So here's some more Nordic Christmas stuff. Of course, they have their typical retelling of Christ's birth (which I reiterate happened in mid-September, has nothing to do with Yule) it's usually celebrated on Christmas Eve, own Santa called Julemand that lives in Greenland, so on so on, but let's talk about some older stuff.
There's this gnome character called the "Julnisse" which basically was Danish Santa Claus before there was Julemand. It comes from the usual soul superstitions of Scandinavia, right? You're supposed to feed the gnome porridge, but if there's no butter in the porridge, he literally kills your farm animals. Then there's the "Christmas goat" though this is more of a Swedish/Norwegian thing (Julbocken). If you were naughty, he would come into your house and abduct you, and later boil you alive. I've heard stories about this from Finland as well (where they of course believe Santa is in Finland) And of course you can't forget the "Yule Lads" in Iceland. So in Iceland, they hold "12 days of Christmas" literally, and for these 12 days, if you're naughty, these demons called the "Yule Lads" would just constantly harass you in different ways, like slamming your door, eating your skyr, stealing your meat, etc.
>>33458
Already knew about that. Apparently Zwarte Piet comes from an ancient Germanic tradition (there was this Germanic tribe in modern Switzerland that'd paint themselves black to camouflage themselves in midnight raids), but at the same time, he comes from Spain where there were actual negroes dating back to medieveal times (from west Africa).