SOLVED. Short story, cloning santa and elves [s]

[Russ]

In the 90s, I read a short story involving mysterious remains. They were cloned or otherwise brought back to life, and turned out to be elves. They domesticated reindeer, built toys, and eventually turned out to be Santa and some elves. Told in journal style.

I most likely read it in a science fiction anthology, and I suspect the story may have been written in the 80s. Hoping to track down a copy again, since I can't find it in the anthologies I own.

Thanks for any leads!

[Andy]

I read this in _Analog_ magazine; I'll bet I can find it.

[Andy]

Andy wrote: "I read this in _Analog_ magazine; I'll bet I can find it."

No luck so far, but I'm pretty sure I read this one; after the creatures grew to a certain age, the observers noticed that one of them was much bigger than the others and dominated them (obviously the big one was going to be Santa). I thought it had a long academic type title but haven't found it yet

[Russ]

That's definitely the story. I'll see if I can dredge up a way to search or skim analog titles and see if anything rings a bell. Thanks!

[Andy]

Here's a link to listing of stories in each Analog issue http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/seriesgr... - hope you find it!

[Andy]

Bumping this...

[Megan]

I'd be interested to know what the answer to this one is. I'd love to read it.

[Andy]

Christmas in August bump!

[Julia ♡ Sarcasm and Romance Addict ♡]

Possibly a bit too obvious, but in Analog's January 1979 issue there's a short story by Schutz called "The Santa Claus Problem". I haven't been able to find anything online about it though, not even a small summary...

[Andy]

Julia: Here's a brief excerpt https://books.google.com/books?id=dyz... - doesn't appear to be the right story. Sadly, I think the word "Santa" was never used in the story.

[Andy]

Bump.

[Ayshe]

There is a recent question on scifi.stackexchange.com: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/quest... that reminded me of this thread. The answer there was "Grain of Truth" by Charles Spano.

[Andy]

From this issue of Analog - http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?5... (December 1980) which I know I've read. Sounds like a winner. Thanks Ayshe!

[Andy]

P.S. "A Grain of Truth" was in an anthology too, called "A Spadeful of Spacetime" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?1165

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Russ hasn't been back...but it's been nearly 6 years. Moving to Solved.

[Andy]

Thanks Lobstergirl!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

You're welcome.