The Icelandic Yule Lads

(Good to Know: Jólasveinar, Santa Clauses, and Yule Lads are three expressions for the same thing!)

The eve before December 12th, everyone who believes in the Yule Lads will put a shoe on the window sill and keep it there for 13 days. This particular number has to do with the number of Icelandic Jólasveinar (or Icelandic Santa Clauses if you prefer).

Every night until Christmas, a new Yule Lad will visit the window and place a small gift in the shoe. This is not at all as creepy as it sounds! For many, the Yule Lads are the best part of the days leading up to Christmas Day.

You might be thinking, “What? 13 Yule Lads? That’s way too many!” But wait–even that’s not all! The family actually consists of the 13 Yule Lads (who are all brothers), their mom, Grýla, their dad, Leppalúði, and then there is the cat.

And it’s no extraordinary cat… Continue to read and find out more about these fascinating characters!

The Mom of the Yule Lads. A scary troll mom, you know the type. She has the uncanny ability to detect when children are not behaving all year round! Yikes!

During Christmas, she leaves her home in the mountains to hunt the naughty children and makes stew out of them. According to legend, there’s never a food shortage for this feisty character.

Grýla’s husband and father to the Yule Lads are known for not doing much around the house (do you know someone like that?). But not much else is known about this big-nosed man. He’s never been seen kidnapping or cooking children, but he does eat what Grýla cooks, so he too sounds like a fishy character, if you ask me.

The Christmas cat, also known as Jólakötturinn, is a vicious black hairy animal that hunts children who don’t receive something new to wear for Christmas – and then EATS them! It comes as no surprise that he’s a house pet of Grýla and her husband.   

The installation of the Christmas Cat made out of thousands of lights stands in Reykjavik during the Christmas season each year. Make sure to visit it if you happen to be there for Christmas!

It’s important to keep in mind that the Yule Lads have not always been considered nice lads, if somewhat rough around the edges. They used to go around stealing and breaking into people’s houses!

Many believe the legends started around homeless, poor, and hungry men who were just trying to survive in the cold winter here in Iceland.

Slowly, through the centuries, much about them, except their names, have changed. Here are the 13 Yule Lads:

The first Yule Lad comes on the night before the 12th of December. He is said to suck milk from sheep and was known for having two wooden feet, peg-legged. Guard your sheepies where they lay!

The second Yule Lad comes on the night before the 13th of December. He was known to hide in barns and steal the froth of the milk buckets. Goodbye, good froth…

The third one of the Yule lads comes on the night before the 14th of December. He was known for being unusually short and stealing pans to eat the crust left in them. Well, who can blame him? I’ve known a scrumptious crust or two.

The fourth of the Yule Lads comes the night before the 15th of December. 

He is known for being tall and thin and for stealing þvörur (long wooden spoons) to lick them. Gross!

The fifth of the Yule Lads comes the night before the 16th of December. 

He is known to steal leftovers from pots. So guard your codfish soup!

The sixth of the Yule Lads comes on the eve of the 17th of December.

He was known to hide under beds when people would place their “askur,” a plate used for all meals. He then stole the askur and ate from it.

I’m beginning to sense a theme here. It’s all about stealing with these 13…

The seventh of the Yule Lads comes the night before the 18th of December.

The loudest one, he was known to slam doors, especially during nighttime. So I can’t blame my neighbors on that one.

The eighth of the Yule Lads comes the night before the 19th of December.

Skyr Gobbler was known for being obsessed with the Icelandic yogurt skyr. I totally feel him — skyr is crazy DELICIOUS. (Wait, am I Skyrgamur?)

The ninth of the Yule Lads comes on the eve of the 20th of December.

Known to hide in the rafters and steal sausages that were being smoked.

Now I’m just getting hungry…

The tenth of the Yule Lads comes on the night before the 21st of December.

Probably the creepiest one, he would peek inside people’s windows to see if there was anything to steal.

So, he is not much of a niche-stealer like his brothers, more broad-minded.

The eleventh of the Yule Lads comes on the night before the 22nd of December.

Known to have an extremely long, large nose and an amazing sense of smell, he usually uses to seek out yummy Laufabrauð.

More about Laufabrauð here.

The twelfth of the Yule Lads comes on the night before the 23rd of December.

He’s the one who uses a hook to steal meat.

The thirteenth of the Yule Lads comes on the night before the 24th of December.

The one who followed children to steal their candles (which used to be edible, made from fat).

I definitely don’t identify with this guy – fat candles? I’ll stick to my beeswax, thank you very much.

Photo Credit: Visit Mývatn via Jólasveinarnir í Dimmuborgum