Gryla And The Yule Lads, The Child-Eating Giants Of Iceland
As another Icelandic legend holds, on the far north of the island resides a witch named Gryla, owner of the Jólakötturinn and mother to 13 giants of Icelandic folklore.
In some stories, Gryla is a troll, an ogre, or a giantess, but if there is any consistency to her portrayal, it is that she is most certainly always evil.
Legend maintains that throughout the year, Gryla listens to the whispers of children on the wind, collecting information about the children who misbehave. When winter comes, Gryla leaves her cave and sets out to find her victims.
TwitterGryla, the Christmas Witch, a giantess who listens to the whispers of children to find her prey.
Her appetite is insatiable, and as she gathers up the bad children and stuffs them into a large sack. Back at her lair, she dumps the children into a large pot and boils them into a stew, which fills her up long enough to last until the next winter.
Living with Gryla in her cave are her husband, the pathetic troll Leppaludi, their pet, the Yule Cat, and Gryla’s 13 sons, collectively known as the Yule Lads.
Unlike their mother, however, the Yule Lads don’t feast on the flesh of children — evidently, cannibalism was not a genetic trait — and over the years, they have actually become less scary and much more interested in revelry.
Their foul and off-putting behaviors range from tormenting sheep, drinking milk straight from cows’ udders, licking spoons, slamming doors, and peeping in windows.
Again, none of these are especially frightening, but they’re inconvenient at best and creepy at worst — usually a combination of the two.
The 13 Yule Lads, here depicted in a much more jovial fashion, with the Yule Cat.
Images of Gryla were once considered so frightening that they were outlawed as a scare tactic in the 18th century. Around that time, Icelandic parents actually changed the story and told children they would receive rotten potatoes if they were bad, as fear of being eaten by Gryla had become so great.
