The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsFSogol's 2018 Advent Calendar Day 4: The Yule Goat and Scandinavian Elves
Yesterday, I noted some references to the Christmas Elf, a mostly, British, North American, and Irish tradition about the worker who make Santas toys but in Scandinavian Countries, they are different.
Scandinavian elves would be more known as Gnomes to us. Called the Nisse in Danish, Tomte in Swedish, and Tomtenisse in Finnish, they wore red pointed hats, had white beards, and would appear around the Winter solstice. Garden gnomes are based on them. They were spirit guardians and hung around burial mounds. Many people believed they were the personification of a collection of dead ancestors.
By the 19th Century, the nisse delivered gifts to doors at Christmas time often with the help of the Yule goat (but sometimes a pig.)
This was formalized by an 1881 poem by Viktor Rydberg with the following illustration from Jenny Nystrom.
The Yule goat is another pagan tradition that got wrapped up into Christmas celebrations as Christianity spread. The goat probably had his origins in the Norse god Thor who owned 2 goats.
During the 19th century the Yule goat's role all over Scandinavia shifted towards becoming the giver of Christmas gifts, with one of the men in the family dressing up as the Yule goat. In this, there might be a relation to Santa Claus and the Yule goat's origin in the medieval celebrations of Saint Nicholas. The goat was then replaced by the jultomte (Father Christmas/Santa Claus) or julenisse during the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century, although he is still called the Joulupukki (Yule goat) in Finland, and the tradition of the man-sized goat disappeared.
The Yule Goat lives on in Scandinavian both in the form of Julebukking, (similar to the wassailing) as Christmas ornaments, and course in goat Burning Festivals.
Sadly, "commercialism has made him look more and more like the American Santa Claus" a theme across many of these Christmas traditions.
sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_Goat
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54262/fiery-history-scandinavias-yule-goat
Squinch
(50,774 posts)FSogol
(45,363 posts)Winter.
Docreed2003
(16,818 posts)Hearing about these traditions that I'm not as familiar with is just fascinating. Thanks for doing this!
FSogol
(45,363 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,281 posts)This is my favorite because it's so weird.
The threat of being eaten by the Yule Cat was used by farmers as an incentive for their workers to finish processing the autumn wool before Christmas. The ones who took part in the work would be rewarded with new clothes, but those who did not would get nothing and thus would be preyed upon by the monstrous cat....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_Cat