there is the family pet, the house-sized Yule Cat, with exceedingly fluffy fur and big padded feet to withstand the Arctic winter. Now a cat that size won't feed on songbirds, frogs, or any other prey of normal-sized housecats. The Yule Cat preys on people. Humans. And not just any humans... Those who have not tried on the winter clothes that they have received for Christmas. Yes, I know, clothes for Christmas is such a disappointment to many (as a kid, I would rather prefer "hard" presents like dolls, storybooks, CDs, DVDs, or VHSs!). But it was key to survival in the Arctic winter before the electric heating, making the Yule Cat as much as a serial killer as Candle-Stealer. The Yule Cat plays a little with his human prey, as if they were songbirds or the other prey of a normal-sized cat, and then, when he gets bored, either devours them alive or takes them to Gryla, depending on how full his stomach is. Only Stubby can tame the Yule Cat, and he rides the huge beast across the wintry countryside.
