Uncommon Folk 31 Days of Winter- The Yule Lads

Ever wondered what happens when folklore meets festive cheer? Discover the enchanting and slightly mischievous world of Iceland's Yule Lads as we promise to fill your holiday season with a curious blend of laughter and lore. These 13 pint-sized pranksters, each with their own peculiar habits, bring a unique charm to Christmas with their playful antics and mysterious mountain origins. From Steggjasta, who comically chases sheep on his peg legs, to Skir Gamur, whose love for Icelandic yogurt knows no bounds, we uncover their delightful stories alongside their fearsome mother, Gríla, the legendary ogress with a penchant for misbehaving children.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

The Yule Lads Now in Iceland. Their folklore depicts a lot more of mountain dwelling characters and monsters who come to town during Christmas. Like many of the folk connected to Christmas, these are used to scare children into good behaviour. There are mischievous pranksters who leave gifts at night and monsters who eat the naughty children. In Iceland, there are the Yule Lads. Now there is Gríla. You will excuse my Icelandic throughout, please. Gríla is an ogress who has the appetite for the flesh of mischievous children. She cooks them in a large pot. Her husband, lepilur, is lazy and mainly just stays at home in the caves doing nothing. You don't have to worry about them so much.

Speaker 1: 1:12

They stay in the caves, but they have 13 children, the Yule Lads, and each of them has a different personality and they go out and they harass the population. They leave small gifts, sometimes in shoes, on windowsills, but disobedient children will find a rotten potato in their shoes. Now, originally, they were portrayed as kidnappers of children. Misbehaving children would get kidnapped and taken to the caves and cooked in the pot by their mother, but that has since softened. Now, as there are 13 of them, they each have to have very specific jobs In wintertime. There's certain times that they come out and certain things that they do. So I'm just going to go through all 13 of the Yule Lads for you. First of all, we have Steggjasta, which means sheep coat clod. Now he harasses sheep but he is impaired because he has very stiff peg legs and he comes out between the 12th and 25th of December. There's Giliagur Gullyhawk, who hides in gullies waiting for any opportunity to sneak into the cowshed and steal milk. He comes around from the 13th to the 26th of December. The stufor stubby Now, he's really short, abnormally short, you might say. He steals pans for the food baked in them and the bottoms and the brims of them as well. He comes between the 14th of December and the 27th of December. Then we have Foras Ligur spoon licker. He steals wooden spoons which are used for cooking and he licks them, but that's the only place he gets his nutrition. So he's very thin and suffering from malnutrition, as you would be if all you ate, and he's from the 15th of December to the 28th of December. There's Potter Schiff, the pot scraper. He steals the pots to scrape out the leftovers. None of these are getting a great diet, are they? And he's from the 16th of December to the 29th of December.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Next we have Askus Lake, a bowl licker. He hides under the beds waiting the wooden food bowls which are placed on the floor and he'll lick the bowls, hence his name. There's Hooraskill, which is door slammer. Now, he just loves nothing more than slamming doors, especially during the night, waking up the household, and he's from the 18th of December to the 31st of December. There's Skir Gamur, which is skir gobbler, and he has a great affinity for skir, the regional style of yogurt, icelandic yogurt. You can get it in the shops, so maybe he doesn't have to steal it anymore. And he's from the 19th of September to the 1st of January.

Speaker 1: 4:43

Next we have Bjognareker, who is a sausage swiper, and he hides in the rafters and snatches sausages that are being smoked, and he's from the 20th of December to the 2nd of January, so they're covering all of December and into the new year. Next we have Glow Gagiger, which is Window Peeper. He's a snoopy Not snoopy, he snoops around, creeps around, looking through windows in search of things to steal. He's a bit of an opportunist and a bit of a creep, really. Gat de Pevor is a doorway sniffer. He has a massive, massive nose and a really good sense of smell which he uses to locate leaf bread, laufverbraut, which he needs around from the 22nd of December to the 4th of January.

Speaker 1: 5:42

Then we've got Getro Kukur meat hook, and now he uses a hook to steal meat, and he's around from the 23rd of December to the 5th of January. And finally we have Kertesniker, the candle beggar. He follows children to steal their precious candles, which are made of tallow and thus edible. You can see all 13 of them have a lot of. Their traits are to do with food, and you can imagine living in the mountains that would be really important. Food is very important, so you've got to keep behaving well, otherwise your food will be stolen from you. Anyway, that's the 13 YLADs of Iceland.