The Yule Lads

The Yule Lads are one of my favourite more playful Christmas-time folk characters. They’ve been captured in popular culture in Hilda, where the Yule Lads were after naughty children for their leader Gryla, who wants to eat them in stew. They’re also in Sabrina, and growing attention on the Yule Lads will only mean more appearances in popular culture as we continue to seek out newer yule-time folklore and myths to draw on for our popular culture. Christmas Myths in general are always a bit fun to get into, especially as they develop and alter over time and become incorporated into different aspects of popular culture. Of these various Christmas Myths, Christmas Monsters are always my favourites to talk about.

I thought it may be fun to spend a bit of time today talking about the Christmas Myth of the Yule Lads in their original form so you can feel superior to your friends when the appear next as you gleefully tell them all about the Yule Lads.

The Yule Lads

The Yule Lads come to us from Iceland. These strange characters are normally mountain-dwelling. But come down to the towns during Christmas. Their mother is another Christmas monster: Gryla, the ogress-witch of Icelandic mythology. The Yule Lads hunt the towns around Christmas to find naughty children, who they kidnap for their mother to eat in a naughty-child stew.

Gryla can be found in the Prose Edda, where she was described as a giantess – though, at this point, she has no connection to Christmas or the Yule Lads. Her connection to both happens around the 17th century. The description of the Yule Lads, and in particular their mother Gryla, was found in a poem by Jóhannes úr Kötlum. In this poem, the Yule Lads are described in number detail. Before this point, the Yule Lads were shared in the kind of muddy folklore that we’re used to, with no distinct number or names. But after the poem by Jóhannes, the Yule Lads became solidified: thirteen mischievous creatures who not only capture children for their mother’s naughty-kids-stew, but also cause all sorts of other types of mischievous trouble around town.

The Thirteen Yule Lads

Sheep-Cote Clod is the one who tries to suckle the ewes on sheep farms. Gully Gawk let Clod go to the sheep because he was more preoccupied with cows. He likes to hide in the cow stalls and steal the milk. Stubby is known for being a bit shorter than the others, and he likes to steal food from frying pans.

Pot Licker, as you can assume based on his name, likes to lick pots. Bowl Licker has a similar inclination, but for bowls instead of pots. Door Slammer slams doors for the sole purpose of keeping everyone awake. Skyr Gobbler, our eight Yule Lad, likes to eat all the yoghurt, which is called skyr in Icelandic. Sausage Swiper swipes sausages.

Window Peeper likes to creep outside the villager’s homes and spy on the world inside – sometimes with the intention of stealing some of the things he sees inside. Door Sniffer has a huge nose and loves to steal various baked goods. Meat Hook steals the meat left out and has a special love for smoked lamb. And our last Yule Lad, Candle Beggar, steals candles – a once sought-after item.

From Christmas Monsters to Jolly Yule Lads

As their details demonstrate, the Yule Lads love to cause havoc, eat greedily of food that is not theirs, and generally be a big nuisance for the population of Iceland. The low-level stakes of licking bowls and stealing yoghurt is a strange juxtaposition with the threat of child kidnapping and harm that they posed to the naughty children would be eaten by their mother Gryla in a naughty-kid soup.

While the old stories described them as monstrous forms, as time wore on their monstrous forms began to change. They soon took on more human-like forms. Part of this alteration was also the changing role of the Yule Lads. While their mischievous nature remained for the most part, the more horror-side began to dwindle. The children-eating aspect, for example, faded away. Merchants would throw parties where the Yule Lads would simply be old men in traditional garb who passed out candy.

So, what was the point of the Yule Lads?

It can be argued that there may never be a true point to any story, but if we were to hazard a guess as to the role of the Yule Lads in storytelling, we don’t need to look much farther than the time in which they appear. Winter is a harsh time of year for most creatures, especially humans living in Iceland. As humans retreated to the warm indoors to escape the harsh Icelandic winters, the dark and cold natural world took over.

As people retreated from outlying areas to be closer to their core farm and localised villages for the winter, the Yule Lads would risk leaving their seclusion to haunt the farms and towns. The cold nature is descending upon the world to reclaim their land. As the days get longer again, they too retreat back to their seclusion in the mountains and other surrounding areas.

Of course, the bonus of maintaining some kind of good behaviour in children is only a positive. Even our contemporary version of Santa Claus still has some level of good-behaviour threat to give children – be good, or Santa won’t bring you a present. While Gryla eating a misbehaving kid is definitely a bit stronger of a reaction than the Santa version, the core idea is still similar.

Not to mention that there are hints in other aspects of wintery reminders in the names and actions of some of the Yule Lads. Its no mistake that most of the Yule Lads are focused on aspects of food consumption: Sausage Swiper, Meat Hook and Skyr Gobbler are just three of the examples. These Yule Lads remind us to be mindful of the extra food we have over winter, and to take care of what food we have around the home during the harsher parts of winter.

The Yule Lads in Pop Culture

It’s no surprise that the Yule Lads are beginning to get some traction and representation in different parts of popular culture. Like most pre-Christian figures, they have appeared (kinda) in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, though it’s their mother, Gryla, whose mostly present in the narrative.

The Yule Lads were also featured in Hilda, one of my favourite shows on Netflix and one which I have done a video essay on as well. In Hilda, the Yule Lads are most similar to their representation in the 17th century poem: they are mischievous creatures who aim to disrupt as well as to capture naughty children for Gryla, a monster who intends to eat the children in a stew. In this portrayal, the Yule Lads were once human children who made a pact with Gryla to find other naughty children for her to eat and have thus been transformed into their current form. Of course, as is the case for Hilda, they solve the problem by giving Gryla the wonderful broth made by the Spirit Scouts to replace her child-stew.

And that’s our brief overview of the Yule Lads, a wonderful Christmas myth and Christmas monster to help tide you over until Christmas time. Just make sure you put your smoking meat away and check your bowls haven’t been licked before you make cookies in them!