The time before Christmas
When Barb of Woof Nanny posted something about gnomes, I remembered the last day in Iceland.
We had booked a bus tour to Vik, and, after having had all kinds of weather until then (except for sunshine), we arrived in knee-deep snow in a snow storm, with waves so high that we didn’t want to go to the shore anyway.
On the way back to Reykjavik, Addy, the chaperone, told us about pre-Christmas customs in Iceland, and of the 13 Christmas Lads that visit the Icelandic children from December 6th until Christmas Eve. Of course, they have all different names, which all tell something about their attributes, or their behaviour, e. g. one of them is said to raise the women’s skirts...
Children in Iceland put a shoe in their window on the eve of December 6th, and when they’ve been nice, they’ll find a little present in there in the morning, but if they’ve been naughty, only a potato.
The Christmas Lads come from the mountains; they’re all siblings, children of an ugly ogre and his wicked ogre wife. The father is mere ugly, but in a way that children cry for fear when they see him. But the mother will come out of the mountain to catch the children that have been naughty and boil them in her big pot to eat them. And even their big black Christmas Cat eats children who don’t get new things to wear for Christmas. Addy said that that (of course) wouldn’t have happened to anyone she knew as they always had new things to wear for Christmas ;-)
In this regard, our (German) pre-Christmas Nikolaus (Saint Nicholas) and “Knecht Ruprecht” (his helper), who thrashes naughty children with a rod (or simply lets them jump over the rod nowadays), are quite harmless!
Wanna know more about the Christmas Lads? This way, please.
We had booked a bus tour to Vik, and, after having had all kinds of weather until then (except for sunshine), we arrived in knee-deep snow in a snow storm, with waves so high that we didn’t want to go to the shore anyway.
On the way back to Reykjavik, Addy, the chaperone, told us about pre-Christmas customs in Iceland, and of the 13 Christmas Lads that visit the Icelandic children from December 6th until Christmas Eve. Of course, they have all different names, which all tell something about their attributes, or their behaviour, e. g. one of them is said to raise the women’s skirts...
Children in Iceland put a shoe in their window on the eve of December 6th, and when they’ve been nice, they’ll find a little present in there in the morning, but if they’ve been naughty, only a potato.
The Christmas Lads come from the mountains; they’re all siblings, children of an ugly ogre and his wicked ogre wife. The father is mere ugly, but in a way that children cry for fear when they see him. But the mother will come out of the mountain to catch the children that have been naughty and boil them in her big pot to eat them. And even their big black Christmas Cat eats children who don’t get new things to wear for Christmas. Addy said that that (of course) wouldn’t have happened to anyone she knew as they always had new things to wear for Christmas ;-)
In this regard, our (German) pre-Christmas Nikolaus (Saint Nicholas) and “Knecht Ruprecht” (his helper), who thrashes naughty children with a rod (or simply lets them jump over the rod nowadays), are quite harmless!
Wanna know more about the Christmas Lads? This way, please.
posted by Claudia at 00:07
1 Comments:
Hi Claudia. Gosh, I have such a hard time leaving comments on your blog--either the comment says it's a popup and I can't access it, or it won't accept my anonymous name when I'm actually signed in....I don't know. But I do read your blog, and I hope you post pics of Iceland! And thank you so much for your support, especially when I have been whiney this week and it seems like no one posts on my blog....and here you are mentioning me. It's a nice warm fuzzy! And I love all the folklore info too!
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