legend of Grýla - A Christmas Monster

Today we bring you another story and most should know it but it is not too much to remember and for what this is not the story of: Grýla - A Christmas Monster

At Christmas, everything is not Santa Claus, gifts and parties. There are creatures, such as the ogre Grýla, who every year (as if they were the antithesis of Santa Claus) goes down to towns and cities in search of children who have behaved badly during the year ...

Icelandic children know very well that they must behave well throughout the year or they could end up like Grýla's dinner, a gigantic creature half troll half animal that every year, and only for Christmas, comes down from the cave where it lives to kidnap and keep all the children who have been disobedient in their sack.

Although he spends most of his time on the mountain, where he hides in a cave that is impossible to locate, he is able to distinguish which children have had a bad behavior and which have been obedient. These last ones can be calm, because the Grýla will ignore them totally, and even though it enters in its houses to look for some of its brothers, it will never try to catch them nor it will devour them.

And it is that this creature that is sometimes described as an ogress, sometimes as a giant and in some cases is said to have troll blood, has a special taste for children who have behaved badly, since they seem to have a better flavor. Once she detects them, she does not hesitate to devour them alive in their beds if she is too hungry, although usually what she usually does is store them in a sack to take them to her lair where she cooks them alive to make a rich stew that she eats, her pet and her husband.

For this reason, children are recommended to repent of their heart for all the evil they have done and all the times they have disobeyed an adult. For if Grýla puts them in the sack, the only way they will have to escape, will be to carry a sharp object or a small hidden knife with which to make a hole in the sack by which to flee and thus save life.

Grýla has tormented children in Iceland for hundreds of years and his name is already mentioned in the Íslendiga Saga and the Saver Sverre dating from the thirteenth century. Although it was not until the seventeenth century when his figure was associated with Christmas. So much is the fear that Icelandic children have of this creature that in 1746 a decree was declared prohibiting terrorizing children with both Grýla and the jólasveinar (also known as Yule Lads). The latter are said to be the children that Grýla had with her third husband, Leppalúði, an ogre who lives with her in her cave and who, although she also has cannibalistic habits, is such a sloth that she never goes hunting.

The couple is also accompanied by their pet Jólakötturinn, a gigantic black cat that also comes out of his lair only during Christmas. Legend has it that formerly on farms, farmers and ranchers more applied and those who worked harder received new clothes as a Christmas gift. Both parents and children knew that these clothes could save their lives, since Jólakötturinn left his cave looking for people who did not wear new clothes, as it was a clear indication that they had been lazy and bad workers. The oversized cat attacked them and devoured them. This is the reason why in Iceland it is very common to give clothes at Christmas and to dress with new clothes that day.