Author's note: This is my entry for Postuhenin's Santa's Not-so-Little Helpers Contest. I chose The Yule Lads from Iceland as my subject.
Hólmavík was the largest town on the Standir Peninsula in Iceland. On that special worshipping day, December 11th, 1987, the town sat silently under a blanket of ash-colored clouds. The air was icy, but there was no wind. The bells from the church could be heard clearly from every cheerfully-painted house in town.
The inlet of water that flanked the houses was so gray and still, like slabs of cold steel, that all the town was doubled in its reflection. The church itself had an inverted twin growing beneath it, a needle-sharp steeple pointed down, away from civilization.
Men and women entered the angular white church in twos and threes. Children were left at home for Sunday meetings, the older children watching the younger ones, while their parents went to worship.
“Góðan daginn,” said the pastor, Jón Magnússon, nodding warmly from the entryway to each passing guest.
“Good morning, Pastor Jón,” Mrs. Helgason said, smiling brilliantly.
She was a woman in the midst of middle age, overjoyed at the recent birth of her son.. She and her husband gave full credit for their son’s conception to the teachings of the pastor.
Mrs. Helgason walked to her seat in the front pew of the church, her husband following closely behind her.
Pastor Jón watched them go, a feeling of pride blossoming in his chest. He looked around at the townspeople filling up the seats in his church. Devoted they were. Devoutly, deeply, devoted. He liked toying with the words in his head.
Pastor Jón did think of the church as his own, despite his rather recent employment there. After Pastor Isak passed suddenly a little over a year before, Pastor Jón had taken over, herding the lost flock into his safe embrace.
When all had arrived and settled into their seats, Pastor Jón took his place behind the pulpit and smiled affectionately.
“Good men and women of Hólmavík, thank you for joining me on this first day of the Christmas season. It is an honor to celebrate with you all.”
The small crowd murmured good-naturedly in return.
“It is, I think, a difficult time of year for many of us, as well as a time of celebration. We have so much to take care of before Christmas Eve. Sometimes, the tasks at hand can seem overwhelming. Some days, we may wonder why we are tied to our traditions as we are.”
A sigh of agreement floated up to him from the pews.
“When in the throes of these frustrations, I ask you to stop and think about all that we have to be grateful for here. Look around at the people in this church.” He gave a pause for them to look, and look they did.
A woman’s muffled sob could be heard from somewhere in the crowd. Pastor Jón frowned, but continued on.
“This is your family. This is your home. How many cities full of strangers can say the same?” Pastor Jón looked down and smiled at the Helgasons in the front row. They beamed back at him.
“Now I want you to think about the prosperity that our town has been blessed with this year. The fish market has been overwhelmed with the bountiful catches that have been coming in week after week. The number of people catching ill is nearly nonexistent. Most importantly, the warmth and love I feel growing amongst us all is rapturous.”
A number of heads were nodding vigorously.
“Vor Síður, our customs, have purpose. Every one of our traditions, big and small, is an important thread in the fabric of our beautiful life in Hólmavík.”
A few hands reached up in the air, lingering there in reverence, sucking up his words like lampreys.
“Now, let us pray for a safe and happy Christmas, with no visits from those impish Yule Lads. With a community as good and kind-hearted as this one, I have no doubt we will be visited only by family and friends bearing heaps of Christmas treats.”
The crowd chuckled at that and a sense of joy spread throughout the room.
December 12th: Stekkjastaur[]
The next evening, Hakon and Anna Heimisson strolled down a darkened street in town. All of the stores were closed and the windows of the homes had been shuttered. Anna pushed a stroller with their one-year-old baby, Aron, sleeping soundly inside. Anna and Hakon didn’t speak and they wore grave expressions on their faces. Only the soft whistle of the wind and the squeak of the stroller wheels could be heard echoing down the street that night.
The flicker of a lantern leaked through the boards of a house’s attached barn as they passed. Anna stopped and turned towards the light. She heard a soft moan.
“Hurry up,” her husband said, walking ahead.
The woman, transfixed, ignored him and walked over to the wooden slats. She bent down and peered in. “There’s someone in there,” she whispered.
Slurp slurp slurp
“There’s a strange sound,” she said, trying to look through a different crack in the boards to get a better look.
She could see some sheep huddled together in a corner, but one remained alone in the middle of the room. The animal was still, caught in the orange glow of a lantern that had been placed on the hay-covered floor. Underneath the yew was what looked like a small child, bent and crouched down, head reaching up towards the animal’s udders.
Slurp slurp slurp
“Let’s go, Anna,” her husband barked from a few feet away.
Anna looked up at him, then turned her head back and looked through the crack once more.
A human eye was staring back at her through the board. It was only an inch away from her own eyeball.
“Gahhh!” she screamed, stumbling back, nearly knocking the baby carriage over. She hit the ground hard and bit her tongue. She could taste blood.
The baby started to cry.
“What is it now?” the man said, stomping back to his wife and child, the smell of liquor wafting off of him like cologne.
“S-s-someone…looking at me!” she said, struggling to get the words out around her swollen tongue. Her husband grabbed her arm and pulled her up harshly.
The light slipping through the cracks went out with the silvery sound of breaking glass. The barn door swung open.
Anna and her husband stepped back involuntarily, leaving the screaming baby unaccompanied.
A small, gnarled figure hopped out of the barn and did a neat barrel roll towards them. It hopped up nimbly right in front of the baby carriage, splitting the distance between the child and its parents.
“How do you do?” it said in a scratchy, high-pitched voice. In the moonlight, they could see what looked like a toddler-sized old man. His beard was white and nearly to his ankles, and his face was cracked with deep wrinkles. His trousers were a deep red corduroy that matched his woolen hat. His nose was long and reddened. He was wiping milk from his mouth with one hand and scratching his belly with the other.
“Merry Christmas,” he tried again, belching.
The couple held onto each other and backed away further.
The lad turned around and peered into the baby carriage. He looked back at the couple and scowled.
“Naughty, naughty,” the lad growled. He lunged towards the couple, small hands outstretched and they ran away screaming.
The lad spit on the ground and glared down the street after them. He walked back over to the baby carriage.
“You come on with Stekkjastaur now, little one. He reached small, twisted hands into the carriage and lifted the child out.
“Tasty, tasty,” he said, wiping white spittle from the corners of his mouth as he walked back towards the mountains that sat waiting at the edge of town.
December 13th: Giljagaur[]
“Leave the lights on please, mamma, Jökull said.” He pulled the moth-eaten blanket his nana had knitted him up to his nose.
“Lights on? But the Lads will think you’re still awake. You don’t want to wake up to empty shoes,” Jökull’s mother said, smiling warmly at her son.
Pained glossy eyes stared back at her from atop the blanket.
“I don’t want them to come,” Jökull mumbled.
“And why not?”
“They bring Jólakötturinn.”
“Jólakötturinn? Where did you hear that name? I haven’t heard that in ages,” his mother said. A flicker of worry darkened her eyes for a moment, but his mother was like that sometimes. Her outward facade reflected only a fragment of the range of emotions she was feeling inside. Sometimes Jökull watched her when she wasn’t looking at him. Her face reminded him of a river. It twisted and changed constantly. He wondered if anyone else could see it, or if it was a special skill he had developed from knowing and loving her so well.
“Nana told me about him. She said I should be good or Jólakötturinn would come down from the mountains and eat me up.”
“She shouldn’t be telling you such nonsense. Jólakötturinn is an old tale. It’s just a story made up to scare children,” his mother said.
“But you believe in the lads,” Jökull said sitting up, his curiosity driving him out from the protection of the blanket.
"Well, the Lads leave us evidence. You put your shoe on the windowsill every year and what do you find in the morning?”
“Sweets,” Jökull said, looking towards the window.
“Right. And what evidence do we have of a giant cat peering in windows and snapping up children?”
“Þuríður Einarsson,” Jökull whispered. Saying the name felt like using a curse word in front of his mother.
Her reaction said the same. She stared at him for a moment before standing up suddenly.
“He wandered out into the snow and got lost. You know that,” his mother snapped. She stormed out of the room, vindictively turning the light switch off as she went.
Þuríður Einarsson was the neighbor boy who had disappeared last year around Christmas time. He was only three. They found his frozen body in the spring when everything started to soften.
Jökull crawled out of bed and dashed to the other side of the room and flipped the switch on. He went to his small wooden bookshelf and pushed around the books until he found what he was looking for.
He took a thin illustrated children’s book off the shelf and looked at the cover. “Tale of the Yule Lads.”
Thirteen jolly old men looked back at him from the cover. They were all small, some spindly, some rotund and all similarly dressed in modest earth-toned plaids and long striped socks. Some wore glasses. One held a grumpy black cat. Except for the cat, they all looked jolly.
Jökull opened the book and flipped past acknowledgements and forwards until he got to the beginning of the story. He whispered it aloud to himself.
“Let me share with you on this first Christmas day,
the tale of the Yule Lads who awaken today.
These critters are friendly most of the time,
but if given the chance they’ll put you in a bind.
On the thirteen days of Christmas, revellers beware,
The lads are all hungry and come for your fare.
Hide cakes and pies and scraps of meat,
sausages especially are considered a treat.
Children of Iceland put out their shoes,
hoping their homes the lads won’t refuse.
With luck’s good will, treats can be found,
Tucked into shoes without a sound.
For in dawn’s pale light the lads must go
Home to their mother, Grýla, treats in tow.
Grýla the witch is no fair dame,
She waits with a cauldron atop a flame.
Naughty children take heed to be good all year,
Lest the lads come to get you and make you a meal.”
Jökull closed the book and went to his window. He opened the latch, pulling open the windows and snatched his sneakers off the ledge. He shut the windows again, fastening the lock. He realized he had been holding his breath and exhaled.
Something outside caught his eye. He squinted against the reflection and looked out at the rocky hill behind their house. Something was crawling down the bare rock. It looked like a toddler, but moved nimbly.
“Giljagaur,” Jökull whispered.
Giljagaur was one of the Yule Lads who was known to peer in windows at sleeping children. He came on the second night of Christmas. Jökull felt like the roles had reversed in his case. He pressed his nose against the glass, trying to get a better look at the little man.
He couldn’t make out any of its features other than its short bowed legs which worked quickly to descend the small bluff and disappear behind their shed.
“Mamma!” Jökull screamed, running out of his room.
December 14th: Stúfur[]
“Shit.” Gunnar opened his kitchen window and waved a towel over the burnt bits of food that were smoking in the pan.
“Can’t even make a proper pancake,” he sighed. He had managed to save one blackened piece and was attempting to douse it in enough skyr to cover up the taste. Since his wife had left a few months before, he hadn’t been eating very well at all. Some nights he just skipped a meal altogether.
Gunnar dropped the pan back on the stove with a clank and took his paltry meal with him into the living room. He grabbed the remote and turned the television on, bathing the small wood-paneled room in blue light. The sound of the commercial was loud enough to drown out the light clattering of small feet dropping down onto the stove top. Gunnar didn’t hear the sound of ragged little fingernails scraping the scorched bits from the pan either.
December 15th: Pvorusleikir[]
The ground was frozen and the cold air bit at her exposed, pink nose, but Lilja didn’t care. She only wanted one thing for her birthday and that one thing was a picnic with her big sister at their secret spot in the woods.
“Choc-it, Lizzy!” Lilja chirped. She turned three that day and her big sister had packed all of her favorites which were mostly sweets. Elisabet, who was a young girl herself, only ten, unwrapped a little blue cloth with milk chocolate covered licorice sticks. She handed one to Lilja and she started gnawing on it.
Elisabet looked around at the slender birch trees surrounding the small clearing. She and Lilja had discovered this place the year before when they were first allowed to go out exploring on their own. It wasn’t far from their house. In fact, if Elisabet looked up above the trees in the direction of their home, she could see smoke collecting in the ice-blue sky above their chimney. Other than that, there wasn't any sign of human life around them.
“Skyr, pease,” Lilja said through a full mouth.
Elisabet looked back at her little sister. Her plump cheeks were dotted with chocolate smudges and her little teeth were still fighting down a tough piece of licorice. Elisabet chuckled and started to root through her bag for the yogurt.
The crack of a dry branch breaking behind her made Elisabet jump and whirl around. One of the thin trees was swaying slightly. She watched without blinking, her eyes burning from the cold, until it stopped moving.
“Lizzy?” Lilja asked. She put her small mittened hand on top of Elisabet’s.
Elisabet turned back to her. “Thought I heard something.” Then, registering the quiver of fear in Lilja’s eyes, she changed tactics. “It’s nothing, just the wind.” She pulled the little glass pot of skyr and a spoon out of her bag and handed them to her little sister.
“What are you hoping to get for Christmas, Lilja?” Elisabet asked in a mock-conspiratorial tone.
“Choc-it,” Lilja said, smiling broadly.
Elisabet laughed and then got to digging around in her bag to find a chocolate licorice for herself. She thought about the first time they had come to the clearing in the springtime. They had seen two little brown rabbits chasing each other around in circles. Lilja had clapped her hands and smiled. She ran after them and they scuttled away into the woods. Their sudden departure made Lilja cry and Elisabet sat down on the soft new grass and held her as she wept, whispering promises that they would come back every week until they saw them again. She had kept her promise, but they never saw the rabbits again.
Lilja is happy here, she told herself.
Another branch cracked as loud as a gunshot and Elisabet let out a startled scream. When she looked up, Lilja was staring, blue eyes wide with terror, at the raised skyr spoon in her hand. Sucking on its tip was the mouth of a withered old man. His dried lips were wrapped around the spoon, eating up the yogurt. A drop fell onto his yellow-white beard and he pulled his head away.
The man stood up. He was thin and shorter than Lilja, his arms and legs no thicker than the thin branches of the birch trees that surrounded him.
“I prefer lemon skyr, but this will do in a pinch,” the old man said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
Elisabet thought of what her parents had told her to do. She willed her legs to move but she couldn’t force them to obey.
Lilja started to scream. The man started hopping from one foot to the other nervously.
“Now, now,” he said. “It will be much easier if you stop screeching. Don’t fret. Pvorusleikir is here,” the man said in an airy, hollow voice.
Go! Go! Elisabet’s voice told her. She managed to stand up. The man was standing between her and her sister. He was looking at Lilja, reaching for her. Elisabet started to back away, her boots crunching on the cold ground beneath her.
Pvorusleikir turned his head, looking at Elisabet over his shoulder. His eyes were gray and calculating. He growled, pouring hatred out of his eyes at her.
Elisabet ran. She couldn’t feel her legs anymore but she was moving. Branches whipped at her face as she flew through the woods towards her house. She could hear Lilja screaming.
“Lizzy!” Lilja’s voice wailed behind her.
December 16th: Pottaskefill[]
“Dinner’s ready!” Freyja called up the steps. She could hear rumbling around upstairs in her boys’ room.
“Soup’s ready! Let’s go!”
“Ow!” one of the boys yelled.
“No rough-housing! If I have to come up there, there will be no dessert for either of you!”
Behind her, a pot of codfish stew was bubbling pleasantly on the stove.
Something crashed upstairs.
“Damn it,” Freyja hissed. She started stomping up the stairs to investigate.
The window above the stove slid open silently and little white hands slithered in from the black night and pushed the window up all the way. The hands reached in again and grabbed the sides of the pot, immune to the heat, and pulled it out the window.
December 17th: Askaskikir[]
“Helgi!” Elín called out to her grandson. “I’m all finished!” Elín put her bowl down on the floor beside her bed. Her health had declined to the point of needing to take her meals in bed, not that she minded being waited on hand and foot. The lord knew she had devoted her life to taking care of her children, especially Helgi who was the youngest and most spoiled by far.
Should have left him in the woods as a babe, she thought. “Helgi!” she shouted. His footsteps started to thunder up the old wooden stairs of her house that he shared with her.
A wrinkled hand, more weathered even than her own, clawed out from underneath her bed, fingers twiddling and searching for the bowl.
The door to Elín’s room swung open and Helgi stood there, face vacant except for a glimmer of disgust in his eyes when Elín pointed to the floor beside her bed.
“I’m all finished, Helgi, take the askur down and wash it,” she said. “I don’t want to tempt any critters with the crumbs.”
Helgi walked over, looking down around the side of the bed. He was a big man, a few inches over six-feet-tall and he had to tilt his head to fit in the small bedroom.
“S’nothing there,” he mumbled.
“Tsk I put in right there, boy, don’t be stupid,” Elín said, rolling her eyes.
Helgi looked at her, murder in his eyes. He knelt down and looked under the bed.
Half of his large body was pulled suddenly and violently under the bed.
“Helgi! What’s happening?” Elín screamed. Her little twin bed was rocking from side to side and she nearly toppled out of it.
Helgi was making a wet shrieking sound.
Vor Síður[]
Pastor Jón stood on the bluff, looking out over the water. He had built a small fire near his bare feet. It was the only light visible for miles.
He removed his red and white robes. They pooled on the ground around him. Still, there was no wind, but the cold air tightened his naked skin into pimpled gooseflesh.
The reflection of the firelight rippled across the silver blade held at his side. Pastor Jón raised the knife to his waist and held it in two hands, blade facing up. His left hand released the hilt and he brought his palm up and over the point of the knife, cutting himself deeply. A flow of black blood slid down his arm and dripped onto the ground. He held that same hand below his chest and pricked his left nipple with the tip of the blade, letting more blood flow into his hand. He clenched his fist and kneeled.
A tanned piece of parchment made from skin lay before him on the ground. He used his bloodied finger to draw lines and shapes on the square. A red rectangle formed, then the finger swooped back, putting an X through its middle. A line like a red river extended down, branching out on both sides to make smaller lines with circles at their tips. The blood soaked into the parched hide immediately, leaving the lines clean and precise.
“Í gegnum siði okkar koma auður,”Pastor Jón repeated.
He looked at his finished product, and stood, blood dripping slowly from his hand. He looked out over the water. “Vor Síður.”
A soft wind fluttered up from the sea, blowing a few sweaty tendrils of hair away from his forehead.
December 18th: Hurdaskellir[]
Kristján and Bjarni were surprised their mother had left them with Emelía. She was a strange girl and they were old enough to take care of themselves. Twelve and ten was nearly adulthood in their opinion. In hindsight, their mother did seem teary-eyed and hugged them a little too long before she left the house to go to her friend’s Christmas party.
They looked at the teenage girl standing in their bedroom doorway. She was thin with shoulder-length hair that was dyed lavender. She was leaning against the doorframe, smoking a cigarette and using one combat-booted foot to scratch her other ankle.
“You want a bedtime story?” she smirked, blowing out a wave of smoke from the side of her mouth. She wasn’t unattractive, but not feminine in the way that the boys had seen women portrayed in the movies and shows they watched. But that’s not what made her an outcast in their small town. It was the things she said. She had no filter, constantly talking about aliens and conspiracies that she considered everyone else too stupid to understand.
“No, I don’t think so,” Kristján, the older boy, said.
“Too bad. This one's important so I’m tellin’ you anyway.”
The boys looked at each other and then slumped down into their pillows in resignation.
Emelía put her cigarette out in a ceramic mug that was sitting on the boys’ desk by the door. She stomped over to Bjarni’s bed and sat down at the foot of it. Bjarni pulled his legs up away from her.
“You two should know the truth. I’ll tell you, but only because I’m a good person and I don't want anything to happen to you,” she said. Her face was stone and her voice was deadly serious.
The boys glanced at each other but didn’t say anything.
“If you grow up here, you’re lucky,” she said, her eyes moving back and forth between the boys. “It’s always around Christmas that little kids go missing. They try to blame it on the snow, but it goes way deeper than that.”
Kristján could feel a knot tightening in his stomach.
“You think those cute little stories about the Yule Lads are just holiday lore, but they’re true. This town just leaves out the scary bits so no one runs away screaming.”
“Yule Lads? Are you serious?” Kristján said, feeling a swell of relief at the absurd turn her story had taken.
“I am serious. And it’s not the lads you need to worry about. It’s their mother, Grýla. They come down from the mountains in the night and snatch you up so their mother can make a stew out of you.”
“That’s just an old myth,” Kristján said. He eyed his brother, who was looking at her pale and wide-eyed.
“And the people here…they know about it,” she said. They let it happen.”
“This is bullshit,” Kristján said. He hadn’t meant it to come out so harshly, but he was frightened, despite his efforts to appear unbothered. He felt stupid for letting her rattle him, but he couldn’t seem to help it.
A door banged open and shut downstairs. They all turned their heads towards the sound. Emelía let out a little gasp.
“What was that?” Bjarni whispered, he had the blankets all the way up to his eyes.
“I’ll go check it out,” Emelía said, trying to sound brave, but her voice was shaking.
She left the room, but paused in the doorway. She looked at them for a moment and then walked away. They could hear her boots clomping down the stairs.
December 19th: Skyrgámur[]
Drifa turned the “open” sign to “closed” and turned off the lights of the cafe. The chairs had been flipped and all the tables wiped down, as well as the coffee and espresso machines. She just had to do some dishes in the kitchen and then she was done for the night. She didn’t usually work night shifts, but she needed the extra money for Christmas gifts. Walking home in the dark was not ideal, but she didn’t live far.
The sharp sound of dishes breaking and a consequent bark of laughter came from the kitchen and Drifa jumped a little at the sound. She walked back towards the kitchen door and peered through its round window.
Inside, a small man with bare feet was crouched over the counter, scraping up bits of food from the dirty plates and shoving them into his mouth. Another dish near his foot fell and broke on the floor and he laughed again, a bit of pickled herring falling out of his open mouth.
Drifa put a hand over her mouth, suffocating her scream before it could draw attention to her. The little man turned towards her anyway, glee filling his blue eyes.
She turned and ran, struggling to unlock the front door and just making it out into the cold night air as footsteps padded up behind her. She ran down the street, stopping in the brightly lit town square. Everything had been strung with twinkling lights and ribboned wreaths hung merrily on every lamp post.
She looked behind her, but the man hadn’t followed. An ear-piercing scream made her put her hands over her ears. She looked around and saw a small wriggling bundle on a bench. She walked closer to the bundle and, to her horror, saw a screaming baby inside. Little puffs of breath were trailing out from its pink mouth as it wailed. A crude drawing made of lines and shapes was drawn on the baby’s blanket in red viscous liquid.
Drifa looked around, but didn’t see a soul.
December 20th: Bjúgnakrækir[]
“It’s that damn dog, and you know it!” the woman shouted at her husband.
“How would he even get up on the counter?”
“Then where did the sausages go?”
“To hell with it, I’ll get more in the morning. I’m going to bed,” the man said, defeated.
The curtains in the kitchen window fluttered against the cold night.
December 21st: Gluggagægir[]
Through the frosted glass a tiny man in thick spectacles watched a couple argue. They hadn’t noticed him, being as they were caught up in the throes of a nasty quarrel.
The man couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the woman was holding her baby against her breast and weeping. The man was screaming at her, his face getting redder by the minute.
The bespeckled little man noted that their living room was impeccably decorated, white lights and garlands hanging from the stair’s railing, and a Christmas tree peppered with nostalgic baubles of a charming homemade quality. A fire roared in the fireplace, casting the whole scene in the ideal light.
The man grabbed the baby and pulled it away from the mother’s chest. She dropped to her knees and wept.
December 22nd: Gattapefur[]
Making Christmas cookies was the one thing that got Kristín in the mood for the holidays. She wasn’t the best baker, but her cookies always turned out to be at least edible and she enjoyed the process. The cookies made the house smell good and her daughter loved decorating them with pecans or sprinkles or chocolate chips (or sometimes all three).
Sniff sniff sniff
Kristín turned around, listening. There was a distinct snuffling sound coming from somewhere in the living room, which was really just a space a few feet from the kitchen, separated by a couch. Unfortunately, they didn’t have a dog, which would have explained the sound without further question.
Kristín listened, walking slowly around the couch.
Sniff sniff sniff
“What in the world…Sara?” she called out to her daughter who she assumed was upstairs in her room.
There was a scratching at the front door.
“Yeah?” Sara called down from upstairs.
Kristín ignored her and walked towards the door.
SNIFF SNIFF SCRATCH SLOBBER
Kristín was not willing to open the door. It sounded to her like some kind of animal. Her curiosity brought her to the window next to the door and she looked out, craning her neck to see what was on the stoop.
“Smells tasty tasty!” A voice said from right outside the window. Kristín screeched and jumped back from the cold glass. She couldn’t see clearly through the glare, but the shape of a head slowly rose up into the middle of the window frame.
“Sara! Lock your door!” Kristín shouted without taking her eyes off the glass.
“What!?” Sara called down.
A pink bulbous nose slid up the glass. It dragged a clean spot up the window and was followed by a fat slobbering tongue that licked up the remains.
“I said lock your door!” Kristín shouted again. She ran back to the kitchen and grabbed the phone off the hook.
December 23rd: Ketrókur[]
Ketrókur’s slight form moved quickly through the snow. He was light enough that he was able to walk atop it without causing much of an indentation. He was slightly winded, however, from dragging the little sleigh with the sleeping child inside.
“Tasty tasties on their way home, aren’t they? Mother will be pleased,” he said in a childlike voice that contrasted greatly with his wizened old features.
He was nearing the mountain now, the village but a speck behind him. He kept on pulling, the sleigh moving steadily across the snow and ice, sleeping baby and heap of sausage links bouncing as they went.
December 24th: Kertasníkir[]
In the Agnarsson house, Christmas Day celebrations were underway. A symbol in red marked the day on their front door, just like all the other doors in the town.
The three children of the house, ages three, five and nine were sitting at the windowsill of their bedroom, lighting a candle to place in a shoe on the windowsill.
“What if it goes out in the night?” the youngest asked.
“It won’t,” said the oldest.
“How do you know?” the middle child asked.
“Because it’s magic,” the oldest said, placing the squat lit candle in his shoe on the windowsill. The flame cast tiny shadows down on the snow-covered ground as it danced in the wind.
Four hours later, after all were asleep, Kertasníkir trudged towards the mountain, chewing amiably on a stubby candle. His short legs struggled under the weight of the unconscious three-year old slung over his shoulder.
December 24th: Grýla[]
An old woman stirred the bubbling pot by fire and candlelight. The cave where she dwelled was not damp or drafty. It was well insulated with rugs and blankets strewn about and hung over the stone walls. Little wooden beds with the names of their occupants were placed throughout. The smell of meat and spices was intoxicating. There was never a moment where a stew wasn’t simmering away in her cauldron.
Grýla’s fuzzy gray hair floated around her head like a cloud of smoke. Her nose was long and hooked and a bead of sweat formed on its tip as she worked laboriously at stirring the concoction.
“More pease, Mama,” a little girl with blue eyes asked, holding up her bowl. She only came up to Grýla’s hip. She patted the child’s soft hair and smiled.
“Of course, dearest,” Grýla said. “And for dessert, how about some chocolate that we brought back from town just for you?”
“Choc-it!” the girl squealed.
“She’s not your mama,” an older boy said from the corner. He had just arrived that day and was still frightened.
“She is now that your parents have done away with you,” Bjúgnakrækir said coldly. The small lad was sitting in a chair with his feet propped up by the fire. He snapped his teeth into a massive sausage and glared at the boy.
“Hush now,” Grýla said. “Don’t listen to Bjúg. He’s grumpy from his journey. Let him warm up a bit.”
“Giljagaur,” Grýla called out.
“Yes, Mama?” another small bearded lad popped out from a smaller room in the cave.
“Go wake up Jólakötturinn. It’s time.”
“Yes, Mama,” Giljagaur said. He walked out of the cave into the snowy night.
“Where’s he going? Who’s Jólakötturinn?” the boy huddled in the corner asked. His eyes looked haunted and desperately tired.
“Jólakötturinn is my cat,” Grýla said, smiling. “He will take care of your naughty parents.”
The boy shook his head in confusion and a tear slipped down his cheek.
“Here, Bjug, take to stirring for me for a moment,” Grýla said, handing the lad her spoon.
She walked over to the boy and crouched down next to him. “They didn’t want you anymore. Or rather, they wanted prosperity more than they wanted you, so they cast you out to appease whatever it is that they’re worshipping.”
“No,” he closed his eyes, shaking his head back and forth. “They’re coming back for me. They left me in the woods by accident,” he started to cry.
“An accident? No, dearest, but I’ll allow that if that sorcerer hadn’t arrived in town to stir everyone up, this may have been avoided.” She shook her head and sighed. “A whole town agreeing to it is what baffles me.”
“Doesn’t baffle me a bit,” Bjúgnakrækir scoffed. He was breathing heavier than usual as he tried to stir the spoon around the enormous pot. “It’s human nature. A stranger says, leave your youngest outside to sacrifice to the elements! May the strongest survive! And a whole town of rational folks goes ahead and does it. They’re beasts, pure and simple.”
The boy was wailing into his arms now, whole body shaking as he sobbed.
“There, there, dearest,” Grýla cooed.
The boy looked up at her, snot and tears making his face glimmer in the firelight.
“I’m your mother now.” Grýla opened her arms and waited. The boy took only a moment to think before leaning forward and letting himself be wrapped up in her warm embrace.
December 24th: Pastor Jón[]
The church was filled with every adult from Hólmavík and no one spoke a word. Pastor Jón looked out over the crowd and felt euphoric. They were all looking to him for guidance. Their faces were gray with grief. In that moment he felt he could walk out, bar the doors behind him, and light the church on fire and they still wouldn’t move a muscle.
You’ve done well, Jón, he thought to himself.
“Welcome, all and Merry Christmas,” he said, showing them a warm, but sympathetic smile. Thanks to you, we shall have another year of abundance to look forward to. Our town has been through trials a plenty, but we have come out free of sin. We have weeded out the weak and come together as a strong, healthy community that will be blessed with all the gifts this world and the next has to offer.”
A man slumped over and fell into the aisle between the pews. He writhed on the ground, holding his head in his hands, sobbing. His wife glanced at him, open-mouthed, and then returned her gaze to the pastor.
“Let us pray,” the pastor started.
The congregation bowed their heads as a group, ignoring the man weeping on the floor.
The ground shook once, and then a second time, and then a third.
A hellish roar shook the roof of the little church and dust and particles rained down on a few churchgoers. They looked up apathetically.
“We are safe here together, whatever the world brings upon us. We are protected by the old ways,” the pastor said, voice quivering slightly. He had not anticipated any interruptions during their gathering, but then again, the old magic was new to him and he supposed some surprises could be in store for him and for the people of this town who had all made the ultimate sacrifice. Might that not bring hell upon them as well as all the gifts and protection they sought? He tried to keep his composure and continue on.
“Let us pray,” he said again.
A ripping sound erupted from the roof and ten feet of wood and shingles tore away, exposing them to the frigid night sky.
A yellow cat’s eye the size of a car eclipsed the hole in the roof. A rumbling hiss filled the space, vibrating the seats. Finally, a woman broke and started to scream. She ran towards the door and pulled on the handles, but they were locked.
Outside, Giljagaur stood by the door, picking his teeth with a toothpick. Three planks of nailed wood barring the only exit.
A massive black cat’s paw reached in and tore Mr. Helgason in half. He kept making sounds while looking at his intestines pooling out on the church carpet.
Panic erupted as the cat scooped people out and tossed them back in like mice. The townspeople banged on windows and the door trying to get out. A few people managed to break the windows, and were trying to claw their way out with bloodied hands, but Jólakötturinn sank his needle-sharp teeth into their soft bodies as they wriggled through the openings. He snapped off their heads and chewed through their bones, lapping the blood off of his mouth before moving on to the next victim.
The screaming could be heard faintly in the mountains, echoing off the icy bluffs, but in Grýla’s cave all the children were warm and sleeping, firelight bathing the room in a soft peach glow.