Yes, tomorrow there are 13 days till Christmas and that is when the Icelandic Yuletide lads start heading down from the mountains towards the farmsteads below.
It struck me just the other day that, it is not easy to explain why the Icelandic Santa Clauses are 13 or why they are called so strange names. Understandably,names like Sheep Worrier (or Sheep Cot-Clod), Door Sniffer and Window Peeper might seem more intune with today's perverts than something well yes, perverted in a sense if you really give it a good thought, but it is tradition, and today it's just amusing.
But I decided to give my Scottish friends a treat and put on my website a in 14 installments, a poet by Jóhannes of (/from) Kötlum about the Yuletide lads, because no one gives a better image of these guys than him.
The first one comes tomorrow, so I will start with the beginning of the poet tonight, and for the next 13 days I will add the next bit of the poem so that in the end everyone will know about the Icelandic Yuletide lads.
(I got the translation by Hallberg Hallmundsson online).
Enjoy
Saturday, December 10, 2005
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