In some ways, she’s the first feminist in Iceland.” “She ate one of her husbands when she got bored with him. Long poems were written about her and a husband, but he didn’t last long, as Gunnell explains. You never knew exactly where she was,” says Gunnell. “She was certainly around in about 1300, not directly associated with Christmas, but associated with a threat that lives in the mountains. Grýla, whose name translates loosely to “growler,” would be among these, showing up with a horned tail and a bag into which she would toss naughty children. Sometimes these figures would visit in the flesh, as masked figures going around to farms and houses during the season. According to Gunnell, the earliest celebrations of the season were viewed as a time not only to bring together relatives, living and deceased, but also elves, trolls and other magical and spooky creatures believed to inhabit the landscape.
(and not just because the sun barely comes out during that time of year). In Iceland, the midwinter holiday known as j ól-a version of the Old English and Old Germanic word Yule, which describes this time of gathering together, feasting and celebrating and which evolved into modern Christmas-is generally darker than in the U.S. One reads, “Here comes Grýla, down in the field, / with fifteen tails on her,” while another describes, “Down comes Grýla from the outer fields / With forty tails / A bag on her back, a sword/knife in her hand, / Coming to carve out the stomachs of the children / Who cry for meat during Lent.” Tales of the ogress began as oral accounts, with the earliest written references found in the 13th century, in historic sagas and poems throughout the region. “She rules the roost up in the mountains.” “You don’t mess with Grýla,” says Terry Gunnell, the head of the Folkloristics Department at the University of Iceland. This tough ogress lives in a cave in Iceland’s hinterlands, the matriarch of a family of strange creatures, launching attacks on nearby townships, snatching up misbehaving children, and turning them into delicious stew.
While Krampus may be king of holiday scares, his fans may be overlooking an equally nasty, much more formidable queen-a Christmas monster who lives further north, in the frigid climes of Iceland who goes by the name Grýla, the Christmas witch.
There are Krampus Parades taking over the streets of major cities, an influx of merchandise bearing his long-tongued creepiness, and a horror-comedy film about him starring Adam Scott and Toni Collette.
Once a mythological character on the fringes of Christmas lore, the horned and hoofed Germanic monster has gone mainstream in the U.S. Those who prefer the darker side of the holiday season have had it pretty good lately, thanks to the fast-growing popularity of Krampus. A townsperson walks around as Gryla, the Christmas Witch
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