Diamond T Design
Let your light shine!
Creative ideas for creative minds.
------winter--------
Let your light shine!
Creative ideas for creative minds.
Kristin Straumsheim Grønli
JOURNALIST
Sunday, December 15, 2002
This article is over ten years old and may contain outdated information.
150 years back:
While the solemn tones of the church bell sing through the valley to promise the lord and inaugurate the Christmas feast,
the farmer takes down the rifle from the wall,
goes out into the yard and fires three shots over the roof of the house and the barn.
There is no more reliable means of scaring away goblins and trolls than bullets and gunpowder.
Christmas is a dangerous and magically charged time; the year is over,
and a new one is about to begin.
The shots protect against the wits, and the louder the bang the better.
A couple of minutes pass, and then the neighbors answer.
If there are more people who want to fire the last shot,
the farmer can stay and fire his rifle until late in the evening.
Translated from the Original Story .
Almost all supernatural beings it is possible to come across roam around Christmas Eve, and are particularly dangerous then. To guard against ugliness and "un-Germanness", customs and traditions are carefully observed.
House washing, butchering, Christmas baking, candle casting and beer brewing are done according to a set pattern and clear rules.
The execution can be sabotaged if you don't do things the right way and take your precautions. What is made can be destroyed, and those who work can be punished.
The most challenging and eerie of the supernatural Christmas visits is the Asgardsreia - a raging and rowdy pack of brawlers, murderers, drunkards, con men, loose women and all manner of trolls who thunder across the sky on fire-breathing horses.
The leader of the group is usually Guro Rysserova (Rumpe-Guro). Some believe to have seen Nøkken in the company, dressed in blue and riding at the front on a beautiful black horse. Others say that the entourage is led by Tostein Langbein, with a nose that reaches the saddle and legs that hang down on the ground from the horse's back.
"The Ride of Asgard as the artist Peter Nicolai Arbo envisioned it in 1872."
Reia flies through valleys and between mountains during the winter nights, some with their heads under their arms. They drink the Christmas beer, fill the barrels with water, eat the Christmas food, and foretell fights, murders and suicides.
Åsgårdsreia has its fixed places where the entourage stops to hold a dance, and when the entourage rides past, the dauings come up.
If you want to see Asgarsreia, you can lie down at a crossroads in the nights before Christmas Eve. But the people on the farm stay indoors, and if they have to go out to do errands, they don't go anywhere else than they usually use. They get the job done as quickly as they can. If not, they can be taken along on Åsgårdsreia's wild journey.
In preparation for a possible visit by Asgardsreia, the farm has been cleared of scrap both externally and internally. Otherwise, the farmer runs the risk that the deer will tear it up along the way. Reia can also take the horses to the farm, and return them disgraced and exhausted.
Another figure the farm folk have respect for is Lussi. She is a strict, evil and demon-like woman - and acts almost as a work inspector. She is linked to the 13th of December, which is considered the longest night of the year, and serves as a mark of the transition into a new era, a holiday and also what can be called a time of darkness.
From this day on, all troll packs are out.
Lussi ensures that the working arrangements are kept according to the rules, and punishes those who break them. At the same time, she scares disobedient children. In tradition, it is said that Lussi could come both driving and riding. At night it is dangerous to be outside because she can take people with her.
"Santa Claus talks to the Christmas pig."
The elf's task is to keep order on the farm, and especially in the barn and outbuildings. On every farm there is a farm protector or guardian angel. The word tomt (in tomtenisse) also means the person who lives and rules over a piece of land on which a house or yard is built.
Santa is a short little figure with a beard, wearing gray and blue clothes with a red hat. He is also called rudkallen, gardvorden, gardsbonden, tunkallen or tomteggubben.
The goblin is strict about his rights, and as long as the people on the farm respected this, they could feel safe. Firstly, he will have his porridge in the barn on Christmas Eve.
If the people on the farm do not pay attention to the plot, he can punish them by destroying barns and outbuildings, harming the livestock and even going so far as to break loose on the farmhouse itself.
The trolls are also out on Christmas Eve. The fearsome women use broomsticks or dung shovels as means of emergence.
They are often ordinary women, often from the local community, who transform into witches at night and perform black magic. This makes it dangerous for people to meet them, and it can have negative consequences to tell who you have seen in the witches' company.
The kerrings can often do damage where they appear. One of the precautions taken on the farm is to put the broom stick and the dung spade outside the barn door so that the goblins can ride on them, and thus prevent them from getting into the barn and feeding on the animals.
A classic defense both against Asgardsreia and other bad wits is marked with the cross. After he has finished playing with the shotgun, the farmer therefore crosses all doors in outbuildings and farmhouses with tar. He also crosses utensils, beer barrels, chests, flour presses and vessels. The animals in the barn get a tar cross on their forehead and sacrum, while the farmer says "Cross in the name of Jesus".
In addition, he collects the steel tools from the farm and places them around in strategic places; a sickle in the granary, a scythe in the hay, a steel blade by the well. He fastens axes, knives, leaf iron and scissors above the living room, barn and stable door. The steel must stop the ugliness on the threshold. The tools will remain until the thirteenth day of Christmas.
Finally, he hangs the rifle over the living room door together with a thick brush of tangled birch twigs, and then he nails a broomstick of sacred juniper, before going in to eat.
"Wood troll by Theodor Kittelsen."
Because the dead return to their former homes on Christmas night, to celebrate with the living, food is left on the table all Christmas night, so that they can freely feed themselves. When the family eats, there is a free place at the festive table.
Other regulars, such as drunkards, suicides and unrepentant sinners, are dangerous and violent. Therefore, the family mostly stays indoors on Christmas Eve, and by all means avoids places such as the sea and churches, where the regulars hold their own Christmas Eve services and cannot bear to be disturbed.
The children are afraid of the Santa Claus when they have to pee. This Christmas spirit is ugly, can sting, and lives out in the dark somewhere.
In the evening, a cloth is hung over the window, as in a funeral parlor, so that the trolls cannot see the light and enter the house.
At battle 12, all rivers, streams and wells become wine, in the same way as when Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Canaan. No one sees it with their own eyes, because it is dangerous to check.
At the same time, the animals remember the first Christmas night. The cattle stands up on the stall, turns its head to the east, nods three times and prays. The rooster crows from the quail all night long. The animals also gain the ability to speak, and say many wonderful things.
Christmas Eve is celebrated in the living room with reading and night singing. If the singing and reading ends, the Santa Clauses immediately become restless, and emerge from their hiding places behind the chimney and in the dark attic to do damage.
On the table are the tallow candles that have been cast especially for Christmas. These are large, almost like altar candles, and one or more must always be on the table and burn all night. The candles are sacred, and no one must touch them or take heat from them. All night someone sits and makes sure they don't go out.
From the flame you can tell a lot about fate and life span. If the flame burns cleanly and clearly, it predicts a new year of life for the entire household. If it burns badly and weakly, it warns of death and illness. If the wick bends, there are cowards in the house.
This night it is not safe for people to go to their beds. Therefore, they instead bring in straw from the barn, and make a common flat bed on the living room floor for the whole household.
The servants and the adult youth, who otherwise tend to stay in the barn in the winter, are allowed to come in and share the night's rent with the husband's people, the children and the layman.
Everyone lies fully clothed, women and men separately, with the children in between. All night someone sits in the straw and watches with the candles on while the others sleep, on guard against evil beings who fight for dominance on the farm. This is how the family is protected, and the dead who visit have plenty of empty beds to sleep in.
