Tag: Jól

New Year’s Eve In Iceland

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I’ve always found the frenzy of New Year’s Eve overwhelming. The relentless din of fireworks, the roaring countdown, the gargantuan pressure to have THE BEST TIME EVER. It’s just too much. Most of my New Year’s Eves have been spent in bed with my journal, picking over the past year in minute detail.  

My perfect NYE would be in a forest cabin, hours from the closest town, where I’d experience absolute stillness well before and after midnight. If there did have to be noise, I’d much prefer to hear the pattering of hail, or a tree cracking in the cold or a raven cawing rather than fireworks and the deafening screams of HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

But, this year, I was elated to be involved in the celebrations, which included fireworks and hugging at midnight, though thankfully no screaming. My Icelandic boyfriend invited me to spend the evening (though the evening lasts most of the day, with only four hours of light in Iceland at this time of year) with his family and girlfriend (our relationship is open). 

I happily jumped head first into their traditions and felt much more upbeat than usual because the weather was suitably wintery – as it should be at the end of December. It was cold (-6.5 at times), and there was plenty of snow. (In a post on my blog, A Wyrd of her Own, I wrote about how out of sync I felt with the UK’s weather and the gigantic impact this had on my mood over Christmas.) In the UK, on NYE, it was wet, cloudy and blustery, with the temperature well into double figures. 

It’s tradition in Iceland to meet for a family meal between 6pm and 7pm. (We met at 6.30pm), and our meal was made up of typical Jól fare, including caramel-glazed potatoes, red cabbage, Waldorf salad (bound together with an incredible amount of whipped cream), endless bottles of Appelsín (orange soda) and cans of Malt og Appelsín (non-alcoholic malt beer mixed with aforementioned orange soda. Apparently it’s the taste of an Icelandic Christmas in a can.) There was also Toblerone ice cream. Curiously, decades ago in Iceland it became extremely popular as a festive dessert, and after snaffling down two helpings I can absolutely understand why. 

After dinner and heartfelt debates about the existence of elves (according to my boyfriend’s uncles it’s simply not true that 54% of the population believes in them), we tramped across a field of deep snow to wonder at a gigantic communal bonfire. Known as Áramótabrennur, these fires have burned on NYE in and around Reykjavik since the 18th Century and originated from the belief that to have a clean start in the new year, you had to burn away the old year and all that it represented. We went to the bonfire at Geirsnef (you can ogle some of my photographs below), though we had several places to choose from in the Greater Reykjavik area. Across Iceland, around 90 bonfires are ignited on NYE. 

There’s heaps of folklore linked to NYE in Iceland, and the folk tales of Jón Árnason, compiled in the 19th Century, talk of New Year’s Eve as the time when Hidden Folk would relocate their homes and become visible to people. Women would make the home spotless and light a candle in every corner. Once clean, the mistress of the house would walk around it and welcome any passing elves inside by saying, ‘Those who want to come may come, those who want to leave may leave, without harm to myself and my people.’ Leaving candles outside to guide the Hidden Folk was also customary.  

Following the fire, we watched the annual comedy show, Áramótaskaupið (New Year’s Spoof). Broadcast on TV since 1966, it’s become such an central part of NYE celebrations that in 2002, an estimated 95.5% of the population tuned in to watch it. 

After the show, from which I learned that Icelanders call Tenerife Tene (I find it amusing that Icelanders flee a cold volcanic island for a warm one), it was time to bring out the fireworks. Fireworks in Iceland differ from those elsewhere. They’re sold by ICE-SAR, the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue (a volunteer-led organisation that saves upwards of 1200 people a year), who use the profits – which can reach hundreds of millions of kronur – to update their equipment. 

We watched the kaleidoscopic display from a snowy hilltop. There was no being penned in by thousands of people screaming HAPPY NEW YEAR, and, for the first time, I genuinely enjoyed watching fireworks illuminate the new year. 

There was absolutely zero pressure to have THE BEST TIME EVER, which enabled me, I’m sure, to really have fun. The evening ended with me feeling not overwhelmed but grateful, loved, and calmer than I can ever say I’ve been before on what I’d always thought of as the most highly-strung night of the year. 

The Christmas Cat Of Iceland

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It was still dark at nine-thirty the other morning in Reykjavik (it would be well after ten before the sun shimmied up to provide the city with its scanty ration of daylight) when I bumbled outside to capture the looming Jólakötturinn (the Yule Cat) sculpture in all its ominous glory. 

Every November since 2018, a five-metre-tall iron sculpture, decked out with 6,500 LED lights, depicting Gryla’s child eating floofy familiar (some attribute the inspiration for its ‘floofiness’ from the Norwegian Forest Cat) who eats children who don’t get new clothes for Jól has materialised in the centre of Reykjavik to herald in the season the traditional Icelandic way – with foreboding.  

The sculpture cost the city a ‘sensible’ 4.4 million ISK and was fabricated by Austrian company MK Illumination. A garden centre owns it, and they lease it out each year to the city for a ‘steal’ at just over 3 million ISK.

Reykjavik’s Jól décor tends to be conventional, with the city reusing lights and garlands yearly. (Though I favour the cosy understatedness over most other cities I’ve seen ‘glowed up’ for Yuletide.) So, the sculpture’s arrival in 2018 was quite the talking point.

While the Yule Cat gathered much adoration (it was welcomed with a speech and a children’s choir), there was some backlash, too. One critic, Sanna Magdalena Mörtudóttir of the Socialists party, was critical of the city’s priorities and was furious the struggle of the city’s low-income families wasn’t brought up during the opening speech. 

While cats have held a prominent role in Nordic society since the Viking Age, it’s unknown how long the Yule Cat has been around. Though it’s theorised he’s been prowling since the Dark Ages. We do know that he’s stalked written records since the 19th Century. 

As Kathleen Hearons writes in Head Magazine, ‘Cats were the travelling companion of choice for Vikings – although not for sentimental reasons, but rather to kill mice and be skinned for their fur. Consequently, feline populations grew throughout the Nordic countries when the Vikings settled there. To this day, Reykjavik is “culturally a cat city,” according to Reykjavik Excursions. As of August 2022, there was a cat-to-human ratio of 1-to-10…‘

In bygone times, the threat of the Yule Cat would frighten children (and, without doubt, some adults) into finishing processing the autumn wool before Jól. By the Middle Ages, the export of wool from Iceland played a valuable role in the economy, and having a prosperous wool production was imperative. 

Though this fear-mongering technique ensured laziness was all but eradicated in the last part of the year, it was also a superb encourager of family bonding, as everyone in the family had a role to play and would gather around the fire in the evenings to prepare yarn and knit.

In an article for the Reykjavik Grapevine, Ethnologist Árni Björnsson says, ‘After 1600, there are a lot of changes in Icelandic society. Folklore often mirrors what’s happening in society. So, it makes sense that Grýla and the yuletide lads are grimmer during this difficult time for Icelanders. In 1602, the Danes banned Iceland from trading with countries other than Denmark, and this was tough because Iceland relied on many imported goods. To make matters worse, the colder period in Iceland also sets in around 1600.

 So, those things we call “jólavættir,” or supernatural beings of Christmas—including the yuletide lads, their ogress mother Grýla, and the Christmas cat—those elements were probably incorporated into the Christmas tradition to keep kids in line. Everyone was supposed to work hard to do all the things that had to be done before Christmas, and some people were lazy, you see. So it was said that if you weren’t diligent at working, the Christmas cat would come for you.’ 

In 1746, parents were banned by the King of Denmark from tormenting their children with stories of the Yule Cat, Gryla and her thirteen trouble-making lads as youngsters were becoming too afraid to leave their houses.

In 1932, a book was published by the poet Jóhannes úr Kötlum called Jólin koma (Christmas is Coming), and it featured a poem called Jólakötturinn which brings to life – though in the most family-friendly way – the goings about of the malicious moggy. An English translation was published in 2015 for the Icelandophiles out there. 

You all know the Yule Cat

And that cat was huge indeed.

People didn’t know where he came from

Or where he went.

– The first stanza from Jólakötturinn

Following the publication of Jólin koma, the Yule Cat was, in the words of Áki Guðni Karlsson, writing for Icelandicfolklore.is ‘firmly established as part of an “old Icelandic” pantheon of Christmas beings for generations of Icelanders.’

You’ve probably encountered Bjork’s dungeon synthy musical adaptation of Kötlum’s poem at some point, though I’ve only recently discovered she wasn’t the first person to put it to music. That honour lies with the late Icelandic singer Ingibjörg Þorbergs. There’s also an exquisite version created by Icelandic folk duo Ylja. 

Like his mistress and her thirteen lads, the Yule Cat has long infiltrated Icelandic Christmas paraphernalia and even has his own chocolate bar, ‘Jólaköttur’ (the Christmas version of the famous chocolate bar Villiköttur), a delicious 50g beast of thick milk chocolate, caramel and biscuit all knobbled together with crisp rice.

The innovative chocolate company OmNom released a limited edition winter chocolate bar back in 2018 called Drunk Raisins + Coffee (which featured, among other things, green raisins infused with mandarin juice, cocoa beans from Tanzania, Icelandic milk and Austrian rum) in honour of the Yule Cat and in collaboration with the feral cat rescue organisation Villikettir.

On the OmNom website, Hanna Eiríksdóttir writes, ‘…stray and feral cats are neither evil nor frightening, and they definitely do not eat children. No one really knows how many cats in Iceland are feral or strays,they are thought to be in the thousands. In our minds, the Yule cat is the protector of these Icelandic stray and feral cats. The old folklore reminds us not to turn a blind eye to our little furry friends in need.’

I went back to the Yule Cat sculpture later on in the day. I saw togged-up kids catapulting themselves around in the straw pile surrounding the eternally pissed-looking puss, and now as I write this, I regret not sidling up to the parents and whispering to them, like the total weirdo I am, ‘So, do they think he eats harðfiskur now or…?’