We have some nice Christmas traditions here, very family oriented (by which I mean they force people to spend time together doing strange things like cutting out patterns in a wafer thin piece of bread before deep frying all the health out of it. But in a good way.)
Our 13 Christmas boys are perhaps the strangest of the lot. (But I'm no judge, I live here)
They are a modern development of an age old superstition based on a great respect for nature and the elements.
They represent the old ways, the dark and frightening days from our past, the time when people were vary of the night and everything you couldn't see (and therefore couldn't defend against).
They are creatures of legend, steeped in mythology and layered with tradition.
In fact they are trolls (Icelandic: Tröll) ...
Not the hiding-under-a-bridge waiting-to-jump-a-stranger-kind of troll, no... that's the European cousin, this is the carved-from-the elements, eat-you-alive and leave-no-trace-of-you, Icelandic wilderness type of Troll.
With time they morphed into a jolly bunch of fools who now bring laughter and a little humor into the darker day's of December and each one leaves a little gift for well behaved children if they put a shoe or a stocking in the window. Sometimes attempts are even made to tempt them with the specific type of food they are known for liking (each one has his preference) or little notes with smiley faces. The used to wear old torn rags and be rather scary but have recently taken to the Red and White apparel more frequently associated with the Santa from the Coca Cola advertisements, but they remain the loud and obnoxious, teasing, menaces they started out as. (they cant help it they're trolls)
They changed because they had to, because times changed, and because people conquered the darkness with modern lights and technology.
They remained alive in folklore and tradition because like our wild and untamed nature they simultaneously frighten and entertain us.
A contradiction to be sure, but one that none the less makes sense to anyone who has walked the barren highlands of this country, no matter what time of year.
I may be able to put this feeling into words... quite a few.
Picture if you will a time without our modern comforts.
There are no lighted streets, no cozy beds, no hot chocolate delights. (and very very few cakes)
It is the middle of winter, literally.
The day is extremely short, take a nap before noon and you will miss it.
The weather is more than a little chilly and everything around you is covered in a frosted glaze.
Your entire existence is dominated by the pitch black darkness and the freezing cold cold it brings with it.
But that is not all.
No.
This darkness, this velvet that covers everything around you, it is not silent.
On the contrary.
It is alive.
It moves, like the deepest lakes it is teaming with life beneath the surface, life that you know is there but you just can't see.
From somewhere far within this living breathing darkness you hear noises, that is how you know it lives.
Floating on the crisp winter winds you hear them. The cracking, thumping, clawing noises of the night. Even the few moments of utter silence will strike fear into the heart of the bravest of men because you always wonder what may come next.
You sit in a small crowded room above the stables, everyone is huddling around a flickering stick of a candle, perhaps people take turns telling stories and singing songs, every once in a while the master of the house may even read a few pages from some inspired text or another.
The air is stuffy, the room is dirty and the pungent smells rising from the animals beneath permeates everything.
The only thing that makes it all bearable is the knowledge that here at least, among other human beings, you are as safe as you are ever going to be.
And you suffer it all because beyond the walls and the warmth of humanity there is something truly terrifying.
Nature.
Nature in it's purest form.
This is not the inspirational nature of the 20th century, the one that we are taught to enjoy and savor. The one we are encouraged to protect and love.
This is the terrifying force of an untamed, unharnessed, uncontrollable Nature.
Where all living things struggle to survive.
It is brutal.
It is real.
And like the darkness it is alive.
How can it not be?
Something that so clearly poses a threat to any human being, any living being, must be real.
It must have a mind of it's own and with that mind.
A body.
And you know, you know it's real because you, like everyone else have felt it's presence, heard it in the night.
Its voices carried on the breeze.
It whispers gently, tantalizingly in your ear before the arctic winds bite down.
December is the worst.
The days grow shorter and shorter, barely four or
five hours of daylight over the darkest period and if it's cloudy...
even less.
This is your reality.
Numbing cold and living nights and nature out to get you.
And this is the scene, the atmosphere out of which our Icelandic legends, our mythology and our folklore is born.
Our trolls are representations of this time in history.
They are a force of nature, they are huge wild beasts of legend, born and bred in the darkness of our cold winter nights.
They make their homes in the warm volcanic earth in the inhabitable highlands, hidden deep amongst the snow covered mountains. Their strength is so great no beast alive could break them, the lowlands tremble at their approach and the ground itself splits beneath their bare feet if they tread without care.
Time was when they were the personifications of a frighting and relentless nature.
Trolls were everything you had to fear about the uninhabited wilderness of which there is a great deal here in Iceland.
They were big, they were fierce and they were dangerous.
Yet they remained hidden from sight because they blend seamlessly into the landscape.
Everyone knows they're out there.
How then, you may ask, can it be that these representations of a chaotic time come to be the harbingers of one of the most peaceful celebrations of the year?
Good question.
I shall also attempt to explain that.
There is a terrifying beauty to this ruthless nature.
Look up to the skies during these aforementioned dark winter nights, they are beautiful.
Stars shimmer.
The aurora borealis dances in bolts of green, blue, yellow, red, purple and white light.
The snow glows in the moonlight, cold yet oddly inviting.
The whole world is peaceful, quiet and clean.
And in the middle of the darkest of months, there is a day, one day that changes everything. December 21st. Winter solstice.
The shortest day of the year, the longest night.
After that everything is easy.
Well, Almost.
The day's get longer, the year ends and another begins, the darkness yields to the light and the monsters retreat into the wilderness once more.
That is certainly worth celebrating.
Christmas is just such a celebration. A time of light and good food and family.
Like the Ginch, the Yule Lads or Christmas boys and their whole family became something nicer.
They were sort of likable.
But there was an awful lot of them.
Thirteen of the frightening trolls of the past became a count down to Christmas, a way to keep children in check.
When the people of this country were able to live with it's awesome Nature, and not struggle constantly against it, they found that the legends and folklore bound to it were not as terrifying as they once had been. But the traditions born from the scrimping and the saving of food and candles, the Beautifully carved Leaf bread (Laufabrauð) The hung leg of lamb (Hangikjöt) the smoked salmon (Reyktur Lax) all prepared well ahead of time and saved for the greatest festival of food we have, all these make this the best time of the year to do what out viking forefathers and mothers did best, Eat Drink and be Merry.
I'll be doing some experimentation in the next few day's with the Laufabrauð (Leaf bread) and will share the recipes, the "how to" methods and the pictures here.
Sweet Winter Nights dreams Everybody.
